1 June 1996 St Georges Harbour, Bermuda
Another really miserable day. We did school work in the morning – Test Lesson 80 – halfway at last! It threw it down all day. The boys went over to “Truant” to watch a video while Glenys and I got on with the Internet Business Plan.
2 June 1996 St Georges Harbour, Bermuda
Raining in the morning, so we went to the Aquarium and Zoo. It cost us $18, but was well worthwhile. They had a very good Aquarium – alas no frog fish! They had a good Museum and an Invertebrate House which was very good too. We then went to the Crystal Caves which cost $15 for a 7½ minute tour – very pretty but what a rip off! I was annoyed and sulked for 10 minutes.
We arrived back at the boat at about five o’clock, but no beer. I popped over to “Truant” and scrounged some ice for our gin and tonics. At about half past seven, an Italian single hander arrived and had a bit of trouble anchoring, so I went over to give him a hand – I could have stepped onto his boat, he was so close!
3 June 1996 St Georges Harbour, Bermuda
Raining again, but the low is starting to move NW and a high is creeping in from the east. In a couple of days we should have 10-15 SE winds, so we’ll go then. Glenys went to the launderette and I tidied up and attempted to get some neoprene seal for our saloon hatches which continue to leak – no chance! I ended up putting more silicone sealant on the hatches. Glenys took the boys to the playground while I got on with cleaning the toilet pump and other small jobs that I’ve been putting off. “Kalida” arrived this afternoon – they’ve had four yucky days of 25+ knot winds.
4 June 1996 St Georges Harbour, Bermuda
SE15 wind this morning and the Azores high looks like it is settling in for the summer – unfortunately it’s stopping halfway between here and the Azores. We plan to leave tomorrow and head a little bit more north than the Rhumb line.
I ran around getting our propane tank filled and sorting out a group of boats to go and get diesel tomorrow. The price of diesel is very high - $3.45/US gallon, but if we get 200 galls as a group, then we can get it duty free at $2.05/US gallon. It’s worth messing about – we should save over $50.
I spent the afternoon doing a few jobs ready to leave tomorrow. It’s just sunk in that we are going to be spending 20 days at sea. I have a knot of apprehension in my stomach, but I’ll be glad to get started (and get it over with!) Glenys did her final shop this afternoon. When she arrived back, she cooked 3 meals for the next few days. All looks good – I’m pretty sure we’ll go.
5 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 1)
It’s my 40th birthday, but no time for that! I cleared out at eight o’clock. The forecast is high, high, high at 35°N 50°W. If anything it seems to be getting stronger. I suppose we go north east and then go up to 40°N to get around it – who can tell?
We went to the fuel dock and filled up with diesel and water. As soon as we had permission from Bermuda Harbour Radio, we motored straight out to sea. It was a bit of a bouncy ride with a rather large swell for the amount of wind. Craig slept most of the afternoon (he suffers from sea sickness the most). I had a headache and became very lethargic – not a happy bear. Glenys just got on with it and Brett displayed his normal cast iron stomach!
6 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 2)
Pleasant night with SE 10-20 winds. It was pretty cold sitting in the cockpit – we wore full oilskins and wellies and I still needed to put my hood up to keep warm. I listened to the reports from a flotilla, (Americans of course). They are about a day ahead of us at 35°N 60°W and have S5-10 knots of wind. That is exactly where we have set out first waypoint. I’m going to change our first waypoint to 38°N 60°W to try to keep this good wind that we’ve got.
We had good fortune until four pm, when the wind dropped to S10-12. I put up the two poles, goose winged the genoa, but left the main and mizzen up. We had a pleasant day, easily slipping back into a routine. I listened to the weather forecast at half past seven, which said that the top of the high will be at 37°N 48°W on the 8th with a low moving to the north of us on the 9th. Herb says to “shoot for” 37°N 47°W, so we’ll change course back to 070°M. The log stopped working just before I went to bed. I pulled it out to clean it and there was something wrapped around the impellor that looked suspiciously like Portuguese Man-of-War jellyfish tentacles. Unfortunately, I only thought about it after I had pulled them off with my fingers. In a state of mild panic, I doused my fingers with vinegar and went to bed.
