An account of his Atlantic crossing from Gomera (Canary Islands) to Tobago (Caribbean) - Cruising in the Caribbean - Up to Bermuda - another Atlantic passage to the Azores and then to Lisbon down to Portimao and back to the Canary Islands - all singlehanded

Daily Mileages
 
Daily run noon to noon over the ground. First day started at 10:40.
The 25hr days are due to the zone time change from UT in Gomera to UT-4 in Tobago. 
 
8th Feb 109 25.33hr run
9th 83 
10th 116 
11th 118 25hr day
12th 122 
13th 134 
14th 154 25hr day
15th 134 
16th 131 
17th 136 
18th 130 
19th 133 
20th 134 25hr day
21st 143 
22nd 139 
23rd 131 
24th 113 
25th 142 
26th 137 
27th 145 25hr day
28th 139 
1st Mar 88 
2nd 123 
 3rd 60  
 
Total Miles 2984 nautical miles over the ground. Total Time 24d 5h 34m.
Best Day's Run 154nm on the 14th (25hr day)
Worst Day's Run 83nm on the 9th (3rd Mar was less due to heaving-to off Tobago awaiting sunrise) 
 
Weather

Berthed in San Sebastian in Gomera with access to the internet, I was able to watch the pattern of movement of the Azores high pressure system and the depressions in the North Atlantic.  There was roughly a ten day cycle as the centre of the high oscillated east and west, with some north and south movement.  When the high moves west it allows depressions over the Azores and Madeira and the Iberian peninsula to trail their cold fronts down across the Canaries and some distance to the south bringing north westerly, westerly, even south westerly winds, heavy rain and strong gusty winds together with large seas.  To avoid getting caught by the fronts I waited till the high was centred just to the NW of the Canary Islands before departing.  This would likely bring light wind conditions but give me time to establish a daily routine and get experience with the new Hydrovane self-steering which I hadn't used before.  As it turned out the winds were light for a few days after clearing El Hierro in the Canaries but we didn't have to motor to maintain progress and we used white sails.  The swell was generally too great to allow cruising chutes to stay full.  I did try the mizzen chute briefly once but it wasn't helping with speed or steering. 
 
Once south of the Canaries we experienced easterly flows with a lot of high cirrus cloud mixed with cumulus and shower activity particularly around sunset.  Even without rain the decks would be wet with dew after sunset as we neared the low pressure zone south of the Cape Verde Islands.  At times the wind reached 20-25 knots as we worked our way SW towards a selected turning point at 20 degrees north, 27 degrees west, but was generally 15-20 knots and the direction varied from east to north east. 
 
From the turning point, where our course aimed at a great circle* route to Tobago, the winds were generally around 20-25 knots with direction varying from just east of N to just south of E.  Conditions were anything but stable.  The area is influenced by the equatorial low pressure region and the warm, humid area over the Amazon basin.  We had a continuous stream of showers and squalls, night and day with grey overcast skies most of the time.  The squalls were strongest at night with gusts to 32 knots apparent observed but generally the maximum was 25 knots apparent.  When I was awake (which was mostly) I avoided the worst of the showers and squalls by observing their tracks on radar as the heaviest area of rain gives a strong x-band return. 
 
Often there would be a build up of cirrus, then altocumulus cloud with a rising swell which usually indicates strong wind on the way, but nothing ever happened.  The cloud drifted away, the swell dropped but only to rise again later.  The swell rose with stronger winds and then dropped away again and we usually needed to maintain 6 knots (ground speed ) to maintain steerage and avoid being slewed around by the bigger waves.  From the daily mileages you can see we didn't average 6 knots often, so there was a lot of slewing. 
 
There were occasional, sudden gaps in this pattern when the sky cleared and we sailed free under blue skies or through star filled nights with generally stronger breezes but they didn't last.  The sea varied with wind strength and direction and with so much variation, there was usually a cross sea running which made sail trim difficult when the wind was lighter and made the yacht's motion unstable a lot of the time.  The VXA 2D Hydrovane handled it all extremely well though, provided it was given a fairly balanced boat to trim.  We gybed a few times but only with light conditions, usually with a large sea on one quarter and the wind on the other, conditions in which any steering system or human helmsman would struggle.  The yacht also turned towards the wind when the wind speed increased but once the gust was through she came back on to the set apparent wind.  Where there was a true change in wind strength more standing helm would be applied to balance her and sometimes reefing would be required.  I discovered here that my hydraulic steering system has a creep which caused standing helm to drift away over time, especially at high rudder angles and boat speeds and swell forces.  I'm not sure if this is design inherent or can be improved with a reseal of the helm pumps and/or drive cylinders.  There is a very slight weep on the starboard cylinder.  Not serious anyway, just means more sleep lost as she comes up to weather and needs to be balanced again. 
 
We were afforded a respite on the 26th and 27th Feb and during the day of the 28th with clear weather and generally lighter wind which allowed the sea to moderate.  I slept well for two nights.  However on the 28th Feb the showers returned and stayed with us until the very last.  As we were motoring the last mile to Scarborough I turned her up to weather and dodged a shower with 25 knots of wind for twenty minutes before making entry to the unfamiliar port.  I had received a vhf nav warning on the presence of an unmarked wreck in the fairway and had no desire to run into that. 
 
Here in Scarborough the weather starts with showers in the morning but the sun breaks out and the humidity builds from around 9 a.m. with a light breeze here in the anchorage.  Life in the tropics. 
 
Current 
 
Chart 4014 states that the Canary Current sets SW at rates from 0.5-1.5 knots and the North Equatorial Current sets west with the same rate and chart 4013 states that close to Tobago the Equatorial Current sets NW with a rate of 1.5 knots.  So we had assistance from the current as well as following winds.  The 20 year old instrument which measures boat speed through the water was inaccurate and I have yet to fit the transducer/log which interfaces to the new SimNet instrumentation network I'm running, so I was unable to measure the rates we actually experienced.  However, when hove-to off Tobago waiting for the morning we were stemming a current which was setting NW of about the charted rate. 
 
Actually I do carry a Mk III Knotmaster Log by Walker but this measures distance so I would have to differentiate that with respect to time in order to obtain speed and need to fit the shoe on the handrail and I had more than enough to do in the variable conditions we had. 
 
Fishing 

In the past, before this passage, I've often trolled a lure from the boat but never had the slightest indication of a take.  On this run it's been easy to get fish to take but a bit more difficult to get them on board.  I need a net for the smaller fish and a gaff for the big ones. 
 
I'm using an International Game Fishing Association 50lb class outfit loaded with 250m of 60lb monofilament line.  This fits in one of two 'rocket launcher' type rod holders on the quarters.  I've used only weighted plastic squid lures but have had good results.  Taking advice from The Cruisers Handbook of Fishing by Scott Bannerot and Wendy Bannerot, I troll the lures about three boat lengths back, with a light drag setting and aim to have them breaking surface to create some life and disturbance to attract the attention of fish we sail past. 
 
The action began almost immediately on the first evening around sunset, a prime fish feeding time, with a take off El Hierro the most southerly of the Canary Islands.  However it pulled off on the retrieve as I didn't stop the boat.  At that early stage I was more hungry for miles than fresh fish.  First boating came on the 9th around 0900.  I was down below just about to brush my teeth when the scream of the reel's click drag brought me speedily on deck.  I took the rod out of the holder, jabbed it to set the hook then put it back in the holder with the drag loose.    The wind was fairly light so I just brought the boat onto a beam reach to slow her down and hauled in my catch.  We were lucky as the hook had pulled out and the fish came in with a bight of line around its tail.  A few strokes on the sharpening stone with the filleting knife and I had delicious lunch material for two days.  I think it was a Skipjack Tuna of about 1.5kg.  I bled the fish before cleaning or filleting, as recommended by the experts, as I intended to make sashimi from one fillet.  Bleeding just requires two short, deep incisions behind the pectoral fins to sever the main arteries. 
 
The 9th was the golden day.  Around 1200 I reeled in a second fish of the same species and size but it fell off lifting it from the water.  Later, at sunset, a third fish, same type again but around 2 or 3 kg with some fight in it, again fell off when boating. 
 
The 12th brought a frustrating morning trying to get the yacht balanced and steering a course due to constantly shifting winds.  By 1030 things were finally settled when from down below I heard that screaming drag again.  This time I was too late on deck.  We were sailing at around 6.5 knots and the reel was half empty by the time I got to it with no sign of the fish turning and running towards the boat.  Usual routine, set the hook, rod in holder, roll up the yankee, turn into the wind with main rudder and reset windvane to hold her there, then back to the fish.  By then the reel was empty, all 250m having unwound.  The fish was still on though and it didn't feel too big, however it pulled off on the retrieve.  When all that line was back on the drum I found the shock leader knot to the Bimini twist double line had failed.  So, I lost my deadly tandem green squid rig.  I wonder if that fish is still dragging it around together with ten meters of shock leader.  If so, I'm sure it will be food for something soon.   

On the 16th Feb it was CHENG FENG who did the fishing.  In the pre-dawn I was on deck dealing with a shower which brought stronger winds, by reefing sails.  Once past it left a dramatic sky, perfect for a photo, so I went below for the camera.  When I returned on deck, the sun now coming up, the long dead eye of a flying fish stared back at me from the port cockpit drain channel.  I'd had fry on deck for the previous few days but this was the first breakfast size specimen.  All the books by singlehanders in the tropics speak of these fish and their habit of landing on deck.  This was a plump one and when wet with saltwater in the cleaning it showed its bright blue upper body and contrasting white underparts.  Most pelagic fish have this basic dark/light colouration as it makes them harder to see from above or below against the bottom or the sky.  Whether the fish is predator or prey it pays to blend in to your surroundings.  I'd never had one in the hand before, or the pan for that matter.  So, seconds later, being about breakfast time, the fish was cleaned and sizzling in hot fat.  Hot oil from the first pressings of Andalucian olives, actually.  If you've never tasted fresh flying fish I can report it to be a firm, white flesh with a light texture and a delicate flavour.  It's not unlike the Spanish salmonete which look like very immature red gurnard.  They're just the right size for a breakfast course too. 

To end that day which became almost cloudless in the afternoon, the wind dropping, we boated another bonito, smaller than the first but just as tasty.  Being another sunset take, this one was bled, cleaned and refrigerated for the day after. 

After that CHENG FENG took over again.  It seemed the flying fish had organised things amongst themselves to provide me with a thin, but regular, supply of fish protein.  The second one was had on the 18th, then the third on the 21st and the last on the 27th.  One of them had a large sea louse on its left pectoral root and another had a sort of leech on its bottom lip so there's a whole ecosystem based on these fish.  There are a lot of them, once we entered their domain they were taking to the air around the boat constantly.  It's interesting that they don't board yachts during the day so this indicates good vision and navigation in the air and explains why they're always breakfast food.  They don't actually fly like birds, flapping their fins, they can only glide.  Watching them it's clear they know the direction of the wind whilst under water as they almost always take off into it to gain lift and then glide off across the wind, sometimes beating the surface with their tails as they re-enter to take off again, into the wind, for two or three glides.  The lower tailfin is enlarged to aid this behaviour and the frying pan is an excellent place to observe the fin structure.  The cooking goes better once you snip it off. 

Close to Tobago on approach to Scarborough I saw another species, much larger, take to the air.  It had enlarged pectoral fins for gliding and it kicked with its tail to hold itself in the air but its flight was not so long. 
 
