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![]() Lunch on the high seas We celebrated New Year’s Eve with pizza, a rum and coke, and counted down to midnight – Cape Verdean time. We tried to make some calls on the sat phone but no one wanted to answer. If you got a message that was hard to understand it might have been us. After two weeks of not seeing anything we finally came across something interesting - we made friends with a whale. We noticed Melville (Adam named him) the Minkie whale for the first time swimming off our starboard beam. He swam a long side us diving under the boat, crossing over to the port side, and back again. He would surface and then dive down again and show his white underside. It was really amazing and Adam scurried around the boat trying to get a video of Melville breaking the surface. I’m not sure whether he was lonely and in need of company or whether he was just very social but Melville stayed with us for a full 24 hours. Well technically we couldn’t see him after dark so we can’t confirm that he was there but as soon as the sun came up he was right there. We think that we lost him during the second night. We are down to 330 nm to Barbados but the weather has taken a turn for the worse. We’ve had one squall after another, sloppy waves, and inconsistent winds. Last night we had a big squall with 40 knot gusts that left me a little shaken. I was woken up by the sound of the sails flogging and the whisker poles smashing around. I went up on deck and found Adam trying to furl the #1 headsail in the rain. The # 3 was up but it was flying free (attached to the boat only at the top and bottom) and the boat kept rounding up. We heeled hard to starboard and everything went flying down below – Adam was in the cockpit and he said that he felt like he was climbing up to reach the portside. From down below it felt like the boat was trying to go to port but the sail was forcing it over to starboard and I was sure that something would have to give or we would be in serious trouble. I helped Adam to furl the #1 and he took over the wheel from flemming and was able to keep us steady, with a lot of effort. Eventually the squall passed and we surveyed the damage and found that we came out of the ordeal virtually unscathed. We were astonished that there was no damaged to the sails or the whisker poles, and the only casualties for the night were the boat hook and yet another winch handle. Adam later lost the halyard for the #3 but we are hoping to run it back down the mast. We are out of fresh food, except a few tomatoes so we are sprouting mung beans and eating canned peaches but with any luck we will be in Barbados in a few days.
![]() Festive Decor aboard the Queen of the Harbour _ Well Christmas aboard the queen of the harbour was a roaring success. We decorated the boat in festive colours as well as some pinecones that we smuggled out of Tenerife. We even had a Christmas tree that I made out of electrical tape and stuck onto the underside of the raised table. Santa was able to find us, no doubt he has been following us on SPOT, and there were presents under the tree on Christmas morning. This was made possible by the fact that the vomit bucket, which we store under the table, continues to be vomit free after the second week – high five! We opened our presents from the comfort of our berths, I made a delicious holiday dinner despite the rocking, and we rewarded ourselves with extra time off during the night. The wind has been stronger and we are moving along a lot faster now. We are running away from the wind under double headsail and we haven’t touched them in about 10 days. Flemming, the windvane, has been doing an excellent job at the helm; Zenobia is basically sailing herself so we’ve been devoting most of our time to perfecting our eating and sleeping skills. The boat is in great shape, a bit salty, but no issues so far. I’m finding it hard to drink the tank water and I’ve switched to our bottled water supply. We don’t have a huge amount of bottled water though so Adam is continuing to drink the water from the tank, which he hasn’t been having any trouble with. We are calling this the two tiered water system because Adam enjoys calling attention to the perceived inequality. I don’t mind though, there isn’t a lot going on these days so his fake outrage gives him something to do. ![]() Lazy days on the ocean _ The first week of our passage to the Caribbean has gone really well. Too well; it’s a bit strange to have it so easy for once. We started off in light winds and the breeze remained steady throughout the days but died overnight. The waves were manageable during the day and only a little annoying at night; the boat rocked but in a gentle motion. Not exactly peaceful but so far no one has been even slightly seasick. We’ve been lethargic for most of the week and we’ve spent all our time sleeping or listening to audio books on the ipod; we don’t feel overly tired though so we must be getting enough rest. We’ve developed a bit of a laissez-faire attitude towards our watches and sometimes stay in our berths overnight, getting up once an hour to take a look around. We haven’t seen anything – it is really amazing. No marine life, no freighters, not even any garbage to speak of. You are meant to realize how small you are in the middle of the ocean but without any context we just feel really alone. Sometime around the 5th day of not seeing anything, and about 500 nm out to sea, we realized that no matter how many beacons or alarms we have if there aren’t any boats or freighters in our area we aren’t getting rescued if the boat goes down. We considered for the first time whether we might not be a bit crazy. We tried not to think about it too much. The highlights of the trip so far are: 1) Adam was hit in the head by a flying fish. I was sleeping in my berth and he came down below demanding that I smell his hair. He