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At 1200GMT we left the inside passage and headed out to sea in a howling morning blow. The situation has calmed down now, Jorgen and Juha are asleep, Esa is on deck naked doing yoga (or some approximation of it appropriate for a swinging foundation), the sun is out, no ships in sight, the wind is 15 to 20 kts out of the east, Mona, out wind vane has the situation under control, we have one reef in the main and we just took out the reef we had in the genoa, our heading is 40°T and we’re doing between 6 and 8 kts depending on what Mona hits as waves. Time to go back on deck to fiddle with the sails so we can get another 0,5 kts out of her. XXXX p
Bright blue sea (very tempting for a swim), occasional small thunder storms, COG 30° SOG 7kts, Esa and I got in the way of one and had a much needed fresh water shower. Fixed a defective cabin gusher and discovered a bent genoa track - there are numerous things to fix each day. We are starting to get into an offshore organization, sleeping our 4 hours every 4, eating one prepared meal (lentils today) (some pressure cooker surprises). Our menu is determined by what keeps and what is going bad. We saw one cargo way off to the SW, otherwise we are alone. I am impatient to use up as much diesel as possible to lighten for and aft, for the moment we have piled all we can in the cabin on the starboard side. Some of us have opted for the outside hang over the side WC comfortably seated on the MOB horse shoe, the others are still using the head which is smelling like piss splattered offshore heads come to smell like. Mona, our wind vane is working overtime and doesn’t seem to mind. We were just called on deck to see dolphins !!!!
What to tell you? at least once a day with my hands in the perkins, fixing, pleading, learning as fast as I can, we just finished potato ginger soup by Juha, there are birds I don’t know the name of swooping along the waves way out here in the middle of nowhere, it is incrediblly beautiful and we are on the move. Days start for Esa and i at 0800. I do the log, check the volt meter, pomp out the bilge. We adjust the sails the vane, strip and take a turn under the salt water bucket, dry off naken in the sun eat some cereal and either get on with the things to fix and verify or just drift off day dreaming. I haven’t gotten any of what i had planned to do done - no reading, yoga... we are all bent on getting the max out of the wind, using the squalls, pushing up into the north east. We haven’t done any reaching, running or what ever else - just beating. Looking for the most favorable angles and Naomi is made for this. We can balance her sails and she’ll bound through the waves in a stright line. We have the wind vane hooked up for security, and we haven’t touched the autopilot yet. We tried fishing with a pink dayglow lure from Trinidad without success. (tears come to my eyes listening to some Bob missing Fister and the Poops). We are looking for a low to break through the Bermuda Azores high, but it is too early to tell where and when. We are keeping up with our 150 miles/day average following the weather. Tomorrow we are having a party on board for Esa’s daughter Léda’s birthday, complete with ballons and crepes. It is still hot. Nights are wild with stars and a moon one could read by. Usually we take turns sleeping during our 0000 to 0400 watch, but the cockpit is just a bit too small in all directions. big kiss to you all.
Just spent an hour cleaning up some strange alien substance from the bilge, thought it was engine oil mixed with sea water but the engine oil is staying put in the engine compartment, then we thought it might be bear or beer and milk and sea water, and then diesel from the leaky filter... it breaks down with dish soap? we are definitly out of the trades, gray day with repeated squalls some of which are endless. The squal hits and all hatches open to the cockpit and everyone throws their dirty laundry out to soak while the helmsman stuffs the nearest garment into the lee cockpit drain with his heal - too much rain, too much wet laundry hanging around the cabin. Jorgen made his first meal today under the direction of our expert Esa : corned beef and mashed potatoes (this is a secret, no one is to know the Jorgen can cook). With the squalls come heavy winds that we run with to the north so we are a ways off our course. We just saw a cargo on our radar which did not respond to our vhf call but an other sail boat did, which we can not see on our radar. Juha is off to bed, as is Jorgen, Esa is in and out checking on Mona and our horizon... Naomi is plowing along at with an APA 48 at 7.5 kts, getting jossled on occasion by the waves. It is the darkest time of night before the moon is up at around 2300, big kiss to you all, i’m off to chat with Esa on watch. xxx p
Bob Marley in the setting sun; the 135% came dirty and moody out of the bag and is now powering to windward at 6.6 kts in 16kts AWS; under cloudless skys over flat seas. Last night Esa and I shot the shit, ate a big flying fish with our fingers, finished off a bottle of Madeira, and found ourselves smack in the path of one massive and ominus cumulo nimbus. I confirmed the obvious on the radar and we made a hasty tack to starboard for the first time in a week - no time to move all the stuff over or wake up the guys - just let it fly. We got hit by 30 kts and a good soaking but avoided the brunt of the gusts as we ran back to Trinidad for half an hour. Today i spent up to my ears trying to put some order in piles of boat odds and ends - so many labeled zip locked bags i never find what i’m looking for; we got a 80 cm dorade up to the boat before it got away and just fabricated a fishing net with a plastic pipe and vegetable hamack. Esa is doing pancakes for dinner??? the ballons are out and we are having Léda’s bithday party!!! Now its Taj and its about time I check out Jorgen on deck.
