Daily Logs

Ariel - Ariel - Video

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Sweet Dream - Monday, October 7, 2019

Our last day in Cocos Keeling Direction Island’s paradise. We are sad to be leaving the extravagant beauty of this place and will miss the lovely views we have enjoyed each morning, but truthfully we are ready to make some practical use of this never ending wind. After five days and four near sleepless nights of the noise and galloping on the white cresting chop here in the bay,we are ready to say goodbye and have thesetradewinds speed us on our way to Mauritius. Checkout formalities were quick and easy, and parting was made sweeter by the surprise of Tony’s delectable sugared donuts that captain brought back with him. What a fantastic treat! Tony is one talented guy! In our time here he orchestrated a steak dinner, fresh food boxes full of delectable produce, cheese, chocolate, and. read more...

Sweet Dream - Saturday October 5, 2019

More wind. In the morning we did projects. We finished our little driftwood sign for the “yacht club” and while putting the danish oil on that we decided the cockpit table and drink holder needed redoing, so out came the sandpaper and tack cloth. Thankfully we have our cockpit enclosure, because just as the table was finished it rained. The weather has really taken a turn for the worse. It now rains several times a day, while the wind never eases at all. I sewed for a couple hours putting a binding on our galley rug from Morocco, then Wavelength and Nimbus left the anchorage at noon. We scooched up to give Wavelength more room to up anchor, then we put out a few more feet to give us a 8:1 scope, and lengthened the snubbers all the way.I think we will sleep tonight, after two nights of. read more...

Sweet Dream - Sunday October 6, 2019

One side effect of paradise is that you lose track of dates and time. In looking back over the sent messages I see that I have the days numbered incorrectly. Brilliant solution; stop numbering the days, and just label the post with the date from now in! It will be weeks before these get posted since the WiFi in Cocos Keeling is so sketchy (not to mention expensive), so posting with the dates is a better way to keep track. The wind is still howling. It worries the boat like a cat playing with a mouse. Poor boat yaws from side to side, always pulling on her chain. Our heavy duty compensators have stretched until they are over four feet long. I’m amazed they haven’t snapped! Of course, the 30 feet of 1&1/2 inch nylon line that runs through each of them also absorbs a lot of the snatch.. read more...

Charm - Mauritius 5

Tonight is our last night of the passage to Mauritius!We celebrated with spaghetti and meat sauce, garlic bread, and cabbage salad. I am pleased with my provisioning.While we were on “rationing” of some items (milk and eggs) for the last few days, we managed to stretch them out to the end, using the last of the eggs for the celebration cake tonight.We still have about a half box of UHT milk for breakfast tomorrow. The Indian Ocean, known for rougher weather, did not disappoint.We had plenty of wind and waves at the beginning, then a lull just in time for the Babsea maneuvers and some R&R, then the wind surged again and we’ve been accompanied by 20-knot winds and 3-5 meter waves ever since. Joe’s strategy of holding off on turning left to Mauritius has worked.Our weather forecasts. read more...

Zarya - Ocean conquest

Good morning,Pls find attached short movie about our preparations for ARC + 2019.This trip was from Alicante to Las Palmas in October.. read more...

Layla - Getting to the start line 2019

Welcome to Layla’s2019 Arc+ blog. Layla is a Jeanneau 64 owned by Malcolm and Anne GoaterFor us our ARC story started back 2017 with preparation for the ARC that year.However just 10 days before departure we were beset with some medical issues and unfortunately had to call off the crossing. The WCC were amazing and held a place for us at a future time, very impressive as they could not have filled our place at such a short notice. THANK YOU WCC.So for this blog let’s start with the commissioning of Layla a Jeanneau 64 in the iconic sailing port of Les Sables D’Alonne. From the initial excitement of delivery to the inevitable snagging problems Layla took to sea for trials and a few weeks later it was time to leave Les Sables being waved off by the Jeanneau team andthe Pitners who were. read more...

Bijoux - Oh the painful waiting game!

