Washed up in America

Location: 41 28.81 N 71 19.99 W

It's 10pm local time and the USA coastline is closing fast.

A little too fast, actually, because we don't really want to arrive too soon.  With no moon at the moment, the nights are pretty black and we would prefer an early morning arrival with good light for anchoring.  So we're flying less canvas to slow the boat down, and things are pretty peaceful.  There's a fishing boat in the distance, its working afterdeck lit brightly for safety.  And a coaster overhauls us as it chugs slowly eastwards towards Fall River.  We had called him up earlier as our courses were converging.  'What are your intentions, Sir?'  The captain sounded surprised – had he actually seen us? - but altered course to pass safely behind our stern.

After nearly 5 days at sea, it feels strange to be so close to land.  Looking at the charts, the names of the surrounding places read like an American social history.  To our left is Long Island, with New York just beyond.  To our right there's Martha's Vineyard and Chappaquiddick, then Nantucket with Cape Cod just to its north.  And ahead lies our destination, Newport, Rhode Island.

It's hard to believe we're only a few hours from any of them.  Hopefully we'll visit them all in time, though our cruising itinerary for the next few months is still in its infancy, sort of nascent, err… well, not actually conceived yet.  But that's cruising for you – kind of flexible, you see.  As fickle as the wind, our plans can (and do) change, moulded by weather, the books that we read so avidly on passage, the music we listen to and the friends that we make along the way.  For the cruising fraternity is a sort of floating village, a mobile community of largely like-minded adventurers that is always generous with help and advice.

We're excited to be arriving in America, though not quite sure what to expect.  The navigational charts themselves, furnished as they are with a wealth of detail, offer a hint of what's to come.  Marked on the chart , and all within 10 miles of us, are 'unexploded bomb 1968', 'unexploded depth charge Nov 1960', 'unexploded torpedo 1985',  'unexploded ordinance 1987 and 1992' , 'unexploded bombs Dec 1958' and 'Danger, sulphuric acid'.  Why do we never hear of this sort of thing in the UK?  Do our bombs and torpedoes never fail to explode?  Or is it just that we never get to hear about it?  So it looks like the country we're about to visit is an open society.  Or perhaps just a society prone to litigation?  Anyway, the water is fairly shallow here, about 30 metres, so I hope none of it goes off!

The passage from Bermuda has been pleasant with light conditions.  We left at short notice on hearing that a 'weather window' had just opened, with the promise of fair winds.  This was important for us, as part of the voyage included crossing the Gulf Stream, a tidal stream that runs along the American coastline at over 4 knots.  When the wind blows against the flow, the seas quickly build up to mountainous proportions.  We were lucky, and all was calm.

But as I write, a mist has descended.  Fog!  There's an eerie loom reflected around our navigation lights by the moist air.  Everything is becoming damp to the touch, and I put on a pullover. The fishing boat 'disappears' at a distance of about 2 miles, but soon visibility is only 100 yards, and we watch the radar and AIS closely as we approach this busy port.  We count off the buoys one by one - Narangassett B, Brenton Reef, Butter Ball, each passing close enough to appear out of the mist, sounding a mournful bell or whistle… for whom the bell tolls…

The day brightens, and with the rumble of the anchor chain in the safety of Brenton Bay next to an invisible Fort Adams, we reflect on our journey to the 'New World'.  The visit by a school of Spinner dolphin a few days ago had been spectacular.  After playing in our bow wave for a while some had performed amazing acrobatic leaps and somersaults high into the air, so typical of this breed.

We slowly prepare to go ashore to clear customs.  Once the fog has lifted enough to be able to find our way back to the boat, that is…

Newport scene - once the fog lifted

New York Yacht Club's Newport base - previously the home of John Nicholas Brown of Brown University fame

Bermuda - another world

Location: 32 22.73 N 64 40.28 W

Today is Bermuda Day.  Originally Queen Victoria's birthday, this public holiday is big here and marks the start of the summer.  Yes – Bermuda is still an overseas territory of the UK!  A referendum in 1995 supported this status, although the islands have been self-governing since 1968.  So things carry on much as they always have done.  No self-respecting Bermudian goes into the sea before Bermuda Day –'it's too cold, baaiii!' – although we found the temperature perfectly pleasant (23 degrees) yesterday when diving to replace an anode on our propeller.

