It’s been a long time since I last blogged. I am presently sitting at home for the hurricane season and thought it was time to update our progress and get the blog up to date. Our last entry was from Namibia and we have covered a lot of distance since then.

We left Namibia when the forecast suggested a relatively steady trade wind sail to St. Helena where we planned to stop to break up our trip to Brazil. Check out was uneventful and actually pleasant due to the friendly officials in Luderitz. Three of our buddy boats left at the same time. Initial conditions were light and we motored for most of the first day. Then the trades settled in giving us a relaxed wing on wing sail most of the way to St Helena. The big decision of the day was whether to gybe early or late to stay close to the rhumb line. The wind was directly aft of our course and light enough to require sailing slightly high of dead downwind (and our course) to keep our boat speed up. Occasionally the wind did get up enough to put a reef in the mainsail, but in general the whole trip was uneventful.

I joke about gybing once a day (which doesn’t seem like a bit deal if you have a racing background where numerous gybes per race is common) but to gybe our boat with two people is — while not difficult, certainly full of numerous steps. These include furling the genoa, raising the pole on the mast, dropping the outer end of the pole, removing the fore and after guy and genoa sheet, moving the pole to the other side, reattaching the foreguy, afterguy and genoa sheet, bringing the pole back down on the mast, and adjusting the topping lift. Then the main preventer has to be released, the boat turned onto the other gybe, the main gybed to the other tack, and the preventer reattached and set. This is followed by bringing the pole back with the afterguy, setting the foreguy and finally unfurling the genoa. As you can imagine there are lots of ways to f*** up the process, so for me once a day is enough and preferably in daylight!

The now infamous leak showed up again on passage and as I had already changed the exhaust hose and was sure it wasn’t the problem, I decided the issue must be the holes for the mounting bolts used to attach the hydrovane steering system to the transom. Reseating the attachments would be a job for St Helena. In the meantime, sopping up water in the bilge would be a regular chore.

On day 9 we sighted the big rock also known as St. Helena. As the wind had died we motored for the last few hours to arrive in daylight. We furled the genoa and I was just about to take the pole down off the mast when it decided to drop off the mast by itself!! We had lost a pin that holds the pole to the mast fitting. No damage done as it missed my head but one more job for our stay in St. Helena.

As we approached the Island we called St. Helena Radio on our VHF to announce our arrival. A very friendly voice welcomed us and suggested we get in touch with the head of the Yacht Club who would provide assistance in tying up to one of the government mooring buoys. (The Yacht Club was a tiny building on the foreshore that opened up occasionally and served drinks!). After contacting him, he arranged to meet us in the mooring field and tied us up to one of the mooring balls that were large enough that tying ourselves up would have been a challenge.


Kim will provide the details of our magical stay on St. Helena in another blog.

After a week recovering from our not too arduous passage from Africa the weather looked good to head West to Brazil. In typical cruiser fashion we not sure where in Brazil we were headed to! The options included an Island off the coast (Fernando de Noronha ) or a small marina part way down a river along the coast (Jacare). After numerous discussions with fellow cruisers and reading a few blogs we decided to go with the rest of our group and headed to Jacare. The decision was made primarily on the basis of comfort as Fernando de Noronha is notorious for swell in the anchorage. According to one of our friends it was the worst anchorage he had ever been in (and that is after almost completing a circumnavigation)!

The now more than infamous leak again set off the bilge pump and had the bilge sloshing with salt water (not good for the copper SSB radio ground). I was at a loss as to the source, as I felt I had covered all the possibilities. So I hauled everything out the port lazarette, wriggled down into the area between the two lazarettes (I call it the hole) and just laid there. After a few minutes I saw a small trickle of water that I wiped up, and then waited for it to recur. It did recur and after another 10 minutes of tracing it back to its source I was sure I had finally found the answer to months of trial and error. There was a small leak coming from the actual hull where the transom plate attaches to the hull. Certainly not enough to sink the boat but a constant irritant that would be fixed when we arrived at a place with the correct expertise (a boat yard in the Caribbean).

The trip to Jacare was similar to the Namibia to St. Helena passage except the winds were lighter and often in the 8-10 knot range. Again with the wind was directly behind us we had to sail sightly off our rhumb line to maintain speed, requiring gybes when wind shifts favoured the other tack. On our daily SSB radio check in with our “fleet” of 4 boats there was a regular discussion as to whether to head further North or South to get the best wind. In the end staying close to the rhumb line coarse worked out best for us.


Overall the trip across the Atlantic was a breeze (no pun intended) and after 15 days and 1800 miles we arrived in Jacare. The trip down the river was interesting as just as we arrived it began to dump large buckets of rain to the point that seeing the shore was difficult. Luckily the navionics charts were accurate and got us over a few 10 foot shoals. Now for some R and R before heading up the coast to Grenada.