200 NM to St. Helena

It is the 31. of January and I hoped that we are in St. Helena by today!! But the winds are really lower than expected and are dying down again. That is quite unusual for these normally steady trade wind regions.
We have to stay a bit longer on board and will arrive in St. Helena by the early morning of the 2.2.07!
To keep us busy in these calm weather we started some minor maintenance jobs and are varnishing some bits and pieces inside the boat.

1544, 18°11 S, 03°03 W; 28°C, 20 % overcast, 202 NM to St. Helena, S-E Wind 8 knots, Speed 4-5 knots

Axel

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Fresh Bread

Axel made delicious brown bread yesterday morning, we still have lots of fresh fruit and veg thanks to our new fridge, we´v got good wind again,and all is well & good onboard!

Mondays menu:

Breaky: With the gorgeous smelling freshly baked bread we had fried eggs & cheese, followed by fresh fruit salad with yoghurt and Maple Syrup
Lunch: The last of the hearty fish & vegy soup
Dinner: fish strips in spicy bread crumbs

This morning at 0130 we crossed over the Greenwich Meridian - 000° so are now in the West Longitudes & our clocks are same as Greenwich Mean Time or as most people esp sailors say Universal Time (UTC).

Em xx

Got two fish, both too small to eat, one at night (I forgot to put the lure in). A very strange looking long (1m) and slender like an eel with long little needle teeth and a bright blue stripe on the side. who was it???

Axel

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Wind back & 550nm to go...

Ahoy there,
We got wind again yesterday evening - Wayhey! Put 1 reef in the main & Freefall is sailing at a nice 7k. Our eta at St Helena we expect (fingers crossed this wind stays with us) to be in the evening of 1st Feb.
Its totally overcast today with a little chill in the air. Fishing line is out again now that we´ve almost munched our way through that yummy Dorado. I hung up lots of strips of fish coated in different sauces like soy, worcestershire, sweet chilli, on the guard rail to dry in the sun over the last 2 days so now we can have dried fish snacks, like the Biltong the South Africans eat.

Breaky: Cereal & OJ
Lunch: New Fish soup packed with heaps of fresh vegies & spices
yoghurt with fresh pineapple (Em)
Din: more wholesome soup, cheese & crackers

Em x

0750, 25°C, 100 % overcast, Wind S-E 15 knots, Speed 6.5-7 knots, 550 to St. Helena, Course 312°, average speed 6.1 knots

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Fast And Slow

after our speed-record start with three days of 180 nm in a row, we had now our slow-speed-record of a journey with 3 days of only 100 nm!!! Not much going on here, Emma just oiled the wood outside. Wind is just picking up.

1000, 25° C, 100 cloud cover, Wind 10-12 knots from E-S-E, Course 312°, Speed 6 knots, 673 NM to St. Helena.

Menue, Yesterday, the 27.01.07
Breakfast: cereals with milk, coffee and tea (and the rest of the pizza for me)
Lunch: Fruit salad with yoghurt
Dinner: Seviche (it is raw fish, what has been cooked by marinating in lime juice)
Evening snack: chips (crisps) and crackers

Axel

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Waiting For The Wind

Yesterday we motored during the daytime, with around 4-5 knots! Motoring is always annoying, because of the loud sounds in the boat. Just before sunset a little breeze was picking up and we had the chance to sail again. Since then we are sailing with 4-5 knots. Very slow and with this speed we will arrive in St. Helena 2-3 days later.
The evening sun brought us not only the little breeze but also a very nice fish, a Mahi-Mahi. Other names for this in my opinion best fish of the ocean are dorado and dolphin fish! His length is around 1.20 m and we have plenty of fish for the next days.

0750, 23° C, 80 cloud cover, Wind 7 knots from E-S-E, Course 311°, Speed 5 knots, 792 NM to St. Helena.

Menue, Yesterday, the 26.01.07
Breakfast: cereals with milk, coffee and tea
Lunch: Vegetable/Fish soup (with self canned fish from Madagascar)
Dinner: Pizza Salami
Evening snack: Pizza Salami

Axel

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Where Is The Wind??