7 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 3)
Another pleasant, if boring night. The flotilla ahead of us is getting less wind than us. The closest, “Maria” is about 117M, 075°T ahead of us and seems to have a lot less wind – we will continue heading 060°M to try to keep our wind. The log packed up again last night – probably picked up another jelly fish! There is a Man-of-War jelly fish going by every 30 seconds – there must be millions of them out here.
I feel like we’ve been at sea for weeks, but this is only Day 3. Only 17 days to go – that’s 34 night watches (groan!) the worst thing about night watches is being woken up! Our midday fix gave us a 148 mile run for 24 hours which means we’ve done 267 miles in 2 days – not bad. Let’s hope we can keep this pace (touch wood!) We had a pleasant day with S12 knot winds. Glenys baked some fairy cakes and made some Cornish pasties.
At five o’clock, the sky had complete cover of mid-level stratus with lower level cloud on the western horizon. I took the poles down because there is a chance that the wind might be in front of a beam reach. The line of cloud arrived at about six o’clock and the wind veered 45° and picked up to 20 knots. I decided to head more east while we’ve got such good winds. The wind dropped a little bit but stayed steady until midnight. The log clogged up again but cleared itself after a few hours. Two of our spare water containers lashed on deck have developed holes and are now empty. We’ve only got 10 gallons of spare water now – I hope we don’t run out!
8 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 4)
Another pleasant night, we made pretty good time. The wind veered another 10 degrees and it was hard to maintain 100°M without the genoa losing wind. I was therefore dancing the light fantastic at six am, putting a pole up to starboard and goose winging the jib. All this time, Glenys was trying to sleep – I wasn’t popular!
I’ve started to read a book about the TCP/IP network protocol which drives the Internet – guaranteed to make me drowsy on the night shifts! We had another pleasant day, sleeping, eating and reading. Glenys gave the boys a bag of toys and books each for being so good.
I tried to listen to Herb at five pm (2000 UTC) on 12359 kHz. I sat there for 90 minutes with the headphones on listening to hisses and crackles and voices fading in and out. Meanwhile Glenys and the boys were trying to keep quiet. They all got mad at me! I think that a front will be passing to the north of us on the 10th, but shouldn’t affect us as long as we stay well south of 38°N. We decided to continue along the 36th parallel. We will start heading north again on the 11th.
9 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 5)
We had a slow rock and roll night because we were running practically downwind. The slatting of the sails makes a terrific noise every couple of minutes. We’ve been doing about 4 knots most of the night. I listened to the flotilla radio net and the nearest boat “Maria” is now 84 miles in front of us so we are slowly catching them up. Another day at sea, ho hum!
I slept until midday, we had lunch, we gybed onto port tack. Glenys had a 2 hour nap; we had dinner (salmon lasagne) and started night watches. The highlight of the day was the gybe. It took about 15 minutes – rig up the port pole, take down the awning, remove hydrovane, remove main and mizzen preventers, gybe, reconnect preventers, put back hydrovane, gybe the genoa, reconstruct awning with windsurf mast as a support – phew!
The forecast is for a front to pass tomorrow morning, giving us NNE10-15 tomorrow and the next day. On the 12th we should be getting S-SW 20-25. We had a pleasant sail up to midnight. On my first watch we had a group of dolphins playing around the boat – I could not really see them, but I could see the occasional streak of phosphorescence and hear them blowing!
10 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 6)
The wind became very blustery with 20-25 knot gusts and the hydrovane was struggling a bit. At about one o’clock in the morning, the boat veered off downwind and the main gybed. Scared me to death in the pitch black night! Fortunately, the preventer stopped a complete, out of control gybe and I was able to sail back onto the correct course. I decided to drop the mizzen, which improved matters, but we had a wild night with rain showers.
