Monthly Archives: April 2017
The Final leg to Florida – day 3
Our position at 10.00 Saturday 29th April
25 48.1N
077 14.4W
Our 24 hour run from 10.00 yesterday to 10.00 today was 170 miles giving an average of 7kts, that includes at least 1kt of current with us
We have 160 miles to go to West Palm beach, Florida
As you can see from our 24 hour run we are traveling much faster now. The wind has increased and the current outside the islands is good. We have a full main and genny out with the wind a nice steady F4 just aft of the beam. Couldn’t ask for better. The sea is up a bit from yesterday but quite manageable.
Having had a bad night the night before with the rolly sea my afternoon nap turned into a 4 hour sleep. I must have needed it although it’s unusual for me to sleep like that on passage. I’m still quite tense something is going to go wrong but as we get closer to America I’m feeling a bit better. When I woke up Bill informed me I had missed a thunder storm and he had all the computers, etc. in the Faraday’s cage he’s made. Fortunately it passed us by without incident.
The new moon put in an appearance last night but only briefly, it was gone by 10pm.
During the night we sailed up the coast of Eleuthera island but at 3.00 this morning I had to get up to help Bill jibe the sails as we turned west to travel along the south side of Great Abaco Island which will take us towards West Palm Beach, Florida.
Our plan is to make landfall at West Palm beach which, according to the CBP (customs and border protection) website is a check in port. Not sure what to expect but we’ll call port control as we enter American waters and take it from there. Should be lunchtime tomorrow hopefully so one more night at sea.
Even though we are 25 degrees north now the days are still pleasantly warm and I only have to add a fleece to my shorts and tee shirt for my night watch. We are still on the same latitude as North Africa.
For dinner I used our last portion of chicken and added an onion, the last half of a green pepper, some frozen vegetables, an egg, some cooked rice and some sweet chili sauce. In our family it’s called a ‘heap’ although there are various variations of it.
All well on board.
The blog goes through to facebook but we can’t see facebook or your comments. I look forward to catching up with them all when we get to the US. If you wish to email us please use mdqf6 @ sailmail.com (take out the gaps)
The final leg to Florida – day 2
Our position at 10.00 Friday 28th April
24 16.2N
074 55.6W
Our 24 hour run from 10.00 yesterday to 10.00 today was 127 miles giving an average of 5.2kts
We have 331 miles to go to West Palm beach, Florida
The forecast had been for light winds so we were pleased to be able to sail quite a bit of yesterday although the sails were up and down and the engine on and off with our average speed reflecting that.
During the night we passed 23 north which is the Tropic of Cancer so that means we are out of the tropics for the rest of the year now.
We are sailing along the outside of the Bahamas and have started picking up some current which is helping our speed.
During the night we sailed in between San Salvador and Rum cay, which meant going over a sea mount and the depth of the water went from 4600 to 1107 over the space of a few miles. Obviously not a problem with the depth but it gave us a lumpy old sea making sleep difficult. We could have gone around the outside of San Salvador but didn’t want to put in the extra miles. A bit of info for those coming along behind us.
For dinner I used our last portion of stir fry beef from SA and made a stir fry with onion, peppers and carrots with sweet chilli and soy sauce over it on a bed of noodles.
All well on board.
The blog goes through to facebook but we can’t see facebook or your comments. I look forward to catching up with them all when we get to the US. If you wish to email us please use mdqf6 @ sailmail.com (take out the gaps)
The final leg to Florida
Our position at 10.00 Thursday 27th April
22 52.2N
073 04.6W
Our 24 hour run from 10.00 yesterday to 10.00 today was 138 miles giving an average of 5.75kts
We have 452 miles to go to West Palm beach, Florida
On a course of 303 degrees with 8-12kts of apparent wind straight up our behind; perfect twizzle weather. Bill nearly put the second foresail up before we left but changed his mind, it’s too difficult to do at sea. We have a full main out on a preventer on the port side and a poled out genny on the starboard side. Every now and again the wind gets behind the sail and flicks it causing it to slam.
