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12/02/2020

Sweet Dream - Sunday February 9, 2020

We spent the morning doing boat chores, then had a planning session with Manuel and the Babsea crew. In the afternoon we went up the elevator to old Town, walked around a bit, had a lovely lunch at Cuco with Helmut, Barbara, Manuel and Stefano. We spent the latter part of the day wandering all over looking for a grocery market. To no avail. 3 million people in this city, and no grocery markets. Now I understand why they eat so much fish and shrimp...there is nothing else to be had. The architecture of the old town is very interesting, and if the buildings were maintained, they would really be pretty. image0.. read more...


Sweet Dream - Sunday February 9, 2020
Sweet Dream - Sunday February 9, 2020
12/02/2020

Sweet Dream - Monday February 10, 2020

Tour of cities around All Saints Bay. Very fascinating tour with Gisela. We spent an 11 hour day seeing many diverse cities around the bay. The best part of Brazil so far was the incredibly delicious lunch we enjoyed at the hacienda Santa Cruz. Absolutely stunning old estate up in the cool green mountains. image0.. read more...


Sweet Dream - Monday February 10, 2020
Sweet Dream - Monday February 10, 2020
13/02/2020

Sapphire II of London - Day 1 to the Galapagos

Having successfully crossed the Panama Canal we spent a couple of days in Panama City end enjoyed the most amazing food tour, taking us deep into parts of Panama City which were well off the tourist trail. We then spent 2 nights at Las Perlas Islands - calm and peaceful with beautiful beaches. Emily and Helen went exploring and found golf carts to drive around the whole island (all 1.4 miles of it) and find a stunning deserted beach.Yesterday weset off to the Galapagos - approximately 900 miles. We had a beautiful start, managed to get our asymmetric up and down with no problems and had a kind calm sea until about 8 pm when both the wind and the sea decided to pick up. We had a bumpy night -but now back to lighter winds and a peaceful sea.. read more...


12/02/2020

Charm - To Brazil 6 - Arrival

We can see the lights of Salvador as we approach.It’s 8:30 pm local time but we only “time traveled” one hour since St. Helena so boat time is 10:30 pm.We should be at the dock in about three hours. Our last day of the passage was much like the rest – more or less uneventful.We had decent wind in the morning but then had to drop Mini Spinny when the wind died in the afternoon.We put both engines on and later, with a bit of wind, put up the gennaker, which is easy to roll up and put away when we arrive in port. We did school again and finished up our radish project.It didn’t go quite as well as I had hoped – it turns out that inside a boat isn’t an ideal environment for growing plants.We had enough space but not quite enough light in the location I chose.But there was still learning.The. read more...


Charm - To Brazil 6 - Arrival
Charm - To Brazil 6 - Arrival
Charm - To Brazil 6 - Arrival
Charm - To Brazil 6 - Arrival
Charm - To Brazil 6 - Arrival
Charm - To Brazil 6 - Arrival
08/02/2020

Sweet Dream - Friday February 7, 2020

The day began, orthodox-fashion, with the night before. First a “shooting star” of such duration and magnitude that eclipsed any I have ever seen in my life! I had just come on watch, scrolled out to find a cargo ship crossing our bow from starboard to port nine miles out, then as I glanced at the horizon to see if the ship’s lights were visible, the meteorite went flying across from the port side of the mast just below the tall dodger top, it burst into light, skipped and dipped on a almost horizontal trajectory as it shot across the sky to the starboard beam and sank into the sea. Wow! I watched for several minutes but nothing else followed. Then I realised how truly close it had been, I was watching it IN FRONT of the clouds! There was a fine, thin layer of alto status clouds. read more...


Sweet Dream - Friday February 7, 2020
Sweet Dream - Friday February 7, 2020
26/01/2020

Sweet Dream - Thursday January 23, 2020

Captain started the day swimming with the whale sharks. The swimming part was fun, the coming back in the small boat was a nightmare, as they ran out if fuel! The small open boat with 12 tourists and two crew aboard couldn’t get back to the harbour because they were out of fuel. What a crazy place! Finally the operator’s brother came in a fishing boat and unloaded the tourists and took them ashore. Lars was finally back from his “two hour” trip after six hours. We went ashore and climbed up the famous “Jacob’s Ladder” 669 steps up a 40 degree incline that used to be a rail system for moving goods up to the fort. Then we were invited aboard Franke for a lovely meal of dorado sashimi. Great evening of fun fellowship with Frank, Anke, and Nevil.image0.. read more...


