Grenada to St Lucia - stops along the way.

Grenada onwards

Nearly a full days sailing and some motoring got us to Carriacou Island. Tyrell Bay was full of boats but we found a spot for the first night only as we got moved on by the boat behind us as they needed to get their anchor up. We took a local bus around to Hillsborough Bay and had lunch at a cute little café hanging over the beach. Pete wanted to get a haircut and we were told that “Roger’s” at the markets was the place to go. It was a basically a large packing crate on concrete blocks but we went in a waited for a bit. After having watched a couple of cuts and no hot water or cleaning of the cutters, razors etc, Pete remembered a fact we were given on the bus tour that 10% of people in the Caribbean are HIV positive, we decided to leave!

Upon getting back to the boat we found it had dragged a little so we moved a couple of times over the next day trying to get some sand in amongst all the weed. Luckily lots of boats left so it was easier to get a good spot. We need to change anchors if the islands continue to have weedy bottoms.

Cleared out on Easter Sunday. Immigration was supposed to be there from 9am but turned up at nearly 10. The other boats must be used to this as I was the only one there at 9. The others turned up at 9.30! We sailed to Petite Martinique where we found everything was closed for Easter Sunday so we moved a few miles across the water to Petite St Vincent. A very exclusive resort is here but visitors can eat at the beach front bar/restaurant – we did.

March 31. Have spent a very nice few days in Clifton Beach on Union Island. Loads of neat little rum shops/stores/cafes etcAll very colourful and relaxed. Some fabulous smoothies made from fresh local fruit and vegetables in many stalls – you don’t HAVE to have rum in them! There are many small supermarkets with some strange things in them amongst all the regular stuff. (see the pic) We’re spending one more day here then off to Tobago Cays for snorkelling in the national marine park.

St David's Bay - Grenada

The last ARC night in Port Louis Marina, Manuela and Louis from Allegro gave all the slow boats a Turtle Club award. So it was us, them, Luna Quest and Wayward Wind. Funnily though it was the only time we won our multi hull division because Makena didn’t start as they were waiting for crew to arrive!! There are only the two catamarans in the fleet and there is no handicap system in the world that is going to allow us to compete with a 62’ boat - so we always come second!

 Mon 21 March: We are now around in St Davids Bay at Grenada Marina with the boat out of the water. A timely stop as there were issues with the rudders and props that needed more urgent attention than we had expected. The blue nylon line incident out of Recife had left lots of metled bleu nylon still around the prop (see pic) ! The other prop had fishing line still in it from back in the Indian Ocean. Got away with no real damage, luckily. The rudder squark that we have been intermittently putting up with turned out to be appallingly badly installed bearings done in Brisbane!

We are staying at a lovely small hotel in a nearby bay with a private beach and beach bar and restaurant called La Sagesse. It is run by an expat USA couple who arrange for us to travel to and from the marina each day and will take us shopping before we leave. The marina has a little beach bar and restaurant too, all with good wifi. It’s very civilised, but no too much so. Louis, Manuela and Rui from Allegro are here too.  We are planning our sailing to reach St Lucia via a few island stops.. As we could not accommodate Galen over the haul out period and we we’re sure of out sailing plans, he has joined Wayward Wind for the final ARC trip to St Lucia. He hopes to sail to Panama on Aretha after that before returning to South Africa.

24th March. Back in the water today, going well. Much quicker than we expected. Will sail tomorrow for Curriacao Island.

Grenada

We arrived in Grenada safe and sound with no sight or reports of pirates! This is a terrific marina. Clean, working, landscaped, organised, everyone friendly and pleased to see you, great internet, Call me shallow and unadventurous, but I’m definitely a first world sort of person! We have been over to the yacht club for a welcome function and had a half day tour of the island. Some reminders of a few recent cyclones but otherwise a pretty place and very colourful. Lots of history in the spice trade with the French, British and Portuguese fighting each other over the centuries. The chocolate here is the best in the world and there is a chocolate festival here in May. They supply Belgium, Switzerland, France etc. The South Americans beat them in quantity but not quality. Nutmeg is the main spice but loads of cinnamon, cloves etc. These businesses are suffering because the young people don’t want to farm and are leaving the islands for more “exciting” places and “better” jobs. (how many computer programmers does the world need?) The Chinese are investing and donating money here so they probably will take over in the future, economically at least. The locals build highset houses for a number of obvious reasons but mainly so they can open a rum shop underneath! There seems to be no regulation as to selling beer, rum or anything for that matter. The tour took us to a waterfall where everybody swam and Pete set a benchmark for the tough by jumping from halfway up the falls! The island is very hilly and any farms cling to the sides of very steep slopes and cabbages etc are grown on road verges where it is flat. All dairy or anything that needs flat land is imported.