The 28th was exciting.  I gybed early in the morning and as it was the first opportunity since early in the passage to run the desalination plant with light winds and a moderate sea, I did that to get the freshwater tanks topped up.  At 1230 I had some coucous soaking and was wondering what to have with it when zzz.zzzz..zzz....zzzzzzzzzzz....that screaming drag again.  This time it was clear when setting the hook that the fish had a lot more mass than before.  I brought the boat up and pumped in something obviously different and bigger than Bonito or Skipjack Tuna.  When it got close to the boat and rolled, exhausted, it revealed the streamlined, torpedo body shape and telltale light blue, vertical stripes on its darker, dorsal surface.  I'd never seen one but knew it instantly from photos in books.  It was a wahoo (acanthocybium solanderi - no doubt classified by Dr. Solander the Swede who was with Cook and Banks on the first voyage).  Wahoo is not a joke, this really is the common name for this species.  I took this one on a pink plastic squid and fortunately as it was almost lifeless at the boat I was able to lift it out and into the cockpit, securely hooked in the tough gill structure.  It filled the cockpit at 1.10m from tip of head to fork of tail and probably had a mass of 10-12 kg.  The dorsal colours are iridescent and they change with the state of excitement of the fish.  I didn't want to be eating wahoo every meal for a week or more so, in the interests of conservation (of me) I cut four good steaks from the tail section and heaved the rest over the side.  It would have died anyway had I returned it whole.  I'm sure in 4,000m of water it would be entirely consumed before it hit the bottom. 
 
Cetaceans 
 
With all the flying fish out there would be plenty for dolphins and porpoises but I saw none after the 12th Feb.  I saw odd groups near the Canaries, a splashy pod on the 10th which didn't visit the boat, probably feeding and the last on the 12th, a pod of common dolphin which came over for the surf.  I saw no sign of whales. 
 
Birdlife 
 
There weren't many birds either.  I saw a small gull like bird most often, usually solitary but sometimes two or three of them.  They would follow the boat for a while and then disappear.  Nearer to Tobago I saw white tailed tropic birds on several occasions and close to the island I saw female frigate birds with the white throat patches.  There are other impressive large seabirds close to Tobago with a gliding flight. 
 
I saw Wilson's storm petrels occasionally.  These small birds nest on islands in the South Atlantic and migrate on north south routes.  Incredible distances to travel over the year with that busy, fluttering flight. 

I saw shearwaters too, occasionally.  They also nest in the south and migrate on circuitous routes around the entire ocean every year but with their absolute mastery of gliding flight it's easier to see how they do it on the meagre pickings on the ocean surface.  
  
Bioluminescence 
 
I wrote this after a previous passage from Bermuda to Falmouth in the colder waters to the north. 
 
'Whilst little compares to sailing under a full moon in a clear sky, such conditions deny the sailor the visual spectacle of the ocean creatures which glow in the dark.  It is the dark nights with no moon or heavy cloud cover that allow these wonders to show themselves.  Many beings are drawn to light in the dark.  Moths find it irresistible.  Deer and rabbits freeze in the headlights.  People too are captivated by displays of fireworks and lasers.  In combination with water, the origin of all life, in which we spent our first months and the easy motion of a seaworthy boat, powered by the wind, it's mesmerising.   
 
The seized motor had locked the propeller so that it imparted a vortex to the water as it passed over the blades.  This gave Silent Knight a vapour trail under the surface, a uniform faint, green white glow in the water, which persisted long behind her.  Against this faint aura, frequent bright pinpoints of light would burst to intensity then quickly fade in the wake to be replaced by endless others.  Occasional pulses of light would appear as a sphere of luminous green which grew in size in such a way as to draw the eye to search for the brighter centre.  But the mysterious centre was hidden by the growing light in the outer layers, until the whole faded away.  These beautiful, pulsing spheres were sociable, appearing in groups of four or five.' 
 
On this passage, the pinpoints were there, as always, and the spheres appeared but down here in the south they pulsed with a much higher frequency, just a flash.  And they were alone. 
 
Shipping 
 
I saw little shipping outside the Canaries area until we neared Tobago.  I use an AIS (Automatic Identification System) receiver setup to monitor the proximity of shipping for the purposes of collision avoidance.  I modified an old vhf transceiver to give an unfiltered baseband audio signal to the soundcard on the laptop which runs some decoding software from COAA a group of interested astronomers based in Portimao on the Algarve.'  Their website www.shipplotter.com  gives contact details. Their Shipplotter software is downloadable online and you get a free 3 week trial, after which, if you like it, you pay only €25 euros plus VAT.  You provide it with either an audio signal into the microphone socket on the laptop from a suitable vhf radio or a serial AIS data stream from an AIS receiver into a USB port.  I favour the latter as my system is definitely inferior to a dedicated AIS transponder setup like the Comar csb200 I've seen on another boat, but the Shipplotter software has a much better radar-like display option and produces a radar-like Plan Position Indicator display with CHENG FENG at the centre.  The AIS provides data from ships of course, speed, range and bearing and in combination with own ship position, course and speed, it calculates the cpa (closest point of approach) and the time to the cpa. 
On 11th Feb vhf propagation was phenomenal, as happens sometimes with warm air over a cold sea.  At night I 'saw' several ships, nearest 55nm distant and the furthest 522nm away, the Reserve SAR vessel which I recognised as that which operates from the south of Gran Canaria. 
 
On the 15th regular use of AIS found a vessel close astern making approx. 10 knots with a cpa of 4.5 nautical miles.  The speed was varying though which doesn't happen with healthy ships.  I suspected it could be a large yacht and so it turned out.  Binoculars revealed a yacht of maybe 60-65 feet, motoring.  We were sailing at 5 knots then with main and poled out yankee, the configuration we used all the way for its directional stability and the yacht was observed to unroll her headsail.  However they were rolling and the sail was collapsing and they soon returned to motoring.  They overhauled us and steamed on. 
 
On the 18th I came on deck after making lunch in a heavily rolling condition to unfurl more sail to steady her when I spotted a ship on the port bow.  AIS revealed her to be on the Croatian registry, a general cargo ship with a central crane.  She eventually passed 4.43nm ahead by radar range. 
 
Though I ran the radar at night and during the day in bad visibility with the alarm zone set at 6nm and I ran regular checks on AIS I saw no more ships until the tow appeared ahead on a similar course on the 27th.  Tows are a problem because Rule 18 of the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea states, 'a sailing vessel underway shall keep out of the way of a vessel restricted in her ability to manoeuvre' which a tug and tow are.  The Sophia D on the Marshall Islands registry, destination Curacao, was being towed astern by the tug Walraad Waltema (on the St Vincent registry) at 5,5 knots.  Sophia D was declaring herself restricted.  I knew about them from 1120 and slowly caught up with them.  By 1730 it became clear a gybe was necessary to get clearance overnight and enable sleep.  I didn't want a wind shift to take us across the towline in the dark whilst I slept, though I'm fairly sure they would have seen us and called us on vhf before that happened.  Prudence dictated a gybe which was inconvenient but after it was completed I found we were on a better course for Tobago as the wind shifted during the gybe.  In allI made 15 gybes all except this one to keep roughly to the great circle track.  The procedure took between 30 and 45 minutes to complete each time as the pole had to be de-rigged and re-rigged on the opposite side with fore guy and after guy and I used two preventers on the main boom for safety. 
 
Rule 18 also requires sailing vessels to keep out of the way of vessels 'not under command' and vessels engaged in fishing.  However, it states that a power driven vessel shall keep out of the way of a sailing vessel, so ships should avoid us, if the bridge team are keeping a proper watch.  I think it's true to say that the only yachtsmen to have died in the past ten years in British waters were killed when, probably, the P&O ferry Pride of Bilbao collided with them south of the Isle of Wight.  There's a slight doubt as the yachtsmen didn't live to tell their side of the story. 
 
Of course, Rule 5 requires a proper watch by sight and hearing at all times by all vessels,  which lone yachtsmen cannot comply with.  For this reason I think single handed sailing is irresponsible and unseamanlike, but I also think that description fits many deck officers on the world's ships. 
 
On 1st March in showers bringing visibility down to less than two miles I saw a ship on the port bow.  Observing her with AIS her cpa was 0.9nm at 0734 at 13.8 knots.  Less than one mile is too close for me with the changes in speed and course of a sailing yacht.  I reefed both yankee and main to slow down and allow her to pass ahead as she showed no signs of altering course.  She was on the Greek registry and Greek seamanship has decreased somewhat since the days of Odysseus, evidenced by the number of ferries which sink every year in Greek waters.  At 0747 she passed 6.6 cables ahead and disappeared visually in a shower at a distance of 1.8 nm by radar range. 
 
On the run into Tobago there were several ships passing to the north and to the south of the island through Galleons Passage and a British cruise ship running up the windward coast probably heading for Barbados. 
 
Although I was concerned in the first half of the voyage, I didn't run into any 'cayucos' the 17m wooden Senagalese fishing boats used by sub-Saharan Africans to cross from Mauritania to the Canary Is.  Just prior to departure, one arrived in Gomera at Playa Santiago, just south of San Sebastian and another, abandoned, was on the NAVTEX system positioned on the route to my chosen turning point.  I heard a boat participating in the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers last November fell in with a cayuco full of immigrants.  They threw over some water and sailed away for fear of being overwhelmed.  Some of these boats arrive with almost 200 people on board usually dehydrated and hungry and cold. 

Food 
 
CHENG FENG has a 110 litre fridge box chilled by a 12V compressor which uses a novel cooling technique utilising a heat exchanger in a special through hull fitting used for the galley sink drain.  The difference in diameter between the through hull aperture and the sink drain hose leads to a self-pumping action which effectively transfers heat to the surrounding seawater as the yacht rolls.  The box was filled with fresh fruit and vegetables in San Sebastian.  I was careful to ship enough Gomeran bananas for the entire voyage, being assured the green ones would keep indefinitely, refrigerated and ripen in about a week.  At one stage though, I had six going off in the cargo net so I stewed them in a pan with the crumbled bark of the cinnamon tree and plenty of fresh grated nutmeg.  A delicious treat, but it left me with acute serotonin depletion the next day and so, having no MDMA to hand, I had to tear into a large chocolate bar.  I ate the last apple on the last day.  The vegetables didn't keep as long, with the exception of the cabbage and the cristophene.  The latter is a pear shaped, prickly, green vegetable like a hard, crunchy cucumber, without the seeds  and is common in Madeira and the Canary Is.  I still have onions, garlic and fresh ginger though that grew a white mould which had to be scraped off.  The bananas are not as good after a long period of refrigeration and anyway, there's no shortage of them here in the West Indies. 
 
I shipped three whole cheeses from San Sebastian, a delectable queso blanco which is a mixture of sheep and goat cheese and two hard mature cheeses also goat/sheep blend I think,  which don't need refrigeration, though they grew a good layer of penicillin on the rind left in the cabin.  They're extremely good too. 
 
I'm carrying lots of dried fruit, dates, figs and nuts in the dry stores mostly to improve the rolled oats and sunflower seeds passed off as 'muesli' in Spanish supermarkets.  The yogurt ran out a week before the end.  I must have a quiet word with the purser about that. 
 
In praise of the cabbage, I don't know of a better vegetable to take on a long voyage.  They keep well, especially refrigerated, retain their flavour, can be eaten raw or lightly cooked and of course, they're highly nutritious.  There was a school of Chinese art devoted to the carving of cabbages in green jade, usually with a grasshopper on the side.  The Chinese were well aware of the life sustaining properties of brassicas. 
 
For a long time now, lunch has been my principal meal.  Dinner becomes a savoury snack, easily digested before turning in.  You don't need a lot of food before sleeping. 
 
I had lots of fresh fish protein as I've said, all of it lightly fried in extra virgin olive oil or eaten raw.  Wahoo, particularly, is susceptible to overcooking leading to dryness and loss of flavour.  There's little risk of ciguatera poisoning from offshore fish.  The first bonito was large enough to fillet one side and to make ceviche and sashimi from the other.  Ceviche is raw tuna, capsicum and onion, chopped and marinated in lemon juice and chilled overnight.  Sashimi is chilled raw tuna, sliced and served with soy sauce and wasabi mustard.  I left the bloodline in as, though a bit unsightly, it's a good source of omega 3 fatty acids.  I had the fried fish with a cabbage/cristophene based salad and starch in the form of jasmine scented Thai rice or
couscous or pasta.  The salads were dressed with extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, a pinch of rosemary or basil and a sprinkle of coarse, sea salt.  I like to season couscous with green anis and add marinated black olives for that Mediterranean sensation.  Pasta is also good, fast and high energy but it uses a lot of water in the cooking unlike rice which wastes none. 
 