We are home, working in Australia and our beautiful catamaran, Bijoux is in Las Palmas. She has been there, all alone since July. We have 8 more sleeps until we fly out to London and visit our son and friends. Then we fly down to our baby on the 4th of November and get the party started.Oh the waiting and preparations are just dragging on for so long and I just want to get the shopping done the yacht packed and the race started. No really I want to feel confident that our plans are all done, the provisioning is ordered and we can play for a bit before the biggest sail of our life! Can't wait to get there and meet you all x Deb Turner. read more...

Santa Esmeralda - ARC Santa Esmeralda

P.ImprintUniqueID { MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt } LI.ImprintUniqueID { MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt } DIV.ImprintUniqueID { MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt } TABLE.ImprintUniqueIDTable { MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt } DIV.Section1 { page: Section1 } www.segelpiraten.de Best regards  SANDRA UND ANDREAS . read more...

Anja - https://peterschlumpf.jimdo.com

My blog web...,;-)BrgdsPeter Schlumpfhttps://peterschlumpf.jimdo.com/. read more...

Charm - Mauritius 4

Photos are of Carl, Cobin and Talia.The bright, sunny ones are from the day before yesterday, before the weather turned squally and windy.Today has been another busy day.I attempted school but eventually called a “Wave Day” because we had too many things to keep track of AND keep kids motivated.It started pouring rain, dishes and books started flying because of the waves and we had to move things inside so they wouldn’t get wet.Josh was on lunch duty but, after finally feeling like himself again in the period of calm weather, his ability to be inside went downhill with the worsening weather.Quiche was on the menu today and so we were making quiche.About 75% of the way through our preparations, as I was pouring the very liquify, sloshy mixture into the crust to put in the oven, Joe came. read more...

Charm - Mauritius 3

The calm winds and seas faded away and were replaced with a brief period of upwind sailing followed by increasing winds and seas, but from the right angle.We have three reefs in the main and our mini-spini (my new name for our smallest spinnaker.Not for a J22 as I previously stated.Maybe a similar size to a size J-122?You’d have to ask Joe to be sure) up and are rocketing along in the 10-knot range, with surfing into the low teens. I have watch in ten minutes so this will be a short one.Watches actually require watching in these conditions so I can’t write at the same time. The passage continues to go well.Yesterday, in the calm seas and sunny skies, we played our foredeck games, including the giant inflatable kickboxing bag we are using as a baseball bat as well as jump rope on the. read more...

Charm - Cocos Island recap

Normally, passages allow me to catch up on the place we just visited but this passage has been exceptionally busy so I am just now sending out what happened two weeks ago.Later I will send the Christmas Island recap.All is well on Charm tonight.Winds and seas have been extraordinarily pleasant - a nice respite after several days of high winds and seas.We have a few more of those days in our future but nothing out of the normal range.We have caught back up with Nor’easter and have been traveling within AIS range of them most of the day.Cobin accidentally dropped two-thirds of his beloved tiny magnets (called Speks) down a hole in the cockpit floor but everyone else is in high spirits.Before the big loss, Cobin made snickerdoodles for the sub-1,000 mile mark.He rallied later to make. read more...

Charm - Mauritius 1

It’s Tully’s 6th birthday on the Indian Ocean! We’ve got bigg-ish seas (9-12 feet) and winds in the 25 to 30 knot range. This means it’s bumpy and damp (waves crashing into the cockpit occasionally) and all the hatches and ports are closed inside so it’s a bit on the steamy side but it’s breezy and cool enough that some of that air manages to trickle down to most cabins.Still, of our 8 crew (5 normal plus Carl, Josh, and Talia), only Josh is mildly nauseous. The rest of us are baking cakes, reading, playing video games, and doing all the normal things we do on a passage.We are enjoying decent speeds through these lumpy seas. We’ve got three reefs (the maximum) in our mainsail and our jib out. We took the spinnaker down a couple of nights ago when Joe anticipated that the winds would. read more...

