Sailing Across the Atlantic Ocean part 2

Thursday 11th February 2016 We were rather late setting off on the 11th February at 17.00hrs GMT This did not give us much time to get past the Islands to find stable winds and ensure that all was well with the boat. What a horrible first 24 hours, talk about trying, tiring and debilitating! It's blowing around 30 to 35 knots which is a seriously uncomfortable ride. The waves are throwing us all around the boat with an ever changing wind direction and crossing seas. It really is no fun at all, with everything we do taking considerable effort. 😭 Friday 12th February Nigel put the wind vane paddle on before we left Mindelo, but when he looked at it this morning the same element of the system that looks like a coffin in shape had turned and twisted again. Nigel could not believe this had happened again as he had ensured that he had bolted everything really tight! But now we knew for sure that Wayne is not going to work However the bigger problem was that the twisted element would not allow for the tiler pilot to work either. So where in day one only with huge waves again and Nigel is having to do his dare devil manoeuvres over the back of the boat "AGAIN" 😨. So all tooled and tied up he ventures down the back, it took him some considerable time to loosen the bolts to realigned the dam fitting. Once he had done that and was back on deck no sooner had he turned around to look at it it had moved again! It was only a small amount, but thankfully not enough so that Billy wouldn't work. However after a couple of hours it had moved quite significantly 😕. We now need to devise away to try an hold it in place. Nigel will have another crack at it tomorrow. 😡 And of course the main rudder post stuffing box is continuing to leak 😣 Nigel doesn't think it's leaking anymore than what it was. He's applied more CT1 where he thinks it's leaking so we will have another look at that tomorrow too! Saturday 13th February The boat motions are becoming more tolerable, with each passing hour although still a tiring nightmare trying to do anything. We have both slept on and off quite a bit today. We are defiantly making some head way at least as we appear to be averaging 5.5 to 6.5 knots which is great, we are even getting a little more bold an have not taken in or rearranged the sails for the night sail. (Now that's a first for us 😊) Okay so we only have 3 reefs and a small Genoa out 😆 Sunday 14th February When I awoke from my 12am till 4am sleep I went to do the log and found a sweet little note to wish me happy birthday 😃 Through the day I had a couple of birthday well wishers via text on the satphone which was nice. At 6 am this morning on watch I went to have look up top, it really is quite difficult at times to make out what is what as it is literally pitch black out while rolling around in the waves. I thought I saw a mast light at one point but reality is they are just stars that must be quite low in the sky (although I still double checked on the radar for my starship enterprise 😉) We had a decent sized flying fish in the cockpit this morning, although when I heard it flapping around I had to close the top wash board quickly as Nigel has really made me quite paranoid about them flipping into the saloon. And also asked if I could kindly refrain from screaming if this happens! 😂😂😂😂 yeah right I'll probably be like a screeching banshee 😲 More bad news 😕 The wind vane paddle is lost!! Nigel is gutted, he is unsure where it has sheared from this time, but he's not going down the back again to find out! So we are back to square 1 again with the auto pilots. We are running on the main and in all fairness it's doing a sterling job so we're keeping are fingers crossed it continues that way as we are defiantly at the point of no return! After all that time and money spent on it too 😞 ow well a least we did get a taste of what the Cape Verdes were like which we otherwise would have not. The rest of the afternoon was spent mopping up the bilges from the leaking rudder post. It is manageable more of an inconvenience really. So not the best day but to end on a positive note we have finally found the North equatorial current which is giving us another knot in speed 😊 and we are averaging around 125NM a day so far. Monday 15th February Nigel was really impressed (NOT) when I woke him at 6 am to tell him there was another sail boat quite near to us. But apparently what with the waves stars and sleepiness it was an illusion, (oops 😶) It really did never dawn on me that I should be seeing a red or green light not white and the waves really did look like there was a boat! (there's my starship enterprise again) Ow well It's a good job he lurves me then he forgives me 😆 So other than us both having ago at hand balling the boat to take some of the pressure off the auto pilot it's been a calm quite day. Tuesday 16th February Again not much has happened today so far (a good thing BTW) Nigel has been doing some hand balling again (I think he's enjoying it really😉) as he has made noises about it passing the time on. But.... He also thinks he can pass the dishes on too!! I don't think so mate they will be there waiting for you when you've had a kip 😝. Talking of dishes I practically made a roast dinner out the pressure cooker. I really am loving this device and don't know how I would have managed this trip without, except I think I probably would have had 3rd degree burns by now if I didn't lol. One thing we did do today is put the clock back an hour again so we're half way there with the time at least 😃 Although on saying that we have done 675NM so far so not too bad for 5 days. The wind has died off a tad as we are only managing 4.5 to 5.5 knots even with the Genoa fully out. Maybe tomorrow if the winds stay the same we will look at shaking out that 3rd reef as our main objective is to keep steely's speed up. Thursday 17th February It's been very gusty and rainy through the early hours of this morning. Nigel put 10 degrees north on the GPS to stop the wind from backing the sail just before the end of his shift as the sails were just starting to flap a tad. (such consideration from my skipper 😄) so now I won't have to worry and we can compensate for the extra 10 degrees when it is daylight. Sleep has been eluding me as the rolling motion has become much more again. However in my wisdom I obviously thought today would be a great day to do a spot of baking! OMG it was like trying to juggle on a roller coaster (what the hell was I thinking? 