JAN 2008

Is it really 2 months and 3000 plus miles since we updated..!! It seems so and in that time we’ve moved from Europe to Africa to the Caribbean; wilting as the weather grew hotter and hotter... 

 We left Porta Naos on Nov 23^rd -2 days before Bee’s birthday- and headed south to Fuerteventura and a few days later were on our way to Senegal and the port of Dakar. The journey started with big seas and squally conditions and gave us a far too strong a memory of Greenland, leaving us under no illusions that we have not really recovered from the experience; more of that later. We settled down into the familiar pattern of long passages although this was one was frequently interrupted by the appearance of ships moving north or south along the coast. Obvious really once I’d bothered to look at a passage chart and see that we were crossing or running parallel to the route from South Africa and beyond up to Europe. Two incidents stand out from the trip: in the midst of a squall we heaved to and found ourselves surrounded by ships heading north. Visibility was poor; the waves were high and the chances of us being seen were small. I call up on the VHF warning the nearest vessel to our position of our whereabouts. The ship in question is about 3 miles away...the vessel that responds states he is 13 miles away and will steer clear when he is closer...we give up trying to contact and reef rapidly whilst keeping a beady eye on the nearer ship. It passed safely. The other overall impression of the trip is the poor visibility caused by dust particles blown out from the coast and desert. A ship passed us in broad daylight and less than a mile away and we hadn’t seen it until the last moment. In our terms a mile is the last moment as the things are frequently travelling at 20 knots are more so a mile is a frighteningly short 3 minutes to get out of its way. 

The trip down, apart from too many ships and a lack of wind for the much of the journey, was fairly uneventful. Toots caught her first flying fish of the trip although by now the count is well into double figures and we drew ever closer to Dakar.

Our first sighting proved to be a bit of a shock as it brought to mind the south coast of England, green hills and neat houses. As it happened the last 15 miles or so took hours as we were headed by the wind and the tide set against us.

Made it eventually of course to find a crowded anchorage - 60 or more boats, of which only a couple were not French. Back when France had “owned” Senegal they had set up a sailing club and it was still in existence but obviously now run by the Senegalese. It’s a sort of mixed blessing as it does, undoubtedly, serve as a European enclave, a bit of colonial peace within the country but it also creates or re-enforces the “us and them”. Many of the boats were going no where as the French owners had settled down and found the lifestyle to their liking but from an outsiders point of view we found the anchorage poor; rolly and exposed it easily became uncomfortable. Whilst you can anchor for free, to use the yacht club facilities including the access into the local village you needed to pay 15,000 CFA’s (ceefas) for a week.

It sounded a lot but turned out to be19 euros so we forked out. We registered with them and I was given precise instructions and how to get a cab and book in down town. Walking out of the yacht club and into the dust track that passed a road I was struck by the similarities with eighties Goa and found myself in a mêlée of taxi-drivers and prices....Agreed a price and a detour to get some money and eventually found myself outside the Port Police office. The cabbie decided he should come in with me having warned that I should not pay anything as a bribe. I should point out that the pilot book warns that the police will ask for a “present” on completion of formalities and sure enough he did. I declined; he became more persistent and the cabbie grew anxious and suggested I pay up....I declined and with relief (on my part) the policeman threw our passports and papers across the table and I was free to go. The cabbie was very subdued as we left the building and drove quickly away and suddenly became elated, laughing and “high fiving” me repeating my excuses for not paying the police. Customs were no problem as the fee is set at 5000 CFA and no “present” is expected. I really do not do bribes very well and yet it seems to be a way of life here. Talking it over with a variety of other yotties there doesn’t appear to be an easy path to follow although as the initial bribe figure the police suggested was 500 CFA or about 35p they felt I was taking principles a bit far. In defence I would say the guy did up the price to 5000 but it is still very little money. Back to Dakar to find Bee hanging on for life as the wind had got up and the fetch had built up causing Hannah to plunge up and down. It died down of course but returned regularly each day to cause angst. Ashore we wandered the local town, walking along the sand road which we discovered had a tarmac surface lurking underneath 6 inches of sand. A sand we had noticed on deck, covering the leading edge of all lines and halyards, and generally making Hannah look unkempt. We showered ashore, doing our washing at the same time. Used the local internet “café” – an hour for 250 CFA and bought fruit and veg from a local stall for the crossing. The anchorage was really a huge bay and the village where we were anchored - Hann- supported a very active fish market where, each morning a mass of colour would assemble to buy the just landed fish.

The fishermen use pirogues and they vary from a hollowed out tree to large, perhaps 25 feet or more, capable of carrying 8 or 9 people. Very often the crew would be dressed in a bright yellow oilskin jacket which seems incongruous in Senegal but the boats have little shelter and it can be cool and damp overnight. Almost all boats, as with fishermen everywhere, have large outboards and only the smallest one man boats have a single paddle which the guy uses alternate sides to propel himself along. We sometimes found them “anchored” nearby when we awoke – a fire burning gentle in the boat to enable them to make a breakfast drink.

An email from Cooya –an English boat we were meeting up with- warned they would be longing getting there than anticipated and our enthusiasm began to wane. They did arrive one fine morning and it was great to see Mike and Eilean with their newly recruited American crew member, Kaz. Cooya was built, I think, in 1911 and by now is in Brazil whilst M and E return to Scotland to celebrate significant birthdays with family. We toyed with the idea of heading south to the Lower Saloum with them but in the end decided we’d head off across the Atlantic for Tobago. Mike kindly printed off some grib files, before they left, which indicated favourable, consistent 20 knot winds and we slipped out of the anchorage at 08.00 on the16 Dec. That night I began to feel a bit shivery and flu like and Bee began to worry.............and worry. It appears that malaria can be confused with flu like symptoms and with 2500 miles to go now was not the time to get it. Whatever it was. As our route took us close to the Cape Verdes we decided to call in and get a check. Such innocence! Such naivety. Having cleared in, we headed for the hospital. We queued and eventually we were told we needed to pay 1500 escudos to be processed. That’s about €14. Off to the bank we go and then back to the hospital. Waiting and waiting. The hours pass and Bee heads back to the boat as by now the night is only an hour away. Soon after she leaves I’m ushered in through the doors and find myself in another smaller queue and then within half hour I’m seen by the doctor. A quick check and she sends me for a blood test. I wander the corridors and find the clinic and the inevitable queue. 19 people in front of me, mozzies in abundance and suddenly I’m out the door and heading for Hannah. Can’t be bothered to wait – I’ll return tomorrow. Walking down the unlit and unsavoury road that leads to the anchorage a car suddenly screeches to a halt beside me. The window comes down and the guy seems to be offering me a lift. I decline, as I’m only 300 metres from the dock where the dinghy is. He becomes more insistent and pushes open the door demanding that I get in. Throughout he has kept up a torrent of words in various languages and I suddenly realise he’s warning me that the road is very dangerous and should not be walked at night and whether I need it or not I’m getting a lift.

Back to the hospital the following day to find last night's “overlong” queue of 19 had now reached triple figures and bedlam ruled. The English principle of queuing for your turn was unheard of and we really needed Lucia to show us how to deal with it. But we got there in the end, had my blood test then hung around for the result. Name is called and I’m handed a bit of paper. More discussions and we’re directed back to where the saga began 24 hours earlier... Different doctor this time and because I hadn’t reappeared last night the paperwork had been filed. Asked to wait whilst it was located I couldn’t help but wonder how come all hospitals seem to employ the same colour schemes? Called back in to be told the test were all clear and I didn’t have malaria! Back out on the street to change the excess of escudos back into euros we passed a familiar looking face and acknowledged each other with a smile and realised we “knew” each other from the hours of waiting in the hospital queue. The bank we chose had a queue as well and we joined it. The minutes turned into an hour but we were getting close to the front. We were at the front and now we were at the counter!! “Can we change these escudos into euros?” we asked. The teller consulted someone senior “yes” they could be changed but not by us as we didn’t have an account there.... Back into the street and into a travel agent to ask where we could change money. A phone call produced a man with a fat bum-bag who calculated what we had, gave us what seemed to be the official exchange rate and we were back on the street within minutes.

