Blog 1 - 10 January - We're off at last!
It's been a long time in the planning but we are finally off on our circumnavigation!


We had a wonderful start and after an afternoon and a night on white sails being very prudent, we have dusted down the Parasailor and we are sailing along nicely. We are just north of the Columbian border at the moment, but a long way off shore. Last night was just magnificent as we left the Parasailor up and made excellent progress. The wind is said to increase closer to the land, so we will probably drop back to white sails only again tomorrow.


It has been a few days now since leaving St Lucia. It has taken us a little while to send emails and update the blog because with just the two of us on board there hardly seems time! Jonathan is having a lot of trouble getting to sleep, so he is quite tired. Hopefully once we settle into the lifestyle he can rest more. We are working a 4-hour watch cycle which seems to be working okay, but we may need to adjust it somehow to ensure we both get plenty of rest.


The yellowbrick tracker is up and running now, so you should be able to see where we are and where the rest of the fleet is quite easily. We are apparently the slowest monohull in the fleet and our handicap reflects that, so don't expect us to be anywhere near the front of the pack!

Blog 2 - 11 January - Sleepless in matilda
It just shows how tired we must be that we forgot to report the most exciting news of all in our last blog; yesterday we broke our all-time 24-hour distance record. In fact we seem to have broken it a couple of times since leaving St Lucia, which is great. We made 167 nautical miles in the 24 hours to 11am yesterday, which is better than we were doing in dead calm seas under motor before we arrived in St Lucia. We are definitely getting to know matilda better, but the good winds and currents don't hurt either!


We are still having trouble getting enough sleep, especially me (Jonathan). I'm not quite sure what is keeping me going at the moment because it certainly isn't sleep! I'd better head off and see if I can catch a few zeds. We will also take a look at our watch system and see if we can work something out which works better for us.


We have been taking part in the daily radio nets; Heather had a chat with the rest of the fleet today. We're really looking forward to dropping the anchor in San Blas, going snorkelling and getting some decent sleep!


Blog 3 - 13 January - Waltzing Matilda all Night Long - Where For Art Though Autohelm
Lots of fun and games aboard since Jonathan's last email - just in case we were in danger of getting bored.


I (Heather) was on the helm Wednesday evening when the steering jammed completely. Fortunately we switched onto the Autohelm and it kicked in immediately. That was odd we thought (although I suspect Jonathan thought it was something daft I had done). A little bit later the Autohelm reported a problem and refused to play anymore, so we took over hand steering for the rest of the night while we looked into the problem. What joy - 2 hour stints at the wheel all night long, I needed an upper body workout (and if anyone says this is what we should be doing anyway, I challenge them to have a go). By the way did I mention that we have 30 knots winds with lively seas at them moment?


The following day we carried out a few experiments, with the emergency tiller at the ready (just in case). The Autohelm appeared to be working but with some rather odd noises coming from its little box. I would add that we cannot use our Hydrovane system at the moment as, after consultation with the Company, it appears to have a faulty rudder that insists on steering us to port no matter how hard we plead.


Yesterday afternoon however the Autohelm again decided to work intermittently but when we tried hand steering that was also being jammed with alarming frequency - a decision had to be made. To Jonathan's credit he worked it out that it had to be the Autohelm that was the root cause and that it had to be disconnected. A hell of a call because if the steering was faulty, the Autohelm was the only thing that could get it going again. With precision timing, Jonathan went down below , Leatherman in hand to disconnect, as Heather turned over and took over. Thankfully he was right - what a man I married. 


So yet another night doing 2 hours stints at the helm in very lively seas. I am however, becoming very proud of how I can surf Tilly down a wave - I swear I got the best part of 15 knots out of her once but Jonathan tells me thats impossible so it must be the mind playing tricks (I definitely, absolutely, cross my heart, got 12 knots more than once). 


Its at times like this though that you are really glad you are with the World ARC. The SSB net has been incredibly supportive and its clear we are already watching out for each other. Just to give an example, Herve on 'Ruby', a French boat nearby, contacted us to offer support and that they all had 6 fingers crossed for us, when Harald from 'Sophie', a German boat, chimed in to offer same and that they also had 4 fingers crossed. Just makes you wonder what the EU could achieve with the same spirit of co-operation and friendship. 


Must get on, we continue to be both healthy and happy, Jonathan even managing to grab some more sleep.

Bye for now 
Heather and Jonathan


PS from Jonathan - another distance record broken this morning as we covered 176 nautical miles to 7am!


Blog 4 - 15 January - Arriving San Blas
It's been seven days almost to the minute since we left St Lucia and we are now about 15 miles from the finish line in San Blas. I am still defying biology by running on very little sleep; I seem to have managed about 2 to 3 hours per day since we left. We have figured out a watch system which will work for us going forward though, so we will use that on the next long leg to Galapagos.
On Friday night we had a fair amount of wind and sea, with the stronger gusts pushing 40 knots. We tag-teamed on the steering in two hour watches due to our malfunctioning Autohelm. This seemed to work well, although it was a bit tiring as you can imagine. We have been very impressed with the way Matilda handles; she seems to love the stronger winds and feels very secure in the cockpit. We had a couple of big waves hit us from side-on which took us by surprise (you often get occasional waves running across the swell). These waves shot a lot of water into the air and we sometimes got a little wet, but that was the worst of it.


I also seem to have conquered my lifelong motion sickness. It's strange, but I haven't suffered at all across the Atlantic or the Caribbean Sea. Even when below on the computer or reading in the bunk in a bumpy sea I seem to be able to cope even better than Heather, which is a complete role reversal.


