Daily Logs

Sweet Dream - Day 186 July 20, 2019

We met in the morning with our dinghies, made a caravan, and went to visit the cave of skulls. The Chief’s son was our guide to this sacred place. Here we learned that something like only 200 years ago the people of Erromango were still living under rocks for protection from the elements. They had not yet learned the skill of thatching with palm fronds or building houses. They lived in hollowed out spaces under the rocks, and when cyclone, or warring tribe threatened them, the women and children were herded into this cave and the warrior men stood guard at the mouth of the cave to protect them. Some where along the line, the cave became a good spot to keep future dinner guests that had been acquired from neighbouring tribes, and still later, the cave became a convenient place to store. read more...

Sweet Dream - Day 185 July 19, 2019

Today we sailed from Port Resolution on Tanna to Dillon’s Bay on Erromango. We lifted the hook at 06:00 and were settled in the bay behind Chao Lay and Aurora B. by 15:00. We waited for an hour to be sure of our set and swinging radius, watching other boats come in. There were three other non warc boats in the bay when we arrived. After Captain and I raised the dress flags on Sweet Dream, the nearest of the three boats put up a giant pirate flag. Very funny! We weren’t sure if they felt invaded by 15 WARC boats crowding in, or they were inspired by our massive pennants to fly any kind of flag in response. We dropped the kayaks in and had a nice time paddling up the river to a small waterfall, then back out again. Three young girls giggled and paddled a dog out canoe ahead of us. Everyone. read more...

Sweet Dream - Day 184 July 18, 2019

Today was the ceremony of the gift exchange with the villagers of Port Resolution. Of all the places we have been thus far with the World ARC, this one is the most touching and unique. Tanna is the name of the island. When Captain James Cook arrived here, he asked the people what this place was, and their reply was, “Tanna.” It means Earth. The village of Port Resolution was named for Captain Cook’s Second ship, and this name has endured until today. It was a beautiful time together with the 500 plus villagers. They sang and danced and the pastor shared a scripture and an enlightening thought, the school children sang very sweetly, and gifts were exchanged. Such a humbling ceremony. The gifts given to us by the village were beautiful products of the land, lovingly crafted by their hands.. read more...

Selkie - Gotska Sandön for Selkie

Every morning for us was a countdown to beach time. As a family, we enjoy these secluded anchorages the best. It’s fun to be with others who enjoy the same thing. Our kids were so happy. They danced a lot on the bow and hung out in the cockpit nonstop. It really felt like summer. It’s great to reclaim our cockpit space, after a long winter without it in Scotland. It was purely boot storage there. So! We loved the beach: walks, swims, rock hunts, hikes, locals, books, naps, exercise, and the lighthouse. When Nick and I took the long route to the lighthouse, we enjoyed getting a bit lost and identifying flowers with a new app on my phone. We saw Towheads, Noble Goldenrod, and Fire Weed, to name a few.The first night at anchor, I had some time on Sea Crusader. We talked about sailing, kids,. read more...

Sweet Dream - Day 183 July 17, 2019

Today we visited the yacht club, the village and the awe inspiring Volcano.The yacht club is small and quaint, decorated with various burgees and national flags, and serves surprisingly cold beer! The village folks were very kindly and welcoming. We piled into 4x4 trucks, sitting on wooden benches all around the inside of the bed, flush with the top of the bed! The road was quite bumpy, so we were very well acquainted with one another by the time we arrived at the Yasur volcano welcome center. Here we offered a kava offering to the chief for the volcano spirits. Dave, from Chao Lay was selected to offer the kava. There was dancing and celebration upon the reception of the offering. Afterwards, we piled into different trucks and went up the road to the start of the volcano hike. Here we. read more...

Jolief - Diary

Day 40, 17th July 2019, Visby, Gotland.Sight. Ian and I hired a car for the day so we could see more of the island. We drove to the eastern side to look for some limestone stacks, which we found at Asunden. We continued up to Farosund and turned south to end up at Tofta Strand.Hearing. Lots of seabirds, mainly terns, at Asunden. Visby continued to party on into the night on the quayside.Taste. We found a really cool cafe, Cafe Maffen, in Farosund and Ian had a chicken curry salad and I had tomato and mozzarella salad. Very tasty and good value for Gotland.Smell. The sea seems to be very sulphurous around this island.Temperature. A warm day with still some coolness in the northerly breeze.Touch. Cold sea water as we dangled our feet at Asunden. Sand on skin as we chilled on Tofta Strand. read more...

