Daily Logs

A Lady - Sailing around the World with the World ARC

Wednesday, 23rd February 2011  Another beautiful morning, and skipper hopped over the side and cleaned the rest of the boot top/waterline on the port side, Looking at the boat from close quarters in the water, she is beginning to show the wear and tear of 33,000 miles at sea, not to mention the sails.  Later, we went ashore with the Garbage and filled a few 5L bottles with spring water. At the top of the pier, there is thislittle park, a spring water park with 4 big tiled covered circular tanks, each with about 8 taps and they supply fresh spring water 365 days of the year. There is always a steady stream of locals filling their water jars, like in the "Biblical" times. While we were there, a group of council workers were busy chopping down a huge tree,. read more...

Crazy Horse - Feb. 24

Last year at this time we were rolling around anchored off the coast of Galapagos Islands in the Pacific. We were at a little island called Santa Cruz. Getting on and off the boat was a challenge with the big rollers coming off the ocean. Some of us made it without injury but many suffered with falling in the water and even a few torn ligaments. It was a wonderful interesting place but not too restful at night with all the wave action. We even had that tsunami and all had to take off for deeper water in the ocean. Seems like a long time ago now. That was until last night when we had all the rollers in our anchorage. Oh, the mind went back to the Galapagos. It wasn't really anywhere near as rolly. I am sure some things we see or hear will remind us of the many places we have seen over the. read more...

Cleone - in Knysna

Knysna is one of the most attractive places we have been to, in every way. By juggling the sail-plan, we arrived off Knysna at exactly the recommended time.  The friendly local NSRI station is always happy to give advice, and they confirmed that conditions in the notorious Knysna heads were ideal, so in we went.  Even so, the leading marks took us remarkably close in to the rocks on the eastern side of the entrance.  Just alongside us, the swells broke impressively, and a cross-current meant that we had to steer about thirty degrees to starboard to keep the marks in line.  Luckily the rear mark was lit, even though it was daytime, otherwise we would have had great difficulty in picking it out atop its slender post.  But soon we were safely through, and realised that whatever the dangers. read more...

Luna - Log 14 - Det! skal fejres!

Efter endnu en dag for både motor og sejl og med OK fart i båden, nåede vi det skelsættende punkt: Plotteren viste, at der nu kun var den halve distance til målet i Horta. Og så udbrød de alle i kor: "Det! skal fejres" :-)Der blev derfor serveret friskbagte amerikanske pandekager, hvortil der blev serveret sirup. Det var ikke så ringe en eftermiddagssnack...og mmm, hvor det smagte :-PEllers bød dagen på afslapningg, læsning, løsning af soduko og ikke mindst flere besøg af delfinflokke. Nå, ja....og så havde vi da også fiskelinernrne ude - som sædvanligt uden af fange noget (findes der da overhovedet ingen sulte fisk i dette hav?).Natten var også stille og smuk, og det er nu. read more...

Serendipity - All good things have to come to an end (dunno why, but that is wot my Mum said)

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Irena - Dan 9

Ponoci je zacelo po malem pihljati iz SW, tam med 5 in 8 vozli. Kasneje je tudi padel pritisk zraka,kar je vse napovedovalo, da bo mogoce la malo bolj pihnilo. No, zdaj dopoldan pihla okolo 10 vozlov kar pa je dovolj, da jadramo z 5 vozli direktno proti Horti. Vcerajsnji dan sem prebil v ugotavljanju zakaj mi motor ne polni baterij, ceprav je dovolj napetosti na alternatorju in tudi na diodah. nekako sem prisel do zakljucka, da je lahko problem v senzorju napetosti baterij, ki daje potrebna navodila napetostnemu regulatorju alternatorja. Sem senzor prestavil na zadnjo, najbolj oddaljeno baterijo (imam 3 delovne) in je potem bilo bolje. Ni pa tisto kar bi moralo biti. Se dobro, da generator deluje v redu in je polnjenje baterij zaenkrat nemotece. Ostalo zaenkrat deluje dobro. Glede na. read more...

