We are loving springtime in Uruguay, and we’ve made the time to reflect back on winter in Uruguay with our new Cubic Mini Cub wood stove. We hope you enjoy the video!
Thank you Chuck for bringing us the wood stove, and for all the tips on birding!
We repaired our integral water tank a few months ago, here in Uruguay. This video is a recap of the build project from two years ago, and details of the recent repair. Overall, the integral water tank has been a vast improvement. It is easy to clean and fill. We are happy to make use of the space below our cabin sole that was filled with foam. The 65 gallon water tank makes long term cruising much easier.
We recently sailed from Juan Lacaze to Piriapolis in the Rio de la Plata in Uruguay. This is the first step towards getting moving after a summer spent dockside.
We move about the world at an irregular pace. Occasionally we sail fast and appear to be on track to girdle the entire globe in a year. Other times we seem stagnant, as if we have arrived to our destination and our journey is over. Of course neither is true for long. No matter how fast we sail, we will slow down sooner than later. Dawn Treader, Debbie, and I can only pretend so long before we reveal our true slow natures. But when we seem most stuck, we are actually purposefully moving to rest ourselves, prepare our boat, and wait for a season to arrive. Continue reading Video: Refinishing the Bowsprit
Brazil is ENORMOUS! 2000 miles and 7 months later and we have still only seen a minuscule fraction of this fascinating, beautiful, energetic country. In the maps of our minds, we have now illuminated the coast of Brazil from Salvador to Rio Grande do Sul. Continue reading Video: Brazil to Uruguay
Our blogging hiatus is over! We have new electronics and a new video!
Early this year we had an great passage from Brava, Cape Verde to Salvador, Brazil. The first minute of our new video shows clips from day one of an 18 day voyage. We set sail on a very wavy day, and had fresh winds for three days. Continue reading Video: Sailing from Cape Verde to Brazil
Over the past few months we have been sailing Islands in the Azores, Madeira, Canaries, and Cape Verde. In the Azores we experienced variable summer winds, and from Madeira southward were the Northeast Tradewinds. All in all, the sailing was quite lovely. Next, we’ll be crossing the Atlantic to South America.
Approaching 4 weeks in Mindelo and fully recovered from a stomach bug, we decided it was a good time to move. After scrubbing below the waterline and filling the water tanks, we checked out of Mindelo to sail 130 miles to Tarrafal on Santiago. The passage was short, under 30 hours, but proved to be exciting. Continue reading Fishing in Cape Verde
Monday-October 31, 2016-La Palma and La Gomera, Canary Islands
Early in the week it rained as a weakening low pressure system slowly made its way over the area. We used the time to organize the Nav Station and get caught up on some cleaning. When we had breaks in the rain we walked around town. Santa Cruz de La Palma looks very different depending on the time of day and day of the week. During siesta it is quiet with hardly anyone about. On mornings a cruise ship is in port, the town almost feels like a tidy theme park. During the evenings most tourists are gone, and the cafes buzz with conversant locals and musicians. All of Santa Cruz’s aspects are pleasant and I do like the town.
Despite the attractiveness of La Palma, we felt quite ready to leave. We wanted to go somewhere we could anchor out and enjoy some quiet. Valle Gran Rey in La Gomera is that place. Friday, the lingering low had dissipated and the Southerly wind shifted slightly to the Southwest, just enough to give us a favorable tack. We left before the predicted calms settled the area Saturday.
We departed La Palma and had an exciting few hours close hauled in a Canary Island wind acceleration zone. These are areas where the gradient wind can be greatly increased do to the Islands’ topography. Many times these zones flank an island’s wind shadow making an obvious border between an area of calm and a zone of near gale force conditions.
A few hours out of La Palma we had transited the acceleration zone and were making good course in diminishing South Westerlies. It was an awesome starry night of sailing with La Palma dead astern, Tenerife fine on our Port bow, El Hierro broad to starboard, and La Gomera dead ahead. Though the sky was apparently clear of any clouds, heat lightning awed us throughout the night, first above Tenerife then La Gomera.