We had a good day yesterday sailing all day which was unexpected. The forecast was for light winds and we were expecting to motor sail but we’ve kept up a good speed since leaving the anchorage. During the night the wind strengthened a bit and the sails didn’t slam but this morning the wind has dropped a bit and we’re back to the occasional flicking.
A bit of excitement during the night, it’s always in the middle of the night. I went off watch at 01.00 and had just got into bed when I heard an unusual bang followed by Bill calling me. I came back on deck to see the pole down with the sail flapping. I put the deck lights on so Bill could go and investigate. The pole is attached to a slider on the mast. The sail had flipped up with the roll and a gust of wind at the same time that had allowed the pole to drop down the slider, knocking off the retaining block and shattered the pulley at the bottom, there were plastic bits all over the deck. We rolled the genny away and fortunately Bill was able to lift the pole back into place and re-secure it, job done. While the genny was away Bill decided we needed a reef in the main so we put that in then brought out the genny again. Finally I got to bed. Bill kindly let me have an extra half hour this morning.
The food situation is limited again on Camomile. I did some shopping in the Caribbean but didn’t buy too much because I won’t be allowed to take meat, dairy, fruit or veg into the States. According to the CBP website they inspect the boat and take away any fresh food you have on board like they did in Australia and New Zealand so I’ve run the freezer right down. I just have enough for this passage. As we are going home in 2 weeks time there’s no point in having a load of stuff on board that will go off any way. I’ll restock when we come back. So last night I fried a bit of bacon, cooked some ribbon pasta, drained it and added some cream, an egg yolk, parmesan and black pepper and it became a pasta carbonara.
There’s a small crisis on Camomile at the moment because I’ve run out of my Cappucino sachets. I do like my coffee at 11.00 and always manage to have supplies on board but I’ve only got one left which I’m saving for my birthday in case something happens and we’re still out here. It’s kind of an insurance, if I don’t drink it we’ll get there and I didn’t need to save it, if I drink it…..
All well on board.
The blog goes through to facebook but we can’t see facebook or your comments. I look forward to catching up with them all when we get to the US. If you wish to email us please use mdqf6 @ sailmail.com (take out the gaps)
The final leg to Florida
Our position at 10.00 Wednesday 26th April
21 29.47N
071 32310W
Anchored in C ockburn harbour, South Caicos
573 miles to West Palm beach, Florida.
Just lifting the anchor to leave South Caicos. We’ve been here less than 24 hours but decided to come here yesterday from Grand Turk.
Grand Turk was interesting for a stop off and check in but the island revolves around the Carnival Cruise liner jetty that Carnival built for their cruise liners to stop at on their way to and from America and the Caribbean islands. A lot of the beautiful colonial homes on the sea front have been allowed to full into disrepair. One row back and the ‘new’ part of the island just looks like the States with brand new homes built with cruise liner money but of no interest to the tourist. Along the waterfront there are some nice hotels that have a few guests but many of them appeared empty. The anchorage was beautiful with the most stunning clear aquamarine water but not much snorkeling. Every day the local boats brought cruise liner passengers to snorkel the same spot behind us but all that was there were a few rocks that were deep and some fish. There is a ‘wall’ which would make for an interesting dive but that was all. We had 3 days there mainly to sit out a front that looked pretty nasty on the grib files but didn’t turn out so bad, although wouldn’t have wanted to be at sea in it. By Monday afternoon it had gone – taking all the good wind with it but leaving a beautiful blue sky.
Yesterday we decided to come across to South Caicos to check out and have a look at it. Amazingly we had a really good sail when there wasn’t supposed to be any wind. Cockburn harbour was very calm. We didn’t arrive until 4pm and decided it was too late to check out so went for a swim instead. The harbour is very shallow and we were anchored with a metre below the keel in superb clear water. Amusingly Bill stood on the sea bed holding onto the rudder but I didn’t have my camera with me. Lots of Conch shells here and one or two of them moving. Unfortunately as it’s a local delicacy most of them were empty.