BRIZO - 11 July 2012

After a very fast passage we arrived at Port Resolution late afternoon Monday, just before dark which always makes entering a new port that much easier. As we entered the anchorage we were hailed by the cocktail-hour crowd on ANASTASIA with a round of "Happy Birthday to You!" for Corinne who by then had fully recovered and was in partying-mode. We snagged a ride from WIND DANCER's dinghy and joined the crowd for cocktails as the sun fully set. Port Resolution is a small settlement with no electricity but a significant population. They have a few solar panels and energy storage facilities but seem to mostly live a minimal, off-the-grid life. World Cruising Club has had a long association with the settlement as a result of previous World ARC stopovers and we have been warmly welcomed by. read more...

La Boheme - 22 November - finally at Cape Town!

Around 5 am we saw briefly Cape Agulhas, visibility has improved but the low clouds very quickly covered the land and it merged with the sky. The wind was against us and we were moving forward slowly. We were aiming to make it to Cape of Good Hope before sunset as we wanted to take some photos. In the early afternoon, clouds blew away to expose the coast and we celebrated crossing from Indian into Atlantic ocean with the bottle of red wine called "Two Oceans" compliments of Peter. The Cape of Good Hope appeared in full glory for photography. We made it into Cape Town around midnight. The town invited us with thousands of blinking lights at the foot of Table Mountains. The view was spectacular. We entered Royal Cape Yacht Club marina in 40 knot wind with the help of friendly crew from. read more...

Voyageur - Log day 242 - Into the interior.....

19 February 2011We have just returned from our five day tour spent in the Chapada Diamantina National Park. It covers a massive 70500square km and it was here I like to think that we saw the real Brazil. The 400km drive from Salvador to the town of Lencois, at the park's epicentre, took us 6 hours. Ivan, our Belgian guide has been living in Brazil for the past six years and as we drove out of the city he filled us in with many of the unanswered questions we had wanted to ask about the country. He could speak eight languages and indeed it was a relief that he could speak such good English as it has been our experience here in Salvador that the local tour guides were very hard to understand. The reason that we have found everything to be so very expensive is that the Brazilian Reais is. read more...

Voyageur - Log day 241 - Back to base....

14 February 2011We motored back up the canal in a flat calm, the surface of the water mirror like, and four hours later we were back into our berth at the marina. Sharing a Valentine's night dinner with John and Jenny in a restaurant in historic Pelourinho, we returned to pack our bags in readiness for an early morning 8am start.Susan Mackay. read more...

Matilda - Viva Vanuatu

The last week in Fiji was spent at Vuda Point having matilda's bottom scrubbed and anti-fouled. This proved relatively painless thanks to Doug of Yacht Help Fiji. The marina itself was small but very friendly and we had a wonderful apartment overlooking the boats with a great balcony for chilling out at sunset time. The only other ARC boats there were 12 Moons and Southern Cross, but there were a few other familiar faces around such as Seazen and Seafaulk. We also got to meet a lovely couple who had been following our escapades on our blog - it came as a bit of a surprise that there are other people out there other than family and friends following our progress - fame at last... We also met up with Caroline and David from Peat Smoke to do a little sightseeing via car on the Sunday,. read more...

First Edition lll - Lovely Night

A most enjoyable night - with full main and yankee jib, sailing along at 5 1/2 knots in 10 knots of southerly wind off the beam under starry skies. Passing a slower sailing vessel, "Scarlet Oyster", also bound for Horta. Chatted briefly with them on VHF. Settling in on watch at 0300 UTC with a hot cup of tea and brownies baked earlier this evening.-----------------------0700 UTC May 24 Red cloudy skies as the sun rose, sea direction has changed ,winds 11 to 15 knots and barometer has fallen - our pace should quicken though the ride will be a bit rougher. Still we welcome the winds that will move us along to Horta sooner. 36 36 N 47 00 W. read more...

Cleone - Port Elizabeth to Knysna, maybe!

Port Elizabeth - better than Durban, just. We eventually got a forecast for a one-day weather-window on 28th November.  But it was a very small window, not enough to get us to Knysna, which was the next destination on our agenda.  What to do?  On the 27th it blew a hooly - over forty knots in the Marina of Port Elizabeth, and it was forecast to do the same again on the 29th.  But we had had enough of Port Elizabeth.  Although a great improvement on Durban, it was still a commercial port, and next to us was parked a giant Bulk Carrier, which was about to load 50 or 60 thousand tons of dirty manganese ore.  The boats were getting filthy every day as it was, and anyway, the marina had more than the usual number of neglected yachts, with some of those with live-aboards a depressing. read more...

