Tom
09/03/2010, 31 deg 55 min N ; 23 deg 20 min W

"Head west young man, they cried." In our case it was HEAD NORTH, which as you all know we have been doing ceaselessly. Last blog had us anticipating our way-point to turn and head East, not to be. There was little wind again and the predictions that were on hand showed wind ahead further to the north of our intended turn so we held our course and continued on the northerly heading for another day.

During the early hours of the morning on the three am watch Mark had the wind steadily increasing so that when I took over at six we were able to start sailing again. Continuing on our course whilst waiting for day light we gybed the boat at nine am to head at last for Gibraltar. Although still nine hundred miles away we feel that another important milestone on our voyage has been reached. As if to celebrate the occasion I had the most stunning sun-rise with out having a sun rise. If that sounds peculiar, let me explain. There was a heavy cloud bank on the horizon to the east this morning and as the light slowly started to appear the formed behind that cloud bank a glorious sunrise full of reds and oranges but being behind the nearby cloud bank the actual rising sun could not be seen. not only did i have this marvelous three dimension picture but it spread a myriad of lighter reds and pinks to other parts of the sky heralding a good day for us.

The change of course has also brought about a change to the point of sailing. Having reached the area of the upper level of the high pressure cell we have been on a "run" all day. That is having the wind from behind. A comfortable way to travel, the boat is quite smooth and easy in it's motion and one does not actually feel the speed of the boat sometimes surging ahead as it surfs on the swells of the following seas.

Our current position is 31 deg 55 min North ; 23 deg 20 min West a little northeast of Madeira. Hope you all have found it in your atlas.

Cheers, the crew of A4018.

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Tom
07/03/2010, 29 deg 01 min N ; 25 deg 32 min W

After having our meals "al fresco" out at the pool today's inclement weather had us eating inside for the first time. The day dawned grey and heavily overcast. There was no sunrise or any dramatics. It just slowly got lighter and lighter until the light reached a level of semi-full that was pleasant on the eyes with no harshness. Not really a moody sky but it stayed all day watching over us without any sign of where the suns position might have been. Had we been using celestial navigation there certainly was no possibility of a sextant sighting or fix. One of those days when you hope that your dead-reckoning is up to scratch.

The sea however gave is a splendid day. Quite smooth with a long, gentle rolling swell that the boat eased over ever so comfortably that it was hard to believe the good speed we were making. Often when the boat is fast it can be felt in the cut and thrust of the motion but not today. Swift and graceful in it's gentle rising and falling to the swell as it sped along.

To cap it all this afternoon we saw dolphins leaping out of the water four or five hundred meters to starboard, watching them we wondered what they were up to and where they might be going. After a while they came across to the boat and probably more than twenty surrounded us, swimming this way and that effortlessly keeping pace with the boat sailing at about 7 knots. Going to the front I saw five swimming abreast just ahead of the bows skimming the crests of the swell. Like a team of stallions they "pulled" us along effortlessly. Even when a wave came and thumped the bow down in the water and I thought they might be harmed they were instantly away from danger and back in formation again. Coming in from the side another would take up a spot displacing one of the originals and continue the game. These were a smaller species with a speckled body. Regretfully I do not have my dolphin
book with me so can not give an accurate identification.

Customary practice has one reefing and setting the boat up for the night just before sunset when there is still enough light to do the job easily. Two nights ago we looked at the wind predictions and the weather that we were experiencing at that time. Everything indicated a night with out increasing wind strengths, also the previous nights the wind had dropped off after sunset. It had us foxed and a while after dark with the wind increasing we knew it was time to reef. Harnessing up Mark and Troye went up to the mast whilst I kept the boats head into the weather to shorten the mainsail down to the first reef position. They did a splendid job of it and very little tidying up needed to be done much later when it was light again.

This from position 29 deg 01 min North ; 25 deg 32 min West as we eagerly anticipate reaching our next turning point heading even more easterly than now, this should be late tomorrow.

Cheers from A4018

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Tom
06/03/2010, 26 deg 51 min N, 26 deg 55 min W

Well it's six weeks now and still on the go. Pressing on although yesterday and today have been quite good as far as the daily distances go. We have the wind from the west pushing side ways in right direction for a change.

Earlier we had a picture of Mark displaying his culinary skills. Mark is quite a dab hand at the art of chopping and dicing. Wielding a kitchen knife onions and such like are soon pan ready. With the flaying kitchen knife he produced some super cole-slaws. my favorite salad! Alas the carrots have long since expired, the mayonnaise jar dried up leaving only some cabbage behind. The last of the "greens", albeit some=what bleak and faded. Not to be beaten Mark chop-chop-chopped and with the resources of Kikkoman and trusty olives we have relished in our very own style salad. Sadly there is now only one serving left before it too is a memory.