We are having the boat hauled in a few days to get some repairs done where the nylon line melted around one propeller and to fix the rudder squawk! While it’s up we’ll get an antifoul done and one or two other jobs ready to day sail after the final ARC functions in St Lucia in early April. Can’t wait after all the ocean crossings!

Fortaleza to Grenada

We left Fortaleza on the 3rdMarch. The last night there Pete and I went to one of those Argentinian steak houses where they bring around endless cuts of different meats on skewers that they carve on to your plate. Very nice and very cheap it was a good end to the stay. All the yachts managed to get out of the marina OK considering that there were anchor lines and mooring lines everywhere like a spider web. 

Heard an interesting conversation on VHF channel 16 (emergency channel) the other night. A 1000’ freighter communicated with 3 ARC boats that were in his vicinity. Peter from Exody (39’) informed him that HE was the stand on vessel!! (meaning the one that does not give way) Which technically is true but sounded very brave!

Friday 6: We crossed the line (equator) on Friday 5 March at 4.25. We celebrated withbowl of ice cream – Pete and I had Grand Marnier in ours but Galen didn’t have GM– he’s got health food poisoning from eating too many acaii berries (or whatever they are) in Fortaleza. Why can’t these young people just eat a good varied omnivorous diet washed down with lots of wine and stay healthy like all us old people? Been in and out of squalls the last few days. Going from no wind, to too much, to wrong direction, loads of rain, hot and steamy, cool –the works! It must be the northern hemisphere! Making good time though. We’ve had a few little bird hitch hikers the last few nights. One came in and tried to land on my head then wandered inside and hopped on the couch. Anyone who has sailed with me will know how happy I would be with bird poop on the upholstery -but he was very unafraid and was happy to be ushered out. I think he was either disoriented or attracted by the navigation and instrument lights – or just getting out of the rain.

Thursday 10: Good sailing days even though we were in a bit of a changeable weather system. Some time out when Pete had to snorkel on the rudder and prop again! Partly a bag and partly self- inflicted with a line! Pete lost his best swimming shorts to the current! I couldn't hove to properly because of the line around the rudder!

I think I saw an eclipse one morning. I was on the 4 to 7am watch and was just wondering what had happened to dawn when the clouds parted and there was a huge moon all lit up, craters and all, by a sliver of sun around the bottom edge. By the time I woke Pete a cloud had come and spoiled it. Just as well I saw what I did though, as I would have been wondering why we had no light till about an hour later than normal

We’re well in the northern hemisphere now and the first cloudless night I couldn’t recognise the sky at all! Even though I’m no expert on the constellations etc I must have imprinted the southern hemisphere patterns as it does feel quite disconcerting – as if I’ve woken up and someone has moved all the furniture around.

We’re making excellent time and should be at the tip of Trinidad in a day or so. There were two pirate attacks on yachts here last December we have been warned, so all the ARC boats are steering well north. It seems they were using two disused oil platforms as starting points and carrying diesel so did not have a good range for attacks. The local coast guard stepped up operations and there have been none since, but no one is taking any chances. They probably came from Venezuela and of course Trinidad does not want it’s tourism industry in ruins like has happened to other countries that haven’t responded quickly and aggressively. The pirates were armed, boarded and took electronics, life jackets, cash and jewellery but didn’t harm anyone.

Marina Speak

Marina Speak

I’ve started to learn this: not dissimilar to real estate speak.

Lovely peaceful marina in natural setting.

Means: NO facilities and yacht club open 2 days a week randomly.

Marina in bustling fishing village

Means: noisy smelly fishing boats and trawlers with generators clattering away all night and lots of early morning tooting.

Marina in cosmopolitan downtown metropolis

Means: dodgy security, road film all over the boat and idiots going past too fast in power boats.

Marina in thriving commercial port.

Means: a coal or manganese loading facility upwind dumping muck all over the boat and plenty of noise.

Marina offering all he repair services you could need.

Means: right near the haul out hard stand where people sand, paint, grind, and generally throw muck into the air and water all day and half the night. Usually the home of a local who is Mr Fix Everything Know Everybody, from whom you can’t escape for under a few thousand local whatevers.

