22nd November 1.00 p.m.
What an amazing day we had. The razamataz send of was had us feeling a bit like Ellen MacArthur must have done. Having survived the preceding party events we had a very quiet last night in Las Palmas. The morning was filled with last minute packing away of crockery and provisions. Half empty bottles of malt were dispatched to our neighbours as we had no room to carry them (John didn't weep to hard). Kathy and Steve had told us they would be out on the water to wave us of and told us that the vent was big thing for the locals as well. We found this out when at 11 o'clock Don Pedro's Texaco station began blaring out loud music and shouting over the sound system lots of farewells as boats began to leave in anticipation of the start of racing. Our neighbours dropped their liines, having bade us farewell to go and watch from outside the breakwater. There were hunbdreds and hundreds of people lining the breakwater walls to wave good bye. The brass bands were blasting out their discordant tunes. The ARC boats were queing up to leave and for a while it all got a bit manic and we were worry about bumps. However as usual John had it under control. Liz M did a little jig on the bow and I attempted to video some of it. All in all it was incredibly emotional.and very memorable.
Once outside the breakwater we had a small issue with the electronics. The auto helm compass did not compute with chartplotter readings. So much for the helpful Raymarine guys. Well I guess they did resolve one problem - we just have to do some arithmetic to get the correct course. As a result of the reroute to fix the compass we were late for the start and missed the racong division leaving. The spectacle for the rear however was wonderful. 225 yachts with sails, spinnakers etc was a sight to behold. There were lots of Canarians boats out. Kathy anbd Steve came over in a large catamarran (Peter Pan) to take some photos of us and cheer us with a few kind words. The sight of g stringed men and women on speed boats was also a sight to be beheld!.
It was astonishing how quickly the fleet dispersed. We held a few yachts in our sights as we went into the acceleration zone just beyond the airport. The wind quickly reached 25knots and we were well in to hard sailing. The swells are steep and we were bounced around for the next two days. The watches were working o.k. but due to boat and sea noise and all the movement we really didn't get much sleep for the first 48 hours. The food was basic as cooking down below was not only hazardous but also nauseous.
27th November
However it is now day 5 (that is hard to believe). We have had a couple of kinder days in terms of both weather and sea state and are a much refreshed crew. Sleeping is interesting as although you sleep you are conscious of being tossed about the bunk. Brace is the main word and focus. We have all taken to shouting to each other 'hold on - it's a biggie'. We have only seen a couple of cargo vessels in the last 4 days.
Today is a bit rough and we are bouncing about a lot. Breakfast was to be cereal and eggs. I even took orders for the type of egg. Suffice to say 2 went down the sink on cracking them open, another 2 came flying out of the microwave and when I went in to the hold to get more out found 3 broken and 4 with chips in them. All in all an expensive morning on the egg front! Food is likely to be in short supply today unless the swell eases.
Everyone is starting to feel better and gain their sealegs. Liz M's patches have been great and she is doing really well managing to stay below for long periods of time. Robert has a cast iron stomach and is never unwell so he's been doing well in the galley too. John and I are getting there. John was pretty crummy for the first 2 nights but picked up yesterday for which I was really relieved..
Today we have a lot of cloud but the air is beginning to warm up as we get further south. Night watches are really chilly between 2 and 6 a.m. The other thing we are taking bad with is the number of hours that it is dark. It is dark by 7.00 and stays that way till 7.00 a.m. so a full 12 hours of dark watches is quite challenging..
We are in daily contact with other ARC boats and seem to be holding our own progress wise. Hope to top 500 by teatime. It's 'thanksgiving day' so may have to resort to popcorn and hot dogs to celebrate with our America crews. (That doesn;t involve a lot of cooking!!!) Robert has also managed to do some proper work via the sat phone !
Today John found a fish (note not caught) It was a real tiddler not even sardine size Doug! We ate the frozen fish last night and I reckon the rest will come out of tins at this rate. We also had a visit from a pod of dolphins. There were maw, paw and several wains. One gave us a high fly display leaping up almost like a salmon trying to get upriver. It cheered our spirits no end.