Cleone - Durban to Port Elizabeth Day 2 - Arrival & Some Bad News

Cleone arrived in Port Elizabeth at 1430 UK time, 1630 local time. And Quasar V was already alongside when we arrived.  We have not seen Quasar V or her crew since they were detained in Tahiti to make major repairs to their rudder.  Since then, they have followed doggedly on, always behind the fleet by a week or so, until they were delayed yet again in Cairns to redo the repair to their rudder.  But they were always determined to catch up, and now they have made it!  The boat is deserted at the moment, they are away on a tour somewhere.  But we will certainly have a party when they return. Our rush down the coast of South Africa on the back of the Agulhas Current continued for most of the trip to Port Elizabeth.  A strong south-westerly wind can cause what the chart calls "abnormal. read more...

Samsara - We survived the volcano

July 10We went to the volcano this evening. It's really impressive to see the eruptions occurring up close. It sort of looks like a really huge roman candle going off - bright orange chunks of lava/pumice thrown high into the air. There's a huge "whoosh" before the chunks start flying, sounds just like the wave machine at Typhoon Lagoon in Disney. Only instead of generating a wave, huge plumes of orange rocks erupt along with large dense clouds of smoke and ash. We got some good pictures - I'll post when I can.So we've had a busy day and off to sleep. Someone told me 8pm is cruiser's midnight and I think they are right. It's 8:35pm now and the kids are asleep and Lee is right there behind them (and it's often me asleep before the kids!).So we'll see what tomorrow brings. Pauline. read more...

A Lady - Sailing around the World

Tuesday, 22nd February 2011  We had plenty of rain again last night. It is great the way it seems to rain mostly at night, but it does mean that we cannot leave the windows open when going to bed. Skipper went for an early morning swim, no crockadiles around here to worry about. He also cleaned the waterline on the starboard side, it is covered in weed, will do the port side tomorrow, but it is not as dirty. The water was lovely and refreshing. Later, we cleaned the toilets from head to toe, this took a few hours, but they were shining when we were finished, and a job that was long overdue. Skipper is still trying to sort out the batteries, it looks as if they will have to be shipped out to Grenada, but at least it is much more cost effective than trying to. read more...

Hanami II - En attendant ... Eole.

Mercredi 23 mai 2012 0:006 UTC,    21:06 local 37 08.7 N 45 17.5 W   Encore un jour sans vent, mais sans vent du tout et il semble que nous soyons au centre d'un enorme anticyclone constitue par la fuision de celui des Bermudes et celui des Acores. Selon les indication des fichiers meteo de Boston il se delpace vers l'Est, la ou nous voulons aller. Pas bon du tout cela. Enfin on verra: pour le moment il nous reste 1/2 reservoir a babord et a peu pres 2/3 a tribord mais il ne faudrait pas que cela dure trop.   La peche non plus ne ramene rien, meme apres avoir change le leurre superbe (jaune et vert, plein de poils brillants achete aux Bermudes) pour un suppose plus approprie et plus simple et qui, achete a Las Palmas, avait bien marche a l'aller en ramenant 2. read more...

Endo 2 - daily log 23.05-

die besten Grüße von der Mitte des Atlantiks. Wir haben heute nacht die 900 sm Grenze geknackt und hoffen auf eine Bergfestfeier heute abend. So eine Fahrt zieht sich ja doch hin. Leider haben wir zur Zeit wenig Wind - also mal wieder Flaute (OLaf kommt Dir das bekannt vor?)und der Motor läuft. Nun ja, so haben wir keine Energiesorgen - vielleicht mit Ausnahme des Kraftstoffs, der wird wohl kaum noch 900 sm reichen. Doch wir sind optimitisch und denken, auch der Wind wird wiederkommen. Letzlich hoffen wir in 1 Woche auf den Azoren zu sein, vermutlich ziemlich am Ende der Flotte, doch unsere "dicke Ente" ist nun mal nicht so schnell. Hauptsache ankommen. So nun geht es wieder an Brot backen - bis zum nächsten Mal Endo 2Pos. 36°35 N 48°38 W. read more...