Salvador to Recife and Fortaleza

Recife was a nice stop. We stayed two nights. After refuelling, Pete and I went in to the town centre along the waterfront for immigration and the police – what a performance! No Portuguese on our part and no English on theirs. Luckily the police didn’t seem very interested in any paperwork and guided us to the Port Capitaine’s office, which we would have struggled to have found on our own! We sat for a while as it was lunch time and finally got out of there with some stamped signed paperwork around 2.30. After a very nice long late lunch we went to an enormous mall and topped up groceries. Galen spent the day in appalling heat sanding and fixing up our new second hand gang plank for when we have to “med moor”. (that’s backing up to a dock and getting on and off from the steps, for those of you who don’t know). He’s working off his food bill! The marina/yacht club had nice facilities with a pool and bar/restaurant but a very,  very narrow shallow channel to get in and out! We only just made it and did run into mud on the way in. “The World” was in port. That is a liner where you buy an apartment that is yours exclusively and it travels endlessly round the world in extravagant luxury very expensively. Pete and I did a tour of it when it was in Sydney some years ago. Super retirement village but a bit out of our range!

We left Recife and picked up some fishing rope on the way out! Both rudders and one prop. Luckily we had only used the engines briefly before stopping them to sail and when we noticed the lines streaming out behind us no damage had been done. It did however take Pete a snorkel on one and a 1 hour scuba dive on the other to hack out melted nylon line! Hero! After that it was a easy sail till we hit two squalls that cleaned the boat for us and had all three of us up for a few hours…..after that easy sailing again. The other boats have nearly all left the island they went to and are heading for Fortelza. We should all arrive tomorrow, Sunday 28th.

Arrived Fortaleza. A pretty ordinary marina with bits of floating dock here and there with sort of power and water! But the hotel is very nice with alovely pool area and cafes etc. Pete and I checked in to the hotel for air con, internet reasons and so far have spent most of the time drinking wine by the pool with all the others! Forteleza is a nice looking city with some very nice clean infrastructure as well as the falling down grafittied old ruins that we have noticed everywhere in Brazil but, like Recife, is cleaner and safer than Salvador. We leave here on the 3rd for Granada – about 12 days then we’ll finally be in the Caribbean! Leaving Brisbane in May 2015 till nearly now!

Leaving Salvador

We checked out of Salvador on Tuesday 16th with the cleaners practically still wiping down he stern as we left! Bit over the Tourist Terminal Marina where we have been stuck for the past nearly 2 weeks for the repairs. Still, after very good stainless work and the world’s worst clean we took off for the 72 hours cruising allowed after check out. Funny how here and in Africa we had to check in and out of various ports of call. It was a great decision to spend some time in the Bay as it gave us a better experience of Salvador than just the city. Ilha de Bom Jesus was our first stop with a tranquil pretty anchorage for the night. From there we sailed to Rio Paraguacu and went a long way up to a little fishing village travelling through thick rain forest on each bank. We stayed the night there and went ashore to a waterfront bar in Maragogipe called the Bar and Night Club but was a few plastic chairs outside a room with a fridge! The next stop was Ilha Itaparica. A very nice stop at a marina with water from a mineral spring in the town. The foreshore was expat mile……all cafes and restaurants run by Greeks, Italians, South Africans, Germans and an Australian (who was on holiday). We ate at the Amigo run by the South African and got lots of info on the island and it’s residents – very interesting.  Some very wealthy people there who don’t advertise it and live in big houses and compounds that look like nothing from the road. Granite cobbled streets and little squares here and there with churches. It is just a short boat trip from the city of Salvador and ferries run there all the time

We were then out of our 72 hours – but who would know – and left Itaparica in the morning. Heading out through the Bay we picked up Allegro and Starblazer who were just leaving he Tourist Terminal Marina. They are going to Fernando Noronha Island that we chose not to go to. It is a National Park with clear waters etc but since it is and extra 360 nm of sailing and we’re going to be in the Caribbean soon it didn’t seem worth it.  We decided to make a few stops on the way up the Brazilian coast instead. There are some massive cities to be seen from the sea as we are staying quite close to the coast. High rises stretching for many, many miles. Well, I suppose you’ve got to fit 200 million people somewhere…. Recife will be our first stop, today.

It'snow Thursday 25th and we're off to Fortalezia which is our last Brazil port before leaving for Granada. Looking forward to the end of the long trips and just day sailing in the Caribbean!