The skies were very overcast at dawn and we had intermittent rain until about ten o’clock when it cleared up nicely. The boats ahead of us at 37°N have run out of wind, perhaps we’ll take the wind with us! Around midday, we had another rain shower and then, within the space of 5 minutes the wind veered from NW15 to NE15. We went from a broad reach to beating – amazing!
We had a very good afternoon sailing 100°M into a 10 knot wind with calm seas. Only one thing of note happened – the bottom hinge of the toilet door broke. I tried to repair it but couldn’t get two of the screws out. I’ll have to drill the heads off and the drill has lost its charge. I repaired it with the ubiquitous duct tape ….. I never thought that I would be hanging a door in the middle of the North Atlantic. By dark, the wind had dropped to 5 knots and so we ended up sailing slowly all over the place.
11 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 7)
By midnight the wind had dropped to practically nil. I spent forty five noisy, frustrating minutes trying to sail, but eventually the slatting of the main sail forced me to give up. I put two reefs in the main and sheeted it in tight. I rolled away the genoa and we just rolled as we sat there. From midnight to half past seven, we had drifted 6 miles to the east!
At the morning check in, the lead boat “Voyager” had NNW8 winds (he’s at 48° 26W, which is 240 miles ahead of us). There was a bit of confusion on the Net this morning because they changed their ship’s time forwards one hour. Some called at 0930 UTC and some at 1030 UTC. Gods knows what time they’ll call tonight! The weather faxes show very light winds for the next two days – groan!
We flopped about until half past nine when we decided to motor for a few hours. We stopped the engine at lunch time and found that we had SW10 and could sail. We had a very pleasant broad reach in calm seas all afternoon. The highlight of the day was when I saw a bright orange object in the water. As we sailed towards it I saw that it was a large mooring buoy. I steered us at it and as we went by I managed to hook it with the boat hook. We now have a bright orange 2’6” diameter mooring buoy – it’s in very good condition and the boys are thrilled with their new toy! Glenys is feeling a bit down “because it’s taking us ages to get there”. I suppose today’s 45 mile run is a bit depressing!
12 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 8)
The wind slowly picked up and, just before midnight, I decided to drop the mizzen because it was causing us to slew about. What a difference it makes. We lost about ½ knot of boat speed but at least it didn’t feel like we were balancing on a ball! We had a bit of a bouncy night, but at least we covered a lot of ground! The wind veered about 15° during the night so when I came on watch at dawn we were practically going straight downwind to hold our desired course. I should have poled out two jibs, but I let Glenys go to bed and consequently spent the next 3 hours worrying that we were going to gybe.
When Glenys (finally) got up, I rigged up the poles and put up two wing-on-wing jibs and off we went! As usual I slept the rest of the morning. Our 24 hour run over the ground was 15 miles less than logged – I think that we must have a counter current. We’ve started to head more north now – I’d like to get up to 38°N pretty soon. The eastern side of the split high is starting to re-establish itself and we want to try to get above it. As the afternoon went on, the wind veered to west and we had 100% cover of very grey cloud.
I spent the afternoon working on our Business Plan, as I have for the past few days. I saw another two orange buoys but these had some kind of device attached with a radar reflector so I kept away – some sort of experiment? We had a bouncy downwind run in the pitch black night. I’ve lost contact with the Net – they’ve either changed times or frequencies (or both!) I feel a bit lonely now! And I’ll have to rely on myself for our route planning – God help us!
13 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 9)
By midnight, the wind had dropped to 10 knots, but we still had large seas so we were being thrown around a lot. An hour later, the skies cleared and the wind veered 90° to come out of the north. I put on the deck lights and went to do the foredeck tango. I dropped the port jib and put up the main and mizzen and off we went on a reach. At dawn, the wind had veered a bit more so I dropped the starboard pole, so that we could sheet in the genoa.