Sweet Dream - Thursday January 23, 2020
Sweet Dream - Thursday January 23, 2020
26/01/2020

Sweet Dream - Saturday January 25, 2020

The worse night ever....boat was rolling beam to beam. Neither of us could sleep. In the morning we went ashore and found a few provisions. The story of St. Helena is a sad one. They are very sweet people, but they have no economic engine, As far as we could see they had very little to export, and seemed to import everything from UK and South Africa. Up until recently they had a mail/cargo ship of their own, but she has been decommissioned and not replaced. Some weeks there are two airline flights into the country; one each from Johannesburg and London, but not every week because the way the runway is constructed, the wind is usually in the wrong place and too strong for air traffic. We were told the landing here is so difficult that there are only six pilots in the world that are. read more...


Sweet Dream - Saturday January 25, 2020
Sweet Dream - Saturday January 25, 2020
05/02/2020

Sweet Dream - Friday January 10, 2019

Last day in SA. Easy check out. First we went to the immigration counter where they fingerprinted and photographed us, then we visited the customs counter in the same building where two of our forms were stamped and signed. Captain offered the enormous stack of paperwork that we’d been given by the WARC to fill out, but the young lady wouldn’t even glance at them, just smiled and said, “you don’t need that.” We’ll, better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. Afterwards we turned in our yacht club card, chatted with the Ice Bear crew, who’s boat was on the slipway in the yard for rudder bearing repair. We ubered back to the V and A marina in time to check out with Josh, the manager. What an excellent place this marina is! Clean, tidy, friendly, all the amenities you. read more...


Sweet Dream - Friday January 10, 2019
Sweet Dream - Friday January 10, 2019
09/02/2020

Sweet Dream - Saturday February 8, 2020

Landfall! Salvador, Brazil! Of all the places we’ve travelled to with the World ARC, this one, for some reason, seems the most exotic. We arrived at the fuel dock at 09:45. Called the marina on vhf...called the fuel dock on vhf...no answer...called Rally control...instant response from Manuel, the most excellent of the yellow shirts! He called the fuel dock for us and rallied the marina staff...everything smooth as silk! We approached the fuel dock...a gentleman came out and took our lines. Despite our complete lack of Portuguese, we managed to give our girl a fine happy hour, which she really needed after all the flat calm passage days of motoring, then we moved over to the pontoon of Terminal Nautico marina. A welcoming committee met us, took our lines, Manuel himself ran the bowline. read more...


Sweet Dream - Saturday February 8, 2020
Sweet Dream - Saturday February 8, 2020
05/02/2020

Sweet Dream - Sunday January 26,2020

After another impossible to sleep night with theboat leaping and frolicking like a dolphin while trying to chew through her mooring lines, I was so ready to leave. Two boats had come in during the wee hours of the night, one of them passed very close to us and woke me up.We had our anchor light on and I had pulled us up as close to the mooring as possible when Someday and Lunatix arrived, as both of them were on very long lines and if the wind had ceased, the potential to hit was great. It’s very odd to us, when we come to a normal anchorage or mooring field, we try to put as much space as possible between us and the other boats, but some folks take the mooring closest to the other boats...when there are plenty of moorings far away!! It drives me crazy having boats so close!At one point. read more...


Sweet Dream - Sunday January 26,2020
Sweet Dream - Sunday January 26,2020
05/02/2020

Sweet Dream - Tuesday January 7, 2020

Today we picked up our new passports, caught up laundry, took delivery of provisions, and even put them all away! We went to the skipper’s briefing and had our under warranty chartplotter replaced.image0.. read more...


Sweet Dream - Tuesday January 7, 2020
Sweet Dream - Tuesday January 7, 2020
05/02/2020

Sweet Dream - Wednesday January 22, 2020

After a squally start the morning just stayed grey. At daylight, the imposing stiff face ofthe island of St Helena took shape on the horizon ahead of us.By 11:00, the sky had cleared up, the wind was howling along the acceleration zone of the coast, and we flew into the mooring field on the staysail and the Genoa. Got them both furled, and tried three times to get close enough to put a line through a mooring ring. It just wasn’t happening. Finally, the ferry boat came by with Paul driving it, and he took the line and threaded it through for us. Lars tossed a kayak in and tied up the second mooring line, and voila’ we were here in St Helena. Check in was easy, a quick visit to the port Captain and customs office, then a short walk through town to the police station where immigration is. read more...


Sweet Dream - Wednesday January 22, 2020
Sweet Dream - Wednesday January 22, 2020
07/02/2020

Sweet Dream - Monday January 27, 2020

Today we just sailed. Sailed free and easy, the boat moving along through the water without restraint, without complaint, as a boat should sail. Wind, just enough, a little aft of the port quarter, main boomed out on a preventer line to starboard, Genoa poled out on the port. One reef in each big sail to compensate for the slight squalliness of the early evening, Hoyt staysail tight in the middle for stability.Mostly upright, not too much rocking. It was an extraordinarily comfortable day at sea. To quote dear old Arthur Ransome, “nothing gladdens a sailor’s heart like sea room”! We ate, napped, ate,read, talked a little about the extraordinary whale shark snorkel Captain enjoyed on St Helena, and looking forwardto the warmer waters of Brazil and the Caribbean, speculating what day we’d. read more...