More Salvador

One day we went to a BBQ at Marcello’s house. He had a tree hut for the kids to play in that was his son’s. We had some great local lamb and fresh fruit and grilled local vegetables – a really fun, interesting day. On the way back to the Marina he took us to his Mother’s. She is an artist and has a neat home full of artworks. Most of the rest of our days so far have been broken into by workers arriving, somewhat haphazardly, to do the stainless steel work to reinforce the back poles and construct back stays. It is very good work though so we are happy. Most of the boats are still here waiting for sails etc but a couple have gone out in the bay for a few days and have advised some good places to visit when we check out of here on Tuesday. They are only a few hours away each and very tranquil and pretty with local villages to visit and so on – so we are looking forward to that after nearly two weeks here in a fairly grotty environment. I have put here some pics of prime waterfront real estate.....

Salvador

We arrived in Salvador at around 4.30 pm to a welcome from the other boats who had arrived before us. It is already very busy with the lead up to Carnaval! The Tourist Terminal where we all are is in an old derelict part of town. City blocks full of empty vandalised squatted in high rise buildings, both residential and office. We found out that most of them are heritage listed as they have some lovely old Portuguese colonial architecture but structurally now are too unsound to renovate – so goodness knows where you go from there!? It is all quite unsafe in general but now in particular because of all the extra people in for the 4 days of Carnaval. It is the largest street party in the world with 4 million people attending. 3 million usually live in Salvador out of 200 million in Brazil (125 mil of whom are Catholic) Lots of ethnic cross over between African slave descendants, local Indians and Portuguese. Hard to know where one starts and another finishes really. Even the churches and religious ceremonies have native religious influences. We went to one church that has 850 kilos of gold leaf on it’s interior all of which was sourced here and sent back to Portugal for beating and sent back and applied!! The old part of the town (Pelourhino) which is accessed by an elevator is quite cute and old with cobbled/paved streets and a mixture of old and newer hotels, cafes, restaurants intermixed with lots of souvenir craft shops and religious effigy shops. You can buy replica body parts to take to this particular church and have them hung up for curing of the affected part of your body……hmmmm. I have seen this elsewhere but had forgotten about it. Look here for photos in the next day or so....... The sponsors evening prize giving went well except the sponsors couldn't get there as they were stuck all night in Carnaval traffic. We all got our T shirts nevertheless. chat Eau Bleu got it's first ever award! Nothing to do with sailing however - for knowing how many steps there were in Jacob's Ladder on St Helena!

Carnaval – well what can I say…….wall to wall people and massive mack truck type things covered in speakers booming out fairly awful music from 6 pm to 6 am for about 6 nights but with the 4 middle nights being the biggies. You can hear it from all over the city. It is in three parts. The more sedate (if you can call it that, like a soccer stadium melee) is Pelhourino. Then the city and a beach area which are wild. I have this on the authority of Dustin and Galen who ventured out each night till 3 or 4 am and got sweated on, trampled on, peed on, nearly fornicated on (on a gay type night)pick pocketed (unsucessfully luckily) and deafened. The crowds are so thick that you cannot get your arms up or down. The streets are walled or have shop fronts so you just get more and more squeezed up. Pete and I decided it was not going to be our thing so went up to Pehourino before the crowds and came back down as they arrived which was quite exciting enough, thank you. At one stage there was a 2 mile long queue for the elevator! We found a couple of really quaint hotels with closed in court yards with splashy fountains and sat in them a bit. Thankfully it has now finished and the streets and shops are a little calmer.

We have discovered the nicer parts of town now. Big, clean -  massive  really - shopping malls – that interestingly don’t have supermarkets in them, they are elsewhere. The biggest problem is the language barrier.  No one speaks English. The Portuguese is a little different to the original according to our Portuguese boat people so my one year of Spanish is almost useless unless I can see it written down. At the hairdresser my data ran out for Google Translate so when I made a half inch gap with my fingers the guy though I meant leave half an inch! Oh well it grows. It is now quite dark salt and pepper – the first time it has been it’s own colour for at least 45 years! Look here for photos in the next couple of days.

My birthday! 60! Pete organised for us to go to a gem dealer. Mindy from Wayward Wind came with us. Super interesting. We heard lots about the local gem mining and discovered that the dark aqua marine is mined here, the only place in the world. We spent ages looking at trays and trays of gems and finally I chose an oval one for a ring and Mindy and I both got earrings. A very generous birthday present from Pete! Marcello, who is the local go to guy for everything turned up in the morning with a huge cake! So when it is cool tonight we will have the ARC people over for cake and champs. Out for lunch shortly. Thanks to Rupert and family and friends who have emailed calls etc so far! It’s looking like a great day already……There is a lot of Flemish blue and white tiling around the old town which is very pretty.