This time around Praia, the capital of Santiago, seemed far less threatening and we thoroughly enjoyed our brief stay there; the thriving fruit and veg market; the town square when wi-fi is provided free of charge and the enormous mix of races that make up the local population. Evidence is around that investment, of some sort, is happening with the appearance of huge billboards advertising/warning of time share apartments although little sign of work starting as yet. But the second visit proved far more enjoyable than the first even with the health business and should we ever embark on a journey down that neck of the woods would return.

So we set out, having checked the weather, on Dec 22^nd looking for a fast crossing with settled conditions. Hours out of Praia the wind dropped and although we toyed with the idea of returning we were buoyed up by the forecast we seen. Why do we do it? The second day out we managed 31 miles in 24 hours and despite sending out texts to my son Pete and sister Tish to get us some weather info we still went nowhere. Luckily the texts came back with the info moments before we drifted out of range and despite the info the reality was zilch wind but the response from both was appreciated. And then came one of those nonsense moments that really make you question why on earth we do this. Fed up with drifting we decided to head for a tiny anchorage on Brava, one of the western islands of the Cape Verdes. We motor-sailed in 5 knots of wind and about 4 miles from the anchorage the wind picked up and headed us so be began tacking. Still it increased and we thought, “Great-lets turn around and head across” So we did and a couple of miles later the wind died. So we turn again and motor back. The wind picks up. And up. Daylight begins to fade and with the anchorage being very small and unlit we decide, once again, to turn around and cross. A couple of miles later the wind fades and dies.................. We pick a point on the chart some 6 miles away and agree we’ll motor to there to clear the land and some 4 miles out we pick up the wind and we’re away. With a little regret as both Brava and the adjacent Fogo looked interesting places to visit and friends we met on the last trip, Nigel and Jude, left from Brava and loved the place.

Despite the forecast we’d checked we found the winds to be fickle and light. The sailing we had done on this trip had shown us that if conditions were good we would expect to easily cover 130 miles in 24 hours and yet we never managed more than 113 and far too many days were below 100. We seriously questioned what we were doing to the point of dreaming about living on a canal boat and spent hours reading a magazine, comparing prices and dreaming. Some days, of course, were brilliant. Blue skies and a pleasant 4 or 5 knots but more often the sky was grey and overcast and winds light but seas lumpy. For any boat crossing in these conditions life is unpleasant but for a gaffer with heavy spars it becomes a nightmare. Gear gets chafed and one morning I wandered forward to find the jib had “wineglassed” around the outer forestay. Attempts at pulling it down got nowhere and we had to devise a safety harness attached to halyard to enable me to inch along the bowsprit so that the sail could be unwound and brought down. We subsequently discovered that the starboard sheet had chafed through. Another time we found the bobstay too loose and I needed to crawl along the bowsprit clutching spanners to tighten everything up. Sat astride the thing, up to my knees in ocean as Hannah rose and fell in her forward motion. Warm seas though. But these were minor incidents compared with what lay ahead. We had been trucking along under main and genny. The genny wasn’t filling properly so I decided to change it for a smaller, steadying sail. Bee went forward, as usual, to make the change as we rolled along under lumpy seas but light winds. Bee must have made a 1000 sail changes so is used to the foredeck and how sails and halyards work. Except this time. Releasing the halyard she began heaving the genny down and suddenly found herself on her knees as the block came down very quickly and, as Hannah rolled to the swell, gathered momentum and smashed into her forehead. She called out and I looked up to see her crouched on the foredeck, blood streaming down her face, her t-shirt rapidly changing colour and the deck and sails with blood on them. Rushing forward I was horrified at the damage, Bee was more horrified that I’d come forward without anything to staunch the flow and sent me scuttling aft for a cloth. “It looks worse than it is” she informed me whilst continuing to gather in the sail and true to form once we’d cleaned up the mess, found a self igniting ice-pack to calm down the bruising and got a couple of Ibuprofen down her she claimed to be ok. However her head still bears the scar, the sails still carry the stains and I don’t think I am ever going to forget the moments of fear I felt when I saw her kneeling there with blood everywhere.

And then one day I happened to come up for a quick look round and spotted a sail on the horizon!! We have never seen a sailing boat when crossing so we watched with some amazement. We pondered whether to call them up but moments later were receiving a call from them! Even more amazing the voice was one we knew well as we’d met Paul and Lyn on several occasions and had shared several bottles of wine with them over the last few months. Paul managed to spoil it by proclaiming they were a slow boat but had been averaging 6.5 knots and had taken 3 or 4 days out of us already! We were not impressed and will fine him heavily when our paths next cross. They had left from Mindelo, further to the north from our departure point and had had too much wind for the first 10 days or so. Lucky him we could only think. We promised to call at daybreak but it was obvious that we he was leaving us behind and we shared a quick word before they disappeared from sight. But they did inadvertently inspire us to create a booming out pole out of a boat-hook, fire hose, a short length of line and two carabiners and our speed improved a little.

Eventually, of course, all journeys end and on Wed 16 Jan we crept into Man O’ War Bay, Charlotteville, Tobago some 25 days after we left Praia. To our immense surprise and joy Pete and Lucia were still there although they had begun to worry a little at our non appearance. They’d arrived in the early hours of Christmas day and had had a relaxing time. Tobago is a wonderful island although a week was enough for us. Charlotteville is a small village that has a thriving fishing community but has also become more tourist orientated. Small houses dot the heavily tree covered slopes and walking anywhere involves serious effort. The capital is Scarborough about 25 miles away at the other end of the island. You catch an infrequent bus or a more regular maxi-taxi. We caught the latter and spent the journey being serenaded by a gospel tape. On a loop. As Bee said, the sad thing was that the other passengers knew all the words. The journey back was the opposite. A young driver who could only drive with his foot hard down, engine screaming and racing up behind the vehicle in front before recklessly overtaking or slamming his foot on the brake. And those he did overtake would in turn pass us as he regularly pulled over to the numerous roadside stands to pick up roti or beers or whatever else his passengers might require. And the music..........loud, repetitive and featuring “Party Animal” the track that seems to have taken over the airwaves and is played relentlessly, frequently repeated. But Charlotteville offered swimming and clear water. So Bee snorkelling around suddenly calls across to me (but quietly) “I can see money-how deep are we”?)Too deep for either of us she swam across to Pete and Lucia to recruit them. Two dives later we had US$80 between the two boats! And we later found a French guy who had found another $20. Unfortunately the water clarity deteriorated after that and no further treasure was found. Tobago has also been a useful source of kero for us as it is sold loose and, like diesel, costs a mere TT$1.50 per litre. We exchanged the euros we got in Praia for TT$ and got 8.60 per Euro so fuel works out around 11p per litre. Think it was about 90p a litre when we left Southampton.. In the end though we were glad to leave as a swell rolled through the anchorage and sleep became difficult.

Although we hadn’t intended to we ended up sailing down to Trinidad' partly to liaise with Pete and Lucia, here to collect an American visa and partly to catch up with Steve and Lyn plus Katie. They had left Southampton the year before a trip to Denmark so it would be 6 years since we had seen them. AND Katie being a new addition it would be good to see them. We booked in at Chagoramas before moving round the corner to a quieter, music excepted, anchorage and met up with the crew off “Fair Grace” Expect them to figure a lot over the next few months as they had, independently, decided on a very similar route to us and as we get on so well will probably cruise together for much of the time. The anchorage is free but access to the shore, via the yacht club costs so we opted to leave the dinghy on the beach or tied up at a night club when we took to land. We replaced the toilet pump- a problem that had plagued us for the last week leaking despite everything we tried- and briefly caught up with Steve who was still at work. Lyn and Kate were down the town so we opted to return the following day. A shout of “Hannah” from a fast moving rib the next morning alerted us to the visit of Lyn and a very shy Katie and we spent an hour catching up, repeated the following day when we visited Melika (their boat) and met all three of them. Their saga continues still but they’re beginning to see an end in sight and hope to set off on their interrupted journey.

