We were making good progress, though, increasing our average passage SOG ( Speed Over Ground) overall, so no complaints on that front.
On their early morning watch Elaine and Justine waited for daylight with bated breath to see whether or not we were going to have a sunnier day. The wait was slightly longer this morning, since sunrise was only at 0845 according to our ship’s clock, the latter set to UTC for this passage. Thankfully sunny skies with white puffy clouds emerged. Then, with enough daylight and Roy up and about too, him and Elaine added a second reef to the mainsail and unfurled the full headsail in a wing-on-wing configuration. With this configuration and our revised COG (Course over Ground), we were heading straight to St Lucia now, with the additional advantage of a more comfortable ride.
After breakfast Elaine headed to bed, briefly waking at around noon, then went straight back to sleep. It was close to 1400 when she surfaced again; clearly she needed the sleep. Sending everyone else to bed then, she did the afternoon watch as everyone slept like babies, but not before see ensured Roy was safe in fitting a safety line to our second reefing point on the mainsail.
During Elaine and Justine’s off watch, though, Paul had assisted Roy in rebalancing Paw Paw by sheeting out the mainsail a little more and adding the preventer. In doing so, they got Paw Paw to sail directly downwind at 180 degrees; another first!
Elaine opted to do dinner tonight, since Paul had taken her night on Wednesday and last night everyone was still full from our celebratory lunch. She did, however, also opt to cook one of Justine’s designated meals; a butter chicken curry, without the chicken of course, and rice with popadoms for starters.
Then, making the most of a very pleasant evening, Justine and Paul enjoyed a game of backgammon in the cockpit, while Elaine washed the dinner dishes and Roy kept watch. It was close to 2000 when Elaine and Justine headed to bed, leaving the boys to their first watch of the night.
Towards the end of their watch, however, the wind died, leaving Elaine and Justine to try and motor-sail; an impossible task with a wing-on-wing configuration, resulting in the headsail being furled. In setting the wind angle to keep the wind in the mainsail, though, turned Paw Paw to sit side-to the horrible swell. With that, the sails were returned to the original configuration and the engine switched off, resigned to bumble along at around 4.8 Kts in the hope that the wind would pick up again, the latter activities bringing our day to a close.
By 0730, daybreak was on the eastern horizon again, with a waning gibbous about to set in the west.
The only activities of the night were at the change of watch when Elaine and Roy took Paw Paw off the wing-on-wing configuration, choosing a broad reach configuration instead, given the change in wind direction and putting us on a COG (Course Over Ground) of roughly 270T, maximising our VMG (Velocity Made Good). This was slightly altered during Elaine and Justine’s early morning watch to bring our COG to around 259T, thereby allowing us to run parallel to S/Y Rockhopper of London rather than converging with them. A wind shift, however, sounded the alarm, waking Roy up, but after he went back to bed, allowed Elaine to reclaim our previous wind angle, thereby increasing our SOG (Speed Over Ground) back to above 7 Kts again, but still had us running parallel to S/Y Rockhopper of London. Since Roy had been woken up, he asked Elaine to start the generator, ensuring our batteries stayed charged, before he trundled back to bed.
Breakfast was the usual affair; cereal or cereal bar, fruit juice, fresh fruit and tea or coffee, although this morning the only fresh fruit we had left were oranges, which were supplemented with tinned mangoes.
Our halfway mark was fast approaching too, with only 30 NM to go, following which we’d be on the downhill run, always a psychological relief on any ocean crossing.
Crossing the imaginary line at around 1230, celebrations to mark the occasion included a lunch of freshly baked cheese scones, complements of Elaine, crackers, smoked salmon, smoked mussels, prosciutto, Kalamata olives, Spanish green olives, sun-dried tomatoes, an assortment of cheeses and a small bottle of Moët Chandon champagne, a small bottle given that we were still on passage, which we always undertake as a “dry boat”. Needless to say, everyone was completely stuffed afterwards, though, and needed a nap, leaving Elaine on watch after she’d slept all morning. It was a fitting celebration indeed, including a toast to Neptune for our safe passage onwards!