St Helena to Salvador

The sailing to Salvador was excellent but for a few days of no wind and motoring we wing on winged all the way. We’re steadily getting 7, 8, and 10 k out of 11, 12 and 15 k wind (apparent) excellent…The boat turned into gym – Galen found a yoga spot and Dustin did push ups every day and made a weight out of Pete’s dive weights and a spare winch handle. We celebrated Australia Day with 2 honorary new Australians! Broke our sailing and drinking rule with a beer with a pie for lunch and rum toasts. Played Men at Work loudly and flattened the batteries! We caught two big mahi mahi just as we were running out of meals (due to the longer than expected passage with light winds) so that helped out. I made up two crosswords on the way – one an 84 question boating terminology one and a World ARC question one for the Aretha kids. Quite hard work really – but I tried them out on the guy sand they work. I’ll try to put one up here for anyone to try.

St Helena

We all went on the ARC tour of the island for the day. All very interesting. We visited Napoleon’s tomb (although he is not there any longer – the French dug him up some time ago and took him to France to be a hero rather than a bad guy in St H) We went to his prison/house but couldn’t take photos inside. Lots of portraits of him in his better times. He lived in his place for many years with his faithful valet and a couple of his generals. Under constant guard where ever he went, must have been galling after his romp all over Europe. The island from the sea just looks like a very inhospitable rock but the interior is extremely lush and evidently receives a lot of rain. We couldn’t believe that they don’t grow more of their own produce here instead of relying on shipments from Cape Town. It seems that the young people don’t want to stay or farm and the older people are dying out. We went to High Knoll Fort. We all wished we could go back to being 10 years old! It’s a ruin really but with underground tunnels and dungeons and parapets – all open and accessible to anyone! What a magic playground!  We drove to the Govenor’s mansion and saw their big old tortoise. The new airport has a runway that ends off a cliff! No going back there! We took a fake photo of Pete on the top of Jacob’s ladder pretending he climbed it.(600 plus steps nearly vertical!)  It was originally built to haul goods up to and down from the top of the cliff. That evening the St Helena Yacht Club hosted a Braii (BBQ) at sunset right on the waterfront at their club rooms. Very hospitable of them and lots of fun. Three guys turned up tonight to weld the stainless cracks for us. Luckily they were on the island working on the new airport! We also have some container tie down straps in place until we can get the poles refabricated. The ferry ride to and from the boats is wild! You can’t take your own dinghy because of the swell. So you call up the ferry on channel 16 (sometimes he responds sometimes not!) then to get ashore you have to grab knotted ropes and Tarzan swing onto the dock!

This day we all went out on two boats to look for whale sharks! We headed back the way we arrived looking out for their tail fins that show above the water as they bask around swallowing plankton. Sure enough there they were! Only eight people are allowed in at once and no closer than 3 metres. It was a bit hard to stay far away as they sort of move towards you with no fear! We were on the smaller boat with only eight of us so we went in each time we found one.  To use a very overworked word – awesome! Pete took some good GoPro footage that I have lifted some frames from.

Spent a day in the town trying to get internet and doing last minute top up shopping – not very successful due to limited supplies for the whole island. Galen and Dustin actually climbed Jacob’s ladder! We left the island at 5.15 to head for Salvador.

Cape Town to St Helena

6 Jan - We had a bad start on leaving with the genoa sheets getting stuck on the fuel cans and under a kayak – neither of which has ever happened before! Anyway we sailed off with sails flying. By evening the weather was way up and poor Galen was on his first ever sail on his first ever watch with 42 plus winds and 4 metre breaking swells! We reefed everything and sat it out for 4 days! Quite uncomfortable but safe enough. After that we sailed downwind very well on good trade winds with our new gennaker out and the genoa winged out. All very easy to use after our old sail – a two man job to set up! One drama – of course – during the bad weather the bilge pump on the starboard side kept coming on with the small amount of water slopping wildly about in the bilge so Pete turned it of temporarily to stop the motor burning out. Of course at that moment the salt water rinse hose let go and flooded the bilge! We caught that OK but it had flooded the two water maker pumps! So we were on water rations for a day and a half till Pete tried the water maker again and found that the main pump had survived! He and Galen spent the better part of the day swapping the air con pump over and we had a water maker again! Whew! We have all been going to knot school and doing competitive knotting – we all know about 15 knots now….