Fair Grace (FG) and Hannah left the anchorage for a couple of days cruising amongst the islands, spending the first night in Turtle Bay on Monos. Few people live there but the shoreline has, perhaps, 7 or 8 summer homes around the bay. Very quiet and a lovely anchorage. The following day we headed further west toward Venezuela and anchored at Chacachacare Island. The island had been used as a leper colony for well over a hundred years and it was only in the late 1960’s that it ceased to function as one when the cure for leprosy found its way there. A fascinating place; many houses are still standing-particularly the ones where the nuns slept. All the houses have been vandalised but many are simply falling apart as the jungle overwhelms them. The hospital pharmacy had phials of something in abundance, hospital records lay strewn across the floor and the hospital itself had metal bed frames lying around. All in all a sad if thought provoking place and, for the most part, a silent anchorage. Local boats do come there bringing holiday-makers. Some bring huge speaker systems too.....!!

But we’re back in Chag. waiting for a favourable wind to take us north to Grenada and further up the chain and preferably before the carnival starts in a few days!!

Not all who wander are lost.....

It’s been 3 months since we wrote up the web page and in that time we’ve covered, slowly, some 1200 odd miles and seen some of the varied coastline of our own country for the first time. In the early days of this trip, when libraries were more common, there seemed little point in writing as the journey felt somehow tenuous, as though it wasn’t real – possibly because everything was familiar

The drama started as we left Quayside at 6am, casually reversing out of the berth and into the river without checking we suddenly found ourselves confronted with a tug towing a ship up to the scrap metal yard and just made it across the river to avoid them before settling down to the trip. The days that followed saw us exploring the local anchorages, so familiar to everyone else in the yard and so foreign to us, before seizing the easterly wind and heading on down to Poole. Leaving the anchorage the next day and chancing our luck over a narrow and shallow piece of channel under power, Bee who happened to go below, shouted up that the engine temp. was very hot. Unfortunately this coincided with us running aground and me trying to reverse off. In fact I had just succeeded when she called and as her next shout was to warn of smoke coming from said engine she had no choice but to switch the engine off. So we promptly drifted back onto the mud and lay beam on to the channel, effectively blocking it….. Perhaps unwisely we opened the engine cover but eventually we established the smoke was, in fact, steam but as we blocking the channel used by a local ferry we contacted the HM and got ourselves towed out of the way. In the end the problem turned out to be a jubilee clip that had come adrift and shed the coolant. We repaired, refilled and headed into the harbour for the night. A very swish, varnished yacht lay near by and the owners came along to see us, remarking in passing that the boat was Bloodhound, owned previously by the Duke of E and we were welcome to look her over tomorrow. However the visit didn’t materialise and we left heading the following day for the West Country. 

We arrived at Dartmouth around 2am in a blow, with no large scale chart, hearts thumping and crashed through the narrow entrance and into comparative quiet. As it was still dark and we were unable to locate any visitor’s buoys we tied to a vacant MOD lump and slept for a few hours before heading upstream. Eventually we settled on a buoy opposite a viaduct where, over the next few days, we were entertained by the tourist steam engine bellowing photogenic clouds of steam through the trees as it made its twice daily journey.

From there onto the Yealm, Fowey and then Helford to meet up with Nige and Jude, fellow cruisers from our last trip. They live overlooking the Helford in an idyllic spot and the first night we rowed ashore we were greeted by a garden of wild primroses,bluebells,daffs and wonderful smells.

Toots came with us and spent the evening wandering around with a tail in the air with happiness. A gathering of their friends and family included us and the Sunday afternoon was taken with a boisterous game of football from which two stars emerged – Bee as the top scorer and Dyson, who at 70+ was a powerhouse of defending. Great afternoon. 

We also met up with Brad and Jo, Isaac and Ruby from Lilly B. and spent the evening chatting, drinking and catching up. A last job was to help bring N&J’s boat down from Gweek and onto their buoy opposite their house. The channel to and from Gweek is tortuous and shallow even at high springs and had me wondering how the place ever became so popular. Actually, like many of the “names” we visited, it surprised us by being much larger than we’d thought and, possibly because of that, we were under-awed by the whole place.

We’d also snuck a quick trip into Falmouth and up the Fal which was probably our favourite place. We stopped at the Marina at Falmouth and decided to go looking for Steve and Marilyn, last seen in Nova Scotia but every where we called had no knowledge of where they were although they claimed the name to be familiar. Finally calling at a swish yard and getting the same answer we were directed to a smaller, cheaper yard across the river. As we pedalled through the propped up boats we spotted Spray Venture and banged imperiously on the hull, raising a startled Marilyn to peer over the side to see us grinning and cavorting at having finally tracked them down. 

Onto the Scillies. Much has been said about the islands and everyone we spoke to enthused about them but they did little for us and although we stayed perhaps 10 days it felt as though we were filling in time. We had such interesting trips between islands as fog descends within minutes leaving you peering around listening for sounds that stir the heart and emotions – surf, engines or the bell on a buoy….. Curiously weeks later I was reading a sailing book written in the 1880’s and the author too felt they were over sold and hadn’t lived up to the hype.

We had a couple of longish journeys ahead: Scillies to Wales and Wales to Scotland. Longish in that they offer few places to hole up and the first one crosses the Bristol Channel. We opted for Milford Haven as it had an easy entrance and wasn’t too far east. MH was a revelation and once the industrial section had been left behind we found ourselves meandering along a wonderful river, between woods, rock, fields and sheep. True the tide runs hard but we had a number of great anchorages and to ourselves. MH also offers free pontoons at various points and we tied up to one a few miles in from the entrance readying ourselves for the push north but there is little to recommend this particular one as a swell works its way in and the boat can roll heavily. The journey north took us through the islands of Skomer and Skokholm where the tide rules and puffins abound and we anchored in a small bay to await the return of the favourable tide and then onto Fishguard for the night. The wind was light and variable the next day as we headed off for N Wales. Plans changed and changed again as the wind dropped, veered and the tide turned. A decision to round Anglesey was aborted as we realised the tidal gates would be all against us and we’d spend the next 3 days battling seas and then Bee spotted a little bay called Port Dinllaen and less than 15 miles from the southern entrance to the Menai Straits. Both Reeds and Libby Purves (whose book “One Summer’s Grace” we dip into for bits about the area we’re in) write Dinllaen off as an anchorage for poor holding but the Rocna we bought before we left has been everything we could have asked for. Little we did we know the big test was about to arrive. Cruising along into the last two miles before we turn Hannah was hit by a gathering wind as the pleasant Force 4 escalated to a 7 in minutes and that was protected by the adjacent headland. As we turned into the bay and thus into the wind we dropped the main and crept in under motor………….and crept………..and finally dropped the anchor. 40 metres plus of chain screamed out, the anchor bit and Hannah came up head to wind happily and we rejoiced in our good fortune. It blew hard that night but we remained in position and slept soundly. Well that’s not quite true ‘cos ahead lay the southern entrance to the Menai………and the wind was SW meaning we were heading into the entrance on a lee shore. The channel shifts and the buoy positions with it….was I nervous………too bleedin’ true I was. Should we go in under sail or motor (I chose motor- mistake as we rolled badly) and my nervousness was accelerated when I misread the buoy sequence and headed inside instead of outside of the first mark. But half an hour later we were in and in calmer water but the only two anchorages looked distinctly iffy and we opted for the marina by Caernarfon Castle. A fine choice as we were not only treated very well by the Berthing Master Mark but he has reams of very useful info on the entrance but also on the Menai Strait itself, the traversing of which depends a careful timing. Luckily a couple of local boats were heading to Conwy and offered to show us the way and the following day we all left in convoy………except we nearly didn’t as I completely misjudged the effect of the flood tide on the narrow entrance to the harbour and found that despite full revs and a tiller hard over it was quite obvious we were going to T-bone the wall on the other side……….how strange that  time stands still in these moments as, engine now going hard astern, we waited to see if we would avoid disaster – snapped bowsprit, boat pinned up against a wall before being swept into a  shallow area whilst the Monday morning loafers looked on………. But we did back off, we did get everything under a control and we did slide smoothly through the entrance under a visibly nervous berthing master. The trip up was uneventful after that until we cleared the two bridges the wind picked up and we were faced with a series of mast shaking gybes as we followed a snaking channel. By now all but one of our escorts had left us and we followed him across his favourite shortcut…the depths dropped and continued to drop and still our man ploughed on his gaze glued to his chart plotter, following his boats progress on the screen as we careered along behind him. He knew his stuff, knew our depth and led us safely, if a little worriedly (on our behalf) to the entrance of Conwy. The very smart marina had been primed for our arrival by a friend who also happens to be a policeman and so we closed the entrance and called them…. wind is gusting, entrance is narrow, marina is FULL of expensive, white plastic and there isn’t a lot of room to manoeuvre……..I chickened out and we headed upstream and picked up a municipal buoy where we remained for a week visiting Lindy and Mark and Lindy’s parents, David and Mary Ann before heading north for Scotland via the Isle of Man. 

