Barbados and Tobago

Location: 11 09.51 N 60 50.53 W

Barbados is a friendly, orderly and relatively affluent country.  This is partly because of where it's situated, stuck on its own out to the east of the other Caribbean islands.  This position made it hard to reach for the Square-rigged sailing ships of old, which were driven back by the prevailing trade winds.  And so the country managed to keep out of the frequent battles between the French, British, Dutch and Courlanders (now part of Latvia) that other islands endured.  Barbados stayed under British rule for over 300 years, although now it is an independent and stable parliamentary democracy.

Anchored at Port St Charles (photo courtesy of Tim Bateman)

Our time at Port St Charles was spent in a social whirl, enjoying incredible hospitality from so many new friends, and sampling that vital by-product of the islands early sugar industry – Mount Gay rum.  Having made it here under our own steam, friends were kind enough to make a fuss of us, although our achievements across the Atlantic were soon put into perspective by the arrival of 2 rowing boats!

Shortly after landfall on a nearby beach, Team Hallin is towed past Ananda

First to arrive was Team Hallin with a new world record time of only 32 days, only to lose the record the very next day to Sara G with a corrected time of 12 hours 12 minutes less!  Having at least an inkling of what they had all been through, we welcomed them ashore and chatted with the crews at the celebrations.  'Not the sort of thing one should be doing too often, I suppose', said Rob (the Irish rower in the dark T-shirt on the far left of the picture).

The crew of Sara G, arriving in fine fettle.

Such a great time, so many kind people to thank; where to begin? Thanks Paul, well, for everything, really.  Thanks too, Moira, Tim, Tony, Betty, John and Sandy for welcoming us into the fun, and Peter for your fascinating tour of the island.  There's Eloisa at Oyster, for coming up trumps with a new furling motor for the mast and Andrew from BOYSS who delivered it only the day after we arrived.  And there's Jeremy and Jason, skipper (Charter skipper of the year too!) and engineer of the neighbouring superyacht, who willingly gave up their day off to help us remove the boom and gooseneck and sort out the repair - all done out of kindness in the baking tropical heat.

All of this made Port St Charles very difficult to leave.   We did eventually manage it (though not for too long!) and sailed down to the lee of the island to Bridgetown.  Here, thanks to Peter, Vice Commodore, we enjoyed the facilities of Barbados Yacht Club as honorary members.  At its shady waterside restaurant we ate delicious flying fish cutters washed down with a rum punch, whilst enjoying the use of a safe club mooring in the deep waters of Carlisle Bay.

When it comes to selling hats, Cynthia can see one coming!

We were delighted to have son Peter and girlfriend Vic join us onboard for a holiday break.  Lovely company and a great excuse to do more snorkelling over the sunken shipwrecks in the bay and to explore the interesting old architecture of Bridgetown.  But the lure of Port St Charles soon pulled us back up the coast, where we swam above lovely coral with a wonderful array of marine life including a turtle, moray eel and a giant southern stingray.  A hired car allowed us all to explore further afield, even managing to visit two rum factories in one day – oh dear!

Then sadly goodbyes all round – to Pete and Vic, hopefully returning home rested and slowed to a Caribbean pace, and also to all our new friends.

And so, on 21st February, we set sail for Tobago, one of the last unspoiled Caribbean islands lying 150 miles to the SW off the coast of Venezuela.  The winds were fresh, and we spent part of the night passage in company with 'Sea Princess', a large cruise ship.  Eventually, in rather confused seas, we rounded the NE tip of the island the following day to arrive at Scarborough where we anchored just off the liner's stern.

Scarborough is a bustling Caribbean port full of stalls playing cheerful loud music.  But, a little off the beaten track at a deserted quay, we were upset to find fishermen butchering two turtles, one probably weighing over 200 lbs.  As tourists, we have to accept that a local fisherman who depends on the sea for his livelihood may well have a different priority when it comes to preserving endangered species.

The next day, we sail round to Store Bay, a pretty anchorage next to the famous Buccoo reef.  However, there is a sombre mood over the bay.  Two days earlier, a Norwegian Beneteau 45 had been washed up on the rocks when its mooring buoy parted during the night.  The crew were aboard at the time, though fortunately escaped serious injury.   But the boat was a complete write off.  With virtually no yacht facilities on the island to speak of, all that could be done was to break it up and remove the wreckage to be shipped off the island by container – a task quickly achieved, as we watched, with a mechanical digger.

Eerily, whilst swimming on a nearby reef, we came across the remains of another yacht broken up on the seabed and looking rather like an anatomy dissection from a yacht textbook.   We later learned that exactly the same thing had happened to this English yacht only 5 months earlier!  Once again, the yacht was a complete write off, and, sadly, the owner had been uninsured.  Moral – don't trust mooring buoys.

Baptism Tobago style - on the beach

Jennifer's fruit and veg store, appropriately situated in Store Bay

Anyway, we're off to Grenada next, just as soon as the wind slackens off a bit.  We're looking forward to meeting our friends Tim and Barbara, who are on holiday there.

Must go now, time for a swim!

Paradise gained

Location: 13 15.70 N 59 38.70 W

"Look Stellie – over there."  To our surprise, about three miles off our stern was a substantial motor yacht.  With the binoculars we could make out its white superstructure.  It seemed to be heading slowly towards us, but why had it not shown up on the AIS?

