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14/06/2019

Charm - Tonga 11

.We had a beautiful afternoon today after a couple of days of off-again, on-again, rainy weather.Joe figured out a way to attach a hose to the little hoses that drain water off our bimini so now we can route the rainwater right into our tanks instead of me collecting it in pots and pans. The photos are of Cobin on coral-spotting duty, some mermaids we spotted in the water, and a sailor’s worst nightmare.Zero knots of wind, on the nose.Thankfully we were at anchor when I took the photo. Cobin was spotting for coral because this area is uncharted and there are often large coral heads (called bommies) which, depending on their size, can change the depth from a reasonable 12 feet to less than one foot.We got high-centered on one of these bommies on our dinghy at night when we did the Tahiti. read more...


Sweet Dream - Day 151 June 14, 2019
Sweet Dream - Day 151 June 14, 2019
14/06/2019

Sweet Dream - Day 151 June 14, 2019

After a wonderfully uneventful night, the wind just said, “see you a around”, and waved goodbye about 09:30 this morning. We reluctantly rolled in the main sail and the Hoyt, left the Genoa poled out and turned on the motor. It was a hot, flat, sunny day. Perfect for reading, napping, playing the ukulele, getting yet another two fish on the line and losing them both, despite slowing way down. Ha! It now stands at six to zero....fish winning...sigh. Tomorrow is Captain Lars’ birthday. It would have been fun to have a nice fish dinner for the party. Today we also passed the halfway mark in our passage to Fiji in our Sweet Dream!image1.. read more...


Charm - Tonga 11
Charm - Tonga 11
Charm - Tonga 11
Charm - Tonga 11
Charm - Tonga 11
Charm - Tonga 11
Sweet Dream - Day 150 June 13, 2019
Sweet Dream - Day 150 June 13, 2019
13/06/2019

Sweet Dream - Day 150 June 13, 2019

I once read that the highest compliment that could be paid a boat is to say she is “forgiving”. We can honestly apply that term to our Island Packet 485. This day started out at 01:20 in the morning. We were tooling along with our comfy one reef in each of the main and Genoa sails flying wing on wing withthe full Hoyt staysail in the middle. The wind went from 15 knots at 150 degrees on the port side to 50 knots at 90 degrees in the starboard side in less than three minutes flat! It was a hairy-scary 40 minutes before the boat was back under control, stern to the wind. How lucky that the main preventer line held, the guys holding the Genoa pole stayed in place, the rudder still works, our rig is still intact and none of the sails suffered any damage! The only casualty was dear “Pi”, our. read more...


13/06/2019

Girolle - Day 12 - Guimaraes and peaches

Good evening from Povoa de Varzim.We arrived here around 6pm yesterday.After a beautiful sail down from Bayona, getting into the marina was a slightly nerve wracking experience... a relatively short run past the breakwater with barely time to get the headsail down before turning the corner and onto the pontoon. Lines, we need lines out... depth was getting shallow and we had a narrow channel to steer, a strong wind was blowing us towards the pontoon... after a few minutes of frantic activity we were safely moored up, Girolle thankfully unscathed.Wegave her a little reassurance pat and breathed a sigh of relief as the marina procedure had been trickier than what we’ve so far been used to.In the evening all the crews were treated to a hearty meal in the marina club house. Towards the end. read more...


Girolle - Day 12 - Guimaraes and peaches
Girolle - Day 12 - Guimaraes and peaches
13/06/2019

Zafiro - Flight of Time in close formation

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13/06/2019

Zafiro - Log 5 - The sun is now getting warmer

I write this while under sail on our next leg down the coast from Bayona to Povao. The sun is out and we are somewhere mid fleet heading south. For the last two hours we have been sailingin close formation with Flight of Time. The two yachts would not separate.  There was a great moment a few minutes ago when two much larger grey dolphins joined us for 10 minutes to play in the bow wave before racing off again. The start today was a very low key affair with little or no wind and most drifted across the start line. Steve from Fair Isle took the opportunity to reassess his eta delayingit by 12 hours before crossing the line to try and win the coveted most accurate arrival time. Instant disqualification I hope. I don’t think Mr Bishop CEO ARC was best pleased with the flippant RT.. read more...


