The Atlantic

YouTube version with music click here The Atlantic


On the 7th December Ryan and I went shopping with the shopping trolley (where are those photos of Ryan with the shopping trolley?) and...

..after protracted negotiated but fantastic (we thought) deals in broken Creole at the vegetable market we returned to the boat triumphantly with a huge bag of potatoes, lots of onions, garlic, ginger, tomatoes, tins of fish, chorizo sausages, rice, pasta, oranges, apples, bananas etc etc.

Well vittled up, we set sail....

..leaving the beautiful islands of Cape Verde behind us and with a good wind sailed ..

..due west with just over 2000 miles of Atlantic ahead.

Next day (8th Dec) the wind from the north east had dropped and gave Ryan the first opportunity (and as it happened almost the last) to set the beautiful asymmetric sail (or is it a spinnaker).

And what a beautiful sight it was...yes Ryan.

While the boys were fiddling about with the sails I was daydreaming and looking out to sea (my old school teachers would recognize this habit of mine). I thought I saw a plume of spray about half a mile away and mumbled something like "I think there might be whales over there". Fortunately the boys looked up just as an enormous dark whale flipped out the water. What a truly glorious sight. Having done a tiny bit of google image 'research' (apologies to my work colleagues who know what real research is), I think it was probably a small pod of humpback whales.


(Camera was not ready so here is a photo courtesy from another blog http://cvihumpbacks.blogspot.co.uk/ which is almost exactly what it looked like).

Not content with whales we were accompanied for a while by a pod of dolphins, time enough to take a picture or two.

Next day (9th Dec) wind had dropped even further and we were travelling at 0.5 knots. I persuaded John to allow me to have a quick swim (inspired by seasoned sailor Judy Fish and thoughts of Brockwell Icicle friends).  And so with all safety measures taken ( lines and ladders etc), I jumped from the bow of the boat into the BIG BLUE Atlantic Ocean. As I surfaced the boat was already abreast and I made a swift grab at the ladder and hauled myself to the deck. Not exactly a swim but I was exhilarated as I realised that 0.5 knots is actually a lot faster than it looks. John, however, was white a sheet. Another huge thank you to John for letting me do that.

By the next day (10th Dec) we had settled into a routine and had time for Ryan to demonstrate another skill...

...a yellow finned tuna (or was it something else?) and enough to feed us for a couple of delicious meals from John's kitchen (sorry galley). And then time to absorb ..

...the gorgeous sunset while eating another of John's extraordinarily delicious meals. For information while John was creating wonders in the galley Ryan and I did the washing up and cut rubbish up into tiny little strips to post into plastic water bottles - fine and important sailing skills in themselves.

From now on, day by day, the wind picked up and we were speeding along...

The winds grew and grew and soon had reached force 6 (speeds of 25-30 knots) with squalls and truly awesome Atlantic rollers pushing us forward.

Ryan was proving to be an expert (another of his seemingly endless skills) at surfing Oystergo down these HUGE waves and he reached a top boat speed of 11.4 knots - he is a surf instructor after all.

By early morning on the 14th December the wind was gusting over 40 knots (gale force 8-9) and the electronic steering had had enough and failed. All steering was lost temporarily and we (actually it was John and Ryan) hove to and battened down the hatches until the next morning. How great it is to write this now and how scary it was at the time. John and Ryan were truly amazing as they battled with the steering, sails and lines to keep us out of trouble.



After a fitful sleep while the boat bucked and bounced, John went aft in the early morning light to set up the hydrovane  - an ingenious wind powered pendulum self steering system which took most of the effort out of the steering. Clever engineering from Nottingham apparently - shame about their football team. And with the hydrovane set properly (never by me) we were sometimes able to lock off the wheel and let it do all the work for hours on end. You can see it in this video - its the red thing at the back.

After several days of gale force winds the weather settled to steady 25-35 knot wind speeds (force 6-7) with gusts and squalls we settled into a routine.

We took it in turns to take the 3 hour long night watches. After supper, John would take the 9pm - midnight watch, then me from midnight to 3am and then Ryan 3am to 6am. John would then take the last 6am to 9am watch during which I usually joined him for breakfast. The nights were glorious. Often beautifully star lit with phosphorescence sparkling  in the water or sometimes with the moon drifting slowly and lighting up the sky. It felt a real privilege to be alone on deck with nothing but the enormous ocean and night sky around.

I was beginning to get the hang of the excellent camera given to me by my wonderful neighbours Anne, Basil, Tim, Belinda, Janet, Jack, Gail and epic sailing friend Emma.

So we were settling into a sailing family routine punctuated by ...

discrete 

and less discrete

 ..showering (saving fresh water was a big issue). And messing about with flying fish...

Good morning Ryan!

...and dancing naked in the rain (photo not included for the sake of those faint of heart) and press ups (not easy in a boat swaying about dramatically).

And just to prove that I was actually there....

Christmas was celebrated with delicious roast potatoes cooked as always with panache by John and the day topped off with Christmas cake and puddings from Ryan's thoughtful mum.

By this time Oystergo had sustained a couple more injuries as we neared the end of our journey. The starter motor on the engine (we were using the motor for a hour or so each day to charge the instruments and batteries) had started to fall off and, perhaps more worryingly, the steel inner stay for the mast had started to unravel - perhaps not surprising after nearly 2000 miles under one tack quite a strain on one side!  John deftly and ably fixed these temporarily with rope and gaffer tape/dyneema respectively.

Onward to Barbados...and in the early hours of 27th Dec after 21 days at sea, our first sighting of land...

..and as the sun came up the eastern shore of Barbados was became clearer.

We headed for Port St Charles and the immigration office where John's friend Mike met us took this photo. I think this picture says it all - we felt great and I felt like the luckiest person alive to be sailing with these amazing men! 

And then a few hours later after a short sail around the island Mike and Tim serenaded us into our anchorage in the beautiful Carlisle Bay (Oystergo hidden behind the palm tree).

Our trip even made it into the aptly named Barnacle newsletter of the welcoming and friendly Barbados Cruising Club.