We had a very pleasant morning beating into a 15 knot wind with blue skies. The 48 hour weather fax shows a low at 45°N 30°W and a high at 38°N 42°W. Our next way point is at 39°N 40°W which will take us right across the centre of the high. It looks like a weak high, so we might still get some wind. The NNE wind, pleasant seas and blue skies stayed with us all day and up to midnight.
I spent the day working out that “Howarth Systems Ltd” should be viable – I can’t wait to plug all my figures into a spreadsheet! I’m hoping that we’ll have a good Business Plan finished when we get back to the UK, so that we can hit the ground running and launch Boat Net in mid November – I’m all excited!
14 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 10)
The wind gradually decreased overnight until it died completely at four o’clock. I put the engine on at dawn and we motored until noon when we dropped the main, put up the awning and just sat there rolling! We only did 77 miles in 24 hours! The high is moving NE over the top of us and I hope that we get wind tomorrow.
We had a very close look at a Portuguese man-o-war jelly fish that drifted close to us. There was a 6” fish that seemed to have some kind of symbiotic relationship with the jelly fish as it kept swimming within the tentacles without being stung – interesting. Glenys magically presented the boys with two new games for Game boy and Game Gear. We are finally at the halfway point – only another 9-10 days to go!
The time is starting to drag now, especially because I want to get started with Boat Net. I spent the afternoon gamely working on the computer trying to sort out the spreadsheet for our company plan. It’s not easy to be creative when the boat is rolling ± 20°. This must be the first Business Plan to be written mid Atlantic! It looks like we can finance the business with £5K equity, £30K bank loan and £24K loan from us (by not paying ourselves for 6 months.)
We started to get a faint breeze at dusk which slowly built up to a SW10 and had us “roaring” along at 2-3 knots up to midnight – at least we’re moving!
15 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 11)
We had a light SW wind for most of the night which gradually picked up to 15 knots, so that we were going straight downwind at a nice 5 knots. There is no moon at all now and, with our overcast skies, it’s pitch black and very cold on the night watches – Glenys has taken to wearing long johns. The high looks like it is being kept below 40°N and a low is moving towards us from the north west. We are aiming for 39°N to take advantage of the expected westerly airflow. The computer is certainly earning its keep by supplying us with weather faxes each morning.
We had another very pleasant day, running downwind with 2 metre seas. The highlight of the day was watching Glenys hang out the knickers and underpants that she had washed. Life is becoming very boring now! On my daily “chafe” check, I found that one of the diesel containers had developed a leak, so I poured 22 litres of diesel into the main diesel tank. The wind picked up slightly after dark and we roared along until midnight.
16 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 12)
We had a very fast, bouncy night. At dawn, I changed the sail plan and put the main up. The weather fax shows the high still staying below 40°N. I suspect that we have entered the Gulf Stream because we’re starting to see sargassum weed and I caught a fish!! After 11 days of trailing a line, I finally caught a tuna and what a whopper. It weights over 20lb. I filleted it and we’ll probably be eating it for 3 or 4 days.
At midday, I changed the sail plan back to twin jibs and put the awning up. After a miserable night, we’ve now got blue skies. We had a good run of 133 miles over the 24 hours – only 710 miles to go now! Another good day travelling at about 5-6 knots downwind. The boys have adapted to life at sea better than us and have been wonderful at keeping themselves amused.
Three days ago they asked me if I had any neck ties. I gave them two and showed them how to tie the knot. Since then they’ve been wearing shirts and ties and playing at being bosses and workers! The following wind stayed with us up to midnight. We’ve been using the new Garmin hand held GPS because the Magellan takes so long to do a sky search. I switched the Magellan on this afternoon to check it and it won’t power up at all now – thank goodness we bought the Garmin!
17 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 13)
Another dark, dark night in a dark, dark place on a dark, dark yacht. We made good time going straight downwind. I didn’t manage to pick up any weather faxes this morning – there was no signal at all – did they have a technical problem this morning or are we now out of range? I hope that it was a technical problem.