We took the dinghy exploring and motored over to Long Cay that only inhabitants are Iguana. On the beach there were more Conch shells, 100s of them actually, some of them were forming part of the beach, all of them have a slit just below the third twirl which is how they must kill them. Sad but there seemed plenty around. I managed to find one nice looking one that I sneaked into the dinghy. There were so many they wouldn’t miss one.
This morning we went ashore to the wonderful old colonial customs building that used to be the commissioners office many years ago. The customs lady said the building had been there all of hers and her mothers life. The Check out took about 5 minutes, very easy, and we didn’t need to go back to Immigration but just hand her our departure cards. There wasn’t a lot of time but we took a little walk. The streets were deserted and completely different without the cruise liner trade. It was a very friendly place and worth a return trip next year.
So this is the final push to Florida. All being well it should take about 4 or 5 days. We are due to arrive on the 1st but if we get some wind it might be the 30th. I don’t mind as long as we get there safely. This time in 2 weeks time we’ll be landing at Heathrow but I have a birthday in between, hopefully not spent at sea.
Please pray for us or keep your fingers crossed whichever you believe in.
All well on board.
The blog goes through to facebook but we can’t see facebook or your comments. I look forward to catching up with them all when we get to the US. If you wish to email us please use mdqf6 @ sailmail.com (take out the gaps)
Happy Easter
Happy Easter to everyone. No church or Easter eggs here 😦
Last day in the BVI’s today. It’s beautiful here but very expensive. Most of the bays have got buoys in them at $30 a night with no facilities so it takes a while to find a spot to anchor. Eating out is way beyond our budget, even a burger and chips is about $15 and I don’t even like burger and chips!
Moving onto Grand Turk in Turks and Caicos tomorrow, if the wind plays the game, so no internet or facebook for a few days. Only a 3 day passage and it puts us nearer to Florida. Still on schedule.
Have a great day everyone.
Bill and Sue x
The blog goes through to facebook but we can’t see facebook or your comments. I’ll catch up with them all in America. If you wish to email us please use mdqf6 @ sailmail.com (take out the gaps) Stay safe everyone.
Antigua to St Martin
Our position at 10.00 Wednesday 5th April
17 35.8N
062 34.7W
40 miles to St Martin
Had a great few days in Antigua. Met up with 3 lots of friends. Gabby and Jonathan on Aqualuna, thanks for a fantastic evening and delicious meal you two, hope to see you further north. Tom and Susie, thought you had got rid of us… we found you again. Good to see you for the last time or is it….. Then we took Camomile around to Jolly harbour to check out and there sitting in the restaurant were Bob and Elaine of Pipistrelle what were the odds of that?!!
English harbour was very pretty as always but we were amazed at how the prices of everything have changed in 7/8 years. We were getting 4EC$ to the pound when we were here before now it’s down to 3EC$ to the pound. The restaurants were way over our budget but the hot spot cafe on the dockside in English harbour was good value and had good coffee and light meals with free internet AND a book swap! I had a good shuffle around of my read books with theirs and now have some good ones to read.
We spent a day in Falmouth harbour. Probably a better anchorage with more room although not so pretty. Met up with our friends then round to Jolly harbour yesterday to check out. They have a great supermarket there selling Waitrose foods. The customs/immigration were very helpful.
Jolly harbour was quite significant for us because we arrived there to check into Antigua exactly 7 years and 4 months ago with the Blue Water rally. We’ve only been south from there, so from now on it’s all new territory that we haven’t visited before.
We left Jolly harbour at 03.30 this morning for the sail to St Martin to meet up with more friends, Ian and Glenda on Lucy Alice. So far it’s been a great day, we have a nice gentle F4 on the beam with full sails on a calm sea. We are sailing passed St Barts but we’ll visit these islands again in the next year or two. We need to start heading north now.
I’ll post more photos when I get back on line, just relying on free wifi at the moment until we get to America.