A Lady - Sailing around the World

MONDAY  21st  FEBRUARY  2001        ( Stefan Hyde's birthday ) " Grand Filou " arrived from Rio last night and pulled into the space beside us where " Kalopie " had been. We got up early, and Aileen took off to Mass to pray for Stefan, ( Our youngest child , big child now )  whose birthday is today but he is also having an operation , so fingers crossed all will be well.  Skipper met this South African young fellow on the marina, How small is the world !   well it turns out that this guy is a first cousin of the " Thesen's " of  " Thesen Island in Knysna, where  Sham and Emily live, and his granmother lived in Tipperary up untill her death a couple of years ago.  however he did not have an. read more...

Windflower III - Agulhasstrom;Fluch und Segen

Aufgereiht wie an der Perlenschnur ziehen an Südafrikas Küste ständig Tiefs im Abstand zwischen 18 Std.bis max.5 Tage entlang.Der Durchzug dieser Tiefs bringt starke Süd-Südwestwinde mit sich.Gleichzeitig setzt in südwestlicher Richtung genau entlang der Küste der Agulhasstrom mit bis zu 6 Kn Geschwindigkeit.Treffen Wind und Strom aufeinander entstehen in dieser Region besonders hohe Wellen.Bei Windstärken über 30 Kn (nicht selten)sogar abnormale Wellen bis 20 mtr.Höhe. Die wollten wir auf alle Fälle vermeiden. Deshalb waren unsere Tage in Richards Bay geprägt von der Auswertung der Wettervorhersagen,um eine exakte Planung vornehmen zu können.Vor allem auchdeshalb,weil es zwischen Durban und dem nächst folgenden Hafen East London (ca 260 sm )keinerlei Anker-und Schutzmöglichkeiten. read more...

Samsara - We've arrived in Vanuatu

July 10We arrived last night at about 10pm. About 4 miles out we saw light and thought it was the moon. But no, it was the volcano! Every few minutes there was a flare - nature's fireworks on display! We covered almost 450 miles in just about 58 hours - pretty fast passage.Today we checked in, did a tour of the village and the school. The children sang to us. The island is beautiful, breezy - beautiful foliage. Tonight we go up to the volcano. I'll write about that later, provided of course we don't perish in a fiery eruption.Off to climb the volcano.....Pauline  . read more...

Samsara - 109 miles to Vanuatu!

July 9We left Fiji on July 7, the first few hours were a bit light steering out through the reefs, once outside we decided to set the spinnaker. First time up the sock was wrapped and wouldn't pull up, so we dropped a bit, got the wraps out and went back up. By then the wind had built enough and gone forward enough that we were having trouble keeping control of the chute and nearly rounded up, so back down she came. That was a bit of a fiasco but luckily no harm done. Since then we've been sailing with more wind than expected, mid 20s or so. So now we have 109 miles to go. This has been a fast leg. We can enter the harbor and drop anchor at night, it's not a tricky entrance like some. Hopefully we won't have cloud cover so we have some moonlight to help when we arrive late tonight. read more...

Kasuje - Cape Town

Hi allA short message to let you know we made Cape Town in the early hours of Monday morning about 04.30, just as dawn was breaking over table mountain and the lights of the city were still in full glow. Awesome. We are now officially back in the Atlantic Ocean, heading north and on our way home!!Our total circumnavigation back to Troon totals sum 37000nm, we have eased our way through sum 25000nm, so approximately 2/3rds of our journey is now completed and we have the Southern and Northern Atlantic to cross before we complete our goal and make Troon, hopefully in June next year.Kasuje will be moored here in Royal Cape Town Yacht Club for about a month whilst we return to the UK for Christmas and the new year. We then commence the passage to Brazil in early January and have an eta in. read more...