😅) There is no such thing as trying to get one thing out of the cupboard, as it was like been in the firing range but with tin cans when you try and open the door 😲 Even with rubber matting on work tops It was like a quick game of having to grab stuff before it fell or wedge a bowl here or there and as for weighing scales urm you can forget that on a rolling boat, guesstimate was the only way! (anyway isn't that how all the chefs do it 😆) But with standing all of that my efforts managed to produce a burnt banana and walnut bread! 😞 the little oven is obviously a little too hot! even with this Nigel still wanted to try it (he who does not like banana's and obviously my number 1 supporter and guinea pig 😃) When we cut into it it was actually not so burnt after all 😥 and actually tasted really good, now the skipper is baying for more banana's lol. If he's really good I might be persuaded to juggle up some cheesy biscuits from the galley, although might wait for a less rolly day. We are still doing pretty good with keeping the speed up and still with 3 reefs in and only a small amount of Genoa. We will soon be at the halfway point. I keep checking the miles and distances out, but Nigel is like a watch kettle never boils. But for me it keeps me entertained and my moral high watching those miles ticking up and the distance ticking down. When I announced that we could have a halfway treat the skipper soon perked up about my distance checking then I can tell you 😉 Friday 18th February At 17.00hrs GMT today we have been sailing for exactly a week we have covered 904NM with 1111NM to go 😆 we have also pulled 3rd reef out for the first time and we now have our wings well and truly spread (we are butterfly as our Norwegian friends would say 😁) We celebrated the halfway mark with fresh watermelon and tinned tangerines and double cream, a total treat was had 😃 So this is where my diary entries stop! It was coming up to 3am on the morning of the 20th I awoke for my shift, I sensed Nigel was not in the cabin then spied him helming at the wheel (steering the boat for our non sailor friends) My heart sank immediately. I knew what had happened! When you don't want to ask the question you know the answer to but it still has to be asked! "Why are you helming Nigel?" Now he could have said he was bored and it is a beautiful night, he wanted to exercise his arms or do a spot of star gazing even, but no he had to tell me the truth! Which was the auto helm had 100% packed in and we still have 901NM to our destination 😭😭😭😭 After this news I braced myself for what I knew was going to be a tough time. Nigel had a small plan formulating about jury rigging the tiller pilot to the emergency steering but first he needed sleep bless him. I was at the helm for 8 solid hrs that day as Nigel worked away trying to put a some what Heath Robinson affair together. This included drilling a 8mm hole in the Stainless Steel emergency steering tiller whilst the boat was jumping about in the waves, But eventually just as it was starting to get dark again we had success. We celebrated with sleep totally bliss as we were both totally exhausted at this point 😃😴😴😴 However we knew the system was not a 24 hr solution so we had to hand steer during the day. We really were quite thankful that the sea's were not as high, rough and rolly has they had been the week before. Of course the winds had dropped! We put full sails up for the first time of the whole trip which only actually gave us another knot of speed, but hey we were not knocking it 1 knot is still 1 knot quicker to land! And our main objective is to keep the speed up and arrive at our destination as quickly as we can. On the evening of the 22ND we put the engine on to give the batteries some extra power. But the engine started to make some strange noises. We could not believe it as if the auto pilots were not enough! 😔 Nigel thought that it could be either the alternater or fan belt. But that seemed a little strange as we only changed the fan belt between Gibralter and Lanzarote. The next day we started her again and she seemed to run OK! We could only deduce that it had been some sea grass that had gotten wrapped around the prop. We also put the clock back another hour so just one more hour back to go. By the evening we had covered 1374 NM with 642NM to go 😎 In the early hours of the morning of 23rd I felt the boat shift differently and saw immediately that the COG had totally gone off course meaning Billy (the Tiller pilot) had tripped out, 'Ow If only' it was worse Billy had monumentally and completely died! 😦😰😵😢 which means we were now going to have to hand steer the rest of the way with 447NM to run! The one beautiful site that lifted our spirits that day was that just after 17.00hrs we saw dolphins, lots and lots of dolphins 😁 the first thing we have seen other than flying fish since leaving Mindelo. This was a reassuring thing too as dolphins like to live in shallower waters which is a sure sign that we are getting closer to land and we are 400NM East of Barbados 😃 The next couple of days were tiring, there were a couple of shifts that Nigel and I were so tired it was near impossible to steer but we struggled on encouraging one another through the nights making it much more do-able with land getting closer and closer. Nigel was the first to spot land on the evening of the 26th about 10NM off shore 😁 We debated weather we should heave to, or make land fall that night. It was decided that we would make landfall as navionics and the charts were pretty clear as to where we should go. However making landfall at night in a new place is always tricky. As we stumbled around in the dark amongst the uncharted moorings! But we found our way to the unlit customs dock and made landfall on February 27th at 02.30hrs (UTC) in Port St Charles, Barbados 😁😁😁 Once secure we popped the champagne jubilant with our landfall, then we threw it away! as it was bloody awful lol. So true to our form, we cracked open a nice bottle of red I had stashed away. We toasted our lovely boat for keeping us safe and to the accomplishment we had made in crossing the Atlantic Ocean to the other side of the world.😉

#2016 #Mindelo #Atlanticcrossing #Sailing #Repairs #Barbados