Another favorite of mine is the freshly caught fish that tastes so different when eaten soon after being caught. Hence my picture with the fine tuna thankfully received as a birthday present. Mark is not fond of fish and I do not wish to catch and kill just for the sake of it so the lures have been put away for this trip. We have enough in the freezer to get us to our destination.

Third member of the crew is Troye, the young one. Take note girls! No sooner than we had departed Cape Town and his shirt was off and out came the tanning oil for the adonis body. Remarkably here in the North Atlantic, still trying to shed its winter chill, he has taken to hiding in his hoody. Hence the picture without the tanned body.

Much has been said about the sunsets but in order to have a sunset there has to be a sunrise. These can also be spectacular. A few days ago when struggling with our zig-zag course the boat was heading east whilst I was on the early am watch. The sun rose right ahead of me directly in our path. A memorable sight shared with you all via the picture.

Shaun, who is managing the blog, advises of the many readers. On telling Troye of this he responded "So we are not alone out here." I hope you are all enjoying our voyage with us.

The coordinates are correct, just a marvellous coincidence.

Cheers Tom and Crew

Comments [1]

Tom
03/03/2010, 20 deg 56 N : 30 deg 22 W

Ah the schemes and plans of mice and men!

We had it all figured out for a straight forward passage circling the high and romping through Gibraltar and into the Mediterranean. Previously I alluded to our routing around the Azores High and it should have been simple but.......

By way of illustration I have put together a modified synoptic chart to show something of what we are about out here. This particular chart is the only one received recently to show the high in a reasonable position for us to follow a route around it with the yellow arrows. Looking at the clockwise circulation the red arrows give a shorter distance but with head winds and rougher seas. This I have often followed with mono-hulled boats that can go to windward very successfully. Our catamaran however is not able to punch it's way to windward in the same manner. This leaves us with the alternative of going further west and rounding the high pressure system firstly on a "reach" and then across the top towards Gibraltar on a "run".

This is all fine in theory and we had it all sorted in our heads and on
paper to whip around the high with ease. But OH there were other things in store for us! Having left Cape Town at the height of summer the North Atlantic is still in it's winter pattern with the high displaced and almost non existent. Having sailed with the blue line up to the point where we could go north following the yellow line to sling-shot us around the high, we are finding the weather patterns not at all like it was planed to be. Instead of the good steady winds on the beam to give us good speed the winds are proving to be light and fluky in the extreme with us sailing a convoluted course back and forth to make any progress towards our next turning point.

But all is not lost. The ocean patterns here are to me quite different to what has been experienced further to the east. Here I am finding the ocean more peaceful with a graceful, rolling motion that is most pleasant. It does not have the thrust and hurried action found closer to the African continent. Lately the sunsets have been different too. Previously full bodied with deep hues of red the tone has now changed to a more subtle range of yellows and gold not changing much as the sun sinks below the horizon. It just serenely slides below the horizon and is gone with out any dramatics.

Cheers Tom

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Tom
01/03/2010

Sailing is without a doubt a leisure activity. Even those who work at boats do so for the pleasure of being with boats. There is nothing better than getting down to a boat early on a weekend day and heading out to a fresh breeze for a few hours. Let the wind take you where it will and then head back to the mooring relaxed and ready for a pint to end a perfect day.

Yesterday, being Saturday, our sail was nothing of the sort! Yes there was wind but a nasty head-wind that would not let us go where we needed to. It colluded with a rogue current to push us sideways at an alarming rate. Tacking back and forth we could go east and west but not north and made no headway for hour after frustrating hour. Nerves shattered from the sheer angst of doing all we could with no reward. Early evening whilst using the motor to also charge the batteries we were able to break the strangle-hold on us. Today, however the wind held steady in the north east and we have made excellent progress on our northerly heading. A silver lining of a day and reassuring us that sailing is indeed a pleasure.

Some while back I commented on the lack of the moon. Well for the last few nights we have had the most stunning full moon imaginable. Bright so that one does not need any other light to look after the boat as it wends it's way forward, the water glistening in a myriad of reflections bubbling on the sea and in the boats wake. A sight so pretty that one is not able to capture it in any way except in the memory bank. Gliding along with the twinkles and "plop/whoosh" an unmistakable sound. Dolphins around the boat! The sound is amazing, gentle yet purposeful as these lovely animals play in the water. They break the surface and at the same time take a breath of air and in one continuous movement are speeding along just below the surface. Last night it was even more spectacular as the beads of phosphorescence rolled along their bodies turning them into sparkling rockets shooting through the water.