On the weather front, it’s been an overcast, gloomy day, with a storm of sorts materialising to our stern just after daybreak, bringing with it some rain and churned up seas, as it passed overhead during the morning. The associated stronger trade winds, though, were most welcome, allowing us to keep our speed up all day.
We did have a few other yachts for company today too, including S/Y Lulu and S/Y Helena, in addition to S/Y Rockhopper of London. S/Y Anila was somewhere just over the horizon from us and Roy had enjoyed another chat to them earlier in the day.
By the time Elaine and Justine came on watch tonight, the waning gibbous was just appearing from behind the cloud bank to the east of us, S/Y Lulu and S/Y Helena had continued in a southwesterly direction, passing astern of us in doing so, while S/Y Rockhopper of London had taken off like a bat out of hell, doubling the distance between us. Paw Paw, on the other hand, was reefed down for the night, given the unsettled weather all day. This of course, reduced our speed and provided a more comfortable ride, allowing everyone to sleep more peacefully, rather than being flung around in their beds as Paw Paw bounced over waves.
During the intervening hours since crossing the halfway mark, we’d covered an additional 60NM, bringing us ever closer to the finish line.
Having safely passed it, though, Elaine decided to wake Roy slightly earlier than the start of his and Paul’s watch because another vessel was sitting in front of us, across our course line and she was concerned that we couldn’t see its lights either.
Once Roy was on deck, we switched on the steaming light to illuminate our sails and continued on our course. Soon thereafter Roy experienced the same situation as Elaine and Justine had, only this time the suspicions vessel moved to our starboard side and was less than half a nautical mile from us, without a single navigation light visible.
Having experienced this situation in the South Pacific, we realised we had inadvertently sailed into an illegal Chinese fishing fleet, only we didn’t realise just how large it was at the time until after Roy was left on watch with Paul.
Hearing the engines starting, then footsteps on deck as the preventer was removed and the mainsail centred to provide greater manoeuvrability, it became apparent that something else had materialised. Back up to check that Roy didn’t need Elaine’s help, she was informed that the fleet continued for miles and that the best course of action was to change course and head due south to get out of the area entirely.
A short time later, after hearing sails being set again and the engines turned off, Roy had forgotten to fold the propellers, creating the usual whining noise and forcing Elaine back up on deck one more time to ask him to fold them. By now, however, it was long passed the end of Elaine’s watch and she hadn’t slept a wink. It didn’t help matters that she had taken her methotrexate medication and only had one and a half hours left to try get some sleep before she was due back on watch with Justine.
When Elaine surfaced at around 0700, two hours passed her scheduled watch time, she found the wind had died, the headsail had been furled, the mainsail had been centred, the starboard engine was on and Justine was sitting at the navigation station, followed shortly by Roy popping out of his cabin, where he had taken a nap to stave off the sleep deprivation; Justine had essentially successfully completed two hours of a watch on her own, with Roy checking on her from time to time. They had decided to let Elaine sleep rather than wake her, a gesture so very much appreciated, especially being a methotrexate day.
With the wind starting to kick back in, although light, and a swell coming from three different directions, Elaine and Roy then spent the next hour trying to come up with a sail configuration that would allow us to sail and sail with the most comfort relative to the different swells; first the main was to port and the headsail to starboard, then both sails were switched, then the headsail was put on the same side as the main to try sail on a broad reach rather than wing-on-wing , all essentially unsuccessful without the option of a first reef in the mainsail and the fact that we’d decided a while back, for safety reasons, not to put the chicken chute up again, following the consequences that had materialised when we’d first hoisted it, including the risk of injury.
That meant the first reef had to be fixed, but definitely not under the best conditions in very lumpy seas. Fortunately Roy managed to get it fixed, but not before the lazyjack was released inadvertently, dropping the back end of the mainsail onto the cockpit roof and damaging the wiring on two of the solar panels. However, after rectifying the mishap and having the first reefing line functional again, the sails were set wing-on-wing and we’ve been sailing since, although we now have two solar panels to fix. Oh the joys!
