Amokura - Log Day 13 - Land!

Land in sight! We are just over 25 miles from our Waypoint off the bottom of Grenada and on the horizon can just make out the grey-blue peaks of mountains. First land in 13 days! I can hardly believe we have nearly sailed over 2000 miles across the Atlantic and fulfilled a long-held ambition. It's been an eventful 24 hrs to get to this final stage. We finally caught something other than weed - an iridescent silver-green Mahi mahi - a beautiful fish whose meaty steaks will make a fine supper in port with a good bottle of  wine. So spirits were high when the night watches began. The night promised to be calm with consistent winds - ideal parasail weather - we visualised spending our last night at sea bowling along under the stars, chilling out listening to music and enjoying peace and. read more...

Amokura - Log Day 12 - Anticipating our arrival

Dolphins! This cry woke me from my afternoon nap. Rushing to the bow, I could see the sleek grey shapes slicing through the water, playing alongside for a few minutes then speeding away. This was a significant event as we haven't seen a lot of wildlife during the crossing, apart from flying fish and a couple of seabirds, I'm sure that will change as land approaches. Our thoughts now turn more and more to arrival, which should be sometime tomorrow evening. Speed and distance calculations have been worked and reworked, and we think that we need to average 5.7 knts to get in at 1900 local time  6 knts by 1700 local time. We are currently working off ship's time, still set to GMT, so will need to adjust clocks back by 4 hrs. We can almost smell that rum punch! In anticipation of arrival, ice. read more...

Amokura - Log Day 11 - Speeding along!

What a difference 24hrs makes! The wind has steadily increased since yesterday morning and Amokura is going like a train again.The light wind parasail happily pulled us along until the early hours of this morning, then, at midnight, Liz came on watch and things started to get rather lively! It was a beautiful night, with a crescent moon hanging low in the sky ahead us like a smile, but clouds were looming behind, silhouetted against the stars, and the ocean swell was increasing.The wind was rapidly building, and it soon became apparent we were fast becoming overpowered; the autopilot was fighting to keep us on course as we surged down the waves. So it was a case of everyone up, we need to get this sail down right now! Most of the crew were already awake and scrambled into lifejackets and. read more...

Amokura - Log Day 10 - Generator grumbles continue

On planet Amokura, it was a frustrating afternoon and evening with generator problems dominating. Mark thought he had cracked it when he extracted 4 old impeller blades from the heat exchanger. It ran for a short time, lulling us into a false sense of security, then overheated, conked out again. Meanwhile the temperature in the cabin and engine room was climbing. Mark was pouring with sweat when he clambered out of the hobbit-sized engine room door, conditions are challenging and cramped in there, surrounded by dials, pipes and boiling hot machinery.  Once again into the bowels of the engine room to bleed air from the system several times. Once again, it ran, then stalled. We took a rain check to sleep on it as we were all hot, tired, night was approaching and we needed to deal with. read more...

Amokura - Log Day 9 - Generator failure

With the wind steadily decreasing overnight, the white sails were not filling and our speed was dropping. With daybreak, once again it was time to put genoa and jib away and hoist the light wind parasail, snaking up the mast in its grey snuffing sock and waving around in the swell like some enormous elephant's trunk, whilst Nic and Mark pranced around on the foredeck, tending to the monster, and Vicky and I dealt with the cockpit lines. With the snuffer retracted, the huge blue and gold sail billowed into life with a snap, and we had power again. We are not expecting a record run over the next 24hrs, as the wind is so much lighter, but every mile covered is a mile closer to a destination and we must be patient! There was a brilliant crimson sky before sunrise, which can be a sign of. read more...