Spoiled over the last few days, down when we drop to 132M/24H, tracking the barometric pressure to its steepest angle, just finished our first tank of water (100l / 8 days / 4 crew = 3 liters / day - we are over consuming). We discover that we just finished water tank #1 instead of the agreed upon
tank #2, and I am angry with myself for trusting someone else and not double checking. No danger here but what else haven’t I seen? I sculpted a piece of tooth in Esa’s mouth with some white gunk.
Ever heard of the sweet spot, the adjustment point that is perfect, the angle that fits... well we have been playing around with exactly the opposite for the last 2 days and most probably for the coming 2. The optimum angle to avoid the low winds of the Azores high is about 30° T and our AWA is exactly 90° at this point which means that the sails don’t hold, the wind vane freaks out, helming is a pain in the ass and we have been spoiled by the constant 15 tà 20 kts of the trades. Here we are playing with 7 to 12 kts. This morning we brought out the Genniker and cooked most of the day at 7.5 kts but in a more northerly course. I brought it down at sunset so we can have only one watch on deck at a time with me on call - too dangerous with the big kite up all alone in the dark. So we are off on a more easterly course holding a AWA of 80°, sweet talk the wind vane and hopefully get some sleep. I fixed the AIS today but I am not sure it works - no boats out there to test it on, and worked on the kicker that was missing washers and making a racket. There are still many things i can’t figure out how to use - the autopilot worked for a few minutes and then went off in some odd direction, the SSB as mostly static - not picking up all the weather gurus people rave about. On the other hand we used the watermaker for the first time yesterday and there is still cold beer in the fridge (Jorgen’s special pleasure). We aren’t racing but everyone is very concentrated so not much else is going on : stand ones watch, eat, sleep, fix things. Jorgen and Juha seem to be reading, Esa is writing in a note book or on a computer, but I can’t seem to get any time off and when I do I remember that I forgot some important chore and I’m off filling my black bag with tools and climbing under over a pile of stuff to get at what ever it is. The sea is very calm (too calm for my taste) but this is a vacation, remember! We experimented with pasta cooked in sea water - well I don’t recommend it. Our days are punctuated by occasional sightings of bits of garbage : an old shoe, bottles, buoys, ropes, plastic sheets etc. but no ships.
Phase 3 : the Azores high - more complicated more demanding, can’t just adjust the wind vane and keep an eye on the horizon - here everyone helms, the tension is up - playing the edge of the high, light wind frustration, a bit here a bit there, play the edge of a lone thunder cloud, adjust the sails, readjust, preventer to the main, a barber haul on the kite sheet, relook at the angles, gamble on the shift, push more to the north to keep the options open... less heat, less humidity, airing out the leaky fore cabin, fill the diesel tank (we have used 35 liters of diesel since we left, 13 hours of charging)... 54 miles in the last 12 hours, like standing still!!!
Jorgen is out there now, lots of stars no moon yet, black night, can’t see the sails, talk to me kite, let me hear the luff flutter, feel the smooth flow as Naomi locks into the groove and surfs down the swell. I feel sweaty, my beard itches, i spaced out the morning sea water over the head, woke up to do battle and got around to breakfast at 1500LT. We got too far to the east last night without the kite, taking it to easy and paid the price today - not tonight.