Take care everyone. x
Martinique
Bill enjoying his cigar
Bill raises the French flag
We had a nice first evening in the anchorage just chilling out. Bill enjoyed his end of passage cigar. It was one of three that James had given him for Christmas; he had saved it. The next morning he raised the French courtesy flag before we headed into the marina. There’s a big Club Med complex on the beach that looked nice.
Club Med on the beach
A ship carrying the yachts.
On the way into the marina this ship was anchored outside. I’m going to get in trouble for this but it’s a bit cheating, isn’t it? It’s probably taking them back to the UK or maybe Europe.
Getting into our berth was a bit of a struggle because they have Med mooring here which means you need 2 long lines tied to the bow and 2 on the stern. As Bill backed into position I handed the bow lines to the guy in the marina work boat who tied them to 2 buoys. Meanwhile he was pushing our bow into position as Bill was reversing. Fortunately Ken and Eiloo were waiting on the pontoon ready to catch our aft lines. The dinghy got in the way so Ken managed to lower it on the pontoon as Bill released the davits. Luckily there aren’t any photos of this because it was all a bit difficult but once tied up we could all have hugs and congratulate each other on our passages.
Camomile has goose barnacles on both sides from the long passage
Camomile has a very dirty waterline from sailing for so long. We went up to the office to check-in, a very simple procedure. Why can’t all check-ins be like the French? It was nice to be on dry land again after a month at sea. Strangely I don’t experience the swaying that many people do when they get off their boat. We headed to a bar for a coffee, arrr civilisation again. I had a look around the local supermarket and bought a few things but wanted to wait to do a proper shop at the bigger store. The afternoon was spent scrubbing the decks to get all the salt off. It was great to be able to use the water again, there had been water restrictions in South Africa. In the evening we joined Ken and Eiloo and their son Kenneth and his girlfriend Dasher for a meal.
Raining in paradise
Brilliant launderette
The next morning we awoke to rain – had I needed to wash the decks???? I hit the laundry. Not having been able to do any washing since SA there was a lot of it. They have a great laundry here with big machines that take 14kgs! During the day I had 2 of those going plus a smaller 11kgs and a couple of driers so everything was washed including mattress and pillow covers, towels, t-shirts, the lot. I’m left with a pile of ironing now. Yes I do.
While I was busy doing that Bill had the dinghy upside down, scrubbed off and found 3 small holes in it (it has to be pumped up every day). I arranged through the office for the local dinghy repair man to come and pick it up that afternoon and take it away for repair.
Tuesday Bill got the bikes out and we went to visit the dinghy in ‘ospital, all was progressing well. There were lots of other dinghies in the same ward so T bag was happy. The big Carrefour was our next mission but we couldn’t carry a lot in our back packs so we returned the next day for a second shop and also to visit the chandlers to see what they had to offer. Tom and Susie arrived on Adina in the afternoon and it was arranged to share their hire car for a day trip around the island.
Pretty fishing harbour
Fish for sale
Thursday 23rd we joined Tom and Susie at 9.30 and Tom drove off over the hills. The first stop was a local fishing village called Le Vauclin. The stalls on the beach were displaying some delicious looking fish but as it would have to spend the day in a hot car we decided against buying any. I think these were parrot fish although they weren’t colourful like parrot fish normally are.
Beautiful scenery
The ruins of the house
After a little walk around we got back in the car and drove to the presqu’île de la Caravelle which is a 12 kilometre peninsular on the Eastern coast of the island that protrudes into the Atlantic ocean. Fields of sugar cane with wonderful views of the ocean surrounded the access road. We made our way to the tip of the peninsular and walked the track that led to the remains of Château Dubuc built in 1740. I was so happy I love looking around places like that; Tom had chosen the prefect spot as far as I was concerned.
What a beautiful view the house would have had.
The inside. You can see where the floor was.
The ruins were very well kept and we were each given a laminated plan of the ruins with a sort of pen that gave an audio guide as you placed it on each of the points on the plan. The accent was a bit difficult to understand but it was really helpful in explaining the area.