Saturday morning Dawn Treader was ghosting in light air and La Gomera stood 5 miles ahead. Through the morning our speed steadily dropped. 4 knots, then 3, then 2, 1, and finally we were becalmed, drifting half a knot in the South setting Canary Islands current. We tried to be patient with the wind, but after a few hours we decided to use our outboard engine to motor up to what appeared to be a patch of wind around La Gomera’s western promontory. I am still impressed with how well the 6hp engine pushes us along. At half throttle we made 5 knots. The patch of wind was the slightest of air and from astern, so not good for sailing. We continued to motor for an hour, and then the wind eventually filled in from the port quarter. We secured the engine and sailed the remaining 5 miles to Valle Gran Rey, first at 3 knots then 4, then 5.
The anchorage is wide open, and the conditions were about perfect for anchoring under sail. We approached on a port tack beam reach under reduced sail. When we reached the spot just downwind of where we wanted to anchor, we rounded up to stop the boat, and furled the headsail. I walked forward and took a sounding with the lead line while Debbie doused the Main. I sounded 25 feet of water, then let go the anchor and paid out 110 feet of chain. This all happened during the course of one exciting minute.
Now we are settled into La Gomera. We love it here and look forward exploring this beautiful island.
Making landfall in Flores, Azores is special. The glorious, verdant island was a welcome sight after our 21 day passage from Bermuda. Even better, there are anchorages available, happy places for cruisers on a budget.
While in Lajes, we anchored in the best possible spot, right off the beach. This small area of the harbor only has enough room for a couple of cooperating boats; most vessels stay in the marina, or out beyond its walls. We set two anchors to keep our bow oriented to the occasional eastern swell that worked its way into our nook. We enjoyed three weeks in this setting. Lots of walking showed all of southern Flores, lots of bucket laundry helped us remember how to be good “housekeepers” aboard, and lots of time spent in one spot helped us make good friends on the island.
We slept regardless of the loud cries of mating shearwaters. We love these birds, their apparent strength always reassures us when on long ocean passages. Each night, they circled our mast, calling to each other, and nesting in the nearby cliff. One night we stirred to a new sound, rain, lots of rain, poured over Flores, but it was not the rain that woke us, but rapids. The tiny stream alongside the beach had transformed into a river, funneling out all the rainwater from the nearby peaks and their valley.
It was a good thing our stern anchor was our storm anchor, it was firmly dug in, and it kept us from being spun around into rocky surroundings by the rolling waves. However, our Fortress anchor became buried in a few feet of washed out sediment. Despite futile efforts to dig it out (these were mostly encouraged by stubborn Deb, who admitted defeat after a fun session of kicking and digging around the anchor chain with her sport sandals at low tide), it was stuck.
We left the anchor and it’s thirty feet of chain to sail around the island to Faja Grande. With an east wind this otherwise exposed anchorage was a wonderful place to walk from! We let out all our chain over the rocky bottom where our Rocna sat perched. After a few days of exploring up and around the cliffs of Faja Grande, we returned to Lajes, to our lost anchor, for one more reunion before parting ways forever.
Our stay in Horta, Faiel was also dictated by the wind. Ten days at the marina (anchoring was not allowed at the time, during Festival Semana de Mar), waiting for a bit of wind to take us further east. We made awesome new friends aboard a couple of sailboats, while trying to strike a budget balance. Marina fees plus proximity to town can likely equal overspending.
Terceira was our next stop. We anchored under sail in wide open space, enjoyed decent holding in sand, and returned to a rent free lifestyle. Two weeks there included swimming to the beach a good bit, a splurge to explore island caves with friends, and a bit of bussing around. We enjoyed having the boat in a good anchorage, and we felt free, until we didn’t. When we began to raise anchor, we suddenly felt stuck, because we were.
During our stay, we had spun around our anchor with shifting winds, causing the anchor chain to encircle a pipe the thickness of our mast. It randomly protruded about few feet from the bottom at a 45 degree angle. It was a bit deep to dive down and free the chain, so, we worked for a while with Brian in the water trying to free us, lifting a segment of our weighty chain with a buoy, Deb worked the windlass feeding chain in and out. Eventually, we abandoned this technique, and instead turned back time, driving the boat in two large counterclockwise circles with our outboard. Unwrapped, we moved on, thinking how much we enjoyed anchoring in the Azores. It made us feel good that we handled new challenges fairly well, and that we were able to stay at anchor so much in an island group where most skippers tend to choose marinas.