I also baked a lot of bread, about every two days.  The first batch wasn't cooked long enough but after that the CHENG FENG bakery was putting out some very palatable breads, my favourite being the raisin and walnut wholemeal though it was a little dry, as wholemeal tends to be.  I had some 'strong' flour recommended 'para elaborar panes especiales'.  This is a superior bread flour, you can really feel the gluten strands fighting back as you work it, but it's white.  It's great toasted though. 
 
Water 
 
Water is the most precious resource on an ocean crossing voyage, to be guarded at all times.  CHENG FENG carries 800 litres in two stainless steel tanks so if one is contaminated or leaks, there is a reserve.  If both were contaminated or both leaked I took 30 litres of mineral water as a month's survival ration.  Then there's the desalination plant which produces 21 litres per hour on 10 Amperes of electricity.  I was able to use the plant on only four occasions due to the sea state and boat speed.  Being a hydraulic system, it is prone to getting air locked. 
Nevertheless, I arrived in Scarborough, where we lie to our anchor with no water supply, with almost full tanks, having showered daily for the 24 days.  There's no need to live like the French just because you're offshore.  I didn't, but it is also possible to collect rain.  I was avoiding the rain as there's usually a lot of wind associated with it. 
 
The power for battery charging comes primarily from the 4kW diesel genset, backed up by a 135W photovoltaic array and a 60A alternator on the main engine.  The genset was completely reliable, thanks to a lot of time and parts in maintenance prior to departure.  It also ran without problems in the heavy rolling swells of the trades.  Where does the fuel come from?  CHENG FENG carries 660 litres of fuel oil in two tanks.  As we motored for only 6h40m we had ample reserve. 
 
Crew 
 
The crew suffered no more than the usual sea cuts on the hands and toes through contact with deck fittings and a loss of skin through abrasion of rope on wet hands and sleep deprivation, but not to the extent of hallucination, which happened on the Cadiz-Porto Santo run with two extra crew to keep watch.  One of them, Kathryn, had a concealed phobia of cabbage due to an unfortunate, childhood experience.  I wondered why it wasn't appearing in any of her dishes and found it moulding in a locker one day.  I stripped off a few leaves and put it in a more airy place.  Next morning Kathryn was looking out of sorts, I assumed seasickness due to the motion which was bad in a confused sea, but she denied it.  Much later she admitted that she had opened a locker to take out a plate and the cabbage had leapt out and butted her.  Cabbages are sometimes aware. 
 
With that experience and having shipped a French woman for the Madeira- Graciosa (Canary Is.) passage who turned out to be of no use to man nor beast, I decided to attempt the crossing single handed.  I regret nought.  There was a continuous trickle of Lonely Planet types walking the dock in Santa Cruz looking to enlist as crew but I was unimpressed by all of them.  They were mostly French and required to be taken to Brazil.  One typical pair put a tempting notice on the board reading something like, 'A sculptor and a plastician artist, French, looking to crew on sailing boat'.  I saw those two, young, dreadlocks, packs on like they were sleeping rough, every day for 3 weeks down at the marina, looking for their ideal boat.  It has to be something in the French psyche which tells them that a skipper would want a sculptor on his boat.  Surely this should be deeply hidden behind a sheaf of sailing qualifications and letters of reference from other skippers.  What is a plastician artist?  An artist in Plasticine?  And when we go to immigration in that foreign land, would it be advantageous for the skipper to immigrate people wearing the international symbol of marijuana abuse on their heads?  I ask you.  Nor did I require the didgeridoo players and assorted x-generation youth with their innate sense of entitlement, who think independent adventure is putting themselves completely in the safe hands of people their parent's age to give them something for the social networks.  Thank you. 
 
I was interested to observe any changes in mental condition in that environment, spending three or four weeks isolated from all human contact.  Perhaps original thought would be promoted by the absence of media bombardment.  For this reason I deprived myself of music to enhance the feeling of solitude.  I didn't attempt to communicate with the vessels we fell in with.  The vhf radio was switched off unless there was a risk of collision.  However, after a few days I was tired and the routine tasks of operating the vessel day and night, navigation and feeding, together with the fatigue brought on by a boat’s motion were enough to dull inspiration.  I did read one book, 'Atlantic Fury' by Hammond Innes which I thoroughly enjoyed.  About an intense autumn storm in the Hebrides, NW Scotland.  I picked that one up off the wall near the refuse bins at Marina Santa Cruz in Tenerife, the informal goods exchange point.  In return, I left some ceramic cups and glassware, dating from the boat's previous owners which had no place on an ocean passage. 
 
I leave you with these words:
 
'Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you did not do than by the things you did do.  So, throw off the bow lines.  Sail away from safe harbour.  Catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore.  Dream.  Discover.'
 
Mark Twain 
 
 
Notes

Ground speed is true speed over the earth’s surface as opposed to boat speed which is through the water.  The difference is the surface current and the movement of water within waves which is approximately circular in the vertical plane.
 
* There are two courses ships use to navigate on ocean passages, great circle, which is the shortest distance between two points on the earth's surface and rhumb line which gives a constant course but is a little longer.  Rhumb line is convenient because such a course plots as a straight line on a Mercator projection chart.  Both charts 4014 and 4013 are drawn using Mercator projection.  It was rare that the yacht was on course for Tobago as the wind varied and as we sailed with the true wind about 10 degrees off right astern, to sail more efficiently and with greater directional stability and less roll.

Updates on Steve's cruising (extracts from Steve's emails in italics)

April 2009 Steve continues to keep me informed of his movements, he recently sent me some photographs of food that he cooked on his crossing with the comment 'I thought maybe some pictures of the food would add to that section.  I went to great pains to take them for the benefit of my mother who thinks I haven't eaten since leaving home 24 years ago', so I have added them to his story.

He has moved from Tobago to Grenada and apears to be thinking of carrying out a refit in Trinidad which he also mentioned in a recent email: 'Well, the week's going to be spent starting to plan the next major refit which will probably be done in Trinidad.  I think the prop needs changing or at least trueing, if that's the term.  I get heavy vibration surfing down large swells.  Engine alignment is an issue to.  Genset bearings need changing.  Etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.  Given the likely routeing of Puerto la Cruz, Venezuela then the ABC islands, Columbia, Panama and the Pacific I want to be 'ready' to cruise for a while without access to repair facilities.  I was hoping to get well set up in the Canaries but found it to be another mafia based Centre of Incompetence, where lack of education and intelligence is compensated for with machismo.  But then, I'm fussy.'

February 2010 - Following a trip to England during June and July of 2009 (by air) and then returned to his boat to start his refit. The following are two emails from Steve and photographs just received of his passage from Trinidad to Grenada and then on to Carriacou.

Escape from Trinidad - We’ve finally left Trinidad with it’s deadly human pathogens, its relentless chains of revenge shootings and its steelpan bands and are back in Grenada.

After a couple of nights anchored in Scotland Bay, Trinidad and some day sails, to try to remember how the boat works, I returned to the mindless racket of Harts Cut and the choppy T&T Sailing Association anchorage.  Spoke with Paddy, singlehanding Conachair, his rusty Ebbtide 33, last seen in La Gomera in the Canaries, who’s been berthed at Coral Cove since December.  He chose to sail stressfully onto the dock on arrival as his engine fuel pump had failed and he had no windlass as he’d lost vital parts over the side, during some maintenance activity.

As Trinidad was getting set up for Carnival, reputedly 2nd only to Rio de Janeiro in its liveliness, I got set up to leave the country, to avoid all the drunkenness and promiscuity.  And the noise.  How times change.  Anchored in Scotland Bay again for 3 nights, partly disturbed by carnival-avoiding Trinidadians camping on the shore and running generators to power tree hung lighting.  No bats in the cabin this time, I learned to put the bananas in the fridge and close the hatches.  The days were typical of long weekends with all manner of incompetently handled watercraft, wakeboarders and swimmers all competing for the same square millimetres of surface.  Incredible no-one was killed.  A young girl from the U.S. was daft enough to paddle an open kayak here in the summer and an off duty member of the Trinidad army severed her legs with his 225 h.p. outboard prop.  For example.  Around the same time a local white man ran his motor cruiser into a rock at night killing his wife and putting his guests, one a doctor, in hospital.

Two mega yachts were anchored in the outer bay.  I tried, over two days, to contact M/Y Marion Queen, a 50m Feadship type, to no avail.  I wanted to check my AIS transponder data was being received prior to the passage to Grenada.  Clearly the U.S.C.G approved captain was not even maintaining a watch on vhf.  When the British registered M/Y Vibrant Curiosity (85m l.o.a.) anchored (shown below), I tried them.  An instant response was received from the young English deck officer on the bridge, clearly a little nervous at being responsible for US$100 million of boat, as he forgot to allocate a working channel.  He promptly checked my AIS position on his ECDIS screen and I also had checked my vhf at the same time.  So we were set up for any need to make a distress call on the passage to Grenada.

A 56 foot German boat was reportedly attacked and robbed on this passage in late December by seven armed Venezuelans in an open boat, 40 miles offshore.  The yacht lost most of its electronics and money.  It happened in daylight so I planned to make that part of the passage at night, close to the new moon, without nav lights and to avoid the rhumb line route by motoring 20 miles against wind and sea off the coast of Trinidad in daylight, before heading north and then, after passing clear of the Hibiscus oil production platform, north west, for Grenada.  So, a long 80nm direct passage became a very long and sleepless 115nm, taking 25.5 hours.  I had to avoid an untended net marked with white strobes and the wind and current set me down to a minimum of 16nm from Hibiscus.  The passage was done with AIS transmission but mostly without nav lights, in a shipping channel, with fast ferries crossing to/from Tobago.  The ‘T&T Spirit’ shown above passed 2 ca. down our port side at 15:37 local, making 39 kts and she was closer still to another yacht’s starboard side, under sail. I felt it prudent to show a light, later, when approaching two oddly lit vessels.  Caution and imagination, verging on hallucination, turned them into a tug and tow, both incorrectly lit, with no AIS transmission and a 4.5nm cable between them.  At 1.5nm I saw that the ship to port was a commercial ship, lit as >50m underway, but with bright deck lights all but obscuring the nav lights and seemingly adrift.  I still have no idea about the ship to starboard.  I sailed slowly between them on the main.  There was a ‘not under command’ on AIS south of Hibiscus.  I saw another last year between Tobago and Grenada.  Seems to be the ‘in’ place to lose the steering.

I anchored off St. George’s in the Ross Pt. anchorage and rowed in to the Grenada Yacht Club for clearance.  As I was late to get to the bank for EC$ and return, the unusually flexible authorities allowed me to postpone clearance till the following day.  I decided, mistakenly, to berth at the GYC to make life easier for a few days.  Boats are berthed end-on to the pontoon with a mooring.  The slot carefully selected by the ‘dockmaster’ between two sports fishing vessels with high, flared bows had its mooring 40m out from the pontoon so, partly as he decided to double it through, my longest heavy line was 25m too short and I had to quickly extend it, leaving the helm to do so.  Then, when he eventually paid it out, in island time, we were already up against the downwind vessel.  No damage, very fortunately, but I had to take the solar panel and gangway off the port handrail for safety.  As the stern line then came up short on the knot we were still 3m off the pontoon at the bow so this was the first so-called marina where I got ashore by dinghy.  The ‘dockmaster’ also didn’t know the depth of water off his dock!!

I’m now the somewhat impoverished new owner of a 100m, 22mm mooring line.  I just don’t know where to stow it yet.

The GYC advertisement says proudly, ‘Our new dock offers the best marina facilities in St.George’s’.  A confident enough claim given the presence of Camper & Nicholson’s Port Louis 10 berth megayacht facility.

