Homeward Bound

Hello all you blog followers. We begin this entry on March 19, 2012. We are tied to a mooring in Falmouth Bay right next to English Harbor on the Island of Antigua. We are surrounded by mega mega yachts, the sort that only Bill Gates or Tiger Woods could dream of affording.
English Harbor is where Admiral Nelson had his base and refitting operation when he was prowling the area. It has been preserved quite impressively and now is a museum, with shops and even Customs and Immigration are located here for yachts to check into the country. Having arrived late in the afternoon on Saturday and most things are closed on Sunday we have yet to really explore ashore.
From here we expect to move up the coast to a place called Jolly Harbor and stay a few days to do some business with a local insurance broker if things work out OK. Then we jump some 100 miles to St. Martin weather permitting.
Seems I just can’t keep up with this thing. We spent two days at Jolly Harbor and then made the jump to St Martin where we are today. We are in Simpson Lagoon. We had planned on leaving yesterday for Virgin Gorda in the BVI but two things intervened to prevent that. First bob got a bug, or heat stroke or something and so didn’t want to venture out. Second, our controller for our wind generator and solar panels melted down so now we are waiting for Monday to contact the mfgr and get a replacement sent in. So no telling how long we will linger here.

It’s surprising how little distance can be covered in so much time. Sailing is a slow business at the best of times.

We jumped finally from St Lucia to La Marin, Martinique. Our anchorage was actually off of St. Anne, a very popular spot on the south west end of the Island with a better breeze than going deep into the La Marin bay. We arrived in the early evening of March 2d just an hour before dark and stayed for several days, one day to get to Customs and check into the Island and a couple of days waiting for good weather for moving on. The winds were up at 25+ and gusting higher on the 5th when we finally left for Les Anses d’ Arlets. We anchored there for a couple days just because it was a quaint spot. On the 7th we sailed out and north to St Pierre where we checked out of Martinique the next day and began the passage to Dominica.

On March 8th we left Martinique bound for Rousseau, Dominica. It was a rollicking trip with winds gusting to 28 kts and as always we had a bit too much sail out for comfort. But after rocking and rolling in the breaking waves and heeling over pretty heavily we did manage to arrive in the lee of Dominica. In Rousseau we took up a mooring with the assistance of the local guides association and for $10 US spent a safe secure night tied firmly to one of their moorings. This is always good for a sound night’s sleep no matter how much roll there is from the swells.

Next morning it was slip the mooring and off to Portsmouth on the northwest corner of Dominica. Here we will tour a bit, snorkel a bit, change oil and filter, and get ready to move on.

We are again on a secure mooring from the local Portsmouth guides association (PAYS) with a security patrol at night. Our local guide and agent is Martin, sometimes called Providence after the name of his boat. He is a senior member of the local association. On Sunday nights to raise extra funds the association sponsors a BBQ with meat and fish, local produce, Rum punch and music into the night so we headed there. Fortunately for us their pavilion is virtually 500 yards from where we are moored, so even after Rum punch it should be no challenge to find our way back aboard… The BBQ starts at about 7:00PM and by 7:30 I counted over 100 Yachty’s there. The beach looked like the front row of a huge used dinghy sales lot. The food was good and the mood festive (helped along by large quantities of Rum Punch).

Dominica is not a heavily populated place, some 300,000 people live here. It is a very poor place with 50% unemployment and many live a subsistence life but seem happy with that. Life is very slow here. So slow that for instance you can only buy meat on Saturdays, other than frozen chicken in the “super market” which itself is more of a Stop and Go sized thing. There are no big hotels in Portsmouth for tourists, and about the only tourists that come do so via private yacht or on small cruise ships or Clippers, so the Island is like a big, pretty much unspoiled Eco preserve. It is far too beautiful to escape the world for long and we can only hope a progressive government will take steps to preserve a lot of it.

This morning we are up early and off to the local farmers market held two mornings a week in a pavillion right at the base of the fishermans pier. They have fruits and veggies from the surrounding areas where people have small farm plots in clearings in the jungle. Right next to that is the fish market where every morning you can get fresh seafood just off the boat.

Today is March 13th and tomorrow we will move on to Guadeloupe. While a longer time lingering in Dominica would be great we do have to make some progress toward home to arrive before Hurricane season gets under way in June.