said that he was innocently standing around when a big fish entered the cockpit and assaulted him in the head. The fish then fell onto the deck and started flapping aggressively. Adam did not want to touch the “dirty and disgusting” fish so he did not attempt to provide it with any aid but watched as it eventually flapped itself back into the ocean. Adam points out that because of his allergy this could be construed as assault with a deadly weapon. No charges were laid. 2) There have been some really creepy radio calls at night. Sometimes it is a man making deep guttural noises and sometimes a young girl speaking a few words in a language that we don’t recognize and couldn’t even guess at. Adam frequently reminds me that this might be the start of the end of the world and I, in turn, frequently shake my head roll my eyes at him. Only two days until Christmas. ![]() The village of Fontainhas On Sunday we took the ferry from Mindelo harbour to the island of Santo Antao for an overnight trip. We were a bit hesitant because everything that we've read says that a visa is necessary if spending even one night ashore but when we checked into the country the immigration office would not give us one because he said that it was not a requirement. We decided to risk it because everyone else seems to be – there is even a boat that has been here for a week longer than we have and they haven’t even bothered to check into the country yet! We arrived in the village of Porto Nova and took a taxi up a steep cobblestone road to the top of the cova (volcano). From there we hiked down into the cova crater which supports a small village growing corn and coffee plants. There are no roads and the villagers have to hike in and out using small donkey’s to carry supplies and water. We walked around the crater and then up and out on the opposite side to the Paul Valley. When we reached the top and looked over the valley we were shocked - we were standing at cloud level overlooking a deep, green valley with a steep path winding down the mountain. It took us two hours to walk down the path through terraced fields of banana trees, corn, and sugar cane before we came to the first village where we stopped for lunch at an organic café where they grow all their food and distill strong local rum called grouge. From there we continued to hike down the valley road through small villages until we reached our B&B which was a dizzying 15 minute climb straight up on a rocky path off the main road. It was worth it though to sleep in a real bed for a change. The next morning we set out early to finish hiking out of the valley and headed to Ponta do Sol a coastal town on the northern part of the island. We took an aluguer there which is the main source of transportation around the islands. Aluguers are either passenger vans or pickup trucks with benches in the back that run people back and forth between villages. They race up and down the cobblestone roads honking and calling out looking for passengers who throw their bags up on the roof rack and cram inside. From Ponta do Sol we hired an Aluguer to take us up to the tiny village of Fontainhas which is at the end of an eroding dirt road and is situated on the edge of a cliff overlooking a valley - it was spectacular. The houses stop where the cliff starts and the village is surrounded by terraced fields of corn. We hiked up out of the valley and then back down to Ponta Do Sol before catching the last aluguer back to Porto Nova to meet the ferry for Mindelo. ![]() Mindelo We have been anchored in Mindelo harbour for three or four days, getting our bearings and sorting out some of our repairs. There isn’t much in the way of marine supplies and it takes about 4 weeks to have anything shipped here but the marina is able to fabricate items so we’ve asked them to make us a new whiskerpole and a fitting for the windvane. We’ve wandered around the town a bit but there isn’t much on this island aside from Mindelo. The harbour is incredible; it's large with rocky peaks and hills all around and abandoned steel boats and a half submerged wrecks scattered here and there. It is very dry here - almost all of the water is gathered from desalinization and the supply is often low. The marina recently acquired a system separate from the town water supply, which often runs dry, but a few days ago the marina supply ran out so there is no water for drinking or to run the washrooms and showers. We filled our tanks before leaving the Canaries so we won’t have any problems but we spoke with the crew of a catamaran who is trying to fill their tanks with bottles of water from the grocery store. We’ve sampled some of the local cuisine – obviously Adam tried the pizza but we also had cachupa which is a traditional dish with beans, rice, and corn with a fried egg served on top. It’s good but not always available without meat. We went to the marina restaurant and ordered veggie cachupa and when it came to the table it clearly wasn’t. When we asked the waitress about it she said it didn’t have meat in it and seemed confused when we pointed the meat out to her. She took the bowl and said that she would be back but she never returned to the table and my placemat was cleared away (they are very big on placemats here) which I think is the Cape Verdean version of no soup for you. I’m a bit concerned about provisioning for the crossing in terms of fruits and vegetables. The larger stores in Mindelo have a limited selection and most of the items are very ripe so nothing will last more than a few days. You can get some fresher items from the municipal market or the ladies selling root vegetables on the streets but I think that we are being quoted the “tourist” prices which are out of control. A friend of ours went to a street vendor and paid 8 euros (almost $10 CND) for a few carrots. It’s a good thing I brought all of those mung beans to sprout! Although Adam