Atlantic Crossing – Mindelo, Cape Verde Islands to Port Louis, Grenada 1.

General

The Atlantic Crossing started in Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, as you have read, then stopped in Mindelo in the Cape Verde islands for a week then continued on towards Port Louis, Grenada for another two weeks. Half the yachts planned to go direct from the Canary Islands to Grenada but in the end only two wet direct. The rest stopped for either fuel pick up or for the week at Cape Verde islands. We were very glad that we had elected to stop for a week as we had some repairs after the first leg including a bent boom! The only disadvantage was the chance of catching covid – as happened to three boats – and getting delayed.

I have split this blog into three sections since it is quite large:

Part 1 General

Part 2: Birds, fish and the GOES Project

Part 3: the best from the rally blogs

Departing the Cape Verde Islands

Activities

You may ask what we do for fifteen days at sea except sailing, eating, sleeping, and reading, but the days seem fairly full. Activities also depend on the weather. The first couple of days were fairly windy( see photos under weather) so other than sailing not much was done, whereas the last week was very relaxed, even the Chief Engineer was catching up on his rest.

While there are all the routine activities like cooking and washing, they are slightly different from ashore. We are lucky to have a big cockpit so offshore all the washing can be hung up there instead of on the foredeck!

We have a roster for night watches and share the cooking for dinner – other meals depend on the availability and variety of food. We have done very well so far and by day 12 the only items we are running low on were fresh salad vegetables (out), cooking vegetables (will be out today), fruit (will be out tomorrow), pre-cooked dinners, and pre-cooked lunches (still two days supply). The only staples we are getting low on are butter.

We run the generator every day to top up the batteries, and since we are lucky enough to have a water maker and a washing machine, we run one or another or both while the generator is on. Usually, we make water every day and run the washing machine every second day so we do not get a backlog of dirty clothes or linen. Pete has definitely decided that a washing machine is on the agenda for his yacht when and if he gets back to NZ.

Maintenance

There are many/endless maintenance jobs for the Chief engineer.

Not everything goes according to plan. The second day out was a major when we decided to end for end the spinnaker halyard as it was looking raggedly. He was up the mast issuing instructions which the crew did not entirely manage to get correct. Step 1 was to cut off the chaffed end. Got that right. Step 2 rethread it which was not going well – kept jamming.

That took so long (as far as he was concerned) he came down, looked at the rope, and told the crew to chop the end off as they hadn’t taken enough off so the line was still fat. Which we did but then he realized that it was the new end. It was just that the line was going the wrong way. This caused an African war dance but then – he had to splice another loop before going back up the mast.

In the end, all was fixed. As Pete says ” All will be right in the end and if it is not right it is not the end”

We also need to adjust the spinnaker/code 0 halyard each day so it does not chafe through in one spot. We are seriously considering getting another halyard put on at the next boatyard stop as a spare.

There are engine belts to check and, in some cases, tighten. Then there is engine oil and filters to check and steering fluid to check. Then we lost another freezer pump which regularly die but we did not really need this to happen at the beginning of a long voyage.

Weather Updates

We regularly download the weather, the weather routing, and the GPS tracking of the fleet from Predict Wind. When we decided to do the Atlantic crossing, we were really expecting constant winds (the trades) from one direction at a steady speed. On this trip, we have had nearly everything. High seas, flat seas, high winds, no winds. Mostly dead astern so the only sail that will really work for us is the spinnaker and the main is so large that it blankets the spinnaker so we cannot run them both at the same time. Running with just a spinnaker also makes for much smoother sailing and no concern over the noise and activities of the boom.

We have also had the assistance of ‘Met Bob”, but despite his best efforts the wind that we have all been waiting for does not seem to want to arrive. We are just grateful that we are finally at 15kts again today. With the spinnaker up we can achieve a boat speed of about half the wind speed, but below 10kts it drops down to about 3 kts – not going anywhere fast, only enough to just keep the sail inflated.

Then there is matching the forecast to the actual conditions which are not always the same!!

Mid Atlantic Swim

On day 8 when we were slopping along at 3 kts we decided we had to go for a swim. Dropped the sail and left Hew on board to guard the boat while the rest of us went swimming. The depth was 4250m. Deeper than Mount Cook is high.

The next day we had another swim and Neville managed to photograph a 50cm long clear Arrow fish, a Plankton eater.

Blogs- Predict Wind and Website

We also write the mini blog on the Predict Wind Tracking site, as most of you will have seen. https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Eleuthera. Additionally, there was also a rally blog participants in the rally could see. This is really interesting to see how all the yachts are going each day and their headings and speed and whether their track is better than yours. It does not directly relate to conditions as some are using motors and some are not, and there is a big variety of sail wardrobes. The pick of the sails if you can afford it is a parasail for these conditions – but very costly if it shreds itself!! We found that the yachts behind us seemed to collect all the bad weather. We seemed to miss nearly all of it on this leg. We had left two days behind the main group but by mid-way had caught up with all of them except the front runners.

The main blog items for the web page were left until we arrived as most had to be done via the web. When I was initially writing this blog it was day 12 and I was sitting down sorting through all the photos to get some sort of order before we arrived so that we could post immediately on internet availability. Unfortunately, activities took over and I am only onto it now. There may also be several updates as other photos and videos are found.

The Final Few Days

It took another 3 days of downwind sailing to get to Port Louis. This is really the cruisers’ dream – downwind under spinnaker and steady winds. In the end we managed nearly a week under spinnaker with the crew relaxing in the cockpit usually looking aft at where we had been.

Finally, we did have some lovely sunsets and these photos will show you the best of them. It was time to relax on the foredeck and have a drink. Often the dolphins would be there at that time of day as well. We were so lucky.

We arrived at 3 am to a warm welcome from Carlota and Oliver from Viking Explorers and then the Grenada Tourism Authority https://www.puregrenada.com/ with a gift basket and rum punch. The crew from two of the other yachts also turned up for a welcome rum punch and then champagne as we celebrated our arrival as the sun came up.

It was a great feeling, and Port Louis is a beautiful marina with very lush growth around, small buildings, and a lovely swimming pool for everyone to use. More like a beach resort than a marina. https://en.cnmarinas.com/marinas/port-louis-marina/

Part 2: Fish, Dolphins, Whales, and the GOES project. https://kiwiflyingfish.com/2022/02/atlantic-crossing-2-birds-fish-and-dolphins/