Sweet Dream - Monday January 27, 2020
Sweet Dream - Monday January 27, 2020
05/02/2020

Sweet Dream - Thursday January 9, 2020

We cleaned the boat inside and out, I did last minute shopping, Captain went and procured fishing supplies. We took an uber to a nice hardware shop, bought all kinds of fix it supplies (because everything is such a bargain here), and even found a replacement grate for our grill! Afterwards we walked on the beach road until we arrived at a cute pub, where we had a happy hour libation and a delicious flat bread pizza before setting back to the marina in another uber. This rainbow lit up the sky on our return!image0.. read more...


Sweet Dream - Thursday January 9, 2020
Sweet Dream - Thursday January 9, 2020
05/02/2020

Sweet Dream - Tuesday February 4, 2020

At midnight the wind came up! We flung out all the canvas and sailed for joy! All morning and afternoon we flew across the gathering waves with wings spread. I spent all my awake, on-watch time sewing feathers on an old Spanish dancing dress that I hope to wear to carnival. Sweet Dream began to look like a bird herself, with bits of soft indigo and flamingo coloured fluff catching the back eddies of the wind and swirling around until they found the most incongruous places to stick. It was a very pleasant day capped off by finally catching a fish! All day we’d been dragging two lures, when we got a strike on the small rod, I reeled in the big one only to find the hook gone completely! The squid, half chewed , was still there, but the hook chomped away! Captain played the fish on the small. read more...


Sweet Dream - Tuesday February 4, 2020
Sweet Dream - Tuesday February 4, 2020
05/02/2020

Sweet Dream - Wednesday February 5, 2020

We are back in the tropics. Warm rain falls, hot sun bakes, we steam like veggies in a ready crisp micowave packet. Away go the long legged, long sleeved clothes, out comes the swim and sunwear. We pass the 3/4 of the way to Salvador from St. Helena mark just before the morning radio net time. It’s getting more and more difficult to communicate since the fleet is so spread out. It’s amazing that we can even hear each other at all with 3 to 6hundred miles between us and the other boats. Today’s net was about eta. It’s fun to try and predict landfall when you are still four to six days away. We are looking forward to landfall. It hasn’t been a difficult or stressful passage, just a bit tedious with the uncharacteristically light winds in a place that should have good steady tradewinds.We. read more...


Sweet Dream - Wednesday February 5, 2020
Sweet Dream - Wednesday February 5, 2020
01/02/2020

Sweet Dream - Saturday February 1, 2020

Today was hot. The heat rose shimmering with the bright orange sun. No squalls clouded the sky; only very little lamb clouds gambolled across the blue fields. The sea smoothed out as though some great flatiron had been taken up in the night and passed over it all. There was no wind. The barest breath sighed past the poled out tight genoa from time to time, but mostly we motored under the hot sun across the endless flatsilver-blue water. There was all day that curious air of expectancy unique to being at sea waiting for the wind. It never came. We motored on. Just after supper, after the second radio net of the day, zing! The rod sang out! Before we could reach it it sang again, then again, as something big took the lure and began to run out with it. The reel hummed, Lars picked it up to. read more...


Sweet Dream - Saturday February 1, 2020
Sweet Dream - Saturday February 1, 2020
26/01/2020

Sweet Dream - Friday January 24, 2020

Well, if we were after a rest, we should have left St Helena on Thursday evening. About midnight between Thursday and Friday, the wind shifted or something went haywire in the weather patterns to cause the boats to rock and roll severely. I spent the morning trying to organise food for the journey to Brazil, while Lars oversaw the fueling. Very nice...they bring a barge to your boat on your mooring! Amazing that they are able to transfer fuel with all the surge and swell going on, but it got done. After the fueling was done, we went ashore and had lunch at Anne’s place while Captain visited the immigration office, the customs folks and the port Captain. Oh, yes, and the bank. What a racket....St. Helena ONLY accepts cash for everything...I mean everything....fuel, food, port dues,. read more...


Sweet Dream - Friday January 24, 2020
Sweet Dream - Friday January 24, 2020
07/02/2020

Sweet Dream - Thursday February 6, 2020

We are beginning to see birds and ships again. After days of no other boats, we saw one yesterday morning. Lars had a quick chat on the vhf with them, then today, we had the second encounter of the trip with a huge ship coming close enough to read the name on with NO AIS! A more than a bit disconcerting! Now I’ve come up for my first night watch and there is a ship showing up on AIS. While I was scanning the horizon to see it it’s visible yet to the eye, a most extraordinary thing happened! A light appeared high in the northwest sky, skipped across in a dipping pattern and plunged into the ocean! Now meteorites, aka “shooting stars”, are a common enough occurrence in the night sky at sea, but this was unusual in that first of all it is a very bright, almost full moon stealing the stage. read more...