We caught a couple of small mahi mahi and had sashimi and steaks for dinner one night. E sailed most nights with a clear sky and full moon – very beautiful. All we could see of St Helena was a low strip of land and cloud above that eventually revealed itself to be a very rugged coastline with near vertical rocky cliffs straight into the sea. As we approached the township of St Helena we passed Rupert’s Bay the only other landing spot on the island with a fort on the headland. No way was Napoleon getting rescued or escaping from here! The only possible way to get to and from here is by boat up until soon, as there is an airport being built that will open for freight in May 2016 and eventually passengers too.

Dustin and Galen have turned out to be great guys. Tons of fun and very respectful of the boat and all our things. Ready, willing and able, turn up on time for their night watches etc – great altogether…..Both have done their part to save the day! Dustin: spotted cracks in the big stainless steel poles that hold up the top of the boat! – they may have been developing over a while as there was rust evidence but were hidden under the jack lines (see pics). Galen saved the dinghy: We had arrived at the mooring in St H on sunset and picked up two quite difficult buoys that had no lines on them using the dinghy. Then we opened a few drinks and sat up forward congratulating ourselves, and as quite often happens – pride goes before a fall – Galen noticed our dinghy bobbing off towards the rocks! He and Dustin valiantly tried to get the two of them on to a one man kayak! After several capsizes Galen swam for it. He got on board then realised he didn’t know how to start it, so rowed until Dustin caught him up on the kayak. Pete and I sat on the boat and laughed at it all – (once it appeared that all was well).

Leaving Cape Town

We're off this morning at 11.00 after refuelling at 10.00. The weather is good in the bay so we should be able to use out new sail till nightfall. The winds then pick up to 25k or so we'll put the main out with reef one and the genoa for the night. Dustin and Galen are safely on board and we're all looking forward to getting going. A few of the other boats are still under gong some form of work - delayed because of Xmas and New Year but should be out in the next few days. The trip to St Helena should take just under 14 days with good trade winds right behind us - but you know weather forecasting.....!!! I'll pit up trip photos when we arrive.

Happy New Year!

Since I last wrote Pete and I have been to another wine tasting! This time we took 2 days up in Stellenbosch and had a personal driver and tour of 4 wineries - a very different experience compared with the bus tour variety. Our driver John was very informed on African history as well as the current post apartheid situation and politics - extremely interesting. Each winery took us to a special tasting room and at Fairview we tried their own cheeses made on the estate to compliment their wines - bought some. At Waterford we tried their own chocolates with the appropriate wines - bought some! The countryside was lovely and varied, part of the Pirates of the Carribean were filmed here and we passed prate ships in afield! Our little boutique hotel very nice - a restored former residence of an early Dutch family, Coopermanhuis. Stellenbosch is a university town as well as wineries and tourists so is quite busy but very cute. LOTS of security everywhere though. A person on every corner! There is a shop called Oom Samie which is famous for selling everything anyone could just about ever think of! rabbits feet to dried droppings to jam and dolls.....

We are really enjoying being at the V and A Waterfront. a very clean safe marina and a walk or dinghy ride to the Malls and cafes/restaurants. So far we've eaten ostrich, springbok, gemsbok and eland. The nearby beaches are lovely and quite built up with a strange mix of European architecture with a African/ Moorish influence somehow. They compete with each other as to which is the least windy and therefor the more valuable real estate! LOTS of security everywhere again! Razor wine glinting in the sunshine. Seriously - there is not a house, shop, carpark, wall or entrance that is not topped with spikes, razor wire (strands and coils), electric fencing and has a security guard either publically or privately employed. it rather spoils the whole effect really. If you lived here you would have to get used to it and be constantly looking over your shoulder. It appears it's mostly street and drug gang related along with poverty of course. We feel very fortunate to be who we are.....there are huge slum areas just out of Cape Town like Soweto- miles and miles of leaning up corrugated iron sheds (all with satellite dishes). the government built homes for thousands and thousands of the people and less than 20% of them are still occupied by the intended residents - they sold them or rented them out and moved back to the slums! today the rand went down again, the government is embroiled in a bribery scandal and 6 whole towns nearly got their power shut off for not paying the bill, and the trains were all late due to "theft and vandalism".!

New Year was a braii (BBQ) on the marina and was great fun. We all took our plates and ate on Makena, the 62 foot Lagoon - about 50 of us and room to spare - a huge huge boat! I set my sore knee back a few days pole dancing (with clothes on!)