The first 3 days we were speeding along with 180 nm per day and now the wind is gone! We have around 5 knots from the E-S-E and sailed only 120 nm the last 24 h! It is also overcast, so we have no chance to watch the stars and the comet by night. Nevertheless the calm sea is quite nice and doing the routine things on the boat are easier in these conditions.
We had to gibe so the mainsail is now on the port side.
NO FISH.

Menue, Yesterday, the 25.01.07
Breakfast: egg on toast, cereals with milk, coffee and tea
Lunch: Fruit salad with yoghurt
Dinner: Vegetable soup (with carrots, onions, garlic, celery, eggplant, tomato, several spices)
Evening snack: Crackers with cheese balls

900 NM to St. Helena
Axel

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quiet sailing time on the Atlantic

wind has been blowing good up until today and now there´s hardly much but we´re still doing 5k so without a Log we can only guess we have a 1k current with us. But its nice and relaxing; we can actually sit out in the cockpit and enjoy the sunshine & surroundings or as Axel say "our garden"!!

We´ve had our heads in our books today - Axel studying Management & I´ve just finished R L Stevenson´s Kidnapped and started Zahir by Paulo Coehlo (The Alchemist), given to me by Axel´s sis Susanne last years Christmas.

We´ve been chasing ants!! The critters seemed to join us\proliferate in Richard´s Bay when we were alongside the pontoon. Fingers crossed we´re getting the better of them! Our friends on Eagle Wing had a rat visit them when alongside in East London!! Nice!

Em x

26°40S; 07°26E, 974 NM to St. Helena, all sails fully up, still an average speed of 7.0 (was 7.5 yesterday), course 309°.
Axel

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it was HUGE!

..so big we lost not just our lovely fluorescent green squid but 100m of fishing line from my small Penn reel!

At least the weather is getting warmer. I´ve gone from wearing 2 hats, 2 trousers, 2 fleeces, socks and boots to one of each minus the boots, and in the day time we can now don shorts and t-shirt - hopefully bikinis soon (Axel looks very well in a bikini! ;-))! Them bones are a warmin! The water temp has risen from about 8-10°C to approx 18°! No swims for us out here tho´; we´ll wait for a calm day and warmer waters for that. In the meantime we settle for a cold saltwater shower in the cockpit (followed by a fresh rinse!).

Just after sunset on a clear evening we have a wonderful view of a Comet with its long tail, just south of where the sun sets and where Venus is visible. Its low in the horizon so not sure how from north its visible. That will keep us company for another 2 weeks apparently...

The fridge is running great and providing us with a much greater variety of fresh fruit & veg than we´ve ever had over the last 2.5 years!
Ciao for now
Em x

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Trade Wind Sailing

After the crazy wind conditions down the African coast with changing winds every day a few times, we are enjoying the trade wind sailing again. The wind blows constantly from the S-E and once everything is set, there can be days without changing the sail positions except little trimming here and there.
Yesterday we thought we have lost the Benguela Current what was pushing us nicely towards St. Helena, but last night we got it again and our average speed is increasing to 7.5 knots, what is the best start of a journey we ever had so far.
Every early evening, just after sunset we have the opportunity to watch a big comet with a long glowing tail in the south-west. A pity that we are bouncing around too much and cannot make a picture.

1167 NM to St. Helena, Wind 20 knots S-E, Foresail boomed out to port, Mainsail (2 reefs) and Cutter Sail to starboard.

Axel

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1339 nm to go...

we are sailing along very fine with fresh to strong winds out of the south-east, around 20-25 knots. Our average speed is over 7 knots, so we should make the whole passage to St. Helena in 10 to 11 Days, what means our eta is the 31. of January or 1. of February.
That gives us 2 to 3 nights in St. Helena before we are heading of for Recife in Brazil. Everything is fine on board. With the sea much calmer then the night before last night we had a good night sleep between our 3 h shifts.
Our bodies need around 3 days to get into the rhythm of the sea and the sleeping and watching. So the first days are always a bit exhausting, but then you get into the daily routine of watching, cooking, eating, reading, fishing, setting the sails and listening to the sounds of the boat if everything is ok.
Axel

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drying out & flotilla...