Not much we can say about the latter other than our departure from Port Erin coincided with a growing wind that had us embayed and Hannah clawing her way out under heavily reefed main and straining engine, burying her bowsprit before aiming for the moon and all on board wondering what on earth we were doing…

We arrived at Loch Ryan after a frustrating trip, a theme that has been common actually as the engine hours will confirm. Loch Ryan has Stranraer at its head and we anchored for a few days before heading in. The Harbour Master turned out to be from Yorkshire and moved boats around to accommodate us. The harbour is being dredged to put in a pontoon for visiting yachts so we had to time our arrival and wait until the dredger had headed off to sea before entering. We stayed a few days as I wanted to head off to say final goodbyes to a friend who had died and say a quick hello to Pete, Sarah and Evan plus various other people I hadn’t seen for almost 30 years.

That was about a month ago and since then we have wandered around the west coast of Scotland, found somewhere to winter (Campbeltown on Kintyre) had a quick cruise around Arran and up the Kyle’s of Bute before heading around the Mull of Kintyre on up to Gigha.

From there an exhilarating sail up the Sound of Islay, between Islay and Jura, where our speeds under a reefed mizzen, stays’l and spitfire reached an exhilarating 9+knots thanks to 6 knots of tide. Progress was going well but a glance of our shoulder saw a rapidly moving cloud and as we approached the entrance to Loch Tarbert, on Jura we were hit by the squall which used the adjacent mountain to accelerate and hit us at a good 50 knots. Hannah heeled and kept on heeling as the bulwarks and then the bottom edge of the toe boards went under water until we clawed the mizzen down to bring some order to the boat. Made it into a bit of shelter and tested the Rocna again. Once the wind eased we worked our way up the Loch and into a pool of brown peaty water, surrounded by rocks for the night. Spent a few nights in the Loch but moved into the inner part after the second night for complete isolation – no houses no roads. We came back through the Islay sound and worked our way, over the next few days up past but not through the Gulf of Corryvrecken but through the Cuan Sound and onto Oban before heading up to Tobermory and onto The Small Isles.

Canna was our choice for a few nights, chatting to other cruisers who all seem to be from the Solent for some reason before heading up to Loch Harport on Skye. Quiet anchorage to ourselves really, although we were visited by a lovely Dutch gaff ketch some 80 feet long. Not sure what it is about skippers on these small ships but they rarely appear friendly or even able to acknowledge your presence although that wasn’t true of the crew. Ho hum. We decided to leave Gesto Bay on a sunny Monday morning and within seconds of Bee starting to haul the anchor she realised we had a problem as an anchor could be clearly seen dangling from our chain some 2 metres under the boat (we were anchored in 5 or 6 metres so we knew it wasn’t ours) There followed 2 hours of hard work as we laboured to raise a discarded mooring anchor complete with riser and bridle. We had lines attached to anchor, lines attached to chain and to our joy the shackles came undone with little effort. Finally with the unwanted anchor hanging, but secure, we set off to accost a local fishing boat across the Loch. “Would they like it otherwise we would dump it” Alarmed at the thought we may do so on their fishing ground they gently came alongside and removed the item and any other bits we no longer needed. We had intended to take it out to sea but I guess wherever we dumped it may have fouled someone’s fishing ground so it is probably ashore in a twee garden somewhere.

Whilst in Canna we were told by several boats about their experiences in the Western Isles or Outer Hebrides. It was generally negative, too bleak, too many rocks etc. We obviously decided to go although the only charts we have are small scale and no use whatsoever in negotiating Loch entrances strewn 

with rocks. But the Pilot Books are and whilst they often lack lat and long it is possible, with care, to work your way into these places. And what places they are. So far we have only been here about a week but we are bowled over. Firstly it reminds us of Newfie but without the prospect of 8’ of ice in the winter and secondly we have the anchorages to ourselves. Not even a mooring buoy to encourage visitors and we love it. At the moment we’re in a small creek in Loch Stockinish on Harris. The entrance has a few rocks to dodge but absolutely nothing to worry about but the Loch opens up after you slide through a 27 metre gap. A few more houses around the Loch than the last few but already we keep looking at small crofts and musing……

But we have moved on again and are now in Stornoway and, like so many before us, bemused by the huge contrast with the rest of the Western Isles. Perhaps we should have realised that the appearance of an occasional street lamp in a sparsely populated hamlet meant we may soon come across more…but this place is a real town with every amenity you could wish for. That’s not meant to be derogatory either but it really bears no resemblance to the rest of the places we’ve visited. Has a great feel to the place, very friendly people who take delight in telling us the Hebridean Celtic Festival starts next week along with the Traditional Boat Gathering and assume we’ve arrived early for the latter………..although, true to form, we will have left before either starts.

I’ve already written about our anchor and can only reiterate it has been a brilliant investment and has never let us down yet irrespective of the bottom. It digs through weed and finds the mud below and even came up once with a small boulder lodged between its flukes. 

Whenever we have needed to reef the main I find myself gazing up at the sail, noting how well it sets and draws and say each time how glad I am we got a professional sail-maker to supply them. They have been a joy to work with and the deeper reefs and the spitfire jib give enormous satisfaction both in raising and it the way they work so well together. 

 

And finally… Bee is rowing ashore with Toots hanging over the bow dangling a front paw millimetres from the water. I’m on the shore and, as Bee is going off course, I call out for her to pull hard on her left oar….she does…and Toots finds the boat is no longer underneath her but the water is and she is deposited unceremoniously into very cold water……….from where resurfacing at high speed and without assistance she appears to propel herself from the depths back onto the dinghy……

 

 

 

The Granddaddy of all refits...

And finally the update is done which can only mean we’re back in the cruising mode and about to head off. Or have already done so…

It has been a long 18 months, lots of work on Hannah, lots of paid work for Bee, less for me, but sat over the inevitable evening glass of wine (now home brewed) there is a feeling of satisfaction at the changes we have made - improvements all. Engine and gearbox sorted, doghouse built, new sails with the addition of a trys’l and small storm stays’l (NOT that we will ever need them….) and so on. Here’s a brief rundown on the efforts to date.

We came out of the water on Dec 4^th 2005 and built a “Maine shelter” to protect us from the, forecasted, harsh winter. The building process was accompanied by much lip pursing and head shaking but in the end the shelter impressed all with its rigidity. Mind you they hadn’t seen the house our friend John built to house their boat in sunny Maine…………

One of its great assets was it enabled us to get on with work as it tended to hide us from passers by and although work progressed slowly we were moving forward. Of the many jobs we had to tackle the repairing of various bits of hull damage was fairly prominent. Long time readers will, perhaps, remember the stories of hitting lumps of French granite and being assaulted by a runaway iceberg. The latter was relatively easy as the damage was confined to the epoxy that had been used to fair the hull. 