Ananda clears customs at St Georges, Bermuda

Bermuda rigged

There's a parade on in Hamilton, and there's going to be a special yacht race here at St Georges – the local traditional class of Bermuda Fitted Dinghies.  Their crews will certainly be hoping the water is warm enough, as they'll probably end up swimming in it.  For the rules of this historic racing class don't require the same number of crew at both the start and finish.  So if the competition is close towards the finish, the crew literally jump ship and swim home leaving a lighter and hopefully faster boat!

Some balancing act here...

Unstable, ridiculously over-canvassed and with virtually no freeboard, the yachts always appear to be at the point of sinking.  One member of crew has to bail throughout the races.

Last week we visited the tiny Royal Bermuda Yacht Club (RBYC) in Hamilton – a fascinating haven dating back to 1843 and with a collection of historic artefacts that would grace any museum in the world.  There are half models of famous sailing ships, and plaques from visiting ships, including one of only two given by the Royal Yacht Britannia – Prince Phillip had it specially made.  On the walls there are pictures of the Queen visiting shortly after her Coronation and again in 1993 for the club's 150th anniversary.

There's even an RBYC club burgee that had been taken into space in the pocket of astronaut Readdie, a keen visiting racing sailor who later became a leader of NASA. No wonder the club remains popular with the Royals – Prince Edward and Sophie visited only a month ago.  Thanks, Sheree and Bruce (ex-Commodore), for kindly showing us around!

The hospital where I worked as a newly qualified doctor is still there, in Paget.  It's undergoing a huge re-development with fine hurricane-proof windows.   All of this is being financed by a private finance initiative (PFI), sadly much the same as most new hospitals in the UK.  Build now and let your children pay the huge loan charges later.  But we found the old house where I lived, set amidst the beautiful botanical gardens next to the hospital.  Now it's the park office!

My house (is a very very very fine house...)

Shipwrecks galore

The best way to see Bermuda is on 2 wheels, and our hired scooter allowed us to find areas we had never visited before.  Bermuda is really a series of coral islands interlinked by bridges and with countless protected bays and lagoons.  To the chagrin of mariners of old (and some new), the surrounding coral reefs stretch out to sea in every direction for miles and are littered with shipwrecks.

At Spittal Pond nature reserve we found a rock carved by Portuguese sailors who were shipwrecked here in 1543 (not long after the Spanish explorer Juan de Bermudez originally discovered the islands in 1505).  They apparently built another boat and sailed off again.  It wasn't until 1609 that an English ship headed for Virginia, the Sea Venture, was wrecked here in a hurricane; this time the 150 marooned sailors set up a colony.  They then built 2 ships from scratch and went on to rescue the failing colony of Jamestown in Virginia.  It was an account of this saga that inspired Shakespeare's play The Tempest.  John Rolfe, one of the shipwrecked passengers who was a farmer, went on to marry an Indian princess, Pocahontas, and make Virginia's fortune by cultivating tobacco… but that's another story, to be continued as our travels progress! 

Since then, the islands have welcomed weary sailors over the centuries.  Luckily, our sea journey here was fine.  But Mark Twain was certainly grateful to arrive in 1867 on the Quaker City.  He commented 'Bermuda was a paradise but one had to go through hell to get there'.

Onwards to America

So, all in all, we've had a terrific week here - a real 'blast from the past'.  But now it's time to go.  We can feel the lure of the New World.  We're off to America, land of the free.

Destination (sort of) is Newport, Rhode Island, some 650 miles to the northwest.  We're expecting some calms for the first couple of days so we've taken on more fuel, though with depressions further north, there may be stronger winds to come.  Stellie has stocked up with fresh fruit and vegetables, though not too much meat, as we hear that the US Customs sometimes confiscate stuff.  You'd think they were paid enough to buy their own food, wouldn't you?

No WiFi so we'll post this episode at sea by satellite.  This means small pictures, but no worries, we'll update them when we arrive…done!

Nowhere, man

Location: 26 51.00 N 64 06.00 W

It's nearly midnight on a moonlit Saturday night and I'm writing this at the chart table of a little boat floating out there somewhere in the middle of nowhere in particular. 