Crazy Horse - Feb 21

We are planning to take a trip up to the old town today and see some jewelry before we leave. We still have not purchased those blue topaz gemstones that we crave. We have an idea to have our very own Crazy Horse ring made to remember the adventure. We may just purchase the stones here and have it made back home. The stones are cheaper here but the silver and gold are very expensive here. So we will go shopping today before we leave Salvador and get some estimates.Many of the boats will leave today or tomorrow to go to Sao Paolo or just start moving up the coast toward Recife. We would like to be in Recife for the rendezvous on Feb. 28th. But first we want to check out this most beautiful island of Sao Paulo.Yesterday we went to a convent/church that was made into a hotel/restaurant/spa.. read more...

Voyageur - Leg 2 - Log 6 Halfway there

22/23 May At dawn the wind died. Looks like we might be doing this for a couple of days at least as a high remains stationary. A Lady have raced on ahead and are now too far away for us to be able to hear them on 4 Alpha and as they are not tuned in for 6 Alpha we communicate by email instead.At 1 o’clock in the morning the log reads 1000nm. We are over halfway there now. The time zones are changing rapidly as we continue to make our easting. When we left Bermuda darkness fell around 8pm with dawn at 6am. Now it is getting light as David gets me up for my watch at 4am with sunrise before 5am. And last night we had the first of a new moon so from now until we arrive in the Azores we will have relatively few hours of darkness which compared to the twelve hours in the southern. read more...

Freedom Found - Log day 2 - still enjoying facilities of Bermuda Dingy Sports & Club

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Anastasia - Bat Out Of Hell

19:17.9S 170:09.8E   Daniel likes to play rousing music through the cockpit speakers and yesterday we had the theme music from Lord of the Rings.  That led to a discussion on what music to play as we cross the finish line.  Given Anastasia's performance on this crossing, and our expectation that we will be surfing down the waves towards Vanuatu with its active volcano spewing smoke in the background, we are going with Andrea's nomination of Meat Loaf playing Bat out of Hell (although we will be singing it as "Cat out of Hell" on this occasion).    The patched up genoa has held up really well.  It was essential for this leg, making the difference between having to sail at 8 knots with the small jib, or 10 knots with the. read more...

A Lady - Sailing around the World

Sunday, 20th February 2011 07.00hrs Up bright and early for Mass. We took off in a rattle trap bus with our German friends to the Bonfim Basilica about 5 km to the west. We arrived half an hour before Mass and the place was already jammed and by the time Mass started the people were standing shoulder to shoulder in the Nave, the side aisles, and anywhere there was space. The singing, this time with guitars, and lots of clapping and hand waving, all very moving. Most of the servers were women and all very good looking. At the end of mass, a crucifix was marched through the church with most of the congregation stretching out to touch it as it passed bye. This was followed by a good sprinkling of holy water over everyone. When the ceremony was over, we got the rattle trap bus. read more...

Lexington - Caribbean 1500 Update 2

Hi Friends and Family, All are well on SV Lexington. We are cruising along at a brisk 7 kts trying to make up some time in the lighter air around 30 degrees latitude. Although we have had some equipment failures, we seem to "adapt and overcome".We have about 300 miles to our destination.We're comfortable on the boat.As comfortable as you can get doing everything with your right leg 6 inches shorter, all the time.We hope to arrive at the finish line some time Saturday morning. I had anticipated that the night would be long and lonely.I think I was mistaken here.We have enjoyed sailing much as the night sky is overwhelming.It's getting pretty hot during the day.Bob's HAM/SSB radio has proved to very valuable on the trip.He is able to regularly send and receive email and weather images. read more...

Cleone - Durban to Port Elizabeth Day 1 - Midnight Express

The Agulhas Current is truly awsome. Initially, we were a bit disappointed.  We left Durban as soon as we had a forecast from Roy at Piri Piri Radio, and headed out to the 200 metre depth contour and beyond, just as the book advised, and turned South West.  The South Westerly that had kept us penned inside Durban Marina was still in evidence, the head sea was lumpy, progress was slow and of the promised current there was no sign.  Two other yachts left just after us, the American Phoenix and a little Swedish yacht, Christina.  They both seemed to be catching us up, and the light-weight Phoenix overhauled us.  By this time the wind had shifted South, but still our hourly total of mileage run in the hour was a miserly four or five.  But at lunch time, it changed, and Cleone was starting to. read more...

