St Helena

Arrived here in St Helena yesterday lunchtime after a stressful passage with a number of repairs required. The only good thing was the weather was relatively benign and the seas were calm so it was a good sailing trip. Winds were generally good with only a few periods of very light breeze near the end of the passage. The passage was not a good one for Peter as he was constantly mending and repairing things. The first day out the Generator stopped working and Peter traced the fault back to the fuel lift pump so he jury rigged a replacement using the dinghy outboard fuel pump. The winds were light so we did have several sail changes to maximise the wind available which is tiring work for both of us. During the latter part of the trip we blew out our spinnaker in a squall which happened overnight bringing 27 knots of wind. The sail is not strong enough to withstand that force so it ripped half of the sail away. It was then all hands on deck at 1am to drop the sail and go back to white sails for the rest of the night. Since the wind was behind us we flew our main on one side and the genoa on the opposite side to 'wing on wing'. The arrangement took it's toll on the main and a broken carr now needs replacing. Now we are e mailing Selden in Sweden to see if spare parts can be shipped out to us in Brazil. The next leg is some 1900 miles to Brazil so we do need to be careful with the sails we have left. Unfortuately our other downwind sail the new Parasailor has a tear at the bottome now as it got caught on the bowsprit whilst we were trying to hoist it in light winds. Luckily there is a sail maker here and Peter has taken it to be stitched. Our arrival in St Helena has been a good experience so far. The island is serviced by a supply ship RMS St Helena that calls once every two weeks from Cape Town. When we arrived the ship had recently been but already the shops have sold out of lettuce and other fresh goods! However a trip to two stores has proved that vegetables can be found if we are not too choosy about what we eat. So instead of brocolli I have squash and turnips to cook! The World ARC function was at St Helena YC last night and as no one from Rally Control is here I made a presentation on behalf of the fleet of a signed framed poster to the Commodore Julie George. It was a bring and Braai so we took steaks for the BBQ and some rice and pasta was available to go with these. Today we are getting provisioned and sorted out for the departure on Sunday. We would like to do a tour of the island and had originally booked this for this morning but with all the urgent things to do we decided to delay doing this until tomorrow. St Helena is like being back in time and they use pounds sterling here but also there is the Bank of St Helena which issues it's own notes so we need to use these here as they cannot be changed in England.

Farewell South Africa

Today we leave Cape Town for our 1700nm sail to St Helena on the way to Brazil. There was a Rally farewell party on Thursday night here at the Royal Cape YC which was very well attended by all the crews including those from the V&A Marina who had come over on two buses for the event. There was a free bar and lots of lovely scrummy food served on platters which could be eaten with fingers while holding a drink. Several people had cameras so maybe some photos will end up on the World Cruising website! So today peter is doing last minute preparations on deck whilst I bake bread this morning. We expect to head out of the Marina around 10am ready for the start at 11am. The first 48 hours will be the trickiest with swell and wind then we should have a good downwind sail all the way tp St Helena with steady trade winds. Next blog will be from St Helena!!

Happy New Year!!

Last night we had a party at the Royal Cape Yacht Club who were hosting a bring and Braai (BBQ) where you take your own food to cook on the Braai and whatever sides and snacks you want to eat along with your own plates cutlery etc. We managed to secure a good table for the 8 people in our group of the boats Zoe (Zoe Ed George & Lynda) and Dreamcatcher (Charles and Marie) and Trompeta (Peter and Jane). Everyone had brought plenty of food and we even had party hats and horns courtesy of Zoe & Ed who had just returned back from the USA where they spent Christmas. There was a good band playing and some of us danced into the early hours of the morning. At midnight we toasted the New Year and watched the fireworks which were being set off on the quay at the V&A. Today it is just as windy as it was yesterday with gusts of up to 45 knots in the Marina. It was a little difficult for the men last night who did the cooking as it was so windy and I have already washed our clothes from last night as they reeked of smoke!! We did see Paul and Suzana from World ARC Rally control yesterday as they are here to set up the Rally Office on 2 January at the RCYC. There is a farewell dinner at the yacht club on 3 January as we are due to set sail again on 5 January 2013! The first leg to St Helena is around 1700 nm which will take us around 12 days. The stop at St Helena is just 48 hours then on to Brazil and Salvador for the carnival. This leg is around 1900 nm so will take us a little longer probably 13 to 14 days. So we need to provision for a month now. My freezer is already filling up as we have eaten so well over the last few weeks there is plenty of cooked turkey ham and beef for sandwiches at lunch time. The freezer got defrosted whilst the boat was out of the water so it is just a matter of topping up with a few more frozen items. The boat is looking very clean and shiny as she has had her bottom painted and also the hull and topsides buffed and polished. We have been lucky enough to find a buyer for our Windpilot which was taking up space at the back as our Insurers are now happy for us to sail double handed without a windvane self steering system. Just as well as we have not really used the windvane since we set off from England! The four holes in the stern left when the Windpilot was removed have been filled in and the stern will get sanded and polished before we leave. Now we can use the dinghy davits whenever we want to lift the dinghy out of the water for short journeys and at anchor. It is much safer and better to hoist your dinghy out of the water if you are at anchor as it is less likely to get stolen than if it was simply tied on by a rope. This is especially true in the Caribbean as dinghies seem to go missing on a regular basis there. There are just a couple of jobs to do on the boat before we leave. We had a new gas solenoid/sensor installed before Christmas so this needs an Electrician to complete the wiring and test the system. Hopefully the Electrician will be here tomorrow. Peter also needs to fill up with fuel but as it has been so windy in the Marina it has not been possible to move the boat onto the fuel dock without creating havoc! Our 9 jerry cans will get filled up and Peter will then transfer enough to top up the fuel tank and then refill any jerry cans used. Happy New Year to all our friends and family. May 2013 be a good one for you all and we look forward to catching up with everyone sometime this summer.