We've been at sea for almost 5 days and nights, sailing a course almost due north from the Virgin islands.  With either very light head winds or no wind at all, we are not going to take any records for speed on this passage.  Looking out from the cockpit, there's little to see from horizon to horizon.  A heavy swell of about 2 metres rolls in towards us , rather less than yesterday, and is a remnant from bad weather further north; a deep depression that is now winging its way across the Atlantic towards Europe and burning itself out in the process.  The moon shines brightly overhead in a clear sky, with a few small clouds ahead of us.  These don't look  threatening, unlike one or two of the dark squalls we had earlier on, suddenly pushing the boat hard over so that we run about reducing sail, only for it all to go calm again 10 minutes later.

But despite having to motor for long periods, the journey so far has been a pleasant one.  The nights are a lot shorter than they were on our Atlantic crossing in January, and somehow feel friendlier when bathed in the bright light of a waxing moon.  Dawn is at about 5am and apparently comes with a fabulous range of colours; reds, oranges, yellows, turquoises and blue (information courtesy of Stella who has been doing the early morning stint, the so called 'graveyard' watch!).  At one stage we stopped the boat to look at something floating in the water.  It was an orange buoy, marked 'underground cable' that had probably been washed into the sea somewhere.  But as we stopped and looked down into 5000 feet of clear  water, we saw a shoal of about 60 silver fish, about 12 inches in length with stubby tails like those on parrot fish.  They seemed curious and stayed close to the boat.

Last night, we spotted a tell-tale water spout astern, then another nearby.  Playing on the surface was a Fin whale, with an asymmetrical white underside to its jaw and tiny dorsal fin placed well back along its narrow body.  It made 4 or 5 shallow rolls over a minute or two with a final steeper arch of its back before disappearing into the deep.  These beautiful creatures are big, second only to the blue whale, and can grow to nearly 90 feet and 76 tons.  Reaching speeds of over 20 knots they could out swim the early whaling boats,  though sadly not the diesel powered Japanese whalers of today.

Alarms galore

In keeping with the usual nautical way of things, we've had our share of technical hitches too on this leg.  Within 24 hours, both engine and generator exhaust alarms went off.

The generator sea water pump impellor had stripped its fins off, and replacing it took a couple of hours of bending over on the cabin sole whilst Stellie tended to the sails in the rolling ocean swell.  But the following day I had to do battle with the mighty main engine impellor too.  The fight was long and hard, taking most of the day, but persistence paid off.  I emerged from the hot engine room battered and bruised from the struggle but victorious!  The massive impellor was replaced, but in the event my diagnosis had been off the mark.  The overheating was in fact due to a blocked strainer in the seawater inlet, and soon sorted by Stellie and me.

As if I needed more to do, the next day the main engine alternator alarm went off. Despite this indicating alternator failure, a play with my multimeter showed this not to be the case, with much relief all round.  Than yet another alarm sounded - an unfamiliar 'chirrup' this time, and only a carbon monoxide alarm with a flat battery. All just too complicated, eh?

Moving on up

Every morning, we try and check into the rum-runners, an informal SSB radio net for cruising yachts.  But as we all stray further apart, reception has been difficult lately and I can only check in by relaying via another boat.  There's also the legendary Herb to try and contact in the afternoon, if I ever get the chance.  Operating from his home in Canada, Herb has won every prestigious award going for his daily weather information service dedicated to yachtsmen making ocean passages, and he has assisted in many emergencies too.  A retired forecaster with formidable knowledge, he continues to practice what has now become his hobby on a voluntary basis.

Yesterday, we were called up on VHF by Dulcinea, a yacht that we could just see in the distance to the west of us.   It was good to chat to the friendly owner and exchange weather information, an understandable obsession for all of us out here on the oceans.  He was on passage from Antigua to Newport via Bermuda in a custom 63 foot yacht, designed for the owner by Bill Dixon.   Dulcinea slowly overhauled us over the course of the afternoon, no doubt helped by a slippery, freshly antifouled hull.  Our own bottom paint, now 2 years old, is slowing us down.  Despite our regular forays with snorkel and scrubbing brush, the hull is becoming so encrusted with weed and molluscs that it is beginning to resemble the hanging gardens of Babylon!  Definitely time for a repaint - maybe in America?