Still, it was interesting to berth in the lagoon where 66 of the 70 anchored boats were destroyed when hurricane Ivan passed over in 2004.

Saw Yorkshire plumber, Ken and spouse in the chandlery.  They set off with a group of boats, for safety, on the passage north from Trinidad, but suffered an overheating engine and turned back.  Later found due to a clogged filter.  A simple enough diagnosis for a plumber, I would have thought.  It amazes me how many people have the confidence to leave harbour without the basic knowledge required to operate their vessel.  I twice was asked to assist Watson Bigwood (I’m not joking) the Kiwi carpenter, in Trinidad, with electrical defects of such a trifling nature as to defy belief in someone who has sailed his home built sloop from N.Z., although the wiring was done by a Kiwi plumber.  He did suffer a grounding and flooding in the Red Sea, but was towed onto the nearby shore, swamped, by an Egyptian Samaritan, who didn’t even charge a salvage fee, but then dropped dead a week later. 

Possibly the only Egyptian Samaritan lost forever.

Post Script

On leaving the GYC, the new duty dockmaster couldn’t find the water meter readings supposedly taken by Marvin so I was allowed to leave without paying for water.  Justice.

I only wish I’d done a full wash down and filled the tanks.

To Carriacou

Doyle (Grenada resident cruising guide author) says the anchorage outside St. George’s, Grenada just occasionally gets very rolly.  After two rolling nights and days topping up the freshwater tanks and doing the laundry, I sailed up to Carriacou and anchored in Tyrrel Bay in 4.5m on sand.  Pleasant sail up the lee side of Grenada, though the gusty offshore winds interrupted coffee breaks a bit.  Near the north tip the wind backed so we were pushed well to the west of the ’Kick ’em Jenny’ submerged volcano exclusion zone and the surface flow was also strong.  I measured more than 3 knots at times in a W to NW direction.  I carefully timed the passage so that the neap flood tide would be supplementing the NE Equatorial Current for most of the way thus making life as difficult as possible.  According to the Imray-Iolaire chart B3, the ideal predicted  time to be at the north of Grenada is 4 hrs after HW springs Georgetown, Guyana.  We hit a confused sea caused by Carriacou as we approached the island, tacked a few times making only 20 degrees to windward and then motored in to the bay in the lee.  Close in, I heard a loud cry to starboard and was surprised to see the spout of a small whale and its small dorsal fin as it dived.

However, to completely ruin the first enjoyable day in the Caribbean after twelve months, the cabin started to smell of diesel on port tack, indicating all is still not well with the starboard tank.  The leak was so bad it set the bilge pump off.  Great.

The American crew of Scott Free, a Nautical 43, called by to fraternise and to crash their hard dinghy repeatedly into my topsides.  Clearly jealous of my two masts.

Wind 15-20kts overnight becoming 20kts in the morning and gusting 25kts in the p.m.  It has thankfully calmed off today but that's allowing the swell tor roll the yachts.

Interesting breakfast entertainment was provided by two cats coming together on the northern side of the bay.  The Dutch ’Waterman’ dragged her mooring onto ’Cleo’s Angel’ whose crew paid out more cable to free her, then weighed and anchored further upwind.  The spectacle was much improved by the blonde child on Waterman being so perturbed by her parents’ behaviour, she dashed below to don a lifejacket.  Though shoulder high to her mother, that’s all she felt necessary to wear, even when bunch turned up to attend the emergency.  The mooring stopped dragging and they sat on it most of the day, in its new position, before finally anchoring.

Hereafter, the term ‘bunch’ will refer to the inhabitants of the Caribbean, regardless of pigmentation, after the words of the song, ‘Six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch.’  As an aside, I noticed that the Caucasian populace in Trinidad, descendents of plantation owners and such, maintained a very fair countenance, even those who enjoyed boating and the outdoors.

The bunch in the French departments hereabouts, Martinique and French Guyana and maybe also Guadaloupe, have recently rejected independence in referendi.  Something of a political novelty,  but quite understandable given the huge French subsidies and the dire threat of local rule by bunch.

March 2010 - I read about the recent storms, the bad one in Madeira and then the Atlantic coast of France.  I think over on this side the weather is typical but it has been very dry in Carriacou.  Their water catching systems are dry and they're bringing water over from Grenada.  I'm glad to be desalinating as I type.
 
Yesterday, here in Tyrrel Bay, the French staged an exhibition in picking up a fixed mooring with a Hanse 53 sloop, in a moderate breeze.

The female crew was stationed below, near the stove. The other two were put on the bow, equipped with a two-part extendable boat hook and a rope. The first pass was a simple miss. On the second pass the eye on the mooring was hooked, but the boathook fell apart on trying to lift the mooring to tie on.

This initially led to some confusion until the guilt ridden boathook man raced to the stern and dived in after the lost piece. On hearing the splash and the shouting, the female crew, by now feeling dizzy from all the circling, came up on deck.

On the third attempt all was now in place, the shortest crew member, with the least hair, was now at the mooring, treading water. The most self assured crew was on the bow wearing red, heavy duty gardening gloves and the cook was standing by to assist. The 3rd approach was made, a line thrown from the bow and tied on by the man in the water and then made off on a cleat.

Perfect, French text book procedure and no one was even injured.  Hilarious.

April 2010. An email just received from Steve explained that his plans have changed and he is now starting the long trip back to Portugal. He is still sailing single handed, WE refers to Steve and his yacht Cheng Feng.

Once in Grenada, with the approach of the hurricane season ever at the front of the mind, I was left with a conundrum.  Having read and reread the cruising guide to the Windward Islands and various reports from friends and other cruisers on the Leewards as well, the question was this.
 
How to enjoy the Caribbean?

If I chose to head north up the Antilles chain, how to avoid all the hard, windward sailing constantly fighting the current between the islands, then repeatedly dealing with bunch in uniform on arrival, dealing with bunch in general, coping with overcrowded anchorages redolent of burning rubbish and reverberating with over amplified ‘soca’ or ‘dancehall’ music or over amplified fanatics at religious meetings, tolerating the French, paying Moscow prices for unhealthy food whilst avoiding the endemic theft and violent robbery in some places.  Of course, many people report having a great time in the Caribbean and return year after year, but they’re constantly splicing the main brace.  After the illness last year I was advised to strictly limit my alcohol intake, so I’ve stopped drinking altogether.

The answer for me then, was simple.

One peaceful day in March, in Carriacou, Grenada, after 30 mins. in the lotus position in the shade of a nearby ficus, with a copy of IMRAY chart 1 (Eastern Caribbean) open before me, I received enlightenment.  Lay off a course of 002 degrees magnetic, direct from Grenada to Sint Maarten and avoid the other islands altogether.

It was a 3 day passage, motoring the last 15 hours in light SE winds.  I again measured west going currents up to 3 knots but as we moved north, the direction became more north west and decreased.

Soufriere Hills, the erupting volcano on Montserrat was quiet as we passed 37nm in its lee, though a few days later there was a minor eruption.  The sky did have some odd, grey ripples of cloud as shown in the photograph above.  Earlier in the passage, I saw a very dramatic meteor burst into an orange fireball before burning itself out.  I think it must have been quite close or very big to appear in this way, rather than as the usual white or electric blue streak.  Anyway, I ducked.

The AIS and radar were very useful when passing the oil terminal at the west of St. Eustatius and on the approach to Simpson Bay, St. Maarten with ships leaving Philipsburg and crossing ahead.  It was also interesting to see which mega yachts were over in St. Barts and in Simpson Bay as we approached.  I anchored in the outer bay at 0250 amongst the large yachts, before moving closer to shore in the morning.  Over breakfast I had a close view of Fleurtje, the Dutch three masted staysail schooner.  Later in the week, she left under sail and unfurled her fishermen and headsails heading for St. Barts.  Great to see such boats being sailed so skillfully.

St. Maarten seems to attract mega yachts, I’m sure due to the attraction of the sheltered lagoon, though some are too big to fit through the entrance bridge even after widening.  The day after I arrived, Pelorus (115m) anchored off, after returning from St. Barts.  Her owner, the Governor of Chukotka, has several large yachts and another in build in Germany, Eclipse, reported to be 170m between fixed centres.  These possibilities simply didn’t exist in the Soviet Union.

I’m enjoying my stay here very much.  The weather has been good after the first night when the anchorage was choppy in the SE breeze, food ashore is very good, there are few tour(ror)ists in Simpson Bay and the chandleries and specialist marine stores are well stocked with all I need.  There are excellent supermarkets here where I’ll provision for the next passage with high quality fresh food.  The Simpson Bay area is replete with U.S. style ‘all you can eat’ restaurants and sports bars and casinos but these can be avoided with a choice of French run eateries.  Whatever you say about the French and most of what I say is negative, they do make delicious food.  Here, you have the added advantage that St. Maarten is English speaking   There appears to be the usual gamut of people from other islands, together with an expat community, mostly from the U.S. and Europe and many Chinese, who run supermarkets and restaurants.

Once you’ve stuffed yourself with food and drunk to excess at duty free prices you can move on to one of several strip joints around the town.

I have visited St. Maarten before, back in 2003 when working on a megayacht.  Shore excursions in those days were always awash with alcohol and usually resulted in a visit to the Seamen’s Mission.

The next passage will be to Flores in the Azores, perhaps via Bermuda and then on to Lisbon.  As most of the Antilles is not for me, I considered heading to Bonaire and on to Cartagena, Columbia and the San Blas Islands of Panama but aside from the ABC islands, six months of rain and thunderstorms didn’t appeal too much.  Fresh food is hard to find in the San Blas too.  I took the healthier option.

So, preparations are underway for the eastbound crossing, which requires a lot more thought than the westbound drift from the Canary Islands on which the weather doesn’t vary very much, in the season.  I find myself closely following the shift from spring to summer weather patterns at surface level and at the 500mb upper level.  I’ve installed an HF receiver for weather fax reception and to tune in to Herb Hilgenberg, the weather router in Ontario, so I can hopefully stay south of the depressions as they track across.   The backstay has always had insulators, so I might as well use the signals induced in it.  I get good reception from the NOAA NWS stations in New Orleans and in Boston.  Northwood is less clear, but should improve on the route.

At present I’m tending towards a great circle route rather than the classic Bermuda (or close to Bermuda), NE to 38 degrees north, then run down the latitude option, which carries more risk of severe weather and even ice, if driven north of 40 degrees.  The great circle route, if the Azores high sets up early and if it has light wind, risks long periods of motoring.  CHENG FENG is a motor sailor and now that the starboard fuel oil tank has finally responded to treatment this is not of great concern.  However, it all depends on how this year develops.  We're coming out of an El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) warm phase and a North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) negative index condition.  It remains to be seen if the emissions from the Icelandic event have an impact on Atlantic weather patterns but I hope it's too far north to cause large anomalous behaviour.  In the past the volcanoes near the equator have had the greatest long range effect such as Krakatau (1883) and Agung (1963) in Indonesia, Pinatubo (1991) in the Philippines, all of which lowered world temperatures significantly.

It’s interesting that the ARC attracts in excess of 200 boats per year but the ARC Europe route, which inexperienced yachtsmen could benefit much more from, has only 25 boats this year, departing Tortola on the 6th May for Bermuda.  I suppose many of the returning Europeans will have crossed Biscay in the autumn and perhaps transited the English Channel and have heavy weather experience with their yachts.

May 9th 2010 - The following email received today from Steve contains his thoughts about weather and his preparations for his departure from St Maarten on May 10th.

Anchored here in May in Sint Maarten, it’s easy to become preoccupied by the hurricane threat when, in fact, on the passage to the Azores in May/June, the greater risk of severe weather is from the depressions forming to the north and tracking east or north east.  They contain strong wind over much larger areas for longer periods, generating associated high sea states, than hurricanes which, though spectacular, are concentrated features.  As a European, I’m used to viewing these low pressure systems in their developed or dying phase as they reach the European coasts where they are more of a known quantity, but here they are just forming, so the predicted development and track is all important and the accuracy of the forecasts can make a large difference to the overall passage time and comfort.