12/06/2019

Tintin - In Vava'u

We're currently on a mooring buoy in a small anchorage off a dessertedislet in the Vava'u group of islands.The weather is grey, damp andrelatively cool and we're having a very quiet morning hoping that theweather will clear so that we get good visibility for snorkelling anddiving this afternoon.After our arrival in Tonga, we had a happy evening meeting up with mostof the WARC fleet.Some of them we hadn't seen since Tahiti, so it wasgood to chat and share a beer or 2.On Tuesday, we left the town ofNaifu and went to an anchorage called Port Maurelle - no visiblesigns of habitation ashore, but quite a few non-WARC boats.Generalising hugely, I think that Pacific islands east of here aregenerally visited by yachts heading west across the Pacific whereasTonga and islands eastwards are often. read more...


Tintin - In Vava'u
Tintin - In Vava'u
Tintin - In Vava'u
Tintin - In Vava'u
12/06/2019

Girolle - Day 11 - Bayona to Povoa de Varzim

Greetings from Portuguese waters! After a break of 3 days we are back on the ocean waves. The sea is a lot calmer than what we’ve been used to experiencing over the past 10 days. The sun is shining and we’ve got the spinnaker up. This is the first time since leaving Plymouth that we’ve been able to use the spinnaker. Unfortunately, we haven’t yet managed to fully get to grips with the top down furling system which is most likely due to crew incompetence as opposed to technical issues with the equipment. Every day’s a school day aboard Girolle!Now the boat is sailing at a more comfortable level (i.e. not heeled over) we’vedared to put soup back on the menu. Thankfully no soup incident this time.Now that the music situation is fixed, Dave may have stopped singing but is subjecting Andy and. read more...


Girolle - Day 11 - Bayona to Povoa de Varzim
Girolle - Day 11 - Bayona to Povoa de Varzim
Charm - Tonga 11 - cave day
Charm - Tonga 11 - cave day
Charm - Tonga 11 - cave day
Charm - Tonga 11 - cave day
Sweet Dream - Day 149 June 12, 2019
Sweet Dream - Day 149 June 12, 2019
12/06/2019

Sweet Dream - Day 149 June 12, 2019

We are loving this South Pacific sleigh ride. Another lovely day of wing on wing with the Hoyt in the middle sailing. It’s a good rig. Even this morning at 05:30 when a grand daddy of a squall hit with 41 knots of wind, We were able to manage the boat by hand steering with the stern straight into the wind. Topping out at 11.6 knots of boat speed, it was an exhilarating ride. No need to repeat the experience, though...once was enough. But, it was a good confidence builder for this squall plagued crossing. This is the highest wind we have ever had with wing on wing with one reef in each sail. Today’s noon reading put at us 1/3 of the way to Fiji. We give thanks to Neptune for the good run we’ve enjoyed thus far on the Sweet Dream.image1.. read more...


Charm - Tonga 11 - cave day
Charm - Tonga 11 - cave day
Girolle - Photo - Storm clouds and rainbow over the Bay of Biscay
Girolle - Photo - Storm clouds and rainbow over the Bay of Biscay
Girolle - Photo - Sunrise over the Bay of Biscay
Girolle - Photo - Sunrise over the Bay of Biscay
Girolle - Lyonie and her crew in A Coruna
Girolle - Lyonie and her crew in A Coruna
Girolle - Photo - Holger & Simone’s arrival in Bayona
Girolle - Photo - Holger & Simone’s arrival in Bayona
11/06/2019

Girolle - Days 9 & 10 Santiago

Good afternoon! Pretty windy in Bayona today, though the sun is shining, which apparently cannot be said for soggy Britain. Yesterday Dave and I joined the majority of our fellow ARC Portugal sailors on a coach trip to Santiago de Compostella, destination for several million pilgrims each year who travel the Camino de Santiago, the Saint James pilgrimage route.The purported remains of Saint James are housed in the cathedral. A very knowledgeable local guide took us on a 2 hour tour of the cathedral area, including the square which was packed with scores of pilgrims nursing sore feet, as well as many who had journeyed there on mountain bikes. To complete the pilgrimage on foot takes around 30 days, each day pilgrims collect stamps in a special passport. Just in case you are considering. read more...