Anastasia - Musket Cove

17:46.3S 177:11.6E   After a couple of days at the Blue Lagoon we sailed back to Denerau to compete our maintenance and reprovisioning.  We only had one day left, but remarkably everything had come together.  The repaired sails were ready for collection, and the replacement chart plotter and rigging parts had arrived.   The only slight glitch was that the marina had forgotten to pass on our refuelling request to the fuel company.  They said that they would refuel us at the same time as Sapphire if we could move over next to them, which went fine with some judicious use of a roving fender to squeeze Anastasia into the space.   Musket cove is a beautiful resort island just a couple of hours sail from Denerau.  It is here that the ARC yachts are. read more...

Ninfea - Marlin

Marlin Our eighth day of navigation started  this morning  with a nice, steady breeze that gave us good speed toward our destination, somewhere between seven and eight knots, well ahead of our expectations. During the night we had variable conditions requiring several resetting of the sails that were bringing together some activity that did not help a steady sleep. So the nice morning breeze was a welcome relief. Things moved along quite normally. We all are by now well set in the routine, the navigation chores and communication for me, the minor maintenance activities for Francesco and Pino and Paolo’s cooking. Today we had an aglio e olio spaghetti worth of a first class restaurant. In the late morning we put a rod out, just one because the swell tended to mess the. read more...

Cleone - CLEONE LEAVES DURBAN

Hooray! We have left dirty, dangerous Durban where our skipper was slowly, no rapidly, going mad.  A south-westerly wind came through yesterday blowing at about 30 knots, so it was as well we did not leave as planned.  We are now searching for the elusive Agulhas Current, some ten miles south-west of Durban. We are heading for Port Elizabeth - hopefully we will arrive some time this week...... I will try and write about Durban later, but it is not going to be a pleasant experience! Best wishes to all James & Marcel.Yacht Cleone11o18'S 101o40'E. read more...

A Lady - Sailing around the World

Saturday, 19th February 2011 We had a late morning, still stuffed after last nights feast. Aileen went off to the computer room with Moe to work on her laptop, and also discovered that Lady Ev VI had left port with out saying goodbye.  Skipper, Herman and Hans made a trip to Marina Bahia in the rib, to visit the chandlery for some pipe, but all in vain, they will have to travel further afield to get what they want. Ohhhh, it was very hot, gosh, it does get hot around here during the day. We had a long chat with Moe, and skipper showed him a photo of the Bubbly Bev which he sent to the blog on the 24 Nov last year, but obviously never arrived to the site. According to the Indian Ocean cruising Guide, the Iridium system has lots of dropped mail, and this photo was one of. read more...

La Boheme - 21 November - Durban to Capetown

After 2 nights at Durban Marina, we are heading South to Capetown. The weather forecast is good and we are sailing in 4 knots of positive Aghulas current. We have made a record 24 hour run at 257 n. miles. Then suddenly at 18.30 a loud bang... we hit something...panic, the boat is not taking water and there is no visible damage to the boat, the whale is directly behind us. We hope it survived this collision. We read about it and the odds are against it happening but nonetheless we did hit the whale. The latest weather forecast shows SW change coming tonight, if it is bad we will look for shelter in Sebastian Bay. At the moment we are sailing in fog visibility 100m, radar is on and we are on careful watch.Anna for La Boheme. read more...

Glamorous Galah

Wow Fiji was fantastic & Cloudbreak was awesome. Something for everyone here. We'll be back! Nato's on board enjoying a boisterous passage.Team GG. read more...

Tucanon - Exploring Brazil

Moe and Bev went off for a few days sailing on Chessie. That left us free to take the boat out of the marina and spend a few days cruising All Saints Bay. We sailed 8 of the 12 miles to Fate Island but had to motorsail for the last 4 miles,anchoring in about 4 metres. Next morning we sailed on towards the bridge joining the mainland to Ilha de Itaparica dropping our anchor near the Tororo waterfall, taking the rib ashore to the beach, which is completely covered at high tide. The water fall was dry. We then took the rib to another beach, no more than 500metres and swam in the warm water. Both anchorages were quiet and pleasant and being in company with Voyageur and Tzigany, the two nights away from the marina were quite sociable.There were a number of canoes, the occupants of which were. read more...