I am receiving weather faxes from New Orleans and Boston which are very convenient as they include wind and swell forecasts and the positions of cold fronts and troughs where squalls and thunderstorm activity can be expected.

On the 1st May. I tuned to 12361 kHz upper sideband, on the HF receiver I fitted in Grenada and picked up Herb Hilgenberg from Ontario for the first time, giving routeing advice to ships at sea.  Most were being advised to stay south of 30 degrees north, to avoid a developing storm off Newfoundland and its northerly swell train.  One boat approaching the Azores already, was advised to slow down or divert to Madeira to avoid a developing gale in the Azores area, due to a low in a squeeze zone between a high over Bermuda and another blocking high to the west of Europe.  This sort of information will be invaluable on the crossing though Herb has rated the HF propagation ‘terrible‘ at the moment and he has been coming through rather weakly.  With a transceiver, ships call in to Herb who delivers a specific forecast in exchange for a location weather report which he uses to check and refine his forecasts.  Equipped only with only a receiver, you hope that another boat is in your area so you can use their forecast.  At this time of year there will be many boats making the crossing to the Azores, some via Bermuda.  Some use GRIB weather files via email which are very convenient for sailing yachts but these are computer generated from a single model.  Herb has access to eight different models from which, with his long experience, he makes his predictions with suggested waypoints and his wisdom is aimed at small boats rather than ships.

The hurricane season officially begins on June 1st though conditions are more favourable for development in the western Caribbean Sea in May/June.  The Caribbean sea surface is warmer than usual this year, which favours early development, but we are still in an ENSO warm phase which inhibits formation due to anomalous upper level westerlies and the Gulf of Mexico is colder than usual.  Any systems which do form and move over the Gulf should not develop too much over the colder water.  Generally, Cape Verde hurricanes start to develop in July when the Atlantic sea surface has warmed enough to sustain thunderstorm activity, associated with tropical waves coming off the west of Africa, long enough to allow organisation and surface rotation to begin.

I’m fortunate to have experience of an ocean crossing affected by a hurricane, Gustav, in 2002.  I was still young and reckless enough to volunteer as crew on the delivery of a cutter from Bermuda to Falmouth, in September, the statistical middle of the Atlantic hurricane season.  The boat had an electric propulsion drive which failed two miles from St. George’s Harbour.  It also had an INMARSAT mini M satellite communicator with which we received regular text forecasts by email from the owner in the U.K., unless there was a particularly tense morning in the cricket match then playing out.  In this way we avoided being run down by the centre of Gustav and were 360nm from its centre at the closest point of approach.  We experienced winds to 45 knots and impressively high seas, but that was all.

With the new wind generator repaired and producing power again, I provisioned yesterday and moved through the lifting bridge this morning, out of the lagoon, to the bay to be ready for an early departure tomorrow.  Though placid, the shallow waters of the lagoon produced rapid fouling of the prop. and shaft, so I dived and scraped it off.  Only a light covering of marine growth can drop propeller efficiency by 20% and with the possibility of long periods of motoring, we want the most efficient drive for greatest range.

The wind forecast is for easterly wind 10 kts, backing a little and increasing to 15 kts as a cold front approaches and passes to the north over the next three days.  There is high pressure in the central Atlantic and another high expected to form around Bermuda behind the cold front.  There are three tropical waves processing along the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), all presently south of 10N but with thunderstorms and signs of cyclonic flow, a precursor to storm formation, but no warnings have been issued.

Steve's passage from St Maarten to Bermuda

With the exception obviously of the first, the photographs below were taken by Steve as he bicycled round Bermuda on his folding bicycle. Martin.

I sit typing this, in the wheelhouse, on a pleasant Saturday afternoon, the sun drifting down to the horizon astern, CHENG FENG swinging gently to her anchor in St. George’s Harbour, Bermuda, the Sail Training Ship Roald Amundsen, three cables to the east, lending a touch of history to the scene.  It has been a very enjoyable week here after a blissful sail up from the Antilles.

Imagine, in mid-ocean, listening to the chirping of English Sparrows and breathing the clean, cool breeze, redolent of fragrant juniper and pine, eyes soothed by watercolour scenes of low, verdant hills, scattered with limewash roofed houses, with walls in pastel shades of pink and yellow and blue and green.  And the water is an indescribably beautiful, clear, green-blue, like a glacial lake, the result of sunlight reflected from the light grey bottom.  I like Bermuda.

Not even the discovery, on Wednesday p.m., of the port sliding wheelhouse window having shattered, can dampen my mood.  It was in bright sunlight all day and that seems to have caused  a thermal stress crack to start at one of the clamp holes.  Being toughened safety glass it has shattered like a windscreen.  It could have been a low flying Tarpon I suppose, but there are no scales on deck.  What great good fortune that it decided to let go here, in a safe anchorage.  How auspicious.  On Thursday morning, I selected, from one of four excellent glaziers in Hamilton, a 3/8” ‘Lexan’ polycarbonate material, tinted to match, which they are cutting to my template for Tuesday.  I’m replacing both sides and making the windows fixed.

I left you with the weather forecast prior to the passage from St. Maarten bound for Flores, Azores.  Having just reread my email I think the sense of mild apprehension bleeds through appropriately.  To give you a further sense of the moment, I put an extract from Psalm 107 up on my Facebook page just before departure;

 ‘They that go down to the Sea in Ships,  that do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.’

Having seen and felt some of His wonders before, I think the greater appeal for me now is to observe myself in the face of such wonders.  Not so much ‘Because it‘s there!’, as because I‘m there.

I don‘t think the antics of the four Swedish mermaids on Cantare were in mind during the composition of Psalm 107, but they are, nonetheless, wonderful.  (http://sailingcantare.blogspot.com/2010/05/friday-nights-entertainment-naked-swim.html)  If the thought of such wonders going on at sea, just to the north, couldn’t entice the lone yachtsman out of safe harbour, nothing could.  Incidentally, if anyone is planning an Atlantic cruise in an older boat of less than 10m l.o.a., they could hardly improve on the preparations of the skipper, Maria Ingerup and her father, detailed early in the weblog.  Exemplary.

Leaving St. Maarten in an easterly wind with a west going current it was first necessary to sail to the west of Anguilla and Dog I., but I was able to pass the low lying, Sombrero I. (U.K.) a good 7nm to windward, just after lunch.  Around this time the first of several, still unexplained incidents occurred which can only be due to the Bermuda Triangle effect.  Actually, the triangle is formed by Bermuda, Fort Lauderdale, Florida and Puerto Rico so we were sailing along the eastern side, rather than within the area but there was a clear influence.  The incident involved the spilling of half a bottle of Fairy liquid in the galley sink, which needed umpteen buckets of seawater to flush away, filling the galley with suds from sole to deckhead, in the process.

After clearing Sombrero I. there are no navigational hazards, apart from Bermuda, before Flores, but here the current started to make itself felt.  The latest UKHO chart 4013 ‘North Atlantic Western Part‘ (produced by the U.S. Defence Mapping Agency 1982 with later corrections) predicts the North Equatorial Current setting WNW at 0.5 kts.  An RCC Atlantic Crossing Guide from 1983 says, ’a current NW going of about ½ knot can be expected until within a hundred miles of Bermuda.’   I initially measured a SW set up to 1.8 kts before it turned more to S and eased to 1 knot.  By next morning with the wind also backing to NE and forecast to hold there or ENE, I logged that Bermuda looked likely as a first stop.  The current continued much stronger than expected and setting mostly to the west and against us for the rest of the passage but constantly changing, requiring frequent checks on heading to stay on track.  If I were writing a guide to this route I would describe the currents as being variable in rate and direction.

In the late afternoon the first day, as I set up for the night I found the AIS to have hung up with no transmission.  I tried the spare METZ vhf antenna on the spare cable but it still wouldn’t work.  The AIS uses the antenna on the mizzen mast so I tested that on the non-DSC vhf and found it O.K.  Several power resets did not wake up the AIS but finally, selecting ’silent mode’ and then deselecting it cleared the fault.  I find AIS excellent for its simplicity of use and its long range, being well over the radar horizon.  It’s common to receive data from ships at 100nm or more so you can be aware of developing close quarters situations hours ahead.  Now that I have a transponder, CHENG FENG should be on their bridge displays, which was a hit and miss affair with only a radar reflector.
  
The first morning brought the third odd incident when I found the fridge controller stopped.  This was disaster at such an early stage.  All the fresh food in peril on the second day.  Fortunately a power reset solved the problem

The first morning brought the second odd incident when I found the fridge controller stopped.  This was disaster at such an early stage.  All the fresh food in peril on the second day.  Fortunately a power reset solved the problem.

The second morning I ran the genset to boost the battery state of charge but had problems with cooling water flow.  I had to replace the impeller and clear out the lost blade tips from the heat exchanger.  After that I didn’t need to use it again for the rest of the passage.  The wind generator I fitted in Trinidad balances the power system well and when the wind fell calm later, the engine alternator supplied all the power we used.  Single-handing, I am a heavy consumer of power as I run the radar all night for collision avoidance and for tracking large squalls.

The third morning we left the tropics and the current was setting west at upto 2 kts.  I’d seen little sea life, no cetaceans, a few birds, terns and white tailed tropic birds, a few flying fish, but there was lots of the Sargasso weed for which this sea is famous.  I fished some out to examine it.  I found a small yellow crab and tiny shrimps but none of the camouflaged seahorses I was hoping to find.  I spotted my first Portuguese Man of War colony of organisms this day.  It’s hard to understand how the common name arose.  To me they look exactly like pink, translucent, inflatable Cornish pasties.  Groups of creatures floating around in symbiotic harmony, a bit like the European union.  Then the radar developed an odd problem, repeatedly resetting itself in transmit mode.  This was worrying as I rely on radar to back up the AIS data on shipping and alarm on other targets which may not have functional AIS.  However, after leaving it switched off for several hours and trying it again, it worked normally and has since.  It’s obviously a fault with the reset line being held active, so if it happens again I can tie it to the appropriate level.  I must admit I was feeling rather glad at first as I’ve been trying to justify replacing it with the new broadband radar SIMRAD have developed.  Power consumption is minimal and its target discrimination at close range is far superior to conventional fixed frequency radars of the same transmitted power.

Looking at the detailed navigation for Bermuda I noticed that the fairway buoy for St. George’s Harbour has my name on it, or at least my initials.  We both carry the designation SB.  So there was no way we could avoid a stop there even if we wanted to, which by now we didn’t.  I enjoyed my first visit in 2002 and was already becoming excited at arriving again in CHENG FENG and in such good weather too. 

Having spent a week here now I don’t know why I ever planned to avoid this beautiful place.  It is the classic ocean landfall in the North Atlantic and so  full of nautical history.  I’m also, conveniently, in the market for some new shorts.  Everyone I’ve met has been exceptionally friendly, genuine and helpful.  There are two slight problems; visitor’s visas last only three weeks and it is very expensive, though the first problem tends to ameliorate the second and the second problem keeps out the riff raff.  Which reminds me, I forgot to mention the low education problem child, modelling himself on Moitessier, with an Italian registered steel boat who, at St. George’s Grenada, shifted anchorage so his yacht was lying over my anchor in the prevailing easterlies.  The day before departure I rowed over to advise him I wanted to leave in the early morning, indicating my anchor position.   Having said he didn’t speak English he suddenly became a little verbose in pidgin and declared, ’Impossible!’ my statement of fact.  So I just threatened to, ‘See you in the morning.’  Fortunately for him, the wind was in the south that morning and his ship RC555D (no name on the hull) had swung clear, so I didn’t have to poke him in the ear with my bowsprit.