 The granite damage proved a different problem as the cement we had used had set so hard it refused to crack with a lump hammer and bolster and eventually we gave up and decided it was sound enough. We ground it back to give a smoother finish and declared ourselves satisfied. The wonder of concrete hulls…. And the wonder of the use of the shower on Larus (Tim and Nancy’s boat) to rid ourselves of the inevitable cement dust that accompanies the grinding back of the hull. 

Their purchase of a flat couldn’t have come at a more timely moment either and they may never fully understand our appreciation.... Other tasks we came across were rot in the bridge-deck and the bottom of the mizzen and touches of rot in the main. All repaired with varying degrees of difficulty. “Stan” became the focus of our attention as we bombarded Paul with numerous changes we felt we needed – almost entirely to stiffen up and make it more storm proof. The re-launch day came and went without us and we settled for a more expensive sole launching later in the year. We contacted a supplier for Jotun paints, checked the colour on the internet and were suitably horrified when we opened the tins to confirm…going back to the internet we noticed a small notice which indicated that colours shown on screens, because of the limitations of computers, bear little resemblance to reality.

Well ok it wasn’t quite like that but certainly the gist. Reactions varied from “the contents of a babies nappy” to a “great colour to be seen at sea” with us firmly in the latter camp. By May, with the sun high, we needed to remove the cover as temperatures would easily rise to 30ْC and above and even the tomato plants Bee had elected to grow seemed to wilt under the heat.

  We completed the paint and bright work, cleaned up the engine, replaced, with Geoff’s help, the timing belt and re-fitted the engine. By late July we were back in the water and towed back to our berth. Engine was re-connected, prop shaft and a new flexible stern gland fitted and with new wiring we fired it up and did it run well. All that thanks to John of course.

  
Smaller jobs were completed and then we got a surprise visit from Martin and Roma (the previous owners and builders of Hannah)in “Apple” a steel Wylo, their latest build (and last they assure us) Lots of neat ideas and high workmanship and great to see both boats together. Still prefer Hannah though.
Actually we have had several visits whilst here. Ziggy and Lisa and then Stephen and Zella both visited, at different times, from the US and then my grandson Evan arrived towing his parents, Pete and Sarah, along to see the reprobates in the flesh. Quite a year!

By now we were almost, we thought, ready and then idly glancing through an oldish copy of Yachting Monthly I happened to see a photo of a similar boat to Hannah that had built a doghouse………………… YES just what we needed!!!…….much discussion with many different people, a pooling of ideas and then the break we needed when Alastair casually mentioned he’d love to give me a hand in the build. Alastair, besides featuring in a number of previous webpage’s of ours is also a dab hand with wood and his offer meant the difference between “Gawd what on earth is that” and ”It looks like it has always been there”

We measured, cogitated, re-measured and then ordered. I collected from the wood yard but was absolutely gob smacked at the size of the timbers and had a nervous chat with my mentor about the sizes – surely Noah couldn’t have had anything like these sizes? 

But we worked on steadily, me looking on, AD whittling away and slowly it came into being and, I have to say, is everything we could have wished for. The timbers are in keeping with the massive strength of Hannah and already we appreciate the difference as ventilation improves dramatically, the blessed Toots has somewhere to shelter and rain no longer means we have the hatch slammed shut.

The sails! Well this was a saga that could have been from hell. We’d bought the material, found and bought an industrial sewing machine and a copy of “The Sailmaker’s Apprentice” A local hall was available for hire (£6.00 ph) and a mental (you choose which way it’s meant..) calculation of 200 hours to cut and stitch seemed about right. The weeks turned into months and Bee’s reminder that we (I) hadn’t started was met with excuses. Finally we sat down to work out a strategy which quickly established that perhaps we should give ourselves a head start and get the main made. I phoned around to find a sail maker who would use our material. All I spoke to said “No” but many mentioned the name “James Lawrence” and so I rang. “Sure, No problem” After a couple of discussions with Mark Butler at JL we felt that perhaps we should just hand the whole job over and so drove over to Essex with our old sails. Watching the loft in action made us realise that we had been out of our depth here and the relief at handing the job over was palpable and enormous. Made more so when we told the sails we had asked for, 9 in total, would take 3 skilled people 3 – 4 weeks to complete…perhaps I needed to add a 0 to my calculation of 200 hours? Readers of earlier entries may remember our uncanny ability to find heavy weather whenever we’re “doing a long one”. It’s this ability that we focused on when we were discussing the sails with Mark and the reason we now have deeper reefs in both the main and mizzen and a trys’l and storm stays’l for those moments when the call of the sea is replaced with the call of the 9-5…………. As yet we have had little chance to try them out other than for a few hours but we’ll report in due course. 

Another change has been the saloon stove. Battered and worn, the old one had given great service but we’d set our heart on something with a little more control, something that would burn through the night if required and chose to fit a Morso Squirrel. It is a cracking stove, fulfils all our needs and with its glass front gives a wonderful glow. We toyed with the idea of a back burner and radiators but then found we’d need to install a pump and then we’d be into additional power requirements. (apparently the pump used by Reflex uses about 2 amps!). KISS....

A tale or two…. I’m in the engine compartment, clarting around and Bee is putting the kettle on. As you are possibly aware we have a Taylor’s Paraffin Cooker which is preheated before igniting. Bee was in this preheat process and turned to the fuel tank to pump up the pressure, turned back and was confronted by a small wall of flame. “I think you should come here” sayeth the dulcet toned one……….:”I think you should come here NOW” It was the slight emphasis on the last word that alerted me to the fact that something might be amiss………. We dumped a fire blanket over the flames, blasted it with an extinguisher and retreated up top. Gazing at the white fire blanket I could see a cherry glow and a gentle roaring sound and rushed down the companionway. Peeking under the blanket, holding my breath against the fumes I can see the fire is definitely not out. In one of those strange coincidences in life Bee had come back from Asda the night before and announced that the shop had fire extinguishers and, as ours were mostly out of date, perhaps we should get a new one. Oddly enough instead of prevaricating as I usually do we had gone in that morning and bought one. And, of course, it was this brand new extinguisher I’d grabbed and squirted over the blanket. This time I lifted the blanket and emptied the remains of the contents across the cooker…………. Well they do make a mess but more importantly they work very well.  Obviously we needed to replace that and buy more but timing is all it seems. The fault by the way can be traced to the eejit I employ to keep the cooker in fine fettle i.e. ME. I had allowed a locking nut to work loose (or more likely not done it up tight enough) which had allowed a fuel leakage and then the fire. Paraffin is a MUCH safer fuel than gas and has in no way altered our view of the cooker. Other than to make sure all necessary work is done properly and in good time. And then one day passing the rubbish bin, as usual full to overflowing, I spotted a wine box lying on top of the rest of discarded items. Ever curious I shook it and was rewarded with a carton at least half full….as a matter of academic interest I checked the sell by date and startled to see it was only the day previous. Of course we drank it – kept us going for several days.

We had a week away, ostensibly as a shakedown and or departure. Motored across to Newtown Creek and then endured a week of howling gales as low after low came scudding down the English Channel. At one time we suffered a whiteout as wave tops were blown clean off and when the wind backed to the SW we had a fine time…………. Except that it reminded us rather more than we wanted of the journey back from Greenland…………………

With the many nights we have spent at anchor over a variety of seabed’s you will appreciate how dear to our hearts a good anchor is. We’d used a 45lb CQR and a 56lb imitation CQR and whilst the heavier one was much better we were aware that in very strong blows, despite a long scope and a religious fervour when setting the damn thing, Hannah had a tendency to creep. By creep I mean that the wind and wave strength would combine to gradually move her across an anchorage, despite being, apparently, well dug in. It might only be 60 feet or less but it happened. It may be the effect of tide or wind changes but it happened. Where the anchorage is wide and loads of sea room it isn’t a problem but it is something else we have to concern ourselves with. Over the years we had become almost fanatical about our anchoring technique and would set and reset if we had doubts about the holding. Better to do it then than face a gale and a dragging hook. Then we read about an anchor that seemed too good to be true. Sets first time (another bone….) and just keeps digging in.  Intrigued we contacted the Kiwi company and did some more research and then decided to buy. 