Wow! Time sure flies by it has been over two months since we made it across the Atlantic, albeit second last in the Rally and there hasn’t been much thought of adding or updating the blog. In fact we apparently got so wrapped up in preparations we forgot to post some of our travel. We left Lanzarote and made it to Gran Canary and Las Palmas harbor in one long day. Having registered and moved into a berth (right next to a boat with all girl crew from an organization called “Girls for Sail” ) we settled into the panic mode about getting all the last minute repairs and equipment installed, going to parties, shopping for provisions, and finding some crew. On the 20th of November in the company of 224 other yachts we set off across the Atlantic bound for St Lucia in the Caribbean.
After arriving on December 15 we spent another 10 days at the Rally festivities and tasting the Island life a bit then we left the boat at Rodney Bay Marina on St Lucia and flew back to Corpus on the 26th of December and returned to Integrity (February 15th to fix all those little glitches that occurred during our crossing, do maintenance, clean off the bottom, and re-provision. We are still at Rodney Bay and anticipate being here at least until the 24th or 25th to accomplish what needs doing, Island time you know, nothing in a hurry, could take longer. I had thought that after leaving the Middle East my world would change and when a service person said “I’ll be there at nine” you would actually see them very near “nine” Hah! Here Island time is just assumed and they don’t even say “I’ll be there man Yana” or “Inshala” (Arabic for “God willing and the creek don’t rise”), oh well? But all in all they are warm friendly people and most seem to be genuinely happy most all the time.
It is warmer (mid 80’s) and more humid here now than in December but still pleasant enough and it does cool down well enough at night to be comfortable without air conditioning. It is the season for a little rain to fall most days and nights, mostly doesn’t fall for more than five or ten minutes and then that cloud blows by, haven’t seen lightening or heard thunder but there have been some pretty impressive Rainbows (still looking for that pot of gold especially now at $1800 an ounce!). Next we plan to start Island hopping back to Corpus beginning with a stop in Martinique. This will hopefully be a “no hurry” cruise with frequent stops for days at a time rather than trying to cover distance fast as you can. The general plan is to reach Corpus in June or maybe July before the Gulf Hurricane season heats up.
Today, the 22d, is Independence day so there are parades, and even one of the British Princes is here for the celebration, not sure which one. Seems ironic the St Lucians would want British Royalty here after they gained independence from Britain, but as I said these are generally happy go lucky people so maybe it didn’t take them long to forgive and forget, or more sinister they want to subtlety rub the Brits noses in it? You can decide for yourself.
Internet is spotty to nonexistent when anchored out so blogging will be spotty at best also. We will try to post one more from here just before we leave.

November 6th, Marina Rubicon, Lanzarote, Canary Islands
Yes, it has been quite some time since our last posting but in our defense we have been at sea in the Atlantic, out of electronic gizmo range.
This morning, the 6th of November, we limped into Marina Rubicon’s entry area under reefed main and jib and called on the radio for assistance docking as our “steel sail” (engine) wouldn’t start. They sent out a RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat) and the operator moved us into an anchorage with the help of some fellow yachties who were anchored nearby. After dropping anchor we started to straighten up the boat and I noticed we had begun to drag anchor and were not holding in one spot. So again I called the ever helpful Marina and they again sent out the RIB. This time they stuck around long enough to find it didn’t hold again and so the group in their dinghy’s and the Marina guy in his RIB maneuvered us into the Marina (which is what I had expected originally!) and got us tied up alongside (which made the girls very happy as there was now 220 volt electricity, water, showers, stores, etc. without having to go ashore via dinghy). This is an excellent Marina, friendly, modern, stores, restaurants, and all the other facilities you could want for 26 euros a night including water and electric. In the past five years there are maybe a handful of Marinas that I could heartily indorse as being of superior quality and value for the fees and this is one of them, Kudos to Marina Rubicon!
That was our arrival.
Now our departure. In the Military one uses all the time and information available to “plan” and continuously update and adjust the plan to suite the changing situation. Sailing is a lot like that in a way. One plans and schedules “things” like departures, based upon weather and other factors and then adjusts to the changing situation. That was our departure thing as well. We planned several departures as reported in earlier blogs and some that weren’t, and for one reason or another (Auto Helm Controller failed, weather wasn’t as forecast, etc.) we were unable to execute the plan. In this particular departure you have to consider the Strait of Gibraltar. It is a relatively narrow passage between North Africa and Europe and it is where the Atlantic Ocean feeds the Mediterranean with water (the Med is about a meter lower than the Atlantic. Therefore, the wind and currents play a more serious role for transiting sailboats trying to pass through. For us a 40 hp motor is not a real powerhouse to propel a 37 foot yacht. Our top speed under ideal conditions might be say, 6 or 7 knots. When you put a wind in front of it, it cannot achieve that speed. Now, at certain times the tide or current in the Strait runs as much as 4+ knots (against the way we wanted to go of course) and then you have to factor in the wind which because the Strait is a narrow passage accelerates tremendously and if it is calm in Gibraltar, in the Strait it could be blowing 30-40 knots. All of this goes to say that you have to have the right combination of weather, timing (two tides a day), and scheduling to go. Some yachts have waited weeks and weeks for the right weather window and while we didn’t get delayed that long we did have weather change our schedule several times.
We finally made it and transited on October 29th though weather wasn’t ideal but it was acceptable. It took all day from 0900 to 2000 at night to get through and out into the Atlantic far enough that the current wasn’t adversely affecting our movement. Without detailing the rest of the passage let it be said that we had too little wind, too much wind, squalls, and an engine that quit three days out of the landfall at Lanzarote, but all in all despite being tiring it wasn’t a bad passage. The normal transit time is from 6 to 9 days depending upon factors beyond our control and we made it in 8. It could have been 7 days if I would have agreed to make landfall on the north end of Lanzarote but we arrived there after dark the wind was up and gusty, I had never seen the harbor, and I had no engine, so I opted to continue to sail on through the night to Rubicon on the South end of the Island and this turned out to have been a very wise decision, score one for Captain Bob. So now we are here tied safely alongside. Tomorrow I get the Volvo Penta Engine guy to come look at our engine, the Raymarine technician to come and troubleshoot our auto helm (the drive unit went out despite having replaced the controller in La Linea) and find out how long we will stay here before continuing on to Las Palmas on Grand Canary.
The saga goes on. As of the 7th we still had no internet coverage so this is being posted later, don’t know when yet but I will keep adding to it until such time as we can get wifi and post it. Even our Vodaphone wireless broadband dongle won’t get enough signal strength to connect.
November 8th
Finally some internet coverage, slow but functional. So today we post.