We now have a new gennaker on it's own permanent furler so we no longer have to put it away each use and Pete and I can use it on our own....we went for a test sail the other day with the sail maker and it was brilliant - what a difference! We were all so nervous of the old one in the end and were reluctant to use it - not much point in that.  Whan we were at a restaurant a few weeks back the young waiter was telling us that he had moved to CT from Johanesberg so as to be near the water and learn to sail with a view to getting his papers and doing yacht deliveries. After another meal there we invited him to look at the boat and the result is that he is joining us from CT all the way to St Lucia! We also have Dustin arriving tonight to sail with us to Salvador. He had been following us on the ARC tracker and emailed to ask how we found the boat etc as he is planning to buy one the same. after a few emails we suggested he may like a long test sail and he jumped at it. So we are all crewed up now again. Dustin is 34 and Galen 24 and both seem fit and well, eat anything and generally able. Dustin has sailing experience and Galen is KEEN.

Merry Christmas friends and family!

We're off to a hotel for a Christmas lunch then there's a shindig on the dock with all the ARC people! Hope everyone out there is well and happy and has a great day - cheers!

It was a lovely meal in a very nice linen table cloth, loads of waiters and tiny very rich coursesrestaurant called Dash in the Victoria Hotel. The dock party was fun and in full swing on Aretha when we joined in after lunch. We ended up on our boat for wine and cheese. A big day for food and drink.

Wine Tasting - uh oh...

All the ARC boats (well the crew I mean) went off to a wine tasting at Ayama Vineyards. It was organised by the yacht Ayama who contacted the winery people years ago when they were naming their boat and did a google search on the name and came up with the vineyard! It was a wonderful afternoon with great hospitality shown to us and lovely wine. We all tasted heaps and ordered even more heaps! the neighbouring wine maker also came over with his organic wines that were wonderful too. The estate was beautiful with wonderful views. they are an Italian couple who came here about over 10 years ago and bought the vineyard. They have about 40 people who live and work there - a bit feudal suspect. There was a pool and they have an 8 year old son so the kids had a great time too - especially Oscar who sneaked a few at the very end (say no more!) They delivered the wine down to the marina a few days later by truck. It was almost embarrassing going over in the dinghy to bring it on board! We had 9 dozen, and it was by no means the largest order. I had to sit on top of 18 boxes on the way back!  So much for Pete's big position on no glass bottles on board because of weight! A couple of tastings and it went overboard....Naturally we had to have a nice little lunch to try a bottle (or two) out. Pics soon - internet slow today

11 December

Oscar left today. We got up nice and early and got first in line at baggage check in. Mark had done the formalities for the airline for an unaccompanied minor. Then immigration decided that due tointernational custody issues and the kids running off to join Isis that they needed certified letters from both parents allowing him to travel from SA to Australia to be with his mother! Well, it was 6.30am in Luxembourg and 4.30 rush hour on Friday in Melbourne! Anyway after a fairly tense hour and a half we got it all done and he left!   Bye Osc.....

Cape Town

We arrived here on Sunday 6th. On the way after Port Elizabeth (where we did see what was probably a very nice beach area to the south with apartment buildings and malls etc) we stopped at Mossel Bay. Partly for fuel as they wouldn't supply yachts at PE unless you somehow went to a service station with jerry cans! and partly because the wind got up a bit early. We had wanted to down wind sail but the days when it was in the right direction it was up to 30 knots and with our patched old gennaker it wasn't worth it. So one night at Mossel Bay then down to Pringle Bay for one night. Both very nice looking towns where it would have been OK to linger but Oscar has a leave date from Cape Town now so we thought we'd better move along. Little drama leaving PE -  we went to get our ships papers and passports for checking out only to find they we're not to be found! Working back we sorted out what had happened - we'd checked in then gone upstairs to the bar (as you do). Oscar went back to the boat as it was his turn to cook and Pete and I, irresponsibly but predicably stayed on for another wine or two and left the bag leaning up against the window! Luckily the restaurant was not open that night and we were last there. The bar lady found it the next morning when she opened up! We left Mossel Bay early in the morning in quite heavy fog. We were able to use our automatic fog horn that works through the radio and a speaker up the mast. (Up until now it had only been used to yell silly things to friends on the marina). Even so we set a fog watch front and sides and still had a close call with an inflatable that was haring around in the fog for some reason.... We saw lots and lots of seals, dolphins rounding up fish and thousands of sea birds diving for them, even a couple of killer whales. The fog continued almost all the way to Cape of Good Hope when it suddenly vanished and we had a fantastic trip in with Table Mountain looking stunning as the back drop to Cape Town. the marina in the Victoria and Alfred (not Albert interestingly) waterfront is very clean, well organised and civilised - what a nice change! Very strange immigration form asking to list stowaways....see pics