Wild Goose - Light Winds

After exactly 24 hours of motoring, the Wild Goose crew demanded action despite the light and variable winds, and at 1600 the decision was made to take drastic action. The smell of diesel fumes and the artificial sounds of man-made propulsion had to go. The drifter was dug from deep in the lazarette storage locker, under the spare docklines, under the cleaning buckets and life preservers, the dinghy seat, fire buckets, flare boxes and other gear where it has been nestled quietly for 2 years without use. The drifter is a light, spinnaker weight sail that "hanks on" to the spare headstay on Wild Goose. It's a beautiful sail and the new wide angle "GoPro" camera captures its color. The videos, much to large to upload by satellite, are especially sharp. It is pulling us along at around 4. read more...

Wild Goose - moving forward

From what I understand about search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. is that they are constantly using "bots" to search the internet for keywords; these keywords in websites will help to make the search results for users more effective and relevant. So with that in mind I present the paragraph below, at great satellite data transfer expense (OK, not really that much) in hopes that our problems with Raymarine's new chartplotter, the e7, will be recognized. Please skip to below the following paragraph and continue reading our blog about our journey aboard Wild Goose. >>> Raymarine e7 chartplotter problems. Crappy toggle switch, random shutdowns, lost tracks, random movement of cursor, toggle switch sticks in engaged position. Raymarine e7 is not ready for the marine. read more...

A Lady - Sailing around the World

Friday, 18th February 2011 It rained all night again last night, but its another beautiful hot sunny morning in down town Salvador. Skipper took an early taxi to the sail loft "Vinx" and was shown over every mm of the parasail by Paulo, The boss's father, as the boss Eduardo had gone off racing yachts. They did a good job by the look of things, but, we really wont know until we fly it again. The taxi journey was gas and a 10 min journey took about 20 mins because the driver (despite having Paulo on the phone giving directions) just kept getting lost, ahhhhhhhhhhh, however, skipper agreed a price before leaving, so no meter runnig here.  Aileen went off for breakfast with Christos and Joerg, and we are going to some fancy restaurant with them as well tonight.  Back on. read more...

Serendipity - Bobbing on the Oggin

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La Boheme - 16 November - wath out for whales

Wow...what a sight! We have whales everywhere, one only a few metres away from the boat. Awesome! We are on our way to Durban. We left Richards Bay at 6am and we are motoring against a strong counter current in hope of getting eventually of of this. The weather is unpredictable in this part of the world, only few days ago Capetown got 90 knots of wind and the port  closed. We hope this is not the case when we get there. Waldorf salad is on menu today.Anna for La Boheme. read more...

Kasuje - Contrasts!

Hi Everybody, What a country of contrasts!  The last time we did a log, we had just arrived in Port Elizabeth after a tough crossing from Durban.  Yet again we were told that we shouldn't venture into the town centre without taking fairly extreme precautions.  This all takes a bit of getting used to for us innocent old Brits.  As it happens, the day before we left we went into the town centre to get a few things we needed before leaving.  Actually it didn't feel threatening at all.  In fact the centre was beautiful.  It was very clean, wide open shopping streets lined generally with beautiful old colonial buildings and pretty smart shops.  Smiling and, outwardly anyway, content people.  In comparison to Durban, it was very smart and modern. Anyway, in the intervening period Steve and I. read more...

Samsara - We're getting ready to leave Fiji

July 6   We've been in Musket Cove for about 5 days and now are getting ready to leave tomorrow. Musket Cove is a lovely resort island and we've really enjoyed the stay here. We've also gotten to see some most unusual sea creatures. The sea cucumbers and sea nettles are unlike any we've ever seen before. We didn't get to go surfing here - it's all from the boat and I didn' think that would work well for the girls.       Off to the pool..... Pauline. read more...