Sweet Dream - Day 182 July 16, 2019

Just before sunrise, the moon set and the whole western sky was red with the glow of the moon dappled by layers of clouds. After a few minutes, the moon glow had faded but a red inverted V remained. It took a bit of thought, then I realised I was seeing Yasur, the “lighthouse of the Pacific !” We came into Port Resolution in a rainy squall, found a spot to set the hook in the lovely, good holding sand, and our short journey from Fiji to Vanuatu was completed. Our wonderful Yellow shirts team coordinated customs, immigration, and bio security for the whole fleet in one day! Amazing! Quite an easy check in process, as the boat ahead of us brought the four officials to us, we filled out forms, the officials stamped them, then Captain took them on to the next boat. I am so impressed by the. read more...

Selkie - Loving the In-between Moments

-- Maggie Magdalena Hirt   "Writing is a process, a journey into memory and the soul."                           -Isabel Allende IMG_3076.. read more...

Selkie - Visby for Selkie

The entry into Visby was super windy for the last four boats. It is so nice to have ARC sailors waiting for you to, of course, protect their own boats, but to help others feel comfortable and in a community of caring people. All ended well with tight lines and a lot of bumpers. It rained a lot that day, but Lily and I adventured out to investigate laundry and provisions. We ended up cutting through on a trail up a hill and along the medieval wall that surrounds the city. How cool! We grabbed some fresh fruit and provisions for the potluck the next day. That night, Nick and I went on a date to Kitchen & Table. We had the share menu, and the food was the best we’ve had in a long time. To top it off, one of our wedding songs, “Stand by Me,” came on.For the walking tour on Tuesday, I. read more...

Jolief - Jolief blog

The Sense of sailing ⛵ This is a 4 month trip to the Baltic and back on yacht Jolief.I aim to write a daily blog using the body's senses as my cues. Day 37, 14th July 2019.Kristianopel, Sweden. We had arrived to Utklippen sooner than anticipated so cracked on up the Kalmar sound last evening. Motoring on to Visby this afternoon and overnight. Sight. This is a lovely harbour with facilities included in the harbour fee. Beautiful lagoons teeming with wildlife. Hearing. I awoke at 0500hrs to a very different dawn chorus to the one at home. Swallows twittering on the guard rail, geese, crows and herons all creating a cacophony of early noise. Got told off for washing up too early and making a racket. Taste. Avocado mash for brekky and Tracey did a use-up pasta bake for supper on the move.. read more...

Charm - Vanuatu 1

July 14, 2019 We had a lovely visit with the Hagans who left us a week ago.We went to an island called Mana with them after leaving Volivoli point.Supposedly they were filming Survivor there but had wrapped up the day before so we didn’t see anything related to it.Nikitoo was there and invited us over for drinks and told us about a cool snorkeling spot near a patch of sand that was sticking up out of the water.We went there the next day and anchored Charm close by for one last snorkel for the Hagans.Mara and Shannon saw their first shark and a myriad of fish life, the kids played on the beach, Joe saw some sting rays, and Chris kept me from getting run over by a speed boat (snorkelers are hard to see in the water) through the power of his worrying from 100 m away. After leaving Mana, we. read more...

Sweet Dream - Day 182 July 16, 2019

Just before sunrise, the moon set and the whole western sky was red with the glow of the moon dappled by layers of clouds. After a few minutes, the moon glow had faded but a red inverted V remained. It took a bit of thought, then I realised I was seeing Yasur, the “lighthouse of the Pacific !” We came into Port Resolution in a rainy squall, found a spot to set the hook in the lovely, good holding sand, and our short journey from Fiji to Vanuatu was completed. Our wonderful Yellow shirts team coordinated customs, immigration, and bio security for the whole fleet in one day! Amazing! Quite an easy check in process, as the boat ahead of us brought the four officials to us, we filled out forms, the officials stamped them, then Captain took them on to the next boat. I am so impressed by the. read more...

Sweet Dream - Day 181 July 15, 2019

Today the wind went away on holiday...all day. We motored with the main sail up, sheeted in flat to help dampen the residual roll. In the morning we took turns doing small projects. After lunch and short naps Captain put out the hand line with the lulu lure and the skipper lure on the deep sea rod and reel. Zing zing! There was a fish on! When we pulled in the hand line to get it out of the way, we saw that it too, had had a fish on it. The huge hook was bent! We spent 30 minutes taking turns reeling in the big wahoo on the rod. As soon as it surfaced we both said, “oh no! Too big!” It took another few minutes of up close fighting before the fish bit through the leader line. Too bad to lose the lure, but we were happy that we still had the rod. At one point, the fish had pulled the rod. read more...

