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Jean Marie and Walter Cross the Atlantic

Posted 2 months, 15 days ago

Jean Marie and Walter Cross the Atlantic
www.abyc.org.za: We are celebrating our Atlantic crossing Jacqui's second and my 5th one. Arrived on Monday 28 April 2008 at 21 Zulu time the last 31 hrs lots of very strong rain, visibility like zero quite exciting at night when it is pitch black and the boat is going at 6 to 7 knots, in the strong gust's, up to 9 kn. In all the crossing was a very easy one with blue sky and constant SE trade winds 8 to 16kn, used all the sails we had. All went well except once when we had the spy up and the wind increased to 20kn then the shackle of the sheet turning block broke and I needed 6 hands but Jax managed to ease the sheet which was now holding by one of the rigging shrouds and I managed to pull down the sock and we packed the bag away for the day!!! Had a few scotches to cool me down, I must say the asymmetrical is easier to fly but not as much fun. St. Helena was the best stop. We anchored in 20m of water off the town of Jamestown. The anchorage is protected from the SE trade winds but a heavy anchor chain is needed as it can be a bit rolly at times. The top of the island is very green with cows like in Switzerland, people are very friendly every car greets you and you must say hallo. The Jacobs ladder is good for a work out (699 steps) I really enjoyed it and went up a few times and the beer was taken afterwards across the road at Ann's place. A real good person Madame Ann she even gave me a kiss but she smelt like a brewery and she told me a secret 'you know I like my hourly Windhoek draft 'nothing wrong with that I told her. The fees in March 2008 were as follows: the yacht was 25.00 pounds for 3 months and it cost 12.00 pounds per person for immigration. Water is for free and available at the pier. The water taxi, our driver's name was Reg, highly recommended as he knew exactly how to handle the waves and swell when landing at the island and getting you back on board your yacht including all your jerry cans. The price for this was 1.20 pound return trip and payable the day you leave. We definitely recommend hiring a car and driving all over the island. The booking of the car can be done through the Tourist office in the Main street, they will make the call for you and we paid 11.00 pounds per day. The scenery is awe-inspiring!! It took us 2 days of traveling and wandering down every little road to see everything. Napoleon's 2 homes are also well worth the visit and this must be booked at the tourist office as well, it is for free. At Anne's place she does the yachties washing, it cost us 12.00 pounds for about 10 kilos. Up in the Main street you will find Marlene's Tea Room. She hails from Cape Town and makes the best bread, rolls, scones, doughnuts! You can place your order with her for bread etc for the remainder of the crossing, she double bakes this and lasts the whole way!! All in all a stop at St Helena is well worth the visit!! Do yourself a favour and stop. From St. Helena to Ascension island it was a 6 day sail with no problems. We didn't enjoy the island so much as there is nothing going on. The landing with the dingy was only for acrobats as the big Atlantic rollers were coming in, I think Hawaii would be jealous. We anchored in 12m of water but it was rough at times. There are millions of small black fish in the area they are a relative of the Piranha and these fish clean the bottom of the yacht of weed and barnacles within minutes. Ascension is a 'working island' only 800 population mostly St. Helenians but with 150 United Kingdom and 50 US citizens visitors are most welcome. The island has moved a long way away from being a closed island. This island is a desert of mostly volcanic rock it is very barren, only up the green mountain it is green like Switzerland. We hired a car and visited every corner of this very small volcanic island. The car hire we booked through Fowlers at One Boat Village. It cost 15.00 pounds. We spent some time at the American base and the RAF and visited the British weather station where a friend of mine used to work, they were very happy that we came to talk to them. The water was very clear, I did some diving and the black fish were all over me, lucky they left me alone. The fees for this year 2008 were 11.00 pounds per person and legally you may stay for 4 days only. If you require to stay longer a permit is obtainable. A permanent webcam is on at the pier head so family and friends can see you 'trying to land and jump off you dingy before it plummets back down again'. Food stuffs are expensive and there is only 1 store. More info on www.ascension-island.gov.ac After 5 day's we pulled up anchor and set course towards Brasil both wind and current on this downwind leg are in your favour. So we relaxed played cards every afternoon cooked good food with a desert every night and a scotch or two. Got Jax right on this leg she was asking for some boerewors and lamb chops and joined in with the sundowner's!!! Fishing was a must - always two lines out at the back but catches didn't come easy. I landed one Dorado which is a very good eating fish then I had a +- 1.8m sailfish on the line the plan was to let him go as he is to big and beautiful to be killed. I was amazed he managed to bite the hook in half and dived away to his freedom. Our night watches were very relaxing. I trusted our navigation system completely and I would recommend that every boat has a A.I.S. (Automatic Identification System) fitted. AIS will pick up any ship over 300 T with the Name of ship, speed, it's heading and it's ID number. One can set the alarm at 16nm 8nm 4 nautical miles or less as soon as a ship enters this circle the alarm will go off, having the name of the ship you can call him up on channel 16 and I guarantee he will answer. (without a name he will not answer). Next to that we run the radar set on a 10 minute watch with a guard of 7.5 nm around you and every 10 minutes it will scan for for 1 minute looking for objects around you and if so a alarm will throw you out of the deepest sleep. As we are sailing short handed I think this is the way to go I don't believe in a 20 minute sleep then get up and watch for a minute or two and go back for 20 minutes. Plus lots of sailors don't see so well anymore at our age and are half asleep when watching. If you have 4 on board a 3 hr shift watch is mostly used but in my experience I asked a few of my old crew did you ever watch behind you at night??? Sailing was good again when we left the island, with more wind we were doing 120 nm a day and Brasil was coming closer very quickly. After 11 days we arrived at the Rio Paraiba river mouth which is at Cabedelo (about 120nm south of Natal) we motored in idle speed up the river and after 18 km we tied up in the new marina which has pontoons for 40 boats, fresh water, power and free WIFI. The name of the marina is Jacare Yachting village. It is like paradise, the river is about 800m wide and along the river are about 10 small restaurants and good music till late at night. We will stay here for a while and Jacqui is busy planning a trip up the Amazon - a must if you are in Brasil. We may also fly to Belem or take a bus. Our sailmail provider was blocked by to many messages that was the reason why we did not send any mail it is a very slow process as it is going via a SSB radio and having only 10 min transmitting and receiving time available it can only do 3 messages in 10 min, we had 31 in the inbox, I am looking at better options and busy at the moment with subscribing to Skype so soon hopefully we can phone from the boat via our lap top, anyway while we are here you must use our old email address jeanmarie117 [at] hotmail.com It's 35C and I will go to look for a ice cold beer. We are well, happy and looking forward to hear from you. Regards Walter & Jacqui PS: in future if anyone uses sailmail please keep it to only 5-6 text lines nothing else, we get warned otherwise and lose our email till we have a new one. Thanks for understanding. Full Story »

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