So onwards and upwards we go.  It's less than 300 miles to Bermuda, our next port of call, which should be a sort of homecoming for me.   A long time ago I  worked for a year in King Edward V11 Memorial Hospital, so time to revisit old haunts.  Stellie knows Bermuda well too, as back in in 1979 we sailed there on our first boat Coot, along with our good friend Tim.

But as we head north away from the tropics, the nights are definitely becoming cooler.  Although this comes as a bit of a relief for now, it does mean that at some stage we'll need to start wearing real clothes...

Ooh la la!

Location: 18 30.13 N 64 21.77 W

Ooo la la! We could hardly believe our eyes.

In many ways, 'Ananda' is our very own 'Tardis'.  Rather like Dr Who's quirky spaceship, she's quite roomy for just the 2 of us.  Comme dites les Francais, 'L'interieur, c'est beaucoup plus grand que l'exterieur'.  But this time, after just one day's brisk day's sailing north from St Lucia, it really did feel as though we had been transported through both space and time.

Our arrival on the island of Martinique was greeted by Gallic scenes that placed us firmly back in the heart of Europe, and strolling along the Champs Elysee.  We sipped an orangina at a pavement cafe whilst ladies, decked out in the latest Parisian fashions, paraded past boutiques and art galleries.  The smell of fresh croissants wafted from the doors of boulangeries and patisseries.  All that was needed to complete the scene was an onion-seller in a blue and white stripey t-shirt!   

Even the customs and immigration procedures had been bought up to date.  We had grown accustomed to the usual island tedious form filling bureaucracy, a natural inheritance from a largely British colonial past and administered by bored officials dragging it out ad infinitum to justify their existence.  But here on Martinique, the digital age had dawned.  Procedures are rapidly completed by simply filling out an on-line form on a computer housed in a chandlery!  And no charge, either.  Civilisation indeed.

 All this relative affluence is because the island is still effectively administered from France as a quartier.  Historically, Empress Josephine grew up here, on a 200 acre, 150 slave estate.  And rather cheekily, in 1804 the British captured Diamond Rock, a steep pinnacle off the south coast of Martinique, and commissioned it as a ship.  This meant they could take pot-shots at any approaching French ships – a rather nasty surprise for them.  Napoleon was incensed – all this and at the home of his beloved Josephine, too!   He ordered Admiral Villeneuve to go and re-capture the rock and, whilst he was at it, to destroy Horatio Nelson. Villeneuve did indeed manage to recapture the rock – based on faulty intelligence, Nelson had gone on a wild goose chase to Trinidad.  But Villeneuve was in disgrace for not destroying the British fleet, and preferring death to dishonour, he later put his ill prepared fleet to sea to meet Nelson at Trafalgar.  Ironically, he survived though Nelson didn't.

The next day, we move from the capital, Fort de France, to Anse Mitan, a quieter anchorage in the same enormous natural harbour with a fort on its headland, now overgrown by nature.

In contrast to Martinique, Dominica is undeveloped and poor, though with a natural beauty.  The water was deep right to the land's edge, and we rented a mooring for the night from Dwayne, a friendly and polite boat boy - a real ambassador for Dominica, said Stella – and handed over $30 EC with a bottle of beer for good measure.  The following morning we were awoken by an angry fisherman.  'What are you doing on my mooring, man?'  Oh dear, just going…

By now we were running out of croissants and ready for another taste of France.  So the next stop on our lightening Caribbean tour was the Isles des Saintes, off Guadeloupe.  Funny thing, the descriptions at the museum in Fort Napoleon (facing Fort Josephine on the opposite hillside – now sadly in ruins) are not very complimentary about the English!  We savour the lovely holiday atmosphere, and enjoy our stay.

But we are awoken at 1am by a huge bang.  A 35 foot yacht, Saudade has dragged its anchor and crashed into us.  By torchlight there is some damage to our hull and wooden toerail.  The French couple onboard are clueless, doing little to help, and make no apology.  Furthermore, the captain, a Monsieur Francois Marie Joseph de la Vigne Sainte-Suzanne, is drunk; de la Vigne both by name and by deed.  Ignoring our shouts, he motors off into the darkness.  Hurriedly, we launch the dinghy and give chase in the dark.  By now he is halfway across the bay, but we catch hold of his dinghy and demand that he stops.  He refuses and carries on motoring with us in tow, refusing our demands for insurance details.  Eventually his wife relents and gives us a business card (a rum factory on Martinique) though still no insurance details.  Frustrated, we cast off our dinghy into a moonless night on quite big seas to search for our own yacht, by now miles away and in another bay.

