Firefly - In Joshua Slocum's wake

It is Friday 27th January and we have had the gennaker up since 0700 this morning and are making great progress in the sunshine. The wind is almost due East and our destination almost due West - not the ideal track for an asymmetrical sail.  So we have made some modifications to the set up flying the tack (front bottom corner) from the end of a spinnaker pole further outboard- this has helped Firefly sail more down wind and on track at good speed - long may it continue....

 

Peter has just finished reading Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum- the ideal book for this passage so thank you Susie and Toby for such a thoughtful Christmas present. There are few comparisons between our adventure and Slocum’s undertaken between 1895 and 1898 - he was single handed sailing from Newport RI and back, he went round Cape Horn, fought ‘pirates’ off Morocco and ‘savages’ off Tierra del Fuego, and navigated by a rudimentary sextant and a tin clock which lost it’s second hand half way around the world. But he did visit many of the places Firefly has anchored at during her and Paul and Susie’s circumnavigation including the Marquesas, Tahiti, Cocos Keeling, Mauritius, Cape Town  and St. Helena all of which Spray visited too. In the latter he gave a talk to the locals and was entertained like us at Plantation House (him by the Governor us by Debbie, the Assistant - see earlier blog) and he stayed and slept in the ‘haunted’ West Guest room we visited during our tour.So it has been great comparing notes with the master mariner while we are on our trip.

 

Paul, Gareth and Peter