Wednesday, 23rd March 2011
Thinking back to last Monday, on our way to Port Louis (where we are now based) we had a slow trip, especially from Tobago to Grenada, we actually had 20/25 knots of wind from our Stb quarter, we had the engine running as well, and we were still only doing 7 knots over the ground, because we had a 2.5 knot current against us, can you imagine that?If we had a 2.5 knot current against us back home, we would think we were in a tide race, yet here we are out in the middle of the ocean with such a current, frustrating...
We crossed the finish on Tuesday morning at 05:49:46 hrs (Recife time) or 04:49:46 local time. This is one leg that we will not be on the list of prizes, we used the engine so much we only had 250L of fuel left in our tank when we arrived (the tank holds 1040L of fuel, or 1 ton) while many other boats managed to use very little engine time. It just happened that the currents and winds were all over the place, and some boats were in the right place at the right time, we were not one of those.
Again, going back over the last six weeks or so, just a couple of days before we arrived in Salvador, we began to use the engine for long periods, like days at a time. We were not used to this. Since then, we must have motored or motor sailed 1,500 or 2,000 miles in all, especially from Salvador to Recife, where we nearly used 3/4 of a tank of fuel for a distance of only 450 miles.
Anyway, Paul from Rally Control came out and met us just at the harbour entrance in a Rib, and we followed him into the marina, where there were some staff to help tie us to the marina. Then we had a couple of welcome drinks from Rally Control and admired Starry Night a navy blue Oyster 82, which was berthed on the other side of the walkway to us. This boat was in our home port for a good while and was used by Brenie Cahill. Later in the morning, we met Richard Leonard. Richard is currently crewing on Starry Night along with Skipper Philip Scully, both from Crosshaven, Richard and our youngest son Stefan used to sail in Optimist's together as yougfellows, small world!
We repositioned the boat for her stay on this Marina for the next month or so before before going ashore for a break. The Chandlery has most things skipper needs, and all duty free, plus the supermarkets have most things we like, ie peanut butter, backed beans, chedder cheese, etc, etc. We also topped up our local sim cards for the mobiles.
We eventually went to Rhodes restaurant in the Calabash Hotel for dinner, and excellent it was too. There we met all the gang from Wild Tigris who had moored just outside the hotel and came ashore by rib in the RAIN.
We eventually made our way back to the marina and read a few emails, one from Fats all about the Cricket and Rugby, and the demise of the English. Ohh we had such a laugh at what he had to say, well done Fats which reminds us, we have never heard again from his sister since she left the boat. We found that a little dissapointing, we thought they were interested in the trip, but obviously they were only interested in their brother and his exploits (I suppose you can't blame them for that).
We are now in our final destination as far as the World ARC goes. So that's it.
Well, for now, thats the end of our Blogs. For those that read them, we hope you enjoyed, for those that didnt read them, you missed out on a fantasy journey!
Finally, we would welcome any comments you have about the blogs.
Signed :- Stepehn Hyde ( Skipper )