The weather is due to remain pretty stable for the next few days and by then we should be ready to alter course. So far so good
We have had one helluva night in a virtual flat calm. The sheets flapped, the boom and mast creaked and groaned and the swell flopped us around like a wet kipper stranded at the Fifee Pier. We had a mast light to watch for most of the night though so that was a good distraction. However no one slept when we went off watch so we are a tad weary today. It was actually a relief to get back up deck away from the noises. The night sailing is great as the moon is almost full and is currently lighting our way. (No phosphoresence though Mags!)
28th November
We had a great day of sailing yesterday when the boat reached 7 knots regularly. Paid for it and lost all we gained during the day overnight. Today we have the cruising chute up and in very little wind are managing to get 6 knots. The boys are grinning like 'twa wains at the shows'. even though we are all sleep deprived.
Todays calamity so far was that the cooker didn't work so we couldn't have a morning cuppa until John had reconnected all the wires on the solonoid that had corroded right through. (Jim you taught him well). After all the carry on getting gas refill in Las Palmas we never thought to check the fitting as it had been new in July. When you see that level of corrosion it make you worry for other parts that are constantly being challenged by the salt and moisture.
Cooking continues to be a real challenge and a hazard when things like boiling pasta etc are on the go. Eating tea becomes highlight and to date have only resorted to pizza once. Haven't managed to make pancakes and fresh coffee yet though!
Washing is all we have managed so far - contemplating a shower would be a tad risky in the swell especially as we would then have wet feet!
We began to feel the temperature rise yesterday and last night is the first time we haven't needed the fleecy blanket on the 2 - 6 watch.
Today it is absolutely scorching and even though we are all covered in cream and clothing it is very uncomfortable as there is so little wind.
29thNovember
It is strange that in such a wide ocean there are huge variations in the wind. Last night it was swivveling 10 - 30 degrees at a time and dropping from 15 - 5. Keeps the helmsmen challenged though.
Hard to believe we have been out here for 6 days. We have completed almost 700 miles and though we are not at the back of the fleet we are not covering anything like some of the other boats. May be expecting a bit much to get to St Lucia for Gareth's birthday.
Anyone interested in the ARC progress can go online to
www.world cruising club and go to ARC site for updates etc.
The daily routine has begun to have a pattern and usually by 10.00 all is ship shape and settled. Today however the guys concerns over the power situation were voiced out loud. The batteries have not been holding their charge and we were losing power very quickly after they had been charged. Gradually the charge they were holding was only coming up to around50%. Nigel Calder's electrical manual was brought out and read fortunately not from cover to cover!) (John decided it was 'awful complicated and detailed' - eat your heart out JIm). However between Robert and himself they concluded that one of the batteries had to be 'duff'. Fortunately on the daily ssb call in there was someone on Ocean Lady who was knowledgeable about such things. He confirmed that they would have to find the spoilt battery and disconnect it from the parallel circuit (are you getting all this Mrs D?) Now for those of you as befuddled by all this scientific stuff as moi - where does one start?
Picture if you will the main cabin upside down with tools, cushions, wires etc and two guys with their head in the guts of the boat on a swell of 2 metres, rocking and rolling for 2 -3 hours in high temperatures. Ah the joys of life on the ocean wave. Anyway they are just wonderful because they managed to do the job of isolating the battery and getting the others up to full steam and holding their charge. Just as well as the problems we would have encountered without power don't bear thinking about with another 14 days or so to go.
30th November -
Another sleepless night for all as the swell and noise below continue to make sleep difficult. Think it is the fact your body is never still that makes you a tad weary and grateful for the morning. The night watch was busy as we actually saw boats. One scary moment was when the swell was high and the moon had just peeped out from some clouds. As it dappled on the water a flash of white caught my eye. It was another yacht without any lights on barely 100 - 200 yards away. Heading towards us on a northerly course, full sails and well heeled over. There was no sign of anyone on deck. If we hadn't seen it we would have been T boned.
The pattern of sailing with the gib out on the spinnaker pole continues. We have had the kite up for a day and it was great however the gust of 20 -25 meant that it was overstretched. We are managing to maintain between 5.5 - 7 knots when the wind is around 15 knots and have finally managed to do more than 120 mile stop (feels like it!!) It can be a bit demoralising to think that some boats are going so fast they will be there by the weekend!