may jump over board when he finds out that we'll be eating bean sprouts everyday for 2 weeks. ![]() Well we failed to leave La Restinga in fair weather and I failed to keep any food down for the first two days but we have arrived in the Cape Verdes, tired and caked in a thick layer of salt. We said that we would wait for a good weather window to leave La Restinga but the wind would not cooperate. We watched as it went from the high twenties to the thirties, with gusts into the forties – consistently. Day after day it blew strong and the marine forecasts didn’t show any signs of change. The forecast showed a few days that dropped down to 15 -20 knots before the wind was set to go up again and we decided to take advantage of it. We were hesitant but the alternative was to wait at least another week, possibly still have poor conditions, and be into the second week of December before we would arrive. We gritted our teeth and set out into what ended up being 30 knot winds and 10 ft waves. It was W-I-N-D-Y and the first 12 hours saw us racing downwind at breakneck speed. We had our headsail out on the whisker pole (the one that we had repaired in Horta) for several hours before the windvane lost the struggle against the waves and jibbed us (swung the sail from one side of the boat to the other) snapping the pole in two. Adam took this better than I expected and even commented that he has always wanted two whiskerpoles. Obvious lessons: 1) Be careful what you wish for, 2) never believe the weather forecast. It took us exactly six days to get to the Cape Verde’s instead of the 8 days that we had been expecting (at that rate we would have made it to the Caribbean in only 16 days!). During this time we had constant, hard wind and we saw 20 ft waves as we rolled around. We had little sun and a few squalls but not enough rain to wash away the salt from the waves that came crashing into the cockpit at regular intervals. While I was sitting watch an enormous wave hit the corner of the stern and the boat slid sideways through the water. The wave that followed crashed into the cockpit, bringing so much water that the cockpit filled (water was coming in over the top of my rubber boots!) and took several minutes to drain. A few days before making landfall the windvane broke again (the part that we just replaced in Madeira) but we are old hands now and so Adam was ready with the webbing and lashed it to the boat. We limped a bit after that but the windvane was able to continue to steer, albeit a little erratically. Eventually we grew accustomed to the conditions and it was nice not to have to make any adjustments to the sails; we spent the passage under a single sail - just a small bit of headsail unfurled. We arrived in Mindelo harbour after a sketchy game of chicken with the local ferry and now that the anchor is set we are content to float around here for a while. Adam went for a swim and came out covered in a thin layer of diesel so we’ll stick to floating around IN the boat. ![]() We received many concerned emails after our El Hierro volcano log - please be assured that we are perfectly safe and we are having a good time. And we even managed to get our hands on some cash just in time too, it had been weeks since Adam had eaten a pizza and he was starting to exhibit signs of withdrawl. After a few false starts we managed to figure out the transportation system and got ourselves to the Capital, Valverde, and an ATM. It was a near miss though. We set out to find the bus stop, which we did efficiently – we are professional tourists now. We found a nice, newly built bus shelter, with a bus lane, and the word “BUS” clearly painted on the road. The only thing missing was the actual bus which, no matter how long we sat there, would not materialize. We walked back into town and asked (but mostly gesticulated) some locals about the bus and found that the stop had been relocated to an unmarked section of road along the waterfront. An hour later a small passenger van arrived with a little sign on the dashboard. A van we had seen earlier in the morning when it passed us while we sat at the clearly identified but now defunct bus stop. We hoped in the van and drove half an hour to the nearest not abandoned village and caught a bus to Valverde. It was small town, too small to have a map we were told at the tourist office, but it was pretty and we were in time to see more socialist party demonstrations in the streets. We are currently looking for a weather window in order to head south to the Cape Verde islands. The wind has been howling for several days and we can see the spray from the waves as they crash over the breakwall so it might be a while before we set sail. We are trying to set a new standard of fun, vomit free sailing after all. ![]() _ We felt it appropriate to move away from our travel log in order to take a moment to mark the day that saw the crumbling of a political career and the death of a failed, and pretty much imaginary, nation. This afternoon at 4 pm in the small village of La Restinga two Canadian’s eagerly entered the far too complicated password to an internet network, desperately seeking news from home. They had counted down the hours until the allotted time; keeping busy by tidying their boat and finally greasing the steering wheel enough to stop that @$%*^ squeak that had been driving them mad since last summer. But after toiling the day away it was finally 10 am at home and they held their breath as they waited for the Globe and Mail website to load. They let out their breath again, in order not to asphyxiate, as they continued to wait for the website to load, and to curse the café’s internet connection. But then it happened. The all too familiar image of a smug, bloated face appeared above a caption that announced what had seemed reasonable but impossible: the removal of Rob Ford from public office. The Canadians looked around in shocked