Roy’s other duties of the day included running the generator and the watermaker before he returned to bed for some much needed sleep and Justine decided to explore the other side of the cockpit, leaving Elaine on watch with two able helpers for the remainder of the morning.
Soon after Roy surfaced around noon, Paul hooked a fish; a mahi mahi. So, leaving Justine to keep watch and the boys to deal with the fish, Elaine headed to bed, but couldn’t sleep at all, instead accepting that a rest was better than nothing. When she decided to get up around 1500, she found Roy filleting the fish to make ceviche and received the news that, although it was her turn, Paul would be cooking dinner instead, another gesture she was extremely grateful for. At the same time, since everyone was up and about, Captain Roy took the opportunity to reiterate the safety rules onboard, particularly the use of lifejackets and not going forward under any circumstances unless requested to do so by him, all of which were being flaunted. He was clearly looking to avoid a mutiny. In addition, he explained that no other sails would be used for the remainder of the passage for safety reasons, the consequences of which could be a possible impact on our arrival time or more motoring, but hopefully not.
On the upside Paw Paw had been sailing comfortably in anything from 10-15 Kts of wind, at times reaching 18 Kts out of the northeast to east-northeast since 1100 this morning, giving us an average SOG (Speed Over Ground) of 6.6 Kts, a far cry from the 3.5 Kts earlier in the day. Additional, we only had 77NM to go until we reached the halfway mark and we’d enjoyed Captain’s music hour again accompanied by a delicious dinner, thanks to Paul, with help from Justine. A team effort had got us through a rather strained day.
With a beautiful full moon hanging in the night sky, Elaine and Justine spent the first few minutes of their watch sitting in the cockpit watching it, before settling in to their respective duties.
Fortunately there weren’t any squalls showing on the radar initially, but some popped up at 12NM away during the last hour of their watch and dissipated, but not before Elaine had furled the headsail with help from Justine.
Shortly thereafter, their watch ended and it was the boys turn. They weren’t so lucky, though. With two reefs in each sail, they spent the entire three hours dodging squalls, leaving the remnants of one for the girls to deal with. Fortunately that dissipated fairly quickly, allowing us to unfurl the headsail again.
The remainder of their watch was rather peaceful with a beautiful full moon setting in the west and the sun rising in the east to seal their early morning watch.
By then Roy had surfaced and it was time for breakfast, However, nights of interrupted sleep had caught up with Paul. After Justine woke him he simply turned over and went back to sleep, having to be woken a second time to come on watch with Roy so that the girls could retire for the morning. Justine chose her usual spot in the cockpit, while Elaine headed to bed.
During the morning watch Roy and Paul each enjoyed a shower; not their first on passage to be clear, but, given that Roy had run the generator earlier and with both engines running for a short period of time to increase our SOG (Speed Over Ground) in order to allow S/Y Anila to pass astern of us, although they were the giveway vessel, they had inched closer during the morning and they were flying a parasailor; not an easy sail to manoeuvre. Their Captain and Roy also enjoyed a chat on the VHF radio, as they too, like S/Y Newbee, hadn’t seen another yacht in days.
When Elaine surfaced around noon, everyone had had lunch, so she hopped into the shower too, taking advantage of the hot water supply so that Roy and Paul could go off watch. Justine was saving her shower for later, since she still wanted to enjoy the rays.
The girls had a number of afternoon squalls to contend with, but most kept their distance and dissipated, thankfully.
By 1700, the Captain’s music hour was in full swing, which, on this occasion, involved a lot of air guitars or indeed the mop aptly serving the purpose and lip syncing, with a wooden spoon serving as the mic and not a stitch of alcohol involved. Frightening!
Dinner, a tuna bake, was complements of Justine, which she managed in between her performances.