Sweet Dream - Day 180 July 14, 2019

At 07:30 this morning the wind had moderated and was coming from 150 on the port quarter. We put the main all out to starbrd, and the Genoa on the pole to port and sheeted in the Hoyt in the middle. It was a wonderful day of sailing until about 17:30 when the wind took a nap and we switched on the motor. This is shaping up to be a long strange short trip. Today we discovered that we have surpassed our previous westerly position in a boat record! Four years ago we went Opua New Zealand, and that was the furthest west we made it in that first boat. From here in, this is all new ground for us as we continue travelling west into what is now “the East”.image1.. read more...

Selkie - Rønne, Denmark

At our first port, Selkie was mid wall in the center of it all. It was wonderful to see the boats with flags flying. We found are old ARC Europe 2018 flag and proudly added that to the show. Even though the plant and stacks were not pretty, we loved the space for Mara to bike right next to our boat. Nature and downtown were such a short walk away that we had fun were we were. The BBQ was delicious and fun. It’s been so long since we had the opportunity to do that. Winter in Oban, Scotland did not lead to BBQs, but it did lead to a lot of fish and chips. We enjoyed sharing ARC stories with Cecille. Lily has been a bit down and grumpy. She does not like to talk about her broken arm, and I’m not use to seeing her this way. But! Her x-rays in Rønne went well; however, Nick’s slippery knife. read more...

Sweet Dream - Day 179 July 13, 2019

We were up at 06:00 anticipating an early take off from Musket Cove. It was a lovelymorning and we made it out with enough water under the keel and time to spare before the ferry to Denaru ran. Right out of the marina we had 20 plus knot winds and rolling waves inside the lagoon. Boats ahead of us outside the reef were reporting wind in the 30’s. We shortened sail accordingly. It has been a wild ride all day. Nice, though, it did not rain, and we are positively barrelling along at a whopping pace. Tonight I look up at the waxing moon overhead and it seems to be doing a very agitated jitterbug dance with our mast as the enormous swell rocks us vigorously back and forth. Occasionally we catch a hissing wave just right on the stern and surf; topping out at over ten knots of boat speed.. read more...

Jolief - Jolief blog

The Sense of sailing ⛵ This is a 4 month trip to the Baltic and back on yacht Jolief.  I aim to write a daily blog using the bodies senses as my cues. Day 35, 12th July 2019. Ronne, Bornholm. Sight. Sightseeing today on a bus tour of Northern Bornholm. We visited Hammershus Castle, Gudhjem Harbour and Osterlars Church. Hearing. The thrumming of Harley Davisons wherever we go. The bike rally continues. Taste. Ian and I had a gorgeous hand made pizza for lunch in Gudhjem. It was next level.! Especially with the extra chilli. Smell. The musty smell of the cruising chute sail being liberated from the portside lazarette after nearly a year. We set it up ready for the predicted light winds over the next couple of days. Temperature. A beautiful blue sky. read more...

Circe - Day 4 - Calm overnight passage en route to Visby

A late afternoon departure on Friday from Rønne took us into a beautiful overnight passage with water like glass - great for the sleeping crew.Julie . read more...

Sweet Dream - Day 178 July 12, 2019

Today we did the check out palaver, settled up with the marina, squeezed in a quick paddle, and made it to the skipper’s briefing. We had a quiet night onboard with Captain grilling lamb chops, and turned in early, anticipating a 06:00 wake up in preparation for leaving to Vanuatu. We will miss the several times a day singing that the resort people do to welcome and bid farewell to the ferries. My favourite part of Fijian culture is the beautiful singing.image2.. read more...

Sweet Dream - Day 177 July 11, 2019

Today was a project day, working on the boat until 15:00, then we kayaked out to the beach in front of the mooring field and had a little picnic of tabuleh salad and wine. There is a little market here that had beautiful produce. We took advantage to stock upon tomatoes, lettuce, celery, peppers, cukes and zucchini. Yummy stuff! As the sun went down we kayaked back to the boat and prepared ourselves for another evening of fine food and fellowship. The resort here does delicious food! It is so refreshing after months of seafood, coconut and breadfruit to eat green vegetables and lamb!! Of course they have sea food, fish, and all the usual tropical produce on offer if you want them. That’s the beauty of a Musket Cove resort...something for everyone!image1.. read more...

Sweet Dream - Day 176 July 10, 2019

Today we manoeuvred through the inside of the Mamanuca’s from Mana Island to Musket Cove. On the way we passed “Castaway Island”. It’s real name is Qalito but ever since the filming of the Cast Away they call it Cast Away Island. We ended up coming in directly behind Someday. We both picked up mooring balls, then as the day went on we were directed to a stern tie space on the dock. Musket Cove is a very pretty resort and is a nice spot for the parties. This night we enjoyed rum punches, bbq, and great catching up fellowship on the beach in the perfect weather.image1.. read more...