The tenacity of nature to cling to every thread of life is truly wondrous. We have been at sea for six weeks now and in spite of the speed at which the boat is going there are goose-barnacles growing on the trailing edges of the hulls. How they attach themselves and the also grow is unbelievable but there they are, some already three centimeters long. Shortly before sunset I saw a dark shape in the water a little ahead, thinking it might be some piece of flotsam or debris I kept a close watch lest we should collide with it. But no it was a turtle, slowly paddling its way through the ocean. No GPS or other paraphernalia, just nature and instinct.

So much for tonight, see you all next time.

Cheers, Tom

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Tom and Mark
26/02/2010

Pic: Mark cooking. Butternut or stale cabbage?


Well its been 3 weeks since our brief stop at St. Helena and we are now well and truly in the North Atlantic weather pattern. On the synoptic chart we can see low pressure systems cutting across the top of the Azores high pressure system ( this is equivalent to the high that causes the South Easterly winds to blow across Cape Town). Typical of the winter pattern the high is sitting in a southerly position and thus giving us a North Easterly wind to get up to the Azores... We had wanted it to be more easterly so as
to head North! But this is sailing, and while we may have currently got the NE winds we have also got lot of cloud cover on the horizon, the net effect of this is that we have not seen a physical sunrise or a sun set since we crossed the ITCZ (Inter Tropical Convergence Zone). Our ships clock is still on UTC so the sun currently rises at about 0810 but due to cloud cover we only get to see the sun at about 0830 and this affects the night sky too!

We are still waiting to see Ursa Minor, the little dipper, Cassiopeia and Polaris, although Ursa Major, Orion and Scorpius have been prominent for some time. As we are still quite low in the south the little dipper is low on the horizon, and with the cloud cover has yet to be seen. There is a ¾ moon waxing that is only setting at about 0430 so there is not much to see other than the twinkle of a large black sea.

Writing about things waxing, let me wax lyrical. The cabbage is dead. Long live the butternut. Yep the fresh food has now all but died, and we had a pretty good run of it. The only veggies that seemed to take strain and went 'off' faster than the rest were the carrots. So we had better all really, really like butternut or its on to the Toppers and Smash.

The mood of the boat has turned positively joyous as we made the 12 deg N, 28 deg W mark this morning as this implies that our next landfall will be in about next two weeks (Gibraltar). It also marks the 4000 Nautical Mile mark and is about half way on our total voyage. As mentioned here we wanted to turn North but are still angling north west. This afternoons wind indicated that it is veering to the east and hopefully this trend will continue without us being pushed too far to the west.

Thanks to Mark for giving the framework for this "blog" and his input. It certainly is pleasant to have another point of view to submit and I hope that you all enjoy it.

Cheers, Tom

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Tom
21/02/2010

Pic: Equatorial Sunset

Hi All,

Pushing along, very difficult day with swell appearing from north and goneovercast and squalls in distance. Motoring with no sails for safety will see what transpires.

Cheers

Tom and Crew.

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Tom
19/02/2010, Equator

Mark was on the 3 am watch and roused Troye and myself shortly before 4:30. Coming up to the cockpit we gathered around the GPS and the chart-plotter showing our course. Closer and closer the ships icon drew to the magical line of 0 degrees. At 4:40 am we crossed the equator and changed hemispheres. With well wishes and hand-shakes all round we welcomed the next milestone on our voyage. Later at lunch we celebrated the occasion with a chocolate cake baked this morning. A great moment in any sailors life I was pleased to share this crossing with both Troye and Mark, may they both continue to enjoy the wide oceans.

As if to herald good things to come late yesterday we found several large Tuna swimming alongside the boat. All fish have brilliant colours when in the water but they fade almost immediately they are taken out of the water. To see the dazzling flashes as they twisted and turned "surfing" on the pressure wave from the bow just below the surface and about two meters back from the bow itself. They were there for quite some time whilst we watched in awe at natures beauty at play.

As if to make up for the lack of sunsets the previous while tonight we were treated to a spectacular display. Passing through an area between two weather systems we could see the differing cloud formations at various heights with the golden glow of the setting sun embellishing them into a myriad of shades and hues. Certainly a sight worth waiting for! For the fifth day we have been without much wind and this afternoon altered our course to a more northerly heading. The tactic is to try and get across the area of no wind rather than to continue diagonally through it. Weather predictions received show better wind ahead but we have to get there first. Continuing on this tactic we are hoping to soon be out of the doldrums and calms that have proved so frustrating.

Cheers Tom and Crew.

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