I hope you're reading this, M de la Vigne…

It's a windy sail to Guadeloupe, and 40 knot squalls take their toll on the bimini cover, which needs repairing.  But Deshaies is a lovely anchorage, with a beautiful river flowing into the bay.  With wet weather, we attend to jobs and I service the generator.  Then we walk and climb through the rainforest and up the riverbed for miles, bathing in the rock pools to cool off.  Bats fly to and fro across the water, and we have it all to ourselves.

The beautiful river at Deshaies in Guadeloupe - a great climb through the rockpools

Guadeloupe is unspoilt, beautiful and civilised.  We even have croissants delivered to the boat for breakfast – merci, Harold! – and enjoy them very early the next day watching the Royal wedding live in the surreal environment of a yacht at anchor in this remote tropical bay!

After the Royal kiss on the balcony, on comes the windlass and we're off to Antigua to catch the end of Race Week and sailing at over 9 knots.  Things are really humming here, the mood is festive and anchored in Nelson's Dockyard, we can admire the world's finest yachts, both here and in nearby Falmouth harbour.

Valsheda, a perfectly restored J-class yacht moored next to her support ship Bystander

Windrose of Amsterdam looks magnificent, and both Lady B and Eros are there too.  But by far and away the most impressive sight was the arrival of Maltese Falcon.  Huge, stylish and distinctive, she certainly turns heads with her rotating clipper rig - square sails set on 3 giant carbon fibre masts.  Built originally for Tom Perkins, the Silicon Valley tycoon and venture capitalist, she was sold in July 2009 for a reputed £60M.

The magnificent Maltese Falcon

As she completed mooring up, we walked alongside.

'Nice boat!' I shouted up to the blonde lady standing on the side deck.

In retrospect, I suppose that calling a 289 foot ship, one of the largest privately owned sailing yachts in the world, a 'boat' was not my most sensible choice of words, and so the new lady owner of Maltese Falcon, Elena Ambrosiadou, was certainly entitled to give me the look of disdain that I received.

On parade in English harbour

This yacht, moored in English Harbour, has obviously been well fitted out with jungle cruising in mind.

The sail to St Maarten, an island that is half Dutch and half French, was a night passage, and the tone for the journey was set by two large whales, at least 30 feet long, that surfaced about 60 feet off our starboard bow, their waterspouts blowing high into the air.

We passed St Barts in darkness to anchor in Philipsburg at 6am.  Later that day, we sailed to Simpson's Bay, a haven for yachtsmen where you can buy or fix almost anything.  Here, it's a matter of pride for superyacht owners to take their craft through a narrow passage with a lifting bridge into a huge natural lagoon.  Moored up in there was Mirabella V, the largest sloop in the world.  It's hard to get a perspective on her lofty mast, the biggest ever built at twice the height of Nelson's column, and we enjoyed supper at a waterside restaurant seated under her stern.

View of St Maarten from Fort Louis.  The mast on the horizon, right side, belongs to Mirabella.  Saba, rising to 3000 feet, can be seen in the distance.

Dinghies are the most convenient form of transport in the lagoon.  We zoomed around from chandlery to chandlery, stocking up with spares and motored over to the French quarter to soak up the different culture.

Next stop was the British Virgin Islands.  With a night time arrival we navigated carefully through Virgin Sound, the appropriately named passage between Richard Branson's Necker Island and Virgin Gorda, to anchor in North Sound, a large and protected natural harbour.  A hired 4-wheel drive car enabled us to explore the island further with its steep roads.

Richard Branson's yacht Necker Belle.  The phone box off the starboard bow isn't much help in keeping him in touch with his business interests, now that it's been converted into a shower!

Stellie sews a new 'soft door' for Ananda's companionway

We're now heading north faster than the sun.  Come a favourable forecast, we'll soon be heading off to Bermuda, some 850 miles to the north of the Virgins.

And at this rate, we'll need to start wearing some warmer clothes.