Before we knew it, the sun was setting, the girls had headed to bed and another night of watches was upon us, but not before “sweetiegate” ensued aka serious negotiations in swapping contents of our goodie bags or indeed, trying to swap yacht chores and watch duties in exchange for a favourite chocolate. Needless to say, there were plenty of “no way in hell”, “are you crazy”, and a few other expletives that can’t be put in writing. It’s going to get ugly as week three rolls around.
Unfortunately, though, we’d lost the wind, making for a very slow crawl. These light conditions were forecast for the next few days. It’ll be Christmas before we reach St Lucia at this rate; our SOG (Speed Over Ground) was barely 4.5 Kts in 7-8 Kts of wind!
When she woke at 0600, an hour after the start of her next watch, she found Paul on watch, replacing Justine, while Roy was at the helmstation letting out more of the headsail before he toddled off to bed; he’d given Elaine an extra hour to sleep for which she was very grateful.
It wasn’t long into her watch, though, when more squalls raised their ugly head, forcing her to put two reefs in the headsail, slowing us down and letting the squall line pass across the front of us. It wasn’t long after that, that Justine appeared for her next watch and Elaine could unfurl the headsail again after the squalls had dissipated.
We all truly were ships in the night on this new watch schedule and it clearly wasn’t working. The idea had been for Justine and Paul to each do a watch on their own and simulate waking Elaine and Roy respectively, when certain situations arose. Well, the reality was that all night those situations arose, requiring either Elaine or Roy’s involvement and it wasn’t going to get any better looking at the forecast. Over breakfast we all agreed that the schedule was actually pointless, especially given the conditions we were sailing in and was subsequently scrapped, returning everyone to the three on, three off watch schedule, with Justine and Paul in attendance to assist Elaine and Roy on their respective watches.
With all the commotion onboard, though, Elaine thought she’d missed the moon setting behind the clouds, but then it popped out again one last time. Fortunately she’d also had the time to admire it while it still hung in the night sky, as did everyone else.
By 0730, daybreak could be seen on the eastern horizon giving way to another beautiful sunrise. Soon thereafter Roy appeared again having managed 40-winks, breakfast was made and off Elaine and Justine trundled to bed, although Justine chose the cockpit to enjoy her morning nap.
Elaine didn’t resurface again until after 1300; she had been exhausted, but felt human again, thankfully. It was poor Roy who was incredibly sleep deprived by this stage, so off he trundled, even skipping lunch in lieu of sleep. He had, however, determined that the first reef line had, in fact, chafed through and this on a brand new line. The next issue, however, was getting a new reefing line in position, a problem that is being left until we have calmer conditions.
After everyone else onboard had made themselves lunch, it was time to start preparing the celebratory dinner, complements of Paul; we had reached the 1000NM milestone at about 0810 this morning and Paul was making potato leek soup to mark the occasion. Elaine’s contributions to the dinner was a freshly baked carrot cake for dessert. Not wanting to be clanging around in the galley while Roy was catching up on sleep, though, she left the baking until nearly 1600 when Roy surfaced, but, fortunately, it was still ready in time for dinner.
While the loaf was in the oven, though, Justine stayed on “stove” watch, while the rest of us jibed Paw Paw for the night and to set her on a better angle to the swell, the latter something that has plagued us for days now and caused great discomfort.
Then, while Paul put the finishing touches to dinner, we enjoyed our first music hour on Paw Paw, complements of Captain Roy.
Dinner was delicious, but before we knew it, it was time for the nightly ritual of watches again and, with that, Elaine and Justine headed off to bed.
On the sailing front, the boys had a quiet watch as did Elaine and Justine, something we were all grateful for after last night’s fiasco, bringing another day of sailing to a close.
Justine and Paul had settled in nicely to life at sea, so much so that they’ve both been doing watches on their own these past few nights, although Elaine and Roy are still sitting along side them to answer any questions. From tonight, however, we’re changing the watch schedule a little to mix things up a bit; Justine and Paul will each get an hour overlap with Elaine and Roy’s watches to give them a different perspective on doing a watch; Paul will start his watch on Roy’s third hour, then overlap on Elaine’s first hour, then Justine will start on Elaine’s third hour and overlap on Roy’s first hour. This will allow both Roy and Elaine to fully establish a comfort level with both Justine and Paul before considering the move to the next stage. This will have the additional benefit of plugging any knowledge gaps Justine and Paul may have on doing a watch.