On the name front, the immigration officer in St. George’s mentioned that there is someone on the island with the same name as myself.  I remember the first time I entered Bermuda by air, immigration said the same thing, so he must be famous.  I suggested we may be related and she said, ‘No.  No, you wouldn’t be.’  By which, I take it, he must be black.  Incidentally, the combined immigration/customs unit in St. George’s has the most polite, courteous, friendly, helpful and efficient staff in the business.  Anywhere.  The harbour radio Zulu Bravo Romeo do a very professional job controlling the thousands of transiting yachts and the commercial shipping, keeping the two apart and off the reefs.  I began to receive them ‘loud and clear’ on vhf at 340nm range and they could receive my transmissions at 30nm when I checked in with them.  AIS reception was good at 20nm but not at 30nm.  It’s a bit surprising to hear them ask if you carry detailed charts for entry to the harbour, but I suppose some yachts turn up less well prepared.  Slocum after all, had no chart for the Antilles through no fault of his own.  The goat, a gift from St. Helena, ate it.

Aside from the technical glitches the sailing on the passage was fantastic in winds of 10-15 kts for the first five days, then falling calm for 24 hours before increasing to 10kts on the last day.  There was some close hauled work but the course was mostly a comfortable close reach and I chose to continue to motor the last day as, with a backing wind, we could no longer lay the course and I wanted to make port and enjoy Bermuda to the full before a forecast cold front brought rain to the islands.  CHENG FENG being a motor sailor, there was no need to self flagellate for motoring in a sailable breeze.  Plenty of time for that  later, at the Bermudan fuel pump.  I received daily weather faxes from New Orleans taking out all the guesswork and anxiety and making planning worthwhile.  As we were heading north the temperature fell quickly to a comfortable level but started to feel very cool in the early morning.  Another advantage of a sojourn in Bermuda is the chance to acclimatise before the passage to the Azores which can be cold.

In the early hours of Saturday the 15th, with the wind falling calm, CHENG FENG drifting NW at 2 kts, a pod of stealth dolphins came around briefly.  They were the only dolphins I saw and they were either half asleep or up to no good.  A few breathing bursts was all we had out of them.

Most of Saturday was spent with the yankee on deck repairing the UV strip where it had started to peel away near the clew.  I had managed to repair it temporarily whilst set close hauled, by smearing the material with contact adhesive.  I was impressed how effective this was given the salt spray flying around and the temperature which flashed the solvent off very fast.  I put new telltales on whilst I was about the job.

The sea fell to an oily calm which I find a bit eerie offshore, it seems unnatural, giving me a feeling  something massive is just about to happen.

There was a lot of crossing ship traffic as we neared 30 degrees north and beyond.  I saw several sailing yachts, most heading for Bermuda.  In the lighter winds, as one or two of them overtook us, I did think, ‘Oh, to be lightly displaced now that spring is here’, but only momentarily.  Listening to Herb Hilgenberg routeing yachts across to the Azores it was abundantly clear that spring has its gales as well as its fair weather and then, as with anchors, there’s no substitute for weight.  There is a school of thought that light displacement is better, even in heavy weather, due to the extra speed and manoeuvrability but this only applies  with a full crew of tireless, crack helmsmen who can see in the dark.

I was unlucky to get stuck in a queue for the customs dock so had to wait under engine for two hours, as anchoring before clearance is not allowed.  This was frustrating, so when the chance came, I was a bit hasty and chose to motor across the powerful jet wash from a small catamaran fast ferry at its dock, rather than wait for it to leave.  The ferries hold themselves bows-to the wall with their engines at high r.p.m. creating a river of surface water.  Anyway no problem and it did allow me to stay in front of a large Spanish cutter crewed by impatient, unruly Spaniards who had already tested the patience of the authorities and were anchored in the ferry channel prior to clearance, to the disbelief of the duty officer ZBR.  In countries where officials are open to ‘gratuities’, people tend to lose respect for those officials, especially if they are merely nouveau riche who’ve stolen their money in a recent construction boom.  As I approached the dock they were shouting to me and whistling to attract my attention but, alas, 'Yo, no soy perro, Espanoles'.

Today we have a non-frontal low pressure system developing to the north of the Bahamas which together with high pressure to the NE is bringing fresh to strong easterly winds and rain to Bermuda for the next few days but today, which is Sunday, is another beautiful, bright morning.  It’s a long weekend, being Bermuda day on Monday but the weather won’t be good for boating.  Everyone has a boat in Bermuda.  Still it is only May.  The whole of summer is still to come.

Steve's passage from Bermuda to the Azores

So, on the 2nd June, after eighteen days in Bermuda it was time to put to sea again, bound for Flores in the Azores.  It was an emotional departure, leaving that special group of islands under blue skies and light winds after a very pleasant sojourn.  For me, when a front clears and high pressure dominates the region, Bermuda floats sublime on a turquoise plane in her own, singular, opalescent loveliness.  I would miss her.  We were now returning to Europe with thoughts of old friends and the meetings to come lifting the mood, but still with the central North Atlantic Ocean to cross.  Alone.

The weather pattern at the end of May and early June was characterised by a continuous, rapid fire, set of depressions moving off the eastern seaboard of the United States, almost one per day  and tracking at relatively low latitudes to the east.  The Azores High had become a huge feature, filling the Atlantic from Bermuda to the west coast of Portugal.  A surprise for me, despite much research, was the presence of low pressure troughs forming in the 20’s latitudes in mid ocean, moving slowly west and capable of producing significant weather, such as the gale which developed between the Bahamas and Bermuda a week after we made the islands.  This system was given a 30% chance of becoming a tropical depression at one stage, by the U.S. Navy forecasters.  Another trough developed to the south of our position, early during the passage to Flores, moving north, west of the north-south oriented 5640m contour and threatened strong winds, but we were able to power off ahead of it and stay in moderate conditions.

I was able to receive forecasts and advice to other yachts, from Herb Hilgenberg in Ontario, on 12359kHz USB, despite the continuing very weak hf radio propagation, due to low sun spot activity.  Weatherfax transmissions  from NWS/NCEP Boston provided the surface and 500mb level analyses and forecasts so the overall situation was clear.

I chose to head east from Bermuda along 33 degrees north, for the first three days, to avoid strong winds and heavy sea states associated with fronts from the systems tracking through the 40’s latitudes.  Winds were light initially and we motored for ninety minutes on the second day to maintain progress.  By the fourth day, a waypoint of 34N, 55W was the aim and by 8th June we were up at 35N with strong winds north of 36N.  Then, due to an approaching front over the next few days, the course was adjusted to meet 34N at 44W.  The Azores high contracted and ridged in a SW-NE orientation as we continued along its western side, remaining in a fairly constant pressure gradient.  On the 12th June, near to 35N 40W we bore away for Flores and on the 14th June we were making up to 8.2 knots over the ground, our fastest speeds of the passage.  Landfall occurred at 1723 on the 16th June as the cliffs on the NW coast appeared under a bank of cloud.  We hove to off the SW tip of Flores for two hours and then motored into Lajes das Flores and found an anchorage in the very crowded harbour, in a spot selected for its relatively low swell.

We covered 1824nm over the ground and the passage time was under fifteen days.  Winds varied between 5 and 20 knots and the weather was mostly fine, high pressure sailing.  I was pleased but not surprised, to experience favourable currents for most of the passage, where the pilot charts would suggest the contrary.  Averages taken over 200 years of observations are of no interest to the passage maker, the important data being the present and near future conditions in the water ahead which does not follow the patterns of the long term average.  I made the passage in moderate conditions to avoid wear and tear on the boat and her equipment.  Many others, I know, are still sold on the sailing ship routes up to and along 40 degrees north, with their strong winds and sea states, often necessitating heaving to, the use of drogues and trailing warps, followed by light conditions with heavy swell, making progress slow.  I, am not.

Steve's arrival in the Azores and his account of his two month stay in those islands

We arrived at Flores in overcast conditions and though the cliffs of the west coast looked dramatic and there was the promise of some good walking through the clouds, I still thought I would stay maybe a week before moving on to the other islands.  In the end, I spent two of the very best months of the five years I’ve been cruising CHENG FENG, there.

In mid June, the small harbour at Lajes was packed with twenty four yachts, most anchored, others on the wall.  I chose a spot in the SW corner as a cold front was due and there is little protection from the ocean swell.  The next morning, I was awoken by a knock on the hull from the pilot and was surprised to see a large interisland ferry berthed on the wall, very close to CHENG FENG.  He told me he needed more space so I prepared to re-anchor further out.  I thought it kind (not to mention an act of masterly seamanship) of the pilot to berth the ferry first, in darkness and then wake me, as I was tired after the passage.  Visitors are made exceptionally welcome in Flores.

Due to a series of cold fronts, the depths and the overcrowding, I had to re-anchor many times in the first few weeks as the wind shifted, to maintain sufficient scope and avoid collisions.  Most of the other yachts were French and most of them Bretons.  The majority were out of the Caribbean.

As the fronts passed, there was always a 180 degree shift from SW to NE, putting the yachts on a rocky lee shore and allowing the chop to set them pitching, but the wind always decreased and encouraged exploration of the island, under blue skies.  The clear conditions and bright sunlight makes Flores just glow, in a million shades of green.

The situation attracts heavy rainfall and the volcanic fertility of the soil allows the prolific growth of any seed.  Most of the foliage is of alien origin but none seems to have the tenacity to oust all other species, so the hillsides are covered with infinite variety, in green.  A notable feature is the incredibly lush, dense growth of plants, even trees, on near vertical cliffs.  At the Poco da Alagoinha, near the village of Fazazinha, there are a dozen waterfalls, moving, silvery white streaks against the deep, green backcloth, filling the dark pool at the base of the cliff, itself a mass of aquatic vegetation.  Terns dart around like big, white swallows.  Quite magical.  Hundreds of species of mosses soak up the moisture, particularly in the higher elevations, where there’s often a cover of low cloud.  They hang in great, sagging, light green carpets over cuttings made for the roads.  Of course the Azores are famous for the hydrangeas, grown on top of the stonewalls, dividing the small pastures.  My first hikes were made as the blue flowers were just starting to bloom but, by July, they had practically exploded into colour.

Into July, the Azores high dominated the weather with fewer fronts to worry about, but I kept a very close eye on the situation.  In easterlies, which occurred later, in August, Lajes is not a comfortable anchorage at all.  Even in light to moderate northerlies after a frontal passage, the chop makes itself felt.  In such a case, I tried the anchorage in the Baia de Ribeira da Cruz, 2.5nm to the north and found a wonderful natural harbour with terrific volcanic scenery and a beautiful gorge cut by the ribeira as it flows down to the ocean in the centre of the bay.  This bay was recognised in the early nineteenth century as the best anchorage in Flores, partly due to the abundant fresh water from the river.  I often packed a lunch and waded up the stream to the powerful fall in its cylindrical chamber, about 0.5km inland.  There were small trout in the stream and eels and I saw a muscovy drake living there, an escapee to paradise.  There are so few visitors to Flores that it feels like discovering a new island and lying in the sun with the roar of the falls filling the chamber with sound was intensely meditational.

I found choice lapas on the rocks of the Faja de Pedro Viera, grateful for the wetsuit boots I wore, as I spotted an inquisitive moray eel at my left foot once.  I also caught a lovely pargo from the boat which made three nutritious dishes of sashimi.  As I hauled him out, the rest of his shoal followed him right up to the surface, but they were wise to the Rapala lure by then.  Rowing to explore the Ponta da Fora one evening, I saw a shoal of about fifty blue finned trigger fish who came up to inspect the boat and they stayed a while, swimming with their rippling fins, top and bottom.  Unusual behaviour for fish.  The Ponta is a spectacular feature, a thin ridge formed between two collapsed caldeiras on the rim of a much larger one, riven by multiple, bright red strata and with lava tubes at sea level and above, making for some great shots of CHENG FENG at anchor, framed by rock.  I used a  shallow cave on the beach to the south, the so-called Porto da Lomba, to have the last of the oolong cha a friend brought out from Taiwan some years ago.  What a spectacular setting for tea that was.  The ocean surge on the rough beach, the incredible cliff of the Ponta overhanging, to the south the black cliffs and forested slopes above, a fire made with dry reeds from China and even a fine mist falling to turn the scene into an authentic Chinese scroll painting.  I suppose the chap with the long white beard was missing as, of course, was the snow leopard.