This time we have gone larger still (33kg or 73lbs) and the short trial we had in Newtown has so far confirmed we made a good choice. It set first time on the 3 occasions we dropped it and set it that wonderful, heart warming way that forces the boat to swing immediately toward the anchor, irrespective of the way she is falling off. Yes, I know Newtown is a good holding and that the anchor is heavier than those we have used before but with our experience to set as the ROCNA did and for Hannah to sit without any creep, on a short scope, when the wind strength was so high is unprecedented. We look forward to trying it out on a variety of beds. Watch this space.

Return from Greenland

Well, here we are back in Blighty after an action packed trip of horrors, errors and cock ups. And that’s just the last 80 miles 'cos the bit from Greenland was the pits.......

Greenland was the hardest part of the trip and tested us all daily it seems. We spent far too long in Nuuk and, like many people familiar with the place, came to dislike it. Not at all like Greenland seems to be the common consensus, more like any other European city. Well, not sure about that but it had its share of ugly buildings, trendy dudes and modern shops.

The two sides of Greenlandic housing. The flats are NOT abandoned, derelict or uninhabitable. But they do seem to be mostly occupied by Innuit....

But we were there and we got Hannah sorted, the bits for the self steerer made. The bits were 2 pieces of plastic with 3 holes drilled through them. The plastic measured about 5” x 1”x 3” and cost a total of 1683 krone or £150.............. still we had them and they would allow the self steerer to function properly. We thought we might have a look at the fjords around Nuuk before heading North and set off with a stiff SW breeze. It didn’t last more than 3 hours and died as we approached bits of ice that littered the water. With little wind we decided to motor but silence greeted the frantic key turning. We checked and re checked, tightened and re tightened but still nothing and in the meantime I had decided to head back to Nuuk and get it sorted. Eventually the wind picked up and blew hard and we slowly began the beat back to the harbour. As the wind grew so did the waves and under reduced sail we tacked and tacked again. Actually we tacked and gybed as Hannah refused to come round on st’bd tack and gybing was easier. As we approached the shore on port tack I left it a bit late and realised, with horror, that she wouldn’t tack out of it. We stalled, got going and instead of waiting until we had real way on I tried to tack again and stalled once more. By now we were far too close for comfort and we crash gybed the boat as Bee yelled that we had 17 metres under us. It sounds a lot and it is in normal circumstances but because the water is so deep you rarely get soundings until very close in shore and then it shoals very rapidly, so hearts were pounding as Hannah roared out of the gybe and we settled into the last part of the beat. We called up the harbour asking for assistance in coming alongside, getting a response from a Danish naval ship who proceeded us in. We arrived to find the ship stationed in the middle of the harbour, fenders out, ratings on the deck all ready for us to crash along side. We rapidly altered course toward them and Bee went forward to drop the main. I’m not sure who realised first, us or the Danish skipper, what was going on but the pride of Denmark’s navy was not there for our benefit at all but simply positioning itself prior to reversing into its berth. We sheered away as the Dane went rapidly astern and although we had lost our momentum a little we still managed to drop the anchor in 10 metres but dragged quickly toward moored boats. We came close to raking the deck of one with our bowsprit but I somehow managed to get off Hannah onto the other boat and keep them apart. The gap began to rapidly grow as I realised I was about to be marooned on a strange boat as Hannah and Bee charged off at the end of a still dragging anchor. In desperation I flung myself off and grasped the forestay before falling below the bowsprit, legs going everywhere as I tried to stay dry(!) and get back on board. Luckily for us a missionary had heard the radio calls and manoeuvred his boat alongside and got us safely tied up. We slumped, drank the last of our wine and went to bed. The next morning the engine started first time...........  

Finally we were ready and headed off in the company of a Swiss boat in the direction of Disko Bay. This is an area all cruisers head for as the ice bergs are enormous, many weighing several million tons, the area seems to have its micro climate and you get to sail your boat inside the Arctic Circle. As we left Nuuk on a fickle wind a couple of humpback whales decided to entertain whoever was out there and 3 boats could be seen drifting in circles as the whales sported themselves about. They grew tired of us after 40 minutes or so and drifted off as we did. Once we cleared the long entrance we found the wind had settled but from the North which was where we needed to go. The Swiss boat simply powered away whilst we continued a slow, very slow beat north. We spotted a south going boat and chatted to them on the VHF. They were travelling with a Danish boat we’d met in Baddeck and from Kim and Kirsty we got the news that the weather was likely to remain north for some days. We pondered. Disko was about 350 miles north. The two boats we had spoken to had been up there (loved it, best place they had seen, you can’t come to Greenland and not go there etc) but had been waiting a week for a northerly wind to get back. From Nuuk to the southern tip of Greenland was about 500 miles and with time running out we reluctantly decided that we no longer had the time to get that far north and that we would spend a bit of time exploring the fjords around Nuuk. So we turned and headed back in and from there began a few manic days of cruising the fjords.

We motored much of the time, visited remote communities and spent a couple of days dodging ice bergs and growlers that had broken off a nearby glacier. At times it looked as though we wouldn’t find a way through and each of us would stand on the main boom looking for a gap. It is an amazing sight, with huge cliffs, blue sky and a sea littered with ice of varying shapes, sizes and colours. After 8 or 9 hours the ice began to thin out and we made better progress.

Motoring through the Nuuk fjords, looking for a path ahead

       
Off to port and about 25 yards away ice about the size of a small house suddenly began to roll. They make a noise before they do; I guess the sound of the ice dropping off underneath or something. It is sometimes spectacular but always graceful as they roll and then bob up and down. It’s the bit that drops off that causes the problems as it, released from its parent, hurtles through the water like a rampaging torpedo. They have been known to sink ships and this piece appeared in the water immediately in front of Hannah bringing us up in heap as we rode up on top of it. The force damaged the bobstay stem fitting, twisting the bolts and cracking the epoxy on the stem. At speeds below 5 knots no water came in but anything above that forced a trickle through the bolt holes. Equally I may not have been paying enough attention to the path ahead but I swear it was ice free moments before.....  Back to Nuuk for more repairs which we carried out by dragging as much weight aft to elevate the bow, removing the fitting, drying out the holes as much as we  could and then injecting Sika Flex into, onto and everywhere in between. A makeshift repair if ever we saw one and made worse by the fact that the Sika Flex was white not black. Ah well perhaps no one would notice. A day or so later we headed out of Nuuk and headed south and the start of the homeward journey. Incredible sky, huge ice covered mountains and a breeze promised a great start and we made our first anchorage in good time. The site of an abandoned Faroese settlement it was deserted, quiet and peaceful and exactly what we needed.

Ravn Stor, an abandoned Faroese settlement (not much left)

Moving south we came into the little town of Paamiut, no roads in or out, helicopter or boat only. Didn’t stop the local Danes having vehicles to drive the 3k of road the town boasted. The pilot book is a bit dismissive of the place but we liked it and everyone was friendly.

Paamiut-old town

Paamiut harbour, Sunni’s ship and a visiting ice cube.....