Its much calmer today & its a nice sunny day so gives us a chance to dry out our wet clothes from yesterday. We´re both feeling pretty tired today as it usually takes us a couple of days to get use to our 3 hr night shift plus the bumpy ride last night didn´t help. It looks like we might break our Freefall speed record of 180nm in 24hrs!

We ate lovely Yellowfin Sushi with Wasabi sauce yesterday and look forward to the steaks today, chilled in our new fridge! Its lovely having cold fresh milk for breakfast!

There are plenty of cruisers making this Atlantic crossing to Brazil. Texan Ben on s\v Gypsy Soul who is single-handing, left Hout Bay buddy boating with us yesterday. He is now about 20nm behind us but we can still chat to him on VHF. Cisnecito, Dream Catcher & Argo may be leaving Cape Town in next couple days so hopefully will arrive in St Helena while we are there. And then our other friends on 4 boats have not yet arrived in CT so we may not see them until Brazil but we will all keep in touch via SSB radio twice a day... if you have one, tune in!!
Em x

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blowing away...

we had a fast and bumpy first night with and average speed of over 8 knots! Wind was 30 + knots with gust in the 40th. The mainsail is fully reefed and together with only the tiny cutter sail we are flying to St. Helena. Got a nice yellow fin tuna yesterday, one of the best fishes of the ocean, yummie.
Axel

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up and away...

We just started our journey to St. Helena! 21.01.07, 0900, course 304°, at the moment the table mountain is blocking the fresh south easterly wind which we expect to have today. It is sunny, 25°.
Down the coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean we got pushed by the warm Agulhas Current what was the strongest north-south going current in the southern hemisphere.
Now we are in the Atlantic Ocean and have the ice cold Benguela Current which is going north-west and hopefully pushing us with around 1 knot.
Axel

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Hout Bay - Getting ready

We got save around the corner to Hout Bay and are getting ready to sail to Brazil via St. Helena.
1700 NM to St. Helena and another 1770 NM to Recife. With only a 1-2 day stop in St. Helena it will be one of our longest trips. We are still hoping to get to Brazil for the 15. Feb 2007, the start of the CARNIVAL!!
Axel

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from Cape Town to Hout Bay

..we have just filled up with fuel here at the Royal Cape Yacht Club, in prep for our trip to Brazil and will leave for Hout Bay at 5am with a NW wind to blow us down there.
It has been very nice being moored near the centre of Cape Town but now we long for the tranquil, personal & beautiful setting of Hout Bay, which is about 15 miles south of Cape Town. My cousins live down in that area (Noordhoek) so it´ll be easy to pop in to see them; I havent seen them for 8 years!! And they are holding some packages for us one of which will include a supply of genuine Maple Syrup!!

Its also an easy hop from Hout Bay to Cape Point - the tip of the Cape of Good Hope, which we will explore by car and foot. From there we´ll be able to view the big ocean(s) we just sailed through.

We had a tough (coz we´re a bit unfit!) but enjoyable hike up Newlands Ravine to top of Table Mountain this morning - all very beautiful and we could see Freefall in the distance below! ;-)

That´s all for now.
Em x & Axel

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Cape of Good Hope - Arriving in Cape Town

What a beautiful sail around one of the most famous and dangerous Capes in the world!!! On the 14th of January 2007 at 1900 we rounded safely the Cape of Good Hope. The sea was flat, the sky was blue! To the west we had a marvelous sunset and to the east the cliffs of the Cape lit up by the warm evening sun. It is a great feeling and to round it up we had a little drink on our success.
Later on the wind was dying down more and the well known wild sea was gentile and calm like a lake!
Now its 0430 in the morning of the 15th and we are approaching the harbor of Cape Town. Two more miles to the entrance.
Axel