Sweet Dream - Friday October 4, 2019

Wind continues to be inthe mid-twenties. At daylight, after a very rough night, we saw that our neighbouring boat, Wavelength, had lost their darling sailing dinghy on the reef. Like a wayward puppy, she had chewed through her painter with the constant motion of the wind, and ended up near the beach. Thankfully she did not clear the point or we would have been seeing her in Mauritius! She is a sturdy little craft, and they seem to be able to put her all back together again after her wild night’s adventure on the reef. It was a sobering lesson in the power of the incessant wind. We did a few morning chores, then hopped in our dinghy, which Captain had wisely kept in the davits during the dark time, and had an uncomfortable, wet ride to shore. Here we attempted again to access WiFi. Lars. read more...

Sweet Dream - Day 261 October 3, 2019

The wind came up in the morning, frothing the anchorage with white caps, sending the boats dancing on their hooks. We decided to take advantage of the twice a week ferry to Home island, and leaving our Sweet Dream tethered on a 7:1 chain with thirty feet of two nylon snubbers and heavy compensators on each snubber line, we took the 08:30 ferry. About 50 tourists got off to spend the day here on the island, as well as Manel, we bade them good day, and enjoyed the 30 minute ride to Home. About 450 people live on the tiny scrap of sand in government subsidised housing that is depressingly bleak. They are mostly of Malay descent, the children of the old Copra plantation workers. It took us about 15 minutes to see the whole settlement. We met the resident doctor’s lovely wife and her two. read more...

Sweet Dream - Wednesday October 2, 2019

Beautiful day in Paradise. We did our morning chores then packed a snack and kayaked to the picture perfect Prison Island. On the way we stopped at a little sand quay, beached the kayak and walked round the whole white circle admiring the shells and coral. On to Prison Island, Lars rested in the shade and I chased eels in the tidal pools and birds on the shore. We spread our picnic blanket of a cotton pareau on the sand and watched in horror as hundreds of tiny hermit crabs approached us and began to eat the fabric! We offered them some crackers and then watched the little gladiators fighting over the crumbs. Very entertaining! On the way back to the big boat, I drifted over the coral looking at the undersea garden and fancifully marked fish. In the evening we joined the WARCers on shore. read more...

Sweet Dream - Day 253 September 25, 2019

Today started with Captain arising a full hour early, shaking out all the sails, and zoom! We were off! After our 174 mile noon to noon run yesterday, the bar was set exceptionally high. Argh! These days it feels like our former Sweet Dream of cruising and enjoying the journey has turned into a nightmare sailing marathon where we are always pushing to either “keep up with the pack”, or stay ahead of another boat. After the morning radio net Lars decided we would aim for an arrival in Coco Keeling in just four days time. Oy Vey! This is from a Captain who is “not racing” I quickly did the math and realised that would require 166 mile days steady for four days. Fortunately our noon to noon run today was only 160. Already an hour short. So moving into plan B, aim for daylight arrival at. read more...

Sweet Dream - Day 251 September 23, 2019

In the morning, after the great golden orb ascended to a burning height, the wind came. So softly at first that we seriously flirted with the idea of putting up “the bull”, our cantankerous asymmetrical reacher. Thankfully, the wind direction wasn’t all that great in relationship to the waves, and we were rolling a lot. May as well skip the rodeo and just put up our favourite rig of wing on with the staysail in the middle to dampen the roll. We made the right choice. By the time Sweet Dream had her wings spread we were clipping along at a smart pace. It was a glorious sailing day all day. At morning radio net time we passed a good size fish boat bouncing in the waves next to two of those odd package things and a long line of floats with wires sticking up. Now at least we know that those. read more...

Sweet Dream - Day 250 September 22, 2019

We had a blissfully quiet night, with the best sleep we’d had in a week. As the day turned out, it’s a good thing we did! But I’m ahead of myself. In the morning it was flat calm in the anchorage without a breath of wind, and barely a swell to make a roll. We brought LisM (our dinghy) onboard, ratcheted it down, tied down the kayaks, inspected the rig, and stowed everything away inside in anticipation of a potentially rough passage. At 08:30 the anchor came up clean and easy despite having to raise it in two parts; one with the nylon rode , unshackle the rode from the chain, rethread the chain onto the gypsy, then finished bringing it up with the chain on the windless. Sailor speak is so weird....the “gypsy” is the part of the electric windless that the chain travels in and out on. It. read more...