As we arrived a crowd gathered to watch us and a man indicated where we should lie which is how we met Sunni, a Faroese skipper who entertained us and set us right on icebergs. (We told him the tale of hitting one. He looked horrified and asked how far away from it we were. On hearing the distance he asked how big was it and then relaxed, lent over and said “that’s an ice cube not an ice berg”.... The harbour itself had several “ice cubes” floating around inside it and one could have easily crushed us. The locals are blasé about them and will drag them out of the entrance should anyone be in danger but a little worrying to us. Sunni showed us round his ship having visited Hannah and we couldn’t believe the 3 chart plotters he had. His boss came down to see us a day later and remarked that Sunni had been horrified/impressed with our seeming lack of navigation gear. We left after a few days only to return hours later as we noticed the rigging on the mizzen had slipped and we needed a ladder to reach it. The forecast was favourable the next day and we headed out with a promise of NW winds intending to get down to Julianhaab, rest up and leave from there with a good forecast for the trip home. Hours later the forecast came in on Navtex to warn of a wind switch to SE 8 with worse to come. The whole coast between us and Cape Farewell, the southern tip, was nothing but gales or storms with wind speed of 25 metres per second or getting on for 60mph. (A week later I realised I was grateful when the forecast indicated that the wind was easing to Force 8 and thought “this is a dumb place to be sailing”....) Weather forecasting in Greenland is extremely difficult and winds are likely to be reversed making passage planning difficult. Our situation was made more difficult by a lack of charts for some areas forcing us to stay off shore rather than take the inside route and so  day after day we faced SE gales, the very direction we needed to go. We were being pushed SW, away from the coast where the current runs north and brings with it ice from the east coast. Safer but not the direction we wanted to go but we seemed to have little alternative. Heading back to Paamiut was no longer possible and  we debated whether to head over toward Labrador and trying to pick up the south going current. In the end the wind went easterly allowing a slightly better course so we carried on as before.

The huge bergs  are spectacular ( we saw several aground in 400 feet of water) but the real killers are the growlers that probably weigh a ton or so, about the size of a car and very difficult to spot when a sea is running but would cripple or sink a yacht very easily. We would make some progress (by now we had abandoned plans for Julianhaab and decided to just head for home) and then the wind strength and seas would increase and we would heave to and try to rest. The noise was awful with confused seas thumping against the hull with enormous force. On some nights the wind grew so strong that even heaving to became too dangerous and we’d lay a hull. On one night the storm raged to such an extent we simply went below, putting the heavy washboards in, locked the hatch, spread the genny on the cabin floor and lay down together encased in our oilskins. That night little was said but we lay there hugging each other, thanking Hannah’s strength and design. “Would we survive the night” thoughts roamed unbidden through our minds and afterwards Bee said she felt sad that no one would know where or how we might have disappeared........ An indescribably low and frightening time

Now, with the memories behind us, the sequence of all that happened is a little vague. We took 11 days to clear Cape Farewell, a distance of less than 500 miles. At some point after that the winds became SW and favourable, and all though we were forced to heave to on several nights as gales became storms and we felt it too dangerous to continue, we made progress and one night were running under reefed main only before a big sea. All was well on Hannah as Bee, sat at the nav. table with Toots on her lap, reading and I dozed on the berth by the unlit fire. A rogue sea came over the stern, poured through the hatch and dumped who knows how much water below. Toots was swept off Bee’s knee, through the cabin ending up by our berth utterly soaked, electrics and food were drowned and we spent several hours bailing out and trying to restore order during the course of which we discovered we had lost not only the Yeoman plotter but also our SSB, calculator and alarm clock. The SSB meant no weather as Navtex doesn’t work offshore but having no alarm meant watch changes were haphazard if the other person was steering. That sea was the worst but others snuck aboard and would pour through the slightest gap to the extent we needed to battened as much down as possible. Unfortunately as the gales and storms carried on Hannah grew wetter as lack of ventilation added to wet oilies and clothes took their toll. We had sewn together a very rough spray hood in Belfast and beefed it up with additional pieces of canvas and then rigged up a framework from a boarding ladder, fish bin and the rudder from our dinghy. It worked surprisingly well except that climbing in and out of the companionway became a lesson in lateral limbo dancing and because the fish bin was weighted down with sodden clothes every entrance meant leaning well into said pile and breathing the aroma.... Lovely!  The boat began to smell (like a midden or as if we were permanently sited in a stable with a dozen incontinent horses.....) and the day we had a weather break saw Hannah festooned with gear as we tried to make life bearable. The next day saw us battling the weather once again and so it went on as we slowly made our way toward the Channel. Once we got below 54°N life began to improve. The wind and sea felt warmer, the miles to go began to reduce and we felt we had been tested and had all come through it. We do remember one night as Hannah under two reefs, sheeted stays’l and the self steerer in full operation roared down the path of the moon. A bit of a sea was running but we were out there absolutely on our own and it was a joy to stand on deck watching the movement of the boat as she rose and fell. A wonderful memory. Actually I found myself marvelling at that movement even in the most savage of weather as wave after wave went rolling under our keel and Hannah rose to each one. Wish that they had all behaved in such a fashion. Whenever we changed the stays’l for the storm jib which meant working on the foredeck, one of us would inevitably disappear under a huge lump of spray as the rogues took their opportunity to climb aboard. The storm jib became one our favourite sails as we could set either flying on the bowsprit or inboard in place of the stays’l. It’s a very small sail and can be hoisted in almost any strength of wind although the night it blew from hell we realised it would be futile if not dangerous.

The main suffered and seemed to tear at the most inappropriate times and one night we were forced to remove the sail, take it below and sew yet another patch on it as conditions outside would have made the job difficult. At least below we could hear the whales singing to each other. In between sail repairs we were busy with plasticine, useful for stopping leaks or tightening up the self steerer which got battered every time we heaved to or lay a hull. In the end we used a Spanish windless either side and cranked it up hard to stop any play.

Usually we would run the engine once a day to keep the batteries topped up and had had no starting problems since Nuuk. For whatever reason we missed one day and the following day not a peep could be heard from the thing. Over the next few days or more be moved the instrument panel, took the starter and solenoid off (several times) replaced the solenoid, checked every electrical connection and replaced any that looked in the slightest bit iffy and still not a sound. As this had happened about 700 miles west of Ireland our only concern was getting the batteries to last until we got back which, at that stage, we felt was at least a week away. We switched everything off, used the GPS 4 times a day to get a position and used a solar powered garden light as a compass light. Kero lamps gave us light inside but we didn’t use nav lights as we were still too far out, a practice neither of us felt comfortable with. Slowly, slowly we got closer. Staying well clear of the Irish coast we crept toward the Scillies and at the entrance to the channel the wind died. We drifted around the edge of the shipping lane, narrowly avoided a collision with a fishing boat and wrapping the appropriate coloured rags around our kero lamps burnt makeshift nav lights as we watched the lights over Newlyn twinkle. (We had checked our main nav lights after a particularly bad blow and as the Port light wasn’t shining I went forward to check. “There’s no light” I reported to the chief electrician “Oh the bulbs probably blown” she said, “No” says I “there isn’t a light there, its gone, fitting an’ all have been washed away” As these lights are secured to our main shrouds some 8 feet above the waterline............) Hours went by and we could still see Newlyn so called the coastguard to warn them we had no engine, little power and poor nav lights. “Did they” we wondered “know a vessel who could tow us into Falmouth?” We explained where we had come from; that we needed to clear customs, that we couldn’t come alongside as we had a cat etc etc. He’d see what he could do and around 9am called to let us know a vessel was on its way to us. YIPPEE............... Out of the mist loomed a ship. A very large ship, a coastguard tug with orders to tow us in (the guys who came over to look at the engine took one look at the space available to access it and making various excuses suggested we get it checked ashore) The hawser was probably 3” or 4” diameter but settled easily over the bitts and at a stately 4 or 5 knots we set off. But where? I called up the tug to find out to be told Newlyn.........they would drop us in the bay and we could anchor.........except the weather was meant to go NE which would leave us exposed..... all in all our yippee tow was turning out to be not quite what we needed. Remember we’d been at sea for 32 days and were concerned about complying with the law on boats returning from non EU countries and having an animal aboard. We explained, again, the predicament and the coastguard shrugged and said it wasn’t a problem...........aah if only we had listened. With the breeze picking up we felt we’d take our chances and head on for Cherbourg and asked them to terminate the tow which they did with remarkable good grace (we subsequently learnt that the tug costs £1000 per minute to operate!) We sailed slowly away and then watched the wind die, return and die time and again through out the day. We couldn’t believe it and as the evening drew on we were still off Newlyn and little chance of going anywhere. Humble pie time folks. Called the coastguard and asked them to call a couple of people and let them know we were alive. One of the calls was to friends we had made in the Caribbean who live in Helford and may know someone who could tow us in. The coastguard rang them and, off his own bat, a commercial company who agreed to come out to us. We negotiated over the radio but turned him down as the hourly rate of £130 meant we could be looking at £300+ for the 10 mile trip. The coastguard called us again to let us know a fishing boat was trying to speak to us and for £100 Steve, the skipper of Cesco towed us calmly and safely into Newlyn. What a great place Newlyn is. £6 a night to moor there with the 3rd night free, good facilities and we were home. The following day we rang Nigel and Jude, our Helford friends, to find they had got the CG message and had promptly driven to Falmouth, with a load of goodies, where we were expected to land to find we had gone else where. They ate the goodies and drove home. We rang John at the yard (he has been incredibly helpful in helping sort out all our mechanical and electrical problems) who listened to the garbled story I told and said “Where are you” Newlyn I replied and expressing delight that we were so close(?) said he’d be down to sort us out the following day. And he and Terri duly arrived the following day and in a short space of time had the engine running. Nige and Jude arrived, a bit of a party started and then John and Terri were on their way back to Southampton, a round trip of over 600 miles!