On Elaine and Justine’s early morning watch this morning , though, besides the wind being rather flaky, the radar picked up a few “orphan cigars”, which allowed Justine to experience this situation and what to do. We also continued to have S/Y Newbee for company, giving her the experience of dealing with a yacht in very close proximity.
However, with the wind getting more flaky with each passing minute, the decision was taken to bring the headsail over to the port side and continue on a broad reach rather than wing-on-wing.
So, after elaine altered our course, with Justine’s help, we brought the headsail over to the port side. There was just one incy wincy problem; the starboard barberhauler needed to be replaced with the port one. Since Elaine never leaves the cockpit or helmstation under any circumstances, she was about to furl the headsail and set it without the need for the barberhauler when Roy popped his head out of the saloon door wanting to know if the ladies needed his help. Jumping at the opportunity, the barberhaulers were positioned and off we trundled.
Unfortunately that configuration change had placed all the running rigging ie the preventers and the barberhauler on the port side, together with all the associated squeaks, within earshot of the port aft cabin, where Roy was attempting to sleep. Armed with lubricant to find the squeaks, then readjusting the preventers, he appeared on deck for the second time before eventually retiring to bed.
Elaine and Justine’s efforts, however, were rewarded with a stunning moonset as the day broke in the east, followed by a beautiful sunrise. Definitely one for the books to reminisce on in our old age; watching a moonset in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean together. We’ve done some crazy things over the years as friends, but this definitely takes the cake.
Shortly thereafter Roy woke up early to make us breakfast; freshly baked English muffins with bacon, which went down like a treat, although Justine skipped the bacon.
After breakfast the girls were off watch, so Elaine headed to bed. When she woke at around 1230 she was instructed by the Captain to return to bed, since she was still off duty; she’d forgotten we were moving the watch schedule by an hour to coincide with the sunrise and sunset.
However, she’d barely dosed off, when she was woken by Roy; he needed her help on deck after a shackle had come undone on the mainsheet, something that has never happened before and everything was inspected before we left Las Palmas, including replacing the cable ties with ceasing wire to be sure, to be sure. So much for that bright idea! The ceasing wire had actually broken and the bolt had unscrewed itself. That, of course, meant almost a repeat of what we’d done during the night last night; remove the barberhauler, furl the headsail, remove both preventers, centre the traveller of the mainsail, sheet in the mainsail, turn into the wind, drop the mainsail, repair the shackle, raise the mainsail, turn back on course, slide the traveller back to the port side, sheet out the mainsail, reattach both preventers, unfurl the headsail, reattach the barberhauler and, voila! Who said sailing across an ocean was easy!
By then it was just past lunchtime, so once Roy and Paul were fed and watered they scuttled off to their respective cabins; Roy to nap and Paul to examine the inside of his eyeballs.
By 1500, we were enjoying a SOG (Speed Over Ground) of anything up to 8.9 Kts in 11-14 Kts of wind out of the northeast, putting us on a COG (Course Over Ground) of 265T; we were heading west at last!
After dinner; jambalaya, complements of Roy, we implemented the new watch schedule, allowing Elaine and Paul to be off watch initially. Unfortunately, Elaine was unable to sleep with the cacophony going on below deck, not surprising when she heard our SOG was 10 Kts. Paul didn’t sleep either, given that he had had a really good sleep this afternoon, so good, in fact, Justine had to wake him for dinner.
A few minutes into Elaine’s watch, with Paul having been on watch with Roy for an hour already, he spotted ominous looking dark clouds to our stern. An initial look at the radar didn’t reveal anything, but a few minutes after that, the isolated squalls popped up. Towards the end of Paul’s watch with Elaine he headed to bed, while she waited on Justine to come on watch a little later, bringing a fabulous day of sailing to a close.