Girolle - Days 9 & 10 Santiago
Girolle - Days 9 & 10 Santiago
11/06/2019

Charm - Tonga 10

The big story in Tonga at the moment is the weather.Since about 2 pm today, it has been raining more or less steadily, with gaps for heavy downpours or brief periods of dryness, lasting about 15 minutes each.We are rafted (tied up with) Nikitoo, a fabulous Oyster (brand of boat) whose owners are Hugh, Scottish and Mariana, Bulgarian, with crew from the UK, Spain, and Brazil.When the bay ran out of mooring buoys due to a large number of boats, they kindly invited us to raft with them.This means that they are tied to the mooring buoy and we are tied to them.Mooring buoys are some heavy item that is sunk to the bottom, with a rope tied to it and a buoy with a loop to attach to tied to the top.Some places have heavier things at the bottom than others.We rafted with them yesterday and this. read more...


Charm - Tonga 10
Charm - Tonga 10
Charm - Tonga 10
Charm - Tonga 10
Charm - Tonga 10
Charm - Tonga 10
10/06/2019

Hawkeye - Two ARC boats meet in San Remo

Today Alexandra and I met up with ARC 2019 entry Alessandro Greco on his lovely Beneteau Oceanis 523 “Regina del Mare” which, like Hawkeye, is also berthed here at Portosole in San Remo, Italy.Richard AlessandroAlexandra - and Regina del Mare. read more...


16/06/2019

Rubicon IV - blog

June 5, 2019The French word for jellyfish is méduse. It is probably from the Greek monster Medusa who was cursed by the gods to have anyone who looks at her turned into stone. In the myth, a son of Zeus named Percyus kills the monster by looking in a polished shield. In complete honesty. I hate jellyfish. It isn’t because they look weird, or that they don’t have brains, or that they poop out the same hole they eat from.The answer is their sting.I was first stung when I was about five and in the British Virgin Islands on a vacation with my family. I was swimming near a wooden pole when I got stung. The thing is that my mother told me later that there are few jelly fish in the BVI and that I was unlucky (or lucky—maybe—). It hurt like fire and I cried and cried. I remember my mother calmed. read more...


Hawkeye - Two ARC boats meet in San Remo
Hawkeye - Two ARC boats meet in San Remo
Sweet Dream - Day 148 June 11, 2019
Sweet Dream - Day 148 June 11, 2019
11/06/2019

Sweet Dream - Day 148 June 11, 2019

Another fine day of lovely downwind wing on wing sailing. All day we had little squalls pass over and around us. Fortunately, these squalls bring very little rain, no thunder and lightning, and the wind that preceded them never went over 26 knots. Altogether, this makes for great passage making. Captain is reading the first book of the immigrant stories by Vilhelm Moberg. We met a man in Sweden last summer who grew up with Vilhelm’s son. What a small world! I finished Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, and we love to share bits about our novels with each other. The highlight of the day was getting some big fish on our reel that literally had the reel smoking and too hot to touch with the friction it caused pulling out almost all our line. I reefed the sails while Captain fought the. read more...


09/06/2019

Tintin - Tintin’s arrival in Tonga

Nicki here from Neiafu, the port of entry into Tonga’s Vava’u group of islands. We are currently sitting at anchor opposite the wharf waiting for our turn to go alongside and receive the Tongan immigration officials for clearance into the Kingdom of Tonga - unfortunately there is a long queue as many of the World ARC boats have recently arrived; sometimes travelling with so many boats on the rally has disadvantages.We had a good sail from Nuie ~ 250 nautical miles pretty much along the rhumbline with a decent sailing breeze most of the way, largely forward of the beam so we used plain sails rather than our downwind sails. After a glorious starry night departing Nuie we had mainly cloudy skies thereafter - with occasional torrential downpours (notably usually when I was on watch!)On. read more...


10/06/2019

Sweet Dream - Day 147 June 10, 2019

About midnight the wind increased to the mid twenties. It was time to roll in a bit more sail. We had put one reef in each of the two big sails just before sundown, as was our usual practice. We are content to sacrifice a knot of speed during the night, for the ease ofour single handed watches. But this night, a single reef in the poled out Genoa and the prevented out main on the opposite side were not enough to slow us down. Our wing on wing rig with the Hoyt staysail sheeted flat in the middle is such an efficient rig, that with 25 knots of wind we were surfing at 11 knots of boat speed!! Probably fun for a racer, but a bit too much for our behemoth, so a few more turns on the drums were in order. As it turned out, we sailed for 13 and 1/2 hours under this rig, until one thirty in the. read more...