I had a day off the Business Plan yesterday, so I was back on it at five o’clock this morning! It’s funny how Business Plans grow more complicated and ambitious as time goes on. I started off with “lets buy a couple of computers and work at home on the Worldwide Web” to becoming an Internet Service Provider in December, in a new office, with a high tech network and £60,000 investment! I’ve gone raving mad – this is our money we’re talking about! I suppose that, once I’ve done the big plan, I can always pare it down a bit! The other funny thing about Business Plans is the hockey stick shaped profit figures with losses for the first year then miraculous recovery and big profits in the third year!
I slept in the morning and woke to find Glenys making tuna and vegetable empanadillas and very nice they are too! The skies were overcast for most of the afternoon then the wind slowly backed and dropped. By five o’clock, it was drizzling with low, grey cloud. It stayed that way all night until midnight.
18 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 14)
Pretty miserable night - pitch black, with intermittent drizzle. The wind finally died just after midnight and we motored until half past five when a breeze picked up from the north. The weather fax shows a high to the SE of us and a 1008 MB low to the west, so I don’t know where this north wind is coming from!
I tried to stay in bed this morning. I wanted to keep motoring with the autopilot on and crawl into a sleeping bag, but Glenys wasn’t happy about that. Eventually, I conceded that there was enough wind to sail and climbed into my oilskins and onto the deck to drop the starboard pole and put up the mizzen. I was a grumpy bear! To make matters worse, about 30 minutes later it started to rain. I struggled on for an hour and then the wind died and I had to put the engine on again for another hour.
I went to bed and Glenys woke me up after an hour to help change the sails around. The wind had veered from north to south west and we were now sailing back towards Bermuda! I was very, very grumpy! The rest of the day was miserable with grey low cast skies and intermittent drizzle and rain. We had good wind though and made good progress. The wind is very, very cold so it’s scarves, hats and gloves tonight as well as an extra jacket – oh miser! Perhaps we should have stayed in Guatemala for another year!
19 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 15)
Bloody horrible night. Pitch black, big seas, 25 knot winds and intermittent rain. We managed to get a 48 hour forecast fax that shows the low moving very close to our position. We were worried all night that we might get stronger winds, so we kept a close eye on the barometer. By two o’clock in the morning, the pressure had dropped by 1 millibar – worry, worry. By dawn, we had about SW8 and I had to put the engine on!
The weather faxes in the morning showed the low passing to the NW of us, but weaker than we imagined last night. We motored until midday, when the wind was enough to sail. I slept like a log in the morning and didn’t get up until two o’clock – I needed that! The afternoon was more pleasant with thin stratus and hazy sunshine. At midday, we had only 270 miles to go – we might be there in two days time. As night fell the wind picked up from the south, and we look forward to another black night.
20 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 16)
The wind continued all night blowing 20-25 knots. We wanted to drop down from 39°N to 38° 30’N but we couldn’t manage that without having the wind before the beam. By morning we were cold, tired and rattled and the wind still blew from the SSW. We were still at 39°N so I decided that we would head SE to get down to 38° 30’N. It was a bash, but we were looking forward to easing the sheets and having a beam reach during the night. As it turned out the wind veered and dropped and by nine pm we were motoring. We should have sailed more directly at Faial – we would have had a more pleasant sail and been closer to our destination – C’est la Vie!
21 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 17)
We motored all the way to Horta. Blue skies, calm seas, light winds – perfect landfall. As we approached the island, we busied ourselves tidying up and, by the time we moored alongside the fuel dock, we were pretty presentable. We were fairly pleased with our 16 day passage although we only averaged 4.8 knots. It was fairly effortless to clear in and, by four o’clock, we were rafted up on the outside of a raft of four. We went out for a stroll and dinner and got a bit drunk!