Sweet Dream - Thursday February 6, 2020
Sweet Dream - Thursday February 6, 2020
03/02/2020

Sweet Dream - Monday February 3, 2020

The morning began like every other so far this passage; reddish streaks of dawn between a few light clouds. Mid morning the entire sky was covered with puffy little cumulus clouds, noon brought them massing together with a perceptible squall off in the distance. By 15:00 the entire sky was darkened and slabs of squalls surrounded us. I found myself engaged in an utterly foreign activity: that of WISHING a squall would come over us and bring WIND. This is the very first time in all our years of sailing I have ever actively wanted a squall....very strange what two days of breathing diesel fumes will do to addle one’s brain! We had little sprinkles of rain, but no real wind only a 180 degree wind shift! For two hours it came directly in our nose! Then precipitously came back round to our. read more...


Sweet Dream - Monday February 3, 2020
Sweet Dream - Monday February 3, 2020
05/02/2020

Sweet Dream - Wednesday January 8, 2020

At 10:00 it was time for the rally boats to depart and head for the start line. It took until 10:45 before the bridges opened. Thankfully there wasn’t much wind as eight boats jockeyed for position in the small harbour basin. Finally they went out, only to have Danica and Chao Lay return. Carl, the boat electrician came onboard and sorted out both their problems. Then we invited him to see why our radar wasn’t functioning, but alas, he was unable to find what is wrong with it. We made a decision to start on Saturday, the 11th , without the radar working, and head directly to St. Helena.image0.. read more...


Sweet Dream - Wednesday January 8, 2020
Sweet Dream - Wednesday January 8, 2020
07/02/2020

Sweet Dream - Tuesday January 28, 2020

Smooth seas, sweet wind, blue sky, sunshine...all the elements of perfection at sea. The nights are cool, the days are warm. The boat is happy and so are we.image0.. read more...


Sweet Dream - Tuesday January 28, 2020
Sweet Dream - Tuesday January 28, 2020
26/01/2020

Sweet Dream - Tuesday January 21, 2010

We started the day with a morning squall. It came early; at 06:00 on the heels of the sickle moon that rose in the thin band of clear sky between the clouds and the horizon. After the lunar rise, while we were sailing on the faint light of the moon path the little storm scudded across the sky bringing darkness and rain. After the squall passed there was velvet black sky ahead in the west, and the jewel-like wonder of Jupiter chasing Antares up into the twilightof the east behind us. The sun came late to this day’s celestial parade, but made up for its tardiness by being bright and hot all day long. We set our clocks back to UTC, St Helena time and enjoyed the two extra hours of day, on this, hopefully our last full day at sea before landfall at Jamestown sometime tomorrow if our current. read more...


Sweet Dream - Tuesday January 21, 2010
Sweet Dream - Tuesday January 21, 2010
03/02/2020

Sweet Dream - Friday January 31, 2020

Today brought squalls. We motorsailed most of the night in uber light winds, then this morning a squall line brought enough wind to sail on most of the daylight hours. Ostensibly, slow, but nonetheless sailing. Radio net revealed the Ascension bound boats, and those closest to St Helena were the only ones with decent wind. The squall clouds kept our part of the sky interesting, and helped cool things off. We could see rain all over the surrounding sky, but it stayed dry over us. Twice we changed our sail plan as the winds shifted from south east to just barely north of east and back to east south east again. We haven’t seen any wildlife for three days..no birds, no dolphins, no fish...except flying fish..they are just nuisances that stink up the deck. We have seen four boats in the past. read more...


Sweet Dream - Friday January 31, 2020
Sweet Dream - Friday January 31, 2020
02/02/2020

Sweet Dream - Sunday February 2, 2020

Today is a palindrome 02 02 2020. How very apropos that we are exactly halfway to Salvador from St. Helena, another type of palindrome in the sea. Oh no no ho (land yet).It is seeming to be a long trip, no wind, no birds, no whales, no dolphins, no fish, did I say no wind? The number one or probably one and only blessing of no wind is the boat is upright and not rocking side to side. We have good sleep, no stress, no dramatic sail or gearsituations...the Genoa has been on the pole giving us stability for days now. We still have lots of food, lots of water, we are well rested, it’s warm and we’re dry and comfortable. We only lack wind in an otherwise perfect passage thus far. It puts me in mind of the summer we spent cruising the Mediterranean Sea with the flat hot days of motoring on the. read more...