For solitude, that bay is the place to go but I found the harbour at Lajes a happy, sociable place to spend most of my time.  Flores attracts the sort of cruisers who attract me.  There is a small marina in completion but this is for the inshore fishing boats and local pleasure craft, for the summer only.  Presently, they haul out the boats at night to save damage due to unexpected swell.  So, it’s an anchorage, and challenging at times.  Those who stayed for a while were long term cruisers with decades of experience behind them.  An interesting ship 'Phoenicia' turned up one day in Lajes, a mere 84 days out of Ascension.  She is a replica of a ship thought to have circumnavigated Africa under the orders of an Egyptian pharoah, 2.5 thousand years ago.  They have a website www.phoenicia.org.  They reported having an entourage of tuna for thousands of miles, so many that they excited the bioluminescence and gave the impression of underwater lighting.  Then, just as they arrived near Flores the huge shoal vanished in one night.Lajes is a small village with few facilities but Paula of Paula’s Place attends to all the usual requirements from her kiosk café base at the harbour.  This is the obvious meeting point and many a pleasant hour was whiled away here,  swapping stories with new friends.  I remember the first conversation, with four young Swedes I’d seen in Bermuda.  They had a very long and rough passage, though they stayed below 36 degrees North, with sail damage, knockdowns and much practice with drogues and trailing warps from their 28 foot boat.  I was feeling even more smug with my own passage which, I felt, was planned, prepared and executed with such singular perfection that it will ever stand supreme in the annals of single handed sailing.  Of course, I was just lucky, just as I was to leave the Azores before the sudden late August storm, which was an exaggeration of the weather I feared was about to happen.

The bay at Faja Grande, on the west coast of Flores must have been an impressive sight during the storm, completely open as it is to wind and swell from north through west to south.  However, when the easterlies set up and Lajes became uncomfortable, I sailed around there to check it out.  I was the first there and though a bit rolly the first night, I awoke to the spectacular view of the line of cliffs stretching inland and the deep cleft cut by the falls to the Poco do Bacalhau.  The white church at Ponta da Faja has been perfectly sited to catch the sun as it comes over the cliff edge in the morning and on a cloudy day, when it sits in a pool of sunlight, it captures the attention.  Viewed from the coastal path, it is surrounded by the rich green fields on the fertile plateau before the steep seacliff.  The surge broke brilliant white in the sun over the black aa lava flow, from 2,900 years ago, which forms the only line of defence for the village from the westerly weather.  A cattle farmer told me that they run short of pasture for their herds in winter as, despite heavy rainfall, there is so much salt spray over the fields that the grass dies.  The three main walks on Flores start or end in Faja Grande so I was keen to anchor there and take full advantage of this fact.  The first morning, a Sunday, dawned bright and clear, perfect for the cliff walk to the NW tip where the Farol de Albernaz is situated.  This was established in 1924 and still has the original glass lens and bearing arrangement built in Paris by Barbier Benard & Turenne.  The lamp is electric now, as is the drive.  The duty keeper gave me a thorough tour of the equipment which was good of him.  All I had to do was sign the visitor’s book.

Before ‘heading west’ I had bought a mountain bike to solve the transport issue and see more of the island and to get into good physical condition again, after the serious illness I suffered last year.  To collect it from Paula’s safe keeping, I trotted the 20km up and down the coastal path from Faja Grande carrying a repaired inverter for a cruiser still anchored in Lajes.  Lightly laden I made it in 3.5 hours.  I cycled back in 1.5hrs and the route is a special one, passing the huge wall of basalt columns forming the Rocha dos Bordoes, now beset with hydrangeas and with a panoramic view of the falls into the Poco da Alagoinha before the 3km downhill rush into Faja Grande.  I miss the old bike, but I may see it again because I donated it to Caesar on Mollymawk, as I thought he was staying a while on Flores.  Now he and the bike are back on Mollymawk (www.mollymawk.com) and heading for Cape Horn.  The multi-talented,  inspirational family that crew Mollymawk were the best friends I made in Flores.  I look forward to meeting them again, at points south.

I met other interesting people living in Flores.  Boring people don’t go to Flores.  Some I met at the regular Sunday ‘sopas’ which are soup kitchens organised by the Espiritu Santo in each village.  Everyone is welcome to enjoy a soup with bread and beef or fish, if it’s a fish soup, with wine or soft drink and water with nothing expected other than to turn up with a healthy appetite.  Obviously the cruising set were there, first in the queue, but many locals too and it makes for a very jolly, social experience.  Others I met at the festas of which there are many in the summer.  The largest on Flores is the Festa dos Emigrantes when many emigrants return to the island or to their parents’ island to visit family and enjoy the giant ‘sopa’ complete with brass band, which I think was there primarily to prevent a stampede amongst the queue for the second sitting.  The evening activities and musical performances tended to be washed out, though, by the showers which green Flores doesn’t want for.

There are people, though, who are looking for solitude, a place to heal their souls and a glance at a chart will show how good a choice Flores is for that.  The population too, is sparse, so it’s easy to find a secluded corner of this isolated dot in mid ocean and be alone.  Totally alone, if that’s what you need, for a while.  With such fertile soils and climate, subsistence is readily achieved if you can live through the wild, wet winter.  Good luck to them and to their souls.

All great things must come to an end and thus did my first visit to Flores, when I decided I needed to move on, bag the summit of Pico Alto for the record, make a pit stop in Terceira and then sail over to Lisbon where I hoped to meet a friend who lives in Barreiro.  I motored in a calm for 22 hours to Madalena do Pico anchoring in the restricted harbour, worried about swinging onto the rocks, as usual in the Azores.  I caught a 75cm female dorado on the passage, a first for CHENG FENG and a delicious one at that.  More sashimi, naturally and the head and some pieces made a delicious soup.  The remainder I gave to some new friends I met on the mountain, from Lisbon.  They had left their daughters on Faial, where they were camping, so as to avoid dragging feet on the climb.  Sensible women, very fit and good climbing company for me.  One of them has climbed Aconcagua in the past, compared to which, Pico Alto isn’t a mountain.

So, after the briefest of visits, two nights in Madalena, the second being uncomfortable in a cross chop, I departed early for Terceira.  An approaching cold front brought fresh SW breeze in the Canal de Faial but in the Canal de Sao Jorge, which is 10nm miles wide, we lost the wind almost completely till we motored out of the lee of Pico when it blasted back again.  I find this amazing, that 20 knots of surface wind upwind of Pico lifts over 10 nm of water and goes over the top of Sao Jorge before touching down again.  We made Praia da Vitoria just at sunset and anchored out, near the marina.  This is a very accommodating and reasonably priced marina.  To celebrate my departure the town held a bull run, near to the cemetery, though the likelihood of anyone ending up in it due to the bulls seemed minimal.  With the animals tethered and held by a gang of men the fearless bullfighter with his red and white golf umbrella, wouldn’t engender much respect at Pamplona.  A boring spectacle really leaving a feeling of irreverence shown to the animals.

With the high centre to the NE, Flores came under light easterly flows on Friday last, so I took the opportunity to move around to the anchorage at Fajan Grande on the west coast, reportedly the westermost anchorage in Europe, and what a place to be it is.  A glance at the photos will explain what I mean.

There's a cliff walk from here to the lighthouse at Ponta de Albernaz which I did on Sunday morning.  The superlatives fail me.  I've been wanting to do this walk for ages but transport to/from Fajan Grande is not easy, reliant on hitchhiking which can fail as there's so very little traffic on the roads, leaving you with a 5 hour hike home.

I had the anchorage to myself on Saturday night but a French sloop anchored on Sunday.  I spoke with her owner and found that he keeps his boat 'Sven', in Vila Real de S.A. in the winter, so he can ski.

Yesterday I was delighted to see the ketch 'Mollymawk' sailing in from Corvo.  Having met them at the Festa das Inmigrantes over in Lajes a few weeks ago, I was invited over last night and spent a fascinating evening with some quite significant people.  You should check out their brilliant website (www.yachtmollymawk.com), managed by Caesar, the 19 year old son in the family and full of beautiful photographs by Jill.  The kids are all over acheivers and blessed with no formal school education, pick up A levels like collecting daisies.  Xoe (17) is particularly accomplished, having 5 A levels from the age of 16!  Her younger sister, Roxanne, had a book published on her studies of a seabird colony, written when she was 10!

Jill has published several books on their life and on home schooling.

Flores is still great.  I'm still anchored in Fajan Grande, which I'm enjoying even more than the stay in Lajes.  I may take the opportunity of light winds over the next two days to visit Corvo.  A party of mostly Spanish campers has arrived here, three of which were happy to accompany me on an afternoon sail yesterday, which was very enjoyable and I was treated to dinner by them afterwards, before the restauranteur took us to yet another festa in Santa Cruz, till the early hours of this morning.

I had initially planned to stay in Flores till the end of August but I decided to move on in mid-month so as to fulfil a long term ambition to climb Pico Alto and arrive in continental Portugal in early September and thus reach the Canary Islands by October.  I’m glad I made this decision.

Just before leaving the Azores, bound for Portugal, I discussed plans with a young Canadian couple in Praia da Vitoria, Terceira.  We talked about the seasonal conditions in the Azores and I advised them not to leave it too late to leave.

Steve's account of his passage from the Azores to Lisbon

I departed on the 23rd Aug and enjoyed unusual, fresh SW breezes for the first three days of the passage.  The Azores high pressure system did not firmly establish itself this year and by mid August it was breaking up into separate high centres, allowing cold fronts to push down over the islands.  The small High centre to the north of the central island group created the easterly winds which made the west coast of Flores more attractive during the early half of August.  When I departed the Azores, the high had ridged on a NE/SW axis and moved to the SE, close to Portugal.  The islands were thus vulnerable to depressions forming in mid-Atlantic.  This worried me in itself and with hurricane Danielle developing and another tropical system close on her heels, the possibility existed for the storms to be tracked through the central Atlantic and so, with the wind in the SW there seemed no reason for delay.  It was, ‘Time to get the hell out of Dodge.’  The first days of the passage were affected by a cold front with showers and gusty winds to 25 knots and rough conditions, but made for good progress.  As before on the Bermuda departure, we were on the west side of the high pressure and we sailed into blue skies and more comfortable conditions, once the frontal boundary cleared us.  I was rudely awoken once, in the early hours, by a squall with winds of gale force, in the boundary.  Victor X-ray Alpha (the Hydrovane) was able to hold the course in those winds, after I had reefed, which I‘m pleased about.

From a weatherfax forecast issued by the U.S. NWS Boston on the  24th Aug I became aware of the dangerous events developing along the 40W longitude.  Two weak low pressure systems were moving towards each other and expected to merge N of the Azores.  One was moving down very rapidly from the south of Greenland, carrying a pool of cold air and the other moving across from the 30s latitudes, relatively warmer and more humid.  They did merge and intensified, in just 24 hours, to a powerful storm system which remained stationary just to the N of the western islands of Flores and Corvo for several days.  Significant wave heights of  7 metres were produced in two regions of the storm.  This term refers to the average height of the highest one third of the waves.  Individual waves can be much larger.  When a system deepens by at least 24mb in 24hrs it is termed a ‘rapidly intensifying depression.’   The old forecasters’ term was more succinct and much more descriptive.  Just one word.  Bomb.  This usually happens in February in the NW Atlantic, when a slug of cold, dry air drives under a warm, moist airmass from the tropics which, coupled with divergence at the upper level, leads to explosive venting at the surface and a precipitous fall in system central pressure.  Winds of 65 knots or more regularly result.  The event described was forecast on the 26th, by the UK fleet meteorologists in Northwood, to deepen 21mb in 24hrs and by 18 zulu on the 27th, the central pressure was still 16mb down from 30 hrs prior.  A very strong system for August.  Friends on yachts still in the Azores were much in my thoughts.