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Most southerly point - Atlantic Ocean

We just rounded cape Agulas, the most southerly point of Africa!! 14. Jan 2007, 0530, 35°06 S; 20°02 E.
What also means that we are back in the Atlantic Ocean...
The weather is fine and we hope we can make it to Cape Good Hope today, 80 NM north-west from here. But the weather is changing in the next 20 h and it could be that we have to hide somewhere on the way!
Axel

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100 NM to Cape Agulas

This morning at 0900 after we got the newest weather report we started our trip for rounding the cape!! the weather is looking all right for the next hours, but there is a risk of getting hit by a westerlies tomorrow afternoon. it all depends how fast we can sail the next 24 h, so we put up all our sails and are racing against the time...
Axel

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Mossel Bay

18 NM to Mossel Bay! We would have liked to get to Cape Town, but you have to follow the rules of the nature...so we will stop in Mossel Bay till the next weather window. Getting more and more south the nights are fresher then i thought for this latitude. So we had to get out our woolly hats even in Africa.
Axel

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Next Step

Tuesday, 09.01.07, 20:00, we are leaving Port Elizabeth. Still SW Winds, but we hope they will change during the night to easterly winds and we do not want to miss any time to get to the next port. 180 NM to Mossel Bay, 400 NM to Cape Town...At the moment it looks that we can only get to Mossel Bay. The next SW is waiting for us in around 40 h.
I just put the fixed main sail up and hope it will last a bit longer then last time. We are doing around 6 knots and are sailing hard against the wind.
Axel

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Save in Port Elizabeth

We arrived on the 05.01.07 at 2300 save in the Algoa Bay Yacht Club in Port Elizabeth. It was very relaxing motor sailing for the last 30h and the night approach to the Port of Port Elizabeth was easy and well marked. Nevertheless the trips at the coast of Africa are a highlight for every sailor. We do not have a lack of action and excitement in these fast changing conditions.
Doing the 450 miles trip Richards Bay to Port Elizabeth in one go is in these conditions very seldom and we have not met any sailor who did it in this season.
At this moment there is the Southerly blasting and we hope we can start for the next leg on the 10.01.
Till then we have time to fix the mainsail and other bits and peaces...
Axel

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got the current

We are flying with 10+ knots down the African coast. 30 knots of wind from behind and a good current with us...we will hopefully be in East London by tomorrow evening.
Nevertheless we ripped our mainsail again, but we have enough wind for the foresail. Our body boat "Gipsy Soul" broke the steering cable! lots of bruises down the African coast.
The waves cannot decide from which direction they want to come and we are bouncing around...I was hoping to start with a gentile trip.
Axel

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Speed Record

17.2 knots the GPS clocked surfing down a wave...it was a hot ride down the breakers and as long as the wind came from behind also quite ok. But last night the wind changed in between 1h from north east to south west. The weather forecast could not tell us if we will get hit by the southerly blaster and we took the chance. Our luck was, that the strong southerly only lasted for 5-6 h and died down by the morning.
At the moment we are motoring with no wind and enjoying the calm. The next southerly is brewing and we hope we have 30 more hours to get to Port Elizabeth.
Axel

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Sailing South Africa

Hi All
After setting off from Richard´s Bay yesterday evening, we thought we would only make it to Durban but this weather window is looking more favourable so we´re pushing on further south, sailing past Durban as I write. We´re hoping to make Port Elizabeth if not we´ll have to settle for East London.

..doing 6ks with about 15k wind from NNE - we´re still looking for the elusive 3-4k current to push us further along! Lots of cargo ships around, no whales sighted yet or fish hooked, we´re Goose-Winging and its a lovely sunny day.

Happy New Year to you all.
Em x

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on the road again...

We are off to Durban!!!still a bit weak in the bones from the long flight and the new years party we did decide to head off for Durban on the 2.1.07 at 1800. Its only 90 NM so we should be there tomorrow morning. With almost full moon, a light breeze from behind and the sea not too rough, we have a gentile start in the new cruising season.
Axel

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