big day, woke up, did my calculations and gave the new course 40 to 45° and for the first time there is more east than north in out route - now this might seem a very insignificant event, but for a bunch of nuts in a bathtube trying to get to the other side of the Atlantic we’re supposed to be going east... in other words our VMG has been poor up till now, like all our efforts have been to position ourselves with respect to the weather so we can head east and watch those VMGs go up. The kite came down, we trimmed the sails and did some hocuspocus to get Mona the windvane working the helm. I then went off with my black tool bad and and tore all the panels off the fore cabin roof and then crawled into the fore peak to tighten bolts - looking for leaks - keep the water out!! The sludge we’re creating is definitely diesel leaking out of a fuel water separator that looks too old and delicate to mess with out here, the diesel is shaking it up with the salt water to make quite the kunk all over our canned food in the bilge. Winds have been variable up till today but we’ve done 68M in the last 12 hours. I did a curry tonight with all the left overs - exception to the captain doesn’t have galley duties rule. I had all sorts of projects for this crossing : do celetual nav, do yoga every day, write a book... but there has been to much to do without the added nav, yoga is quite impossible on a topsy turvy floor, and I have nothing in my head these days to write about, no profound thoughts. Life is very basic here, discussions rare, the agenda all booked up with eat, sleep, wash and sail... I add to this the nav, the weather, the maintenance and keep an eye on everyone. Text by Esa : Jeeman, roti is the thing, taste that! Said the taxi man when I arrived to Trinidad. We had several roties in Power boat yard. The roti place was just next to us. Early morning rotiman and the rotiwoman came to their restaurant and started to prepare delicious rotis. It’s like Indian curry combined with pizza. You can have veggie, chicken, duck, goat, beef roties. You name it they have it. Instead of wheat flour roties are done from mashed chick peas combined with baking powder. Curry is folded into the pizza like in calzone and the dinner is ready. We didn’t take roties to the boat. In two weeks we got more than enough of them and felt the curry sweating through the skin in 35 celsius. When we finally left Chagaramas and Trinidad and Power Boat docks Naomi was loaded with everything we could imagine we would need in the galley during 30 days for 4 persons. According to NOLS bulk food system it would mean 120 kg which would give us 3000 kcal/day so it would be 1 kg/pers/day (thank you Michael for introducing NOLS, National outdoor leadership schools principles!). Fridge was full of yogurts, parmesan, gouda, juice, delicate vegetables, salami, gouda, bacon, sausage. The saloon cuboards had their weekly portions including rice, beans, lentils, pasta, pesto, olive oil, milk, jams, peanut butter, cereals, brownies, bread, graham flours, all different condiments from basilico to Angostura. Not talking of all the cans which just waited to be blocked from the bilge. We were prepared for serious ocean cruising plus emergency baggage with ready made soups in cans and dried food from beef jerky to mousse de chocolat not forgetting the eggpowder! What is Angostura? The Trinits are proud of their angostura production. You are able to find angostura from rom to soya sauce. It’s a aromatic bitter (orig. from the city of Angostura Venezuela) normally used for some drinks which are not in fashion any more. We have to get angostura simply because Finland was once the biggest exporter of angostura. That happened after the prohibition law some years ago. The bureaucrats who were in charge of finding something to drink for thirsty Finns had hard time to decide where to buy all sprits and vine. So they found an old list before prohibition. List had load of spirits from all over the old and new world France, Italy, Hungary, US. They couldn’t understand why there were just few hundred bottles of Angostura. They thought that there must be a mistake and order at once enough of it…tens of thousands of bottles. Same quantities like the other bottles. No one knew where Trinidad was but soon the Trinits knew were Finland was when cargo ships were heading north. Later in wartime Finland became the biggest Angostura exporter in Europe because no one could get their favourite drink behind the ocean because of the German subs. Dry bread what we love on boats was specially hard to find. We went with Juha trough all Hi Lows (local supermarket) but no dried bread. We went so despaired that we bought 3 kilos of tortillas, which seemed to be the only bread like product that would last more than a week. Our skipper didn’t believe that we would be able to bake our own bread onboard even we had carefully planned everything with yeast and all kind of flour and even the boat has an original Eno -owen. (We will surprise him soon!) The day we were going to leave we saw a big pile of famous Swedish Wasa knäckebröd in our local super. The trip was saved and we felt that B. Marley’s Allmighty had his hand on this super natural happening. We were ready to start cooking along. esa Back to me. These guys did a great job on the food, really. i’m not quite sure how we’re going to eat all this stuff. To add to the piles of food they bought, we were inundated by food from other sailors when they heard we had engine troubles; They were all leaving their boats down there and we were the only boat leaving in the other direction. 4 guys alone on a boat, with engine troubles and crossing the great water. We now have a very interesting collection of bottles of sauces and 5 boxes of baking powder, ketchup (we have 6 bottles!!!) and half used bags of pasta... And yes the captain couldn’t imagine bread baking in the 35° cabin a week ago, but it is getting cooler. My salt water over the head this morning was even a bit shocking... xxxx p
The high is not far to the southwest, playing with us, trying our resolve, taunting us with continual changes in wind force and direction. Predictions are for the high to move north in the coming days and we’re following, but not too far - there is a deep low on the move to the north so we’re looking for the right route in between - up with the kite down with the kite, 10° north or south of our optimum angle, trying to keep us moving at over 6kts, or at least 5.5kts. Cooler nights, but the sun still blazes down in the daytime. I took a sight this morning and another this afternoon. Learned about Alix’s aggression in the morning mail and went through the roof with anger, frustration and fury... Called Alix, who needs her pops more than ever, and her pops is out here in the middle of nowhere!!!!! Luca on top of it all and rolling. One shark, one tail of a whale, lots of dolphins... big day for animal life, and still no other boats. Change sails again and again...