We left Newlyn for Cherbourg or rather Helford but the forecast indicated strong NE’s coming in and we felt we needed to get back. The forecast of SW4 – 5 didn’t materialise and we motored for 20 hours as we had agreed with a friend to hand Toots over in 2 days time to get her on the ferry. Crossing the shipping lanes the wind picked up and heavily reefed we stormed up the channel toward France with yet another tear appearing in the main. Visibility fell and we squinted through the rain and mist for the fairway buoy to take us into Cherbourg. Bee, as ever, spotted it and with the help of an incoming fishing boat pointing the way we made the harbour safely and tied up on the waiting pontoon. That night the winds went NE and we found we had chosen the most exposed berth in the marina but at least we were in and safe. Sat saw us handing over Toots in a ferry car park to Alistair and then back to the boat. A few beers with a Pompey catamaran may have been the reason we opted to leave that night on a fitful SW breeze but we did and soon a few others followed us. Light winds meant we resorted to the engine and all went well for about 10 or so miles when a strange noise had us checking the water. All ok but as I hauled up the engine cover the engine gave a bang and stopped leaving us drifting quietly. For those not familiar with these waters the tides run very fast, particularly on the French side so, as far as I was concerned, heading back in was not on. ‘course there is the slight problem of one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes to cross but we eased our way across the east going lane with no problem and then spent hours trying to reach the west lane. We tried calling passing yachts to give us a tow but no one responded until a powerboat, Millennium Magic, came along, took a line and dragged us through the lane before continuing on to Bembridge having refused all offers of payment. On we went, the ebbing tide sweeping us before it but the Needles were getting closer. As the Needles is a very narrow channel and the winds were light I rang the CG again to see if we were likely to meet any ships as we went through “oh and by the way did they have any vessels in the area who could give us a tow”. Well in due course the lifeboat from Yarmouth was launched to come and assess the situation. They came alongside noted our 1.7knots of speed and dryly informed us that we had no chance of making it through that night even though the tide had turned. Yet another tow was organised and we were duly deposited on a buoy off Yarmouth for the night. This was turning into the ending from Hell but with 20 miles to go we felt we were surely safe from any further mishap..........

We cast off at 06.30 and took the flooding tide up toward home. Part of the channel off Cowes is for very large ships and yachts are meant to stay well out of it but inattention and a light wind saw us on the leeward side of the channel as a large tanker came boring down on us, whistle going and making it clear he, rightly, wanted us out of his way. We bore away, rounded up and tried to get back against the tide. The speed of 1.3 knots dropped to .9 and then .6 and when we were overtaken by a nearby buoy I knew we were in trouble and we gybed round and headed down the Cowes side of the Brambles and over toward Portsmouth. Clearing the shallows we worked our way across and began the long haul back to Southampton. Luckily John and Terri had come out in their boat to tow us in or it would have been yet another night out waiting for a favourable tide. So some 7 weeks after we left Greenland we finally made it back to our friends at Quayside, familiar faces and boats, glad to see us home safely  and find out how it was. 32 days at sea to complete a 1900 mile trip tells its own story really and the other 15,000 pale away by comparison.

A few asides. The night of the storm where Bee and I lay on the cabin sole and hoped to survive was a point when we both felt we were done with long distance cruising. A point where we wanted nothing more than to stop and be done with the terror and fear that storms engender, to spend time with friends and to feel a little bit settled. I even promised I’d be down the local nursery buying window boxes and plants to surround Hannah with............However as we came up Southampton water I felt as though we should already be planning the next trip, that great as it is to be “home” home for us is wherever we are with Hannah. Which I guess is one of the strengths of the human mind.

It was without a doubt the worst trip ever. Horrendous seas, winds in excess of, well who knows what? Low after low came scudding across from Labrador and no doubt we picked the tale end of at least one hurricane. Would we go again? I don’t think so but who can tell. Bee would like to get to Disko and perhaps when we have new sails; sorted out the engine, ventilation and bilge pumps I may also feel different. But it is a challenging area to sail and boat and crew need to be in top shape which Hannah really wasn’t. Because of the soaking we took, life below was unpleasant, wet and smelly-much like sailing  was 40 years ago but hadn’t been for us. Normally Hannah is a dry boat (not in that way you fool) and we’re rarely troubled by seas coming aboard but sometimes we need these things to make us aware, to highlight areas of life that could be improved and so it is with us and ideas, thoughts and schemes abound for changes and improvements.

On a positive note we have seen dozens of whales including a 40 strong pod of pilot whales that were surfing with us as we romped toward home one day. The calm weather didn’t interest them but a blow brought them out to play and they would keep station with us for hours. Oddly enough the whales excited no interest in Toots at all yet the moment the dolphins appeared she was on the capping rail watching.

The damage sustained during the storms, particularly when heaved to or laying a hull is enormous. The stays’l, because it is backed and thus rests against the mast, has rubbed away a layer of wood. The lazy jacks (ropes that support the mains’l when it is lowered) have carved 1/2” grooves in the gaffs and the masts have bare patches from the constant movement of the saddles. Since we got back the whole time has been spent on trying to dry out the boat and save charts, clothes, books and everything else. The cabin sole has swollen to the extent that nothing fits and we run de humidifiers day and night to reduce the swelling. “It was easier at sea” muttered Bee as we hauled yet another pile of sodden washing off the boat. And in many ways it is, the life is addictive in a way being ashore can never be and we’re lucky to have realised it. So it’ll be turn left at the Needles before long................

Has it all been worth it? Of course! We’ve met many wonderful people, had a great time and look forward to the next wander around. Arriving back, seeing familiar places and people is always warming and we have been touched by the interest people have had in what we have done and how pleased we are to see them and vice versa. We’re amazed at how friends have rallied, sorted things out for us, appreciate we need a little time to  get ourselves mentally sorted out to the change yet extend offer after offer for small kindnesses that mean huge amounts to anyone coming from a sea journey. To everyone, many thanks for your kindness and support.

In the week or so it has taken to put this together a number of things have begun to happen. Despite our worst nightmares we have tentatively broached the topic of returning to Greenland, albeit with more preparation, more charts etc and possibly arriving via Iceland which says something about the minds ability to forget.  Our Danish friends, Kim and Kirsty made it down to Prins Kristian Sund (look it up) and finally left Greenland on Aug 28 and then had a fast 10 day sail to the Azores so it is possible, with patience to have comfortable sailing it seems. We’ll let you know the next time around....

Thanks for all the messages and support. Wandering into a library, logging on and seeing “You have 87 emails” is a real buzz and even the one liners are very much appreciated so please don’t get out of the habit. And lastly, because SO many people have asked – there is no book, mostly ‘cos we don’t think we’ve done anything particularly unique but also as I’m a lazy sod  I can’t be arsed..............

Bee took this photo of a majestic mountain and found a whale breaching  its way into the shot..................

 Phone number whilst we’re here in the UK is: 077 66 06 48 03