22 June 1996 Horta, Azores
We got up late and decided to have a quiet day. I spent most of the day trying to sort out the Business Plan and all the information that I’ve compiled during our crossing. The boat on the inside of our raft said that he was going to leave at midday. We hung about waiting for him. He was going, then he wasn’t, then he was. He eventually went at about six o’clock! We all untied and hovered around and then we went in first against the wall because we’re going to be here the longest.
I had an exciting moment when the throttle lever broke off as we re-entered the marina. Fortunately, it broke off in tick over. I panicked a bit and started to rush below to get the mole grips and then decided not to! I managed to manoeuvre us into the slot with a bit of assistance from some blokes on shore – phew!
23 June 1996 Horta, Azores
All the shops are shut, so its another quiet day. Business Plan and clarinet for me. Brett and Craig are having a wonderful time with their gang of friends, Jonathan (11) from “Crystal Star” (UK), and two German boys Marios (9) and Mickey (7). They’ve gone feral again. We demolished 2 litres of fantastic Portuguese wine and then went for a stroll and ended up having a few beers with “Timani” (UK).
24 June 1996 Horta, Azores
Mega hangover. We found out that it’s a Bank Holiday, but it was a nice sunny day so we did some jobs. Glenys got the laundry done. We went out for dinner.
25 June 1996 Horta, Azores
My mum and dad arrive tomorrow, so we spent the day rearranging the boat contents. Rupert and Judy arrived on “Khaya”, so we had a few beers with them. Got drunk and ended up having the old “fall-back” meal of Huevos Rancheros for dinner.
26 June 1996 Horta, Azores
Mum and Dad arrived – we caught a bus and went to meet them. It’s the first time we’ve been outside of Horta. It’s a lovely island, very green and lush. We spent the afternoon sitting on the boat catching up on the gossip. We decided to call today my 40th birthday – it only took about 15 minutes. No cake, the presents that I got from Glenys weren’t even wrapped! We went out for a meal which was very pleasant.
27 June 1996 Horta, Azores
Nice day. I gave my dad the job of cleaning up and painting our gas bottles. I did a few jobs around the boat while Mum and Glenys went shopping. We washed our stinking oilskins. After lunch, I went snorkelling outside the marina wall. No big fish worth spearing and it was cold even with a wetsuit on. We had a couple of strolls and then Glenys conjured up a nice chicken balti with fresh cilantro.
28 June 1996 Horta, Azores
Beautiful day. We did a few jobs in the morning, got two camping gas bottles filled which is enough to get back to the UK. I’m pretty relieved to get those two filled. In the afternoon, we all went to the beach. Glenys and I walked up to the church on the hill and were rewarded with a beautiful view.
In the evening, we were all invited to dinner (on the quay) with “Khaya”. Glenys and I went for a stroll after dinner and got chatting to Richard and Vanessa from “Sterling” (ex “Dream-On”) who, it turns out, are very good friends of Gareth and Fi. We ended up on their boat until well after midnight. Richard’s Dad (Roy Owen), knows someone called Mike Holmes who plays squash in the Tamworth area and said he’d give me his telephone number
29 June 1996 Horta, Azores
Overcast, drizzly day. Glenys, Mum and Dad went for a long walk and I stayed behind to work on my Business Plan – every time I look at it we lose more money! We went out for a buffet dinner which was good.
30 June 1996 Horta, Azores
Miserable morning, so we spent the morning reading, etc. Brett, Craig and Jonathan are working on Lego. Mum and Dad went for a long walk and came back wet through. We had a chilli for dinner and played UNO downstairs.
There’s a great tradition here for yachts to paint a picture on the quay walls and floors to show that they’ve been here - posh graffiti really. There are thousands - some good, some bad. We’ve spent quite a few hours walking around trying to find paintings for boats that we know. Amongst many we’ve found “Marina Em”, “Whisper” and “Beatrice of Dee” - a boat that Gareth and Fi crewed. Glenys has found a small patch of wall to do a painting for Glencora and spent today working on her design.