amazement until the silence was finally broken by the crack of their awesome high-five and shouts of disbelief as they continued to wait for the article to load. After confirming that it was not some tricky media ploy, the Canadians were free to embrace the giddy amazement that they were feeling. Soon they were joined by the only two other Canadians on the island and the four of them commemorated the event by remembering the good times during the last two years. Remember that time Ford gave the finger to the mom and daughter who chided him for texting while driving? Remember when he tried to get rid of the “tax” on plastic bags? Or when he decided that he didn’t need a driver because reading while driving on the Gardener was okay and it also freed up time for his assistants to “volunteer” with his high school football team? Oh Rob Ford. Remember how every time he opened his mouth crazy things would inevitably come out, the kinds of things that could make you grimace and die just a little bit inside? That night by the pale light of the citronella candles, four Canadians and one Brit celebrated the day by symbolically blowing out the light on their RIP Rob Ford cake and raising their glasses in a toast to conflict of interest, to only 14 more days, and to the guy who made it all possible – Rob Ford. Sure the man is probably here to stay but hopefully, if there is a Santa Claus, his political career can be interned in its final resting place, that big gravy train in the sky. ![]() This is only a re-creation of events. _ We have arrived in La Restinga on the island of El Hierro, which is a very small and confusing place. We attempted to explore the village this morning but didn’t have much luck. The tourist office doesn’t ever seem to open and, oddly enough, the bank and post office have signs indicating that they are only open from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm. Strange right? At 11:30 we double checked and only found the post office open. We decided to wander around and found very few people or places of any kind. During our second tour of the main strip Adam said that it felt like we were in a ghost town and I had to agree. We decided to give up our walking exploration and try our luck at finding a wi-fi connection at one of the café’s. Our neighbour at the dock mentioned to Adam that people were nervous about coming to El Hierro because of “the volcano” so we decided to look that up first. A very tense 10 minutes followed. If one googles “El Hierro” and “volcano” one finds a lot of information. One would discover for example that a volcano had erupted just south of the harbour at Restinga, the entire town (600 people) was evacuated, and all access in and out of Restinga had been cut off. Getting concerned? We were too, especially since the timeline was hard to pinpoint; either this all took place last year or a few weeks ago. The noticeable lack of people around seemed to point toward a recent problem but, in the end, we confirmed that the town was evacuated in October, 2011. Apparently an underwater volcano erupted, sending magma up to 60 ft into the air, and raised the water temperature to 35 degrees (sorry older readers I don’t know what that is in Fahrenheit but it’s really hot!). The spewing magma created a new land formation and since then there has been ongoing seismic activity. Restinga experienced 1000 earth quakes between June and July, 2012 and a volcanic event took place in September. It’s not really clear what that means but we know that it involved a lot of dead fish suddenly floating in the water. We can only assume from the almost complete lack of boats in the harbour, operating businesses, and people in the streets that the evacuation last year scared people off and the village hasn’t recovered. That or the rampant earth quakes are keeping people away. We are here until we get a weather window to leave for the Cape Verde’s so we are going to make the most of it and leave as soon as we can. Right now we are concentrating on trying to find out whether the bus is running again because the only bank in the village doesn’t appear to be operating and Adam has made it clear that the three hour hike up and out of the valley into the next village is not an appealing option. Worst case scenario: we get someone to wire us money to the post office during the hour that it is open. ![]() _ We have left La Gomera behind and have made our way to El Hierro, the last Canary Island we will visit before heading to the Cape Verde’s. El Hierro is the smallest island in the Canary group and has a population of only 11,000 people. Most of the island is uninhabited and it has remained largely unchanged by tourism. That means little English and few, if any, vegetarian options. But we have high hopes for the island as the sail over was great – the best since leaving Canada. We thought that we had completely replaced enjoyable sails with horrible ones, full of bad weather and vomiting but apparently fun CAN be had on the Atlantic Ocean. The sun was shining, the wind was consistent, and there were barely any waves. Zenobia sped through the water at 7 knots on a beam reach and I happily went down below to make lunch – on the stove! As he relaxed in the cockpit Adam forgot all his plans to sell the boat and abandon the crossing to the Caribbean. He could even be heard expounding on the virtues of sailing between singing along to Bat out of Hell (despite the fact that I clearly said no more Meatloaf on the iPod). There was even a rainbow to welcome us as we made landfall at the end of the day. Will it last? Will we learn to love sailing again? Can we dare to hope to avoid seasickness on the passage to the Cape Verde’s? Probably not, but at least for now Adam can take a break from endlessly thinking up ways to sink the boat. |
AuthorsAdam and Nikki Archives
August 2015
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