Ariane - Brasilia - die Hauptstadt

Die Hauptstadt BrasiliaLiebe SegelfreundeGrösser könnten die Gegensätze wohl kaum sein: Von einem Naturparadies fliegen wir in eine konstruierte künstliche Stadt, die vor 50 Jahren als Hauptstadt gegründet wurde. Der Stadtplan zeigt uns ein Konzept, das aussieht wie ein moderner Jet. Zwei nach hinten gebogene Flügel hängen am Rumpf, der Hauptachse der Stadt. Das "Cockpit" beherbergt den Regierungssitz und die Ministerien. Etwas weiter aussen an einem künstlich angelegten See liegt die Villa des Regierungspräsidenten, etwas weiter innerhalb die des Vize. Verkehrstechnisch wurden 6spurige Autostrassen gebaut. Das Ganze ist riesengross, ohne Auto ist man verloren. Eine Metro wurde nachträglich eingebaut. Trotzdem wurden die Fussgänger und Radfahrer total vergessen. Eine Strasse zu. read more...

Hanami II - Telechargement de fichier Grib en mer: Iridium ou BLU ou ... les deux?

Telecharger des fichiers Grib depuis la mer semble evident depuis MaxSea ... si l'on possede un telphone satelitte, cependant les tentatives faites durant ces 2 derniers jours prouvent que parfois ca ne marche pas.   Sur les 4 dernieres tentatives faites avec l'Iridium 3 ont echouees lors du raptriement du fichier et en general dans le dernier tiers de celui ci, soit a la fin du processus. La consequence est que "on n'a pas les donnees mais la facture reste et a plus de 1 euro la minute cela devient vite significatif" si le fichier est gros.   En fait ce que MaxSea fait c'est de transmettre une requette "Saildoc" au serveur du NOAA aux USA, recuperer le fichier et le reacheminer vers le Pc depuis leur serveur. Bien sur ce service est gratuit. Ce pour quoi on paye c'est la duree. read more...

Ariane - Iguacu-Fälle und Itaipu-Staudamm

Die Iguacu-Fälle und Itaipu-StaudammLiebe SegelfreundeAm ersten Tag bewunderten wir diese grössten (und schönsten) Wasserfälle der Erde von der brasilianischen Seite aus. Der Fluss Iguacu führte knapp doppelt soviel Wasser wie üblich, nämlich 5000 m³ pro Sekunde!!! Dies sieht natürlich sehr beeindruckend aus, hat aber den Nachteil, dass man z. B. beim "Teufelsfall" wegen der Gischt nicht die ganze Höhe sehen kann; ausserdem wird man auch nass, was wegen der lange ersehnten Wärme nicht unangenehm ist, aber Kameras sind in Gefahr. Die Stege führen teilweise bis 2 m an die Fälle heran! Wunderschön ist auch die ganze Umgebung mit subtropischen Pflanzen. Sehen Sie sich am besten einige Bilder an, denn um diese traumhaften Fälle angemessen zu beschreiben, müsste man Dichter sein...Etwa 20. read more...

Serendipity - Fidgeting in Fiji

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A Lady - LOG DAY 19 :: Brass Monkies

WEDNESDAY  23rd  MAY  2012   Brrrrr, brrrrrr, brrrrr, Its blooming freezing here, clear skies, 10 knots of wind from the NNW and a bumpy sea, ohhhh , its so cold and its only 18.oohrs now,  We all have the winter woolies on at this stage and the nights are so cold its like being in the Antartic.  Distance to our destination :--  416 miles Distance travelled   :-             1,474 miles   We are lead boat at present, but that really means nothing, the final results will depend a lot on the amount of motoring each boat has done over the trip. however, so far we only used the engine onour way out of Bermuda. but will have to use it a lot over the next couple of days as the wind. read more...

Quasar V of Lleyn - log 15,16,17 November

Saturday 15th November  Ripping along with the spinnaker Whilst the weather the previous day had been perfect spinnaker weather, the wind and sea conspired against us today.  By morning, the sea had worked itself in to a choppy frenzy and the wind increased and backed to the north-east. We were woken up by a call from Malcolm on deck at 7.00am "All hands on deck!" As we all emerged from our bunks and lurched in to the cockpit, poor Malcy was tackling the spinnaker on the foredeck. The spinnaker had ripped across the foot; it had got caught in the navigation light attached to the bow. An hour later we had the spinnaker firmly stowed away, replaced by the yankee, which needed to be poled out (the pole prevents the yankee from collapsing, a tendency it has when shielded by the main sail). . read more...

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