Sweet Dream - Day 147 June 10, 2019
Sweet Dream - Day 147 June 10, 2019
Tintin - Tintin’s arrival in Tonga
Tintin - Tintin’s arrival in Tonga
Tintin - Tintin’s arrival in Tonga
Tintin - Tintin’s arrival in Tonga
09/06/2019

Girolle - Day 7 & 8 - Arrival in Bayona, R&R time

Second ‘Hoorah, we’ve made it’; this time to our official stop off in Bayona.You may be tiring of dolphins by now but I feel I should mention the most amazing experience we had during the early hours of Saturday. As I stumbled bleary eyed into the cockpit for my watch at 3am, Dave beckoned me over with excitement and said “look over here, look for the white streaks in the water” Initially I saw nothing and couldn’t work out what I should be looking for. Then suddenly, what looked like a white streak of paint appeared beside the boat... the dolphins were back!Sometimes four streaks would appear at once, all merging towards each other. Looking behind the boat I could see several white streaks approaching. The water was reasonably translucent and occasionally I could make out the shape of a. read more...


Girolle - Day 7 & 8 - Arrival in Bayona, R&R time
Girolle - Day 7 & 8 - Arrival in Bayona, R&R time
09/06/2019

Sweet Dream - Day 146 June 9, 2019

This morning started with a beautiful display of Venus rising in the east and Jupiter setting in the west with us suspended between the two magical orbs. It was a perfect sailing day all day with wind in the teens steadily pushing us along at about six knots of boat speed. In the late afternoon we managed to get all the dry laundry off the aft deck line before the squall hit us, and for our dinner hour entertainment we enjoyed a perfect, huge, sky-spanning rainbow. Quite an auspicious start to this journey to Fiji on our Sweet Dream!image1.. read more...


Sweet Dream - Day 146 June 9, 2019
Sweet Dream - Day 146 June 9, 2019
Zafiro - At last....Bayona
Zafiro - At last....Bayona
09/06/2019

Zafiro - Log 4 - “I wasn’t expecting that” - Biscay Crossing

The start of the Rally was a great occasion and lots of fun to be part of as all of the yachts assembled before the start line off Plymouth Hoe. The start looked to go well and a lot of yachts achievedthe line as the signal flag dropped. Once out of Plymouth Sound the weather quickly turned sour as we all tried to make to the west. Winds were not favourable to make it around the shipping lanes at Ushant and Zafirolost a lot of headway during the night with very slow forward progress against the swell and tides. On our boat we all suffered some early sea sickness which hit as soon as we went below. The only solution was to sit up top or lie horizontally in the cabin..!! The gourmet food idea of sitting on deck in the sun soon went out of the window and the reality was water and Digestive. read more...


08/06/2019

Tintin - Over the date line

En route to Tonga we will cross the date line, even though wehaven't reached 180 degrees west yet. Tonga has chosen to liewest of the date line so there is a bit of a kink in the line toaccommodate this!So at midnight tonight we will be fast forwarding from Friday June 7thto Sunday June 9th, with no mention of Saturday 8th of June in our logbook.Tintin is romping along through the seas, well behaved in the gustywinds with a reef in the main and the wind just forward of the beam. It has been a great day. This afternoon Rob spotted a whale ahead, andwe saw a humpback whale breaching the sea three times, about half amile off. The whale came up vertically out of the water to its fulllength, then crashed back with a huge splash. Sorry no photo!We have been treated to a spectacular sunset so. read more...


08/06/2019

Sweet Dream - Day 145 June 8, 2019

We started our day retracing our track from the south east side of Bora Bora , over the top, and back into the town wall. If the narrow , shallow channel wasn’t exciting enough, we shared it the whole way with dozens of four man outrigger canoes and what seemed like a swarm of zippy little power boats. Captain had a real fun time navigating and being overtaken by canoes! Whew, we made it to the Town wall in 18 knots of wind with no collisions, checked out of French Polynesia (they make it so easy here in Vaitape!) bought one last loaf of fresh bread, pulled off the wall with all paint intact and decided to go to Bloody Mary’s for lunch, just a couple miles away. Unfortunately, the only mooring available (there are only three, we picked up the one another boat was vacating) was not in. read more...