After the big night Friday night, yesterday the wind almost died completely, leaving only the big swell to bob us around. We had a worrying hour or two where it looked as though we would be arriving in San Blas after nightfall tonight. This would have meant staying at sea for another night to enter during daylight; we are a bit conservative as we don't have much experience entering strange anchorages. The wind picked up nicely yesterday though, and we are zipping along again now at 6 or 7 knots. "Working on a Dream"is gaining on us fast, but I think we can squeeze across the finish line ahead of her!


We're both looking forward to a swim/snorkel and a beer/wine at sunset this evening. Karsten from "Gunvor XL"described the anchorage for us on yesterday's radio net (the daily nets have been brilliant). He said the water temperature is 26 degrees, the fish are colourful, and don't bother trying to contact the other boats which had arrived as he could see them drinking beer on the beach - sounds perfect! 


Our next blog will be sent from the anchorage, and please wish us luck. This will be the first time we have anchored on Matilda after overhauling her windlass, buying new chain and replacing the anchor shackles. How hard can it be?

Jonathan

Blog 5 - 16 January - First Night at Anchor
We crossed the finish line at 15.05 St Lucia time (14.05 local time) on Sunday 15 January with no engine hours. Hurrahh!! All of the rally legs are timed in the Departure port's local time, so we have been working to St. Lucia time all the way across. 


We're feeling great after a brilliant night's sleep at anchor; even had an aperitif with another yacht from the fleet, Ruby yesterday evening to celebrate our arrival. Washing and repairs today along with a little exploring if there's time.


We dropped our anchor at about 1700 yesterday (for the first time ever) and it seems to have held overnight well enough. Heather is just getting some water on the boil for our poached eggs and smoked salmon on toast for breakfast - this is the life! We will try and take a photo of the achnorage once breakfast is ready and load it up to our Sailblogs gallery when we get to WIFI. It really is like a Robinson Crusoe paradise island here.


The yellowbrick stays on for the whole circumnavigation, so you should be able to see our potterings around the San Blas Islands over the next few days. We have a fleet get-together on Wednesday, then we will clear customs and Immigration for Panama in Porvenir Island about 20 January or so. Shelter Bay marina at the entrance to the Panama Canal is about a day's sail from here, and we need to be there by 26 January (Australia Day!!) for our transit on 29 January. We are scheduled to raft up in threes; the other HR42, Trompeta, will be the other side of Sapphire II for our transit.

Blog 6 - 21 January - A Week in San Blas
The World ARC rendezvous at Chichime was a great afternoon. It was my first 'Pot Luck' get together and we were a bit short on fresh supplies, but my pizzas seemed to go down well. The local Kuna put on a wonderful, if exhausting, display of dancing, and the handicrafts were impressive. The ladies all wearing their finest and their children beyond cute.


There was also coconut rum punches right out of the shell, so it all got started quickly and soon listening to some classic tales of the, what I am sure will become, legendary Caribbean crossing. My vote for the best one came from Glamorous Galah, it had everything, blokes up for a surf adventure, dramatic mid crossing breakages and an unexpected early morning cockpit bath when they were swamped by a wave. 


Quote of the day from Caroline of 'Peat Smoke'. "I love the Kuna, its the first time I have ever felt tall"
The next day we headed off to a tiny customs outpost on the island of Porvenir to register with local immigration. The island is in the process of upgrading their tiny runway, but it does boast a basic hotel, a restaurant and the government building and that is pretty much it. Everything had to be typed out on an old electronic typewriter so was a bit of a laborious process, but fortunately we were at the front of the queue having been advised to get there when they opened at 7am. 


The anchorage was quite tight on a very windy day, so being the newbies to anchoring like this we were a mite nervous. However we had enough courage after formalities had been done to dinghy over to the nearby island/village of Wichibe where there was rumoured to be a mini-market. We parked up at the concrete wharf-ette next to the dug-out canoes and small sailing boats, feeling like we had been dropped into another world. Everyone was very friendly though and we soon managed to procure some basic groceries. The village/island itself is made up of attractive tightly packed palm frond constructed houses with a large central meeting house. The Kuna are a matriarchal society and it did very much appear that the women were ruling the roost, although difficult to tell as most of the blokes seemed to be out on their boats or by the wharf drinking beer.


After that we headed off to the Eastern Lemon Keys and are now anchored between a series of small palm tree covered islands, one of which even has a restaurant of sorts. The snorkeling is reasonable, although we have spotted a few scorpion/lion fish, which is bad news as they have only relatively recently been spotted in the Caribbean Sea and are causing havoc with the local sea life. Last night we met up with another World ARC boat, Southern Cross, for dinner at the restaurant. It consisted of a bar in a palm hut with makeshift tables and chairs (mostly sawn logs) underneath the palm trees looking out to the other islands and boats. In other words it had more ambiance than a place that had millions spent on it. The menu was limited, even more so with our lack of Spanish/Kuna, but we had the freshest sea food and a bottle of red at a very reasonable price. 


Most of the other World ARC boats have already headed off to Shelter Bay as they have their canal transit before us (we are in the last batch). However as we need to sort out the autopilot, another Hydrovane rudder to collect, our generator keeps cutting out AND we are picking up a new dinghy (the old one that we inherited just cannot cut it), not to mention the provisioning for the Pacific crossing, we feel we ought to get there with a few days in hand. In addition, and I am rather ashamed to admit this, we get easily bored of palm trees and sand with not much to do - I know this is hard to understand for those suffering the winter weather - we are definitely the undeserving!


As mentioned before, we will be in the last transit, rafted against Sapphire II (the largest boat in the fleet) with the other HR42 'Trompeta' on the other side - why do I have the feeling we are there as glorified fenders...