We are now settled in to the Marina and have cleaned the boat - absolutely filthy after the manages loader at PE dumped clouds of manganese on us. Had to get it off with oxalic acid - we now have very clean feet! the are lots and lots of seals in the marina a and a few sea lions. They just lie around on their backs only barely bothering to get out of the way of boats coming and going. Oscar leaves tomorrow morning after 3 months and one week with us and crossing the Indian Ocean. We'll miss his happy face and awful singing! He's excited to be going to see his family after so long.

The Wild Coast

Aptly named the Wild Coast if you get the weather wrong and end up with southerlies against the Aghulus Current that runs at 6 knots from the north creating 100 foot waves! We got our weather just right and made it from Richards bay to Port Elizabeth in just over 2 days. A little drama before we left though when we had to refuel. We couldn't go onto the normal dock as there were boats moored there (!) and had to back up to a concrete wall. We filled up and of course the boat was heavier and we stick fast on the mud and had to get dragged off by the South African Police!  Anyway the trip was easy with us motoring most of the way with the current achieving 12 knots!  Lovely sunsets again - they benefit from some pollution and dust from the land! We are staying  at the Algoa Yacht Club marina - very old and un maintained like a lot of things here. As we had forgotten to take the keys for the Zululand Yacht Club back we decided to get a taxi to town to the Post Office to mail them back. Well - that was an experience. We had been advised to walk nowhere not even in the daytime. We felt quite unsafe and very conspicuous and once we had got a stamp (no shop in the PO where you could buy and envelope or anything) and walked through town we hurried back in a cab to the Yacht Club. We had thought of having lunch in town but nothing looked safe, edible or clean. I kept my handbag under my shirt under my arm and Pete and Oscar kept their hands in their pockets. Some interesting signs as you can see in the pics! Maybe there is a nicer part of the Port but we didn't find it. Lots of heavy security everywhere. it's quite sad really for a country quite like Australia in may geographical ways, rich in resources and a great coastline similar weather etc. Just a very different colonial history and current political situation. We leave tomorrow morning for a straight run to cape Town - about 3 days.

.

Leaving Zululand

We plan to leave tomorrow midday. We'd have liked to have gone earlier but need fuel and it's too windy today. We'll try to get all the way to Port Elizabeth in one go. the locals tell us that after this last day of southerly wind that the seas will still be high so we'll see. the other boats that left on Monday seem to have made good progress. Poor Garlix got hit by lightening in Durban and have lost all electrics, electronics etc. They have carried on though using a hand held GPS, mobile phone and Ayama as a navigation pilot. Very brave. Hand helming all the way to Capetown! Hugur may be back in the water today, they had big leaks around the rudder on both sides letting in mountains of water! We all suffered to one degree or another coming south of Madagascar.....most of the mono hulls took on water, Mindy from Wayward wind actually wrang out her mattress upon arrival, Aretha nearly lost their forestays when they noticed the stainless steel swage unravelling and had to fly a rigger up from Cape Town to meet them here..However we all survived.

Oscar has met a local lad, Ethan and has stayed over a few nights. They've been out to look at his horse and sailed together in Ethan's sailing school boat. He's a keen sailor and is competing in the state championships in a few weeks. We did all our provisioning for the next few weeks yesterday so we're set to go.

Richard's Bay

it's very hot here today - 36 degrees. The repairs to the boat means that the air con isn't working so we've been to the Mall today where it's cool. Oscar is at the movies for the same reason. It will be better with the sun down. Yesterday we took Oscar to a medical centre to have a thorn removed from his foot. He stood on one at his safari and it only partly came out and was still sore and nasty looking. After a local anesthetic and some digging a very nice doctor got it out without too much trouble. We couldn't believe our eyes when the bill came to 385 rand!!! $38.50!!! Pete and I immediately made appointments for skin checks! Really everything is super cheap here. We've found what we think is the best sushi in the world at the Tuzi Gazi waterfront. Been twice now! Some of the other boats will leave in a weather window on Monday. it's very critical to get it right on this coast as the wind against the very strong current makes for truly enormous waves and you don't want to get caught out. One stretch from Durban to East London has absolutely nowhere to put in. The Yacht Club bar is hosting lots of informal weather meetings amongst us all