21 October
We should have left this morning but the weather wouldn't cooperate, there are high seas, nasty winds, and lots of rain coming in from the southwest which would have put it right on our nose, so we opted to wait now until perhaps Tuesday for this system to clear out of our path. Hopefully by then the winds at sea will have gone back to their normal northwesterly flow.

We of course returned to the boat from northern Spain a few days back and were joined by our crew person. Turns out she has a "boyfriend" who is a certified and supposedly very experienced sailor so he too will be joining us once we get to Las Palmas in the Canaries.

There have been shopping forays to the Gibraltar side primarily to the Chandlery, several in fact. We were finally able to procure the daunted "spray hoods" which have not been available or even heard of in Greece, Italy, or Spain! These, along with some other odds and ends pretty much completes our required equipment list save for the elusive 4 white flares, that again, no one seems to stock. I think we are lacking one automatic water activated strobe light for one of the PFD's. If it isn't raining too hard tomorrow I will hike over and buy it. We have found out that crossing the Atlantic on your own, or in company of a couple other boats is literally thousands of dollars cheaper than going with the ARC, you miss out on some seminars and free booze at receptions but that seems to be it, other than being loaded down with equipment most people never carry regardless of where they sail.

Yesterday we took the long hike through Gibraltar all the way to the cable car base. We are too old for this sort of hiking! Instead of the cable car we opted for a guided tour of all the stuff on top of the rock by car, the caves, the siege tunnels, of course the Rock Apes. Quite interesting. The British have held Gibraltar much to the chagrin of Spain since 1704. The battle of Trafalgar was the naval engagement that defeated the Spanish Armada and many of the casualties were buried in a Cemetery in the city. I am not much for waltzing through Cemeteries but on almost each headstone was a story recounting the manner in which the person had died. It is referred to as the "Glorious Victory", a phrase coined no doubt by the survivors, I doubt those in the memorial cemetery would have shared that assessment.

There is a story you may have heard; "that when the last Rock Ape dies the British will leave Gibraltar". It is an old story. After World War II it is said that there were but three Rock Apes surviving in Gibraltar. The only other place in the world this particular breed exists is in Morocco somewhere. Anyway, Winston Churchill is reputed to have ordered one of his Officers that a hundred more immediately be brought to Gibraltar and released to insure there would always be Rock Apes there. So now there are 6 distinct families of Apes living on the Rock. They are fed by some Company every day to encourage them to stay on top of the Rock and not come down and get into mischief in the city. Three families are rarely seen by visitors as they live in more secluded areas and the other three occupy areas where there are tourist sites. Probably more about Rock Apes than any of you ever wanted to know, except my son Danny who is enamored with them and has as one of his life's goals to go and see them in person.
Today Cris and I are both whipped from the walking yesterday, the beginning of bad hips for us both I fear. Ele who is 20 or so years younger is off exploring.

October 22
It started raining last night as forecast and rained hard off and on throughout the night and today dawned with dark threatening clouds surrounding us from every direction. If the forecast is right we will have "London like" dampness, rain, etc, for two more days and then things will clear rapidly and we can be on our way. So today and tomorrow will be lay about days doing little or nothing. For us, despite the inconvenience of the precipitation, the rain is something of a joyous occasion as we haven't seen a hard rain, heard thunder, or seen lightening since last March, or maybe it was February, at any rate it has been a long dry spell (no pun intended). In fact now that I think about things we haven't seen for a long time our trip north to Fuentarabia comes to mind. The further we got north of central Spain the more trees there were and once past the olive growing region there were trees similar to Aspens and the fall colors were in full dress. We haven't seen fall colors for, wow, maybe 7 or 8 years. Funny the things you can miss without realizing it until you see it again.