After saying our “goodnights” for the second time tonight to Roy and Paul, the girls settled into their routine; a nice cup of tea, accompanied by some or other snack. This morning was ginger biscuits for Justine and a slice of toast with honey for Elaine, throwing in a ginger biscuit for good measure. Our late night watch usually involves a chocolate of sorts with a cup of tea, but since the supply of chocolate is somewhat limited, the early morning watch requires us to be a bit more restrained.
With Justine taking charge of the watch, Elaine relaxed next to her and was on hand for any queries. Before we knew it, the first hour was over. It certainly helped, though, that the waxing gibbous was still hung in the sky to light our way, although we had to forgo our stargazing as a result. The morning star, however, couldn’t be mistaken as it shone brightly above the eastern horizon.
During Roy and Paul’s watch we passed the 1/4-way mark, much to everyone’s delight and, during breakfast, we had a friendly call from S/Y Newbee, which was a lovely surprise. While we have had twice daily interactions with other yachts via the SSB/HF radio net, those without an SSB radio hadn’t seen or spoken to another yacht in days, as confirmed by S/Y Newbee; we were happy to oblige.
Just before noon Elaine surfaced to find Justine had already surfaced from her morning nap, while Roy and Paul were on watch. With Elaine up, the boys could go off watch, following which Roy headed to bed and Paul headed off for some quiet time to watch a movie.
By 1300 Justine had completed the SSB/HF radio net, we’d just passed south of 19N and the trade winds seemed steady at 10-15 Kts, although a cross swell had developed and increased to 1.5-2 metres, all of which, nonetheless, allowed us to continue in a southwesterly direction, enjoying a SOG (Speed Over Ground) in excess of 6 Kts, at times reaching 8 Kts; with every knot over 5 Kts we were happy.
The ARC 2023 update had indicated a few yachts were diverting to Cabo Cape Verde for repairs or to refuel, while others who had intended to divert didn’t have the need anymore. The majority of yachts, though, based on the daily position report, like ourselves, were trundling along in the general direction of the Caribbean.
This evening it was Paul’s turn to cook again; this time making a very tasty stir-fried pasta with cream sauce, following which the girls set off to bed. However, given how uncomfortable the sea state had become, particularly the horrible side swell that kept knocking Paw Paw on the starboard side causing her to tip to port, Elaine couldn’t sleep and by 0830, she was back up in the saloon discussing options with the Captain.
With that, Elaine, Roy and Paul donned lifejackets, tethered themselves and started the task of changing course by removing the barberhauler, furling the headsail, removing both preventers, centring the traveller of the mainsail, sheeting in the mainsail, turning into the wind, adding a first reef to the mainsail, turning Paw Paw onto our new course, sliding the traveller to the port side, sheeting out the mainsail, reattaching both preventers, unfurling the headsail, reattaching the barberhauler and, voila, we’d solved the problem; Paw Paw was sailing along smoothly again now that she was sitting in a much better groove to the swell, but as Roy said to Paul: “now you know why we have to be ahead of any weather in this configuration; everything is tied down”, summing up the situation perfectly. It’s fair to say, though, while Elaine and Roy were a tad exasperated at having to do all this in the dark, although the moon was shining brightly which helped, Paul thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
It was close to 2100 before Elaine got back to bed, leaving her with just an hour to sleep before her watch. Thankfully the boys offered to give her an extra hour by staying on watch until 2300. Unfortunately we assumed Justine had slept through all the commotion, resulting in her not getting the memo that she had an extra hour to sleep. Given that her body clock was now in the rhythm, she was up and dressed ready for her watch at 2200, only to be told to go back to bed. Regardless, we were both grateful for the extra hour we’d been compensated, bringing our day to a close a short hour later, while sailing under a beautiful waxing gibbous to light our way and with S/Y Newbee for company, who were about a nautical mile to our starboard side.