The old kitchen
These photos are taken of the remains of the main house. This was the old kitchen. The bread oven can be seen in the bottom right side of the picture.
Tom and Susie walking down to the next section.
Bill stood by the cahots
Inside the ‘cell’
These are said to be cahots, small solitary confinement cells for the slaves that would have worked there or maybe storage for the sugar cane; I prefer to think they were the later. As you can see Bill wouldn’t have been able to stand up inside them. Just to the left of the entrance you can see a small slit in the brickwork that was for air and a small amount of light to get in. It doesn’t bare thinking about the stories those walls can tell.
The sugar cane factory ruins
To the left of this photo is where it all started. They have created a model of how the process was performed. The sugar cane would have been pressed in between the rollers as either donkeys or slaves would have walked around in circles to turn the rollers. The sugar cane syrup would have dripped down through a hole in the ground, along a chute and into the cauldrons behind the furnaces to the right of the photo.
Furnaces
This was the furnace area. There would have been 4 furnaces pushing their smoke into the chimney. The remains of the chimney shown would have been much taller.
The caldrons
Behind the furnace were the cauldrons used to boil the sugar cane syrup to form the molasses, the start of the process for producing rum. It takes 10 to 12 tonnes of cane to produce half a bottle of pure alcohol.
The warehouse ruins
This is the remains of the warehouse area that contained the barrels of molasses. The production continued up to 1793. Life for the slaves working on plantations like this was one of unimaginable barbarity. There were many uprisings and after the revolution of 1817 many slaves were given their freedom. By 1852 the descendants of Dubec sold the plantation to a nearby distillery and the chateau fell into ruin. It was restored in 2004.
Driving across the top of the peninsular
The St James Distillery museum
We had a delicious lunch in the village of Tartane then continued onto the St James rum distillery in the village of Sainte Marie. The delightful old colonial house contains a very interesting museum on the history of Agricultural rum, of which St James’s rum is one, and is produced from pure sugar cane juice as opposed to industrial rum manufactured from Molasses, the residue from the sugar industry.
The building was beautiful inside
Sampling the rum
During February to June, during production, the distillery is open for tours but only at 10.00 and 11.45 so unfortunately we were too late, (for any one coming along behind us). It was still possible to have a tasting so various rums were tasted and bought.
Susie and I enjoying a pineapple juice
As we were three quarters of the way up the island we all agreed to drive onto Grand’Rivière a jewel of a fishing village at the northern tip of the island. It was a thrilling drive of hair pin bends, overgrown hillsides and bridges suspended over gorges. The road ended at a black sand beach overlooking the gap between Martinique and Dominica where Susie and I enjoyed a freshly pressed pineapple juice before the long drive back to Le Marin.
Tom and Susie
It was wonderful to spend time with these two who recently got engaged in South Africa (so the conversation was mostly about weddings). We met them in Rebak last Christmas and have sailed with them on and off during this last year. Tom calls me his sailing Mum and I call him The Cheeky Monkey!
Thanks for a great day Tom and Susie.
Bill rowed T bag back to the boat
Friday morning I cycled the road that encircles Marin for some exercise and spent the day on my computer writing. In the afternoon T bag the dinghy came back on a trailer and the guy helped Bill put it in the water. Unfortunately he put it in the wrong side of the pontoon walkway and to get back to the boat Bill had to row all around the outside of two pontoons full of boats. I had a cold drink ready for him when he got back. Bill spent the rest of the afternoon putting his coat back on and the outboard etc.
Putting his coat back on.
In the evening we met Tom and Susie along with Ken and his son. Nadire and Selim from the Turkish boat Keyif joined us and we all had a farewell drink together. After saying goodbye to Keyif the rest of us went to the Mango bay for a meal, their Friday night ribs special were delicious.
Sadly at the end of the evening it was goodbye to everyone because we are all going our separate ways from now on; goodbye to another group of cruising friends.
Sue, Susie, Bill, Tom, Ken and Kenneth
Camomile 