After 8 seasons in and out of Las Palmas I find I’m sailing later each year. I can blame the wait on light and variable winds until the 25th but the real winds finally showed and the sad time came to leave this behind. Cleared the south of the island before dark. Still some traffic and costal slop, but I’m free of the land. First morning, the wind’s gone a little light. Pico del Teide on Tenerife clear until noon, an almost 100 mile crystal view and Hiero just visible as a fuzzy spot in the north away 45 miles. Only a slip of the moon shows above the sunset now. And no more than sunlight and sea out here in the morning. Wind is failing. 3 days of wind speeds up and down but now blowing steady force 5. A day of six and slop and a jib old in miles shredding. Hank on my #2 Red, older in years but wiser. Days of programming a new Nimble version, good starboard tack work. Wind holds on 5. Good sea and sunny skies. Perfect conditions down below in the cabin. Slammed by a rogue greenie, wet and wet inside and damn the open ports. Monty unhinged by the force, but a quick repair I know already. More days of five with clouds and passing rain. Programming when I’m not fiddling a reef in or out of the main. Caught fish, ate cow. A squall opened a seam in the main, only a few stitches needed. The cloth is still strong. More days of programming. Gone is the wind. Birds around now. Must be just a few days more. Did I say I needed wind ? Working on the computer when the boat is flat is easy. This VMG/CPA display is a better idea than I thought. Almost impatient now and slowing to make land on a morning sea breeze. Anchor short of the bridge before the lift and breakfast in the pan. And I’m here.
Festival time with 3 nights of LOUD music here. We took a day and rode a local bus up to the center of the island. The land was all green and rock with deep canyons dropping straight down. Spectacular, but I’m more comfortable with sea level. Ex-strangers Diana and Jim here, folks I hope to meet again. Slow start. Wind light and variable, 6 hours for 15 miles. Now just dark, loud, and wild. Teaching Uli about simple one pan cooking. Good miles tonight. Daylight and no change. 20 knots on port quarter. Spot the Selvagens Islands just before dark. Another force 5 night and day. Never did see Tenerife. Just off Las Palmas at dark. Enough ships out here in the dark for a good demolition derby. Love AIS. Tied the lines and ran to Sailors Bar for a beer.
Note: If the latest photos look much better you can blame Uli.
Marina half empty here. And lumpy inside. Uli has arrived! Rented car for 3 days and we toured island. Much to see here, all very cool. Good to have Uli aboard. Southwest wind 4-5 to start. Decided not to stop in Santa Maria this year. Maybe time to visit one of the Canaries when we get close. Good first night but wind is going light. Uli’s cooking much better than mine. Very slow. 3 days now light and easy. Wind still southwest. Hooked a bonita, not worth eating. WeFax says change coming. Change is here, wind northeast and force 7. Seas getting up and sloppy. Uli not as comfortable now, but she’s doing ok. My turn to cook. Loud night, wild ride. Clear morning and wind down 5-6. Heading points to Madeira, why not stop? Decision made. Morning is yesterday’s twin. Just off west of Madeira at noon. Wind down to nothing. Seems Funchal is off the list, on to Canaries. Wind changes up to 2-3 and south-southwest. Back to Madeira. Monster 8 inch dorado attacks lure! (laugh and release). Moored in the Marina at Funchal just past dark. Dinner out.
History repeats! Second time on north and west of Pico, second foul dance. Crossing to run south of Pico on a southwest wind. Wind disagrees and turns southeast. Flying north between Faial and close to Pico on a 4 plus knot current. Wind hides along with steerageway. Overfalls northwest of me. Wind returns. Wind hides. Wind returns. Wind hides. Now made 10 miles good to the northwest corner of Pico and no current. There’s the wind, no, there, no, over there. Wind hides. Wind returns. Wind hides. Run, beat, reach. This sucks. Dark and now east of Pico. Wind back to the southwest and force 5. Major traffic, sleep light. Wind sticks and Porto Delgada before dark. Beer time!
A few boats here in Flores that I know. The new marina is done and is already almost crowded. More paint splashed on Tuntsa. Wind a little light leaving Lajes but seems stronger out here. No fish and the wind is dropping with the sun. Fishing boat lights out tonight but not many. Sails just hanging now and nothing to see under the sun. Flat, flat, flat. Sleep, sleep, sleep. Big fishing boat just buzzed me, just enough daylight left to see smiling faces. Sleep, sleep, sleep. Faial sitting in the sunrise. Dolphins and dolphin watching boats. Motoring. Arrived Horta and tied to half a berth. Contacted Nathan and Tanya, many years no see. Fish fiesta plans. Roy and Caroline here! Toured with Nathan and saw the house, very nice. Not enough time with Tanya and him. Fiesta, no fish. Roy and Caroline on route to LP as well.