October 23
Today this gets posted to the blog.
The weather is still pouring down rain this morning but the forecast is still looking very good for a Tuesday departure. We have decided that once again because of unplanned delays (weather this time) we will shorten our route and instead of going Southwest to Madeira and then on to the Canaries, we will go offshore 50-100 miles from the Straight of Gibraltar heading southwest and then turn south straight down to Isla De Lanzarote in the Canaries, take a break there and then go on to Las Palmas on Grand Canary. Depending upon winds and such it should take 7-9 days at sea from Gibraltar to Lanzarote. So this will likely be the last blog posted until maybe the 2nd or 3rd of November. The forecast winds are not looking conducive to a fast run south, but at least it is because of light winds rather than nasty adverse ones. Since this will be the first foray out into the Atlantic for all of us it is probably a good thing that it isn't forecast to be rough. The Atlantic "swell" will be a new experience after the short seas the Med produces.

We have taken lots of pictures here and on our off boat trip to the North so choosing one is a difficult task. The Rock? No, anyone who has ever seen a Prudential Insurance commercial has seen that one. The view of Gibraltar city and La Linea divided by the airport runway? No, too mundane, although the airport is unique in one way because I don't know of too many active airports where a road and pedestrian walkway cross over the middle of the runway like this one does. It is the only land route from Spain into Gibraltar. They simply stop the traffic when an airplane is inbound or outbound and after it clears the runway other traffic resumes. No, there are the caves, the siege tunnels, the Moorish castle, the Pillars of Hercules, and other sites worth seeing, but in the end it is the Rock Apes isn't it? After it is all said and done it is the Rock Apes people really come here to see. Now let me digress and lend significance to the picture. When Cris was born and her older brother by a few years was shown his new sister he remarked to his mother "she's all hairy, she looks like a monkey" and the nickname "Monk" stuck to this day. So you get a bonus in this photo of both the Rock Apes of Gibraltar and the Monk of, well the world I suppose.
Footnote: It seems that today the 23d, there is a problem logging onto the blog website to post this. I usually type them up in Word and then cut and paste them to the blog since they limit the time you can stay logged on. So perhaps tomorrow it will be back up and running.

14 October
Today finds us in Fuentarabia/Hondarrabia Spain. The place was named Fuentarabia when Cris lived here. It was a little fishing village with few tourists. It is located adjacent to France on the Bay of Biscay. When the Basques managed to gain influence here apparently they felt it needed to be renamed something more "Basque'y" sounding so there you are, now the official name is Hondarrabia. It is 8:30 am and I am up checking email and waiting for room service to bring breakfast (included in the room price). We are inside the old walled part of the city at a hotel that was converted from being a long ago Bishop's home (that begs the question as to why he needed a home with so many bedrooms, what with supposedly being celibate, hmmm?) Anyway it is a massive 5 story stone edifice that has been done up very nicely.

The autostrada, highway, expressway, whatever you want to call them are excellent in Spain. We covered over 1100 km in a matter of 12 hours including stops for food coffee and fuel. Not to mention not seeing so much as one policeman except where a truck had broken down. I suppose it is a little crazy to drive so far for a one or two day visit, but since we had to accelerate our schedule to get to the Canaries on time and missed out on touring Italy and some of Spain that Cris wanted to tour, there had to be some compensation for her as she was an extremely good sport about the disappointments. So now she has seen her house from 40+ years ago, still there, still charming and well kept. The town however must have been watered very regularly as it has grown and grown, the one airplane a week airport is now a bustling International destination, and what used to be fields between downtown and there is now just more housing, the beach that was once large and sort of lightly populated is much smaller and in its place is a huge marina and adjacent facilities. So, that old line "you can never go home again" once again proves true, after so much time "home" has changed so much that it isn't really home anymore.

Today we will tour a bit, Cris will visit the Beauty Shop (not that I think she needs it but we do have a difference of opinion on that subject), go to the Basque section for a Basque dinner (whatever that might consist of, I've never heard of "Basque Cuisine"), and on the morning of the 15th head on back down the road a piece to the boat, home sweet boat. Then with Elle having joined us, a few days to change the oil, buy food and water, and do a few other routine maintenance things, we set sail around the 21st weather permitting, for the Portuguese Island of Madeira about 600 miles out in the Atlantic.

Today's picture is of Cris standing in front of the old homestead in Spain (now tell me, don't you all agree that the Beauty Parlor visit is totally unnecessary?)