Around the World in 1160 Days

Ascension Island to Tobago

Forgive me if this entry is rather incoherent. Jeremy and I have just celebrated our circumnavigation of the world with a bottle of Methode Cap Classique bubbly. Thank you cousin Barbara for the gift of a very delicious sparkling wine.

Ascension turtle

The passage from Ascension took 22 days. There were no gales. The South Atlantic was great. We had light to moderate winds from the SE just about the whole way, often flying our ghoster (half spinnaker) through the night. As predicted the wind became very light as we approached the ITCZ (doldrums). One of our cruising guides says: “There is an area of light or no wind near the Equator with the occasional squall.” What it didn’t say was that the wind would change from SE to NNE in an instant, there would be many squalls and it would be very hot with lots of wind, so you’d better get those light weather sails down and those poles you’ve used for downwind sailing, prepare for being close hauled and reef down. We became very irritable and argued more than we have on any other passage. We both had a sense that this was the last ocean crossing of our circumnavigation and our dream that had always been in the future was soon going to be in the past. Once we were out of the doldrums we became a team again. I was still excited to be crossing the Equator and celebrated with glasses of brandy and shortbread biscuits for Neptune and me. Jeremy preferred to sleep as he was off watch.

We saw very few cargo ships but one was less than 3 miles away when it passed our bow. Other ships that came close were Chinese fishing vessels. Sometimes these would come within half a mile of us, which was very scary at night. Often they bristled with aerials, but they never answered our calls on the VHF. We made our presence obvious at night by shining a spotlight at them.

A Chinese fishing vessel - too close

The butcher at St Helena had made a mistake and we had double the quantity of meat that we had ordered. This was not a problem as we’d had the meat vacuum packed and frozen. Consequently, we continued to have meat stews with fresh vegetables for about 10 days from Ascension. After that we caught a tuna and had tuna steaks for the next 4 days. As you can see from the photo, a shark or similar, took a  bite out of the poor tuna’s tail end as we reeled it in. Then we were eating tinned meat dishes with pasta, noodles or rice. Our apples and oranges ran out, followed by our onions and finally our garlic. Every other day we baked 2 small loaves of bread. Our drinking water lasted well. We hoped we’d be able to top up from the rain but there were only a few showers. The bulk of the rain was going to Brazil and probably falling on the Amazon basin. We had a can of beer each every day. Our bilges are empty now (except for the 25 litres of wine ;-).

Tuna for four days

We decided to revert to our Pacific Ocean watches i.e. 2 hours during the day and a watch each of 4 hours at night. We did very little motoring. The mainsail ripped at the second reefing point and the sacrificial strip on the genoa needs stitching. We’ll either do this ourselves or have it sewn at a sail makers in Grenada. Just as we were approaching Charlotteville, before dawn, at the end of our passage, the engine cut out. All the sails were down or furled and we were adrift in the swell. Jeremy unfurled the genoa and turned us out to sea. I watched the helm while he went below and cleared the fuel line. The engine started and this time we made it into the bay just off the cliffs when the engine failed again. I prepared the anchor and Jeremy went below and cleared the fuel line again. By this time it was light and after motoring around to find a suitable spot we dropped the anchor. We’d done it. As the Hydrovane motto says, we’d “survived the dream”. Our circumnavigation of 1160 days was finished. Half an hour later the Finnish yacht Valentina arrived. They had sailed from St Helena and had taken 26 days.

All we had to do now was have breakfast, sleep a little, then launch the dinghy and go ashore to Immigration and Customs and check in. We were accused of lying about our arrival. The Customs officer was convinced we’d arrived the previous day. Eventually he cleared us in and charged us 10 US$ for “the lights”. We didn’t say that the two lighthouses shown on the chart were not working! 

Goose-neck  barnacles slowed us down greatly!

 We will be here in Tobago for 7-10 days and then we’ll sail to Grenada. My sister, Pat, is going to join us for a week or two. After that, we fly home to become grandparents. Emily and Ben are expecting a baby daughter on 6^th May. Congratulations to both of them. Sal Darago will be hauled out somewhere in the Caribbean until after the hurricane season.