The planned haggis tea to celebrate St Andrews day did not happen as a lot of the food in the freezer is beginning to thaw and is therefore needing to be eaten. The odd flying fish that has landed on the deck is no bigger than the sardine Doug landed all those months ago - so our hunter gatherers continue to fail miserably on that front.
Robert is making full use of the satellite phone and it is really quite mind blowing to think that we are out here in the middle of the Atlantic functioning at a basic level of living while he is chatting to people in an office back in Scotland
It is also a great comfort to know that we can stay in touch so easily and when we watch the satellite move in the night sky realise what their function is.
1st December
At last a relatively peaceful sea after 2.00 a.m. So much so that we all managed some much needed sleep.
Revived and ready for action after a team pow wow we decided to move the spinny pole and put away the gib. The wind was a mere 10 knots and good direction for the cruising chute. Let's play! 2 and a half hours later we were back with the gib and pole format and the chute was safely back in its snuffer after the wind had hit 22 knots whilst trying to hoist the darned thing. Fortunately crew and skipper survived the episode with no thanks from Murphy!
I did however manage to make pancakes and syrup this morning (not up to Kay's standard though). Mind you given all we had done before breakfast a scabby horse would have fitted the bill just as well.
Today will be the last of the fresh meals we brought. the freezer has done us really well (thanks Ronnie) However the water and air temperatures are now so high that it is a huge drain on battery power. So we will use it as a cool box and hope that it keeps the vacum packed stuff for a few more days yet.
We have covered 1000 miles at 1.00 a.m. this morning (only 1600+ to go)
We have been asked for some info by some children about how we work things like food etc on board. So for the benefit of Mrs Ritchie's P7 and my own pupils at Wallace here is how it has been working.
We brought fresh fruit and vegetables which we bought at the local market. We had to be sure they had not been refrigerated before hand as they would not keep long if they had. This turned out to be true. I had chosen clean, washed carrots and within 3 days they were rotten and had to go overboard. I had also bought green bananas and some yellow ones. We were told we had to wash the bananas as they had lots of beasties is the skins. These were soaked in water on the quayside for a while and then dried and stored in a dark cupboard. I made the mistake of putting them beside the green tomatoes. What I had forgotten was that bananas let of a gas as they ripen , this has an adverse effect on other fruits and veg stored beside them. So yup you guessed it - quite a lot of over ripe bananas and a few oranges went over the side as well. The remainder that were going of was turned into a juicy fruit salad which we ate for tea that night. Since then everything else has been fine.
Eggs need to be stored in a safe place where they won't get rattled and move around. They also need to be turned every day or so. We have so far lost more to breakages and spillages than because they are blown. We stored them in cardboard holders and wrapped them up in cling film which we then had to spray with cockroach spray so that if there were cockroach eggs in the cardboard we wouldn't have an infestation half way across the ocean. Hopefully they will last us into our last week of the passage and we will use them for meals.
RUBBISH: In our modern world it is a problem - on the crossing it is the same. Where would we store it? How much would we generate?
We knew that it was unwise to take any cardboard on board for fear of cockroaches so when we got back from the supermarket with the big grocery shopping we stripped everything of its outer packaging
( had to write on the wrap what was inside) . By doing this we had already reduced the amount of rubbish we would have quite considerably.
Tins, glass, paper and card can go overboard as it is biodegradeable. Plastic is the biggest concern as it is so bad for the sea life. We have a pair of very strong shears (scissors) and to date have cut up all the plastic into small sized pieces and kept it in a bag. This includes the water bottles.
To date we have got a half full black bag of rubbish. We sprayed the inside of it with some antiseptic spray and this is keeping the smells down.
WATER: We have a water tank that hold 600 litres of water which we can drink as it goes through a filter. We also have a water maker which uses sea water and converts it into drinking water. This means that in an ideal world we are self sufficient in water. However just in case soemthing goes wrong with any of it we took bottled water onboard as well. We carry enough water for each of the 4 man crew to drink 2 -3 litres a day. This is essential to keep us from becoming dehydrated in the heat which some days reaches 32 degrees. When you are out on the ocean you are exposed to wind, sun and constant movement which also dehydrates you.
Sealife: To date we have spotted dolphins, sharks (definitely won't be swimming now) and flying fish but none of them stay very long.