I was fortunate that the system remained stationary and my passage was not affected, except perhaps by swell trains which made downwind sailing less efficient in moderate N and NNW winds later, near to Portugal.

After the first 3 days we entered the ridge of high pressure and I chose to motor for 40 hours to maintain progress and hopefully stay clear of the storm raging just to the west.  Then another ridge pushed down from a high system SW of Ireland, bringing northerly flows over the area close to the Portuguese coast.  I was able to sail across most of the intense shipping south of the Off Cabo Raso TSS, until I became squeezed between two approaching northbound vessels when I slowed down for one, then used the engine to motor clear of the other.  I felt the need to use the masthead xenon strobe to increase our chances of being seen.  Suddenly becoming a north cardinal ought to wake up any dozing deck officer.  I couldn’t use vhf ch16 as it’s so heavily trafficked in that area.  There’s also, still, a dangerous, unresolved problem in this area with Indonesians, presumably fishermen, abusing ch16 to an unbelievable degree, to amuse their tiny, childlike brains.  They broadcast music, make animal noises, emit profanity in signs of sexual frustration and constantly chant the same, idiotic, racist remarks directed at Filipino deck officers, whom they are clearly conditioned to disrespect but envy, leading to their cowardly behaviour.  When told to shut up or change channel they are all the more encouraged, like children.  I believe they could be position fixed from their vhf transmissions and eradicated.  It will, I fear, take at least one major incident, caused by the lack of availability of ch16, to bring this about.  I could have tried vhf DSC individual calls to the threat ships but this takes a little time and a previous call to a car carrier, Hyundai NO202, went unacknowledged.  In the poor visibility, at night, due to a low mist, much use was made of AIS and radar to avoid serious gelcoat damage.  Then, as we approached Cabo Raso, before sunrise, we entered a bank of thick fog with winds of 20 knots accelerated by the cape, blowing over a contrary current.  I was glad to be transmitting AIS data to the surrounding ships but it was still very unpleasant, tired as I was after a long night, to be motoring cautiously into the blinding murk.  Just as it seemed that we could approach Cascais without incident, a fast container ship left the Rio Tejo at 15 knots headed for the TSS, tracking just to the north of our track.  The AIS and the radar, allowed me to stay close to another ship on a parallel course, which I never saw, to remain clear of the fast ship on its reciprocal heading.  Once it was clear I threw caution to the wind and motored hard for the coast to avoid any more blind, close quarters situations.  All the while I was thinking, ‘Why have I come to Portugal now, the season is clearly over for this year.’  Given the principle reason for my landfall at Lisbon, it seemed a portent of doom.  However, as the sun rose and as we came under the lee of the cape and Cascais, the fog cleared, the wind fell calm, land appeared and all was well again.   I could still see the low bank of fog ripping past, out to sea, astern.

25 days anchored in the Rio Tejo

Then it was over to Estoril to anchor for a couple of hours and sleep, awaiting the tide and on up the Rio Tejo to find a blissful, calm anchorage and settle in for a while.

After twenty five days in the Rio Tejo, anchored at Seixal and Barreiro and at the Tagus Yacht Center in Amora I sailed down to the Algarve and anchored at Ferragudo.  We were making 8 kts over the ground as we passed under the Ponte 25 de Abril with 25kts of wind against us, such was the power of the ebb.  Once outside the strait the wind fell away to less than 10kts and we enjoyed a very pleasant hour of sailing as the sun set in a dramatic, vermillion display.  Most of the rest of the passage was made under engine but we did manage to sail again for four hours in a light breeze between Sines and Cabo de Sao Vicente.  It's probably only the second time CHENG FENG has rounded the cape and the first under her present name.

The time passed swiftly in the Tejo, spending much interesting time with an old friend and making some new ones.  The weather was blissful for anchoring, though I think the day we had a westerly wind over the flood in the tidal channels of Seixal led to the loss of the galvanising on the chain on the abrasive old oyster beds.  This area is much like the Ria Formosa estuary with shallow clam beds and strong streams.  One night, at equinoctial springs, I found myself rowing through a field of LED headlamps as the local clam men took advantage of the lowest tides, to rake the river channels in water up to their necks.  Amateurs were also out in force on the praia fluvial near the ferry terminal but they were limited to 2kg each.  The clams are huge black golf balls but I didn't see any in the local markets.  Given the open sewage outfalls I wouldn't be interested anyway.

The two week stay at the Tagus Yacht Center was disappointing.  They didn't appear at all busy but were unable to complete a very small welding repair on the bowsprit despite, perhaps because of, boundless optimism.  I did have an exhaust component modified, at least, though a second modification didn't work and had to be sawn off again.  The dock there is very shallow.  On the lowest tides we had only 1.2m of water but the mud is so soft we sank into it without heeling.  I was surprised when paying the bill to learn that the dock carries a berthing charge, though this was waived in my case.  A very good thing it was.

The Portuguese Communist Party staged the giant 3 day Festa de Avante to coincide with my stay.  The waterside park in Amora was used for the event, which featured lots of live music on large and small stages and regional foods from all over Portugal, as well as from participating countries' parties.  There was a typically Portuguese crowd of all ages, everyone enjoying themselves with not the least sign of trouble and without any police or security presence.

Now we await a fair breeze for the Canaries.

October 2nd 2010

Well, we're still in Portimao, partly as my laptop started playing up on Saturday, presumably as it was my birthday and it decided I needed a new one.  I'm fairly sure it's the display cable which is at fault but I wanted a spare in case I'm not able to repair it.  Partially disassembling the machine I can see the cable is buried deep and needs a full strip even to access it.

So this week was spent finding a replacement, installing and downloading all the software and updates and then hitting the Windows 7 compatibilty problems with software and hardware.  These are still not fully resolved, but I do have a backup AIS display again if this laptop fails completely.  Also, I haven't really felt like going this week due to this lingering food bug or whatever it was.  Today I'm starting to feel right again.  There was also a tropical depression tracking north just to the west of the Canaries, early this week, so it was worth waiting to see what happened with that one.

Now we have a front forecast to affect the Algarve Sunday and Monday with light conditions behind it, so it's not worth leaving till mid-week and even then it will be a lot of motoring.

The pilot moved me this morning from Ferragudo so he could put the cruiseship Empress on her berth.  If he really needed all that room he wouldn't make the grade for an Azorean pilot.  The others have had no trouble this week with two cruiseships and a general cargo vessel.

Thursday I was given a demonstration of how to anchor for lunch, at Sueste, by an American family in a Sunseeker called Shilo, very proudly registered in Arizona.  Not a second was wasted between laying the anchor and stepping off the swim platform onto the Sueste ferry.  The personification of panache.  The departure was equally stylish, initially.  The captain stepped onto Shilo, went briskly to the controls, fired her engines and with a deft thumb on the windlass switch, weighed anchor.  It seemed he would ram the small fishing boat 'Vera', but no matter, he would be away out to sea soon and the family were busy with other activities.  Up came the anchor and an old mooring cable with it, hidden from the captain, at this stage.  After some frantic struggling and the reassignment of the wife at the helm, the captain, by now not looking quite so cool, went forward to attempt to free her.  He failed and in the end was rescued by the Sueste people.  Utter humiliation after such a display of supreme over-confidence.

Gave me a laugh.

October 23rd 2010

I decided, on Thursday afternoon to sail over to Lagos to anchor, just as the easterly swell was building.  I anchored close in and rowed over to Bahia, the beach restaurant on Meia Praia, for a fish soup.  Getting out through the surf at low water was a bit frantic but fortunately dry.  I then tried a spot in deeper water but the motion was so bad, I weighed and berthed on the reception pontoon at the marina.  I was planning to fill up with water there anyway and the gas ran out the following day, before breakfast was done, so it made that job easier.  This nationalistic obsession countries have with designing valves for gas cylinders usually means I buy a new cylinder every time the old one is empty.  I´ve been through Swedish, Portuguese, Canarian (different to Spanish, I´m told) and Grenadian and now I´m back on Portuguese again.

Whilst plugging local eateries, I must mention the small restaurant, Unicornio, in central Portimao on Rua Direita.  I usually eat lunch ashore when in port and though the fish is always good, I get bored with the Portuguese restaurant formula and the lack of vegetables offered.  At Unicornio, ´cozinha creativa´ is their motto and it´s no exageration to say that the six most creative, most delicious and certainly the most nutricious and healthy meals I´ve had in Portugal over the years, have been the menu lunches I had there this month.  They take particular care with the selection of ingredients, as the freshness and flavours of the vegetables show.  Service is excellent and the ambience, with a partly open plan kitchen, is relaxed, cool and airy.  I see they are now serving dinners on Fridays and Saturdays.

I´m just downloading the latest GRIB file for the passage.  It looks as it did some days ago with the weak low to the SW filling and the Azores high finally returning to station after weeks in the north.  Expect NNE 15/20 knots so hopefully an easy 4 day run and going lighter near Isla Graciosa, the next port.  There is a marina there but the anchorage is very good in northerlies, though is now controlled as a nature reserve.

After a few days there, I´ll go to Santa Cruz de Tenerife, briefly.  Then probably Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to see Mollymawk if they´re still there and to sift the hopeful on the noticeboards for a cook.

October 30th 2010

We´re in Las Palmas now after an unfortunately brief stop at Isla Graciosa, where I enjoyed 3 weeks in late 2007. 

The passage went well, though the wind was dead astern the whole way, so we gybed our way south.  I had to motor for 3.5 hrs to clear the Algarve coastal calm, before picking up the NNE breeze, which then quickly built to 20 kts.  The 5 day forecast was correct when 4 days later, it eased to 10kts, so we motored into Graciosa.

Shipping traffic was heavy in the off Cape St. Vincent TSS which we cleared 5nm to the east.  Once again the AIS system was invaluable.  For me, this system is as great a contribution to safety, as the introduction of the GPS, on which it is based, was.  Modern small craft radar with a mini ARPA module, gives some of the same information such as cpa and tcpa, but radar requires tuning for the sea state and precipitation conditions and greater interpretation of the picture on the part of the user.

At Graciosa I hoped to berth on the pontoon off the east bkwtr and apply to anchor at Playa Francesa, per the new procedure, but I could see the anchorage was packed with boats and the pontoon was filled with ferries and other craft, so I put CHENG FENG on an upwind berth on one of the yacht pontoons.  The security guard assisted and then told me to leave, as I didn´t have a reservation.  He checked with the Harbour Master about a one night stay but when he arrived on the scene, he confirmed the harbour full.  So after a welcome coffee from a singlehander on another boat, I left without setting foot ashore and anchored at Playa Francesa with about 30 other boats.  Before sunrise I woke with a building 20 knot wind from over the cliffs on Lanzarote and the sound of a yacht engine motoring past.  The narrow Estrecho del Rio between the islands and the height of the cliffs, accelerates the wind, sometimes well over gale force.  I set about leaving, but not before a large aluminium motor yacht astern, which managed to weigh before we moved forward.  Worried about panic setting in amongst the others, I got back most of the cable and motored into the channel to stow the anchor for sea.  So then we headed for Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in the fair breeze, but this died in the Jandia channel and we had to motor overnight.  I heard the SE wind reached Gran Canaria for a few hours.  I believe it due to a relative low pressure over the Canaries bending the isobars around them.

There was more heavy shipping traffic at the port, both inbound and outbound and at least three other yachts inbound, so I got little sleep that night.

I hear there´s a very good music festival, WOMAD, coming up soon, so I will stay here for that before moving on, probably to Gomera.

Steve has now  completed his single handed Atlantic circuit, congratulations Steve and thank you for such an interesting report. Steve is now on his way from the Canaries to Brazil. To keep up to date with Steve's onward cruising click here.