The GRIBs predict light and variable on the line headed north. Should be a slow trip. French bridge departure of St. Martin in the A.M. The wind is blowing well south of east and I could lay the east end of Anguilla, so this is the first time I took that route. Very pretty beach on the west of Scrub Island. After 3 days of good sailing, I’ve found the light winds. I took a look outside and a small whale surfaced a bit off the starboard quarter of my drifting boat. The beastie made a high speed run toward the boat and stopped 6 meters off to raise it’s head out of the sea and have a good look at me. Seemed quite curious of me. I dropped below for my phone and took a couple of pictures. Pancake days, easy to cook when the boat is this flat. Spending the hours building the next version of Nimble. Hell, have enough time to start painting the deck. More programming. More painting, deck and rail now. A lot of anvil head clouds out here, full of rain and lightning. Seeing water strikes, makes me nervous, spare GPS, handheld VHF, and computer in the oven. The nasty clouds seem to form only mornings and evenings. Some wind has arrived! After only 530 miles in the last 14 days. Maybe this wind is real. Making good time now. Can’t paint any more but still working on Nimble. 200 miles remain to Flores and of course the wind has to change. Light and on the nose. Going flat enough for pancakes. Wind back up but still on the nose. A day of tacking and I’ve arrived at midnight. One of my very few nighttime landings. Fiesta days here, and having a bit of fun.
I’ve had a good season in St. Martin. 40 more users of Nimble Navigator were added to the roles and I’ll go another crossing without starving. Time to head across before something serious blows through here. The Atlantic system this year is very confused. The Azores high has been everywhere except the Azores. Small low pressure systems fired off Cape Hatteras heading due east only to crash and burn on the high, leaving a wave of confused winds. But it looks good now and for a few days. So I’m off. Fortunately, almost everyone left before me, or I’d miss them.
Solo sailing means never having to say ‘I’m sorry’. Or maybe it just means ‘I am sorry’. But it also means that, after 26 days at sea, I can drink again. And after getting beat-up in a 30 knot east wind with a sea built from square boulders I was soon to be happy that the crossing from the Canaries was done. I entered into Simpson’s Lagoon at St. Martin’s Dutch side bridge and motored past the crowd at the yacht club, although the guy standing there seemed a little bored. It didn’t take long to find Ken and Gail from ‘Sangreal’ moored behind Dog Shit Island and after I hooked up near them, they gave me a proper greeting with coffee, rum, a few beers, and morning after pizza. I have wonderful friends. Called Uli and then I took a short nap. That afternoon, Ken, Gail, and I jumped into their new dingy headed for the latest addition to the pubs here, ‘Barnacles’. Because of the Super Bowl, they threw a 3 hour happy hour with beers at a buck a bottle. Need I say more? So here I am again. And most of my favorite crowd are still here, or have returned for another season. I’m planted till harvest in June, and am happy to be here.
I’m adding log entries starting back in 1997 when I left Mexico. Check out some of the entries. I’ll keep adding more every week until I reach modern times.
Building a program to forecast slack water in atoll pass. Based on BA formulas and location/time of moon. Strange to start programming again. Easy to slide back into sailing routine. Getting used to this. Damn tuna stealing my lures. GPS very cool, not so my atoll charts. Eyeball Mk. 1 when I get there. There goes another lure. Fish 3, Mike 0. Raroia in sight! Many breaks in atoll look like pass. Not so sure. Don’t like to go in so close to see. Found it! Slack water program not far wrong. Only 1 hour wait before overfalls go flat. I’m still a little nervous when I slowly approach the pass that I hope is really the pass. There’s no marks, no buoys, or anything I can see here but it seems right. The charts and the depth sounder agree at 65 feet, but the eyeballs say about 3 feet. The water is so clear that I can see every stone on the bottom and I’m afraid that I’ll hit one at any moment. Depth sounder, eyeballs, depth sounder, eyeballs, depth sounder, eyeballs, should have rolled more cigarettes before coming in. Depth sounder wins, I’m in! Charts show no detail in here. Navigation by water color. More depth, more blue, less depth, more white. Green/Brown for coral heads. Sun high in the sky makes this easy enough. Heading to the north of the lagoon. Anchored in another picture post card. Sand, coral, and fish in the 15 foot of water around me. Also 3 other boats. Bleached sand beach and palm trees. Kon Tiki the raft crashed on this atoll something like 50 years ago. No sign of them now.