It was late afternoon, and we had been at sea for nearly 2 weeks on our way to the West Indies.  The north east trade winds were in full swing, serving us with up to 40 knots of wind in some of the nastier squalls that swept by us every few hours, building up the seas.   The waves towered up to 18 feet above us and 'Ananda' ran before them, accelerating as each one approached.   The tops of the waves were thinned by the wind to a translucent turquoise colour, and at the last moment, 'Ananda' would lift her stern and allow them to sweep by with a hissing of foam.  

Normally we would pick up ships within 50 miles or so on the AIS, a radio system that gave us their names, call-sign, speed, course, destination and even positioned them on our plotter.  But there had been none for 6 days, and to suddenly see one so close by was unnerving.  I tried calling the ship on the VHF radio.

At first, no reply.  Then a rather inexperienced operator answered, in good English with a Mediterranean accent.  Strangely, he seemed unsure of the name of his own ship, changing his mind at least once and then giving us an unlikely sounding one.  Apparently they were 8 days out of Morocco and bound for Trinidad with the owner and 4 crew on board.

Paranoid, or what?

Somehow, this didn't all add up.  Why should such a substantial vessel, perhaps over 100 feet long, not display her position on AIS?  The crew had asked for a weather forecast - they did not have one, surprising on such a vessel.  Morocco and Trinidad are not the most popular of superyacht destinations.  To cap it all, as night fell, the mystery boat remained in total darkness and showed no navigation lights.  Motor boats are never short of power, so she certainly must have wished to remain in cognito.

My mind went into overtime.  Were they pirates?  Or perhaps drug runners?  Time for emergency measures, and I switched on the sat phone and looked up the phone number of Falmouth coastguard.  Then, to reduce our own profile, I switched off our own navigation lights and AIS.  In the rough seas, we would be difficult to board.  If it became necessary, we could speed up by reaching away under motor and sail combined.

The next few hours were spent nervously tracking the boat on radar.  But it kept a constant course and speed, travelling just one knot faster than us.  Slowly, in the darkness, they overhauled us to starboard and eventually, to our relief, passed safely into the distance and out of radar range. 

Westward ho…

Setting off from San Sebastian, La Gomera...

... with a typical trade wind rig

But only 2 days after setting out from the Canaries, we had a significant problem - the in-mast furling motor for the mainsail packed in, leaving us with too much sail in a strengthening wind.  I fetched the manual emergency winder and furled away part of the sail until the boat was safe once more, but it was hard work and took over an hour, leaving me with a blistered hand.

With the furling unit out of action we effectively no longer had the use of a mainsail.   We considered our possibilities.  Should we put into the Cape Verde islands, or continue to the Caribbean under headsails alone?  I fired up the sat phone to request weather data and also included an email to Oyster UK, back home in Ipswich, to ask for their help in sourcing a new motor.

Strangely enough, this was not the first time we had been in such a predicament.  When making the same ocean passage in 'Coot' in 1978, the boom developed a serious crack, which also limited our use of the mainsail.  With no choice then, we had carried on.  The forecast was for the usual trade winds to continue, making the passage feasible under headsails alone, and we decided to do the same this time.

The rest of the passage passed smoothly, though the unremitting squalls with their wind shifts were tiring for us.  We spent our watches getting soaked, sitting or standing on the top step of the companionway with head and shoulders poking through the hatch, autopilot remote in hand, ready to follow each wind shift.  Despite our anxieties, 'Ananda' handled them all well and never gave us any cause for concern.  We simply 'ran over the seas' as we exercised to music in the cockpit, and were content to live in our own tiny world secluded by the solitude of the ocean.

Another squall on its way...

But solitude can be hard to cope with, and it was a relief to be able to keep in touch with our family and friends in the outside world by email.  And, with our SSB radio, we could chat to yachts up to 500 miles away on the 'Rum Runners' net each morning.

Every few days or so, I fired up the main engine just to make sure that all was well and it hadn't filled up with water up the exhaust in the large swell.  This actually happened to us the last time we made this passage on 'Coot' in 1978.  When we arrived in Barbados then, the engine was full of water and the pistons had rusted solid.  After that, we had sailed with a wine cork shoved up the exhaust outlet!

As we sailed westwards the sun rose later each day, and we slowly acclimatised to the time change by eating later.  To simplify matters, Stellie set an 'Ananda' time zone – AMT – that was 3 hrs behind UT.  It worked fine for us, so we could enjoy salad Nicoise at a sensible hour (mid afternoon) with the last of the lettuce tasting as fresh as ever.

...and thankfully passed!

On most mornings, the sun arose to reveal flying fish stranded on our decks.  Sadly, in the tropical heat, this was usually too late for them to provide a meal.  These lovely fish with long wings could fly surprisingly long distances above the waves, perhaps 15 feet or so, gliding like birds and staying in the air for ages. 

Below us, the ocean dropped for an eternity.  At one point we sailed over 'Royal trough', an ocean trench with an incredible depth of 5744 metres.

On day 16, we passed within 2 miles of 'Piano', a yacht that left at the same time as us, despite having sailed a very different route over 2000 miles of ocean!  She was originally built for a Belgian who had insisted on having its namesake incorporated into the ship's furniture.

Land ahoy

Stellie was the first to sight land, 30 miles off our bow and we pushed the boat hard to arrive before nightfall.  Finally, after 18 days 10 hours and 2,846 miles of sailing, we arrived safely in Port St Charles, Barbados.

And what a landfall it was.  After being so self-sufficient for so long, we felt completely phased by the unbelievable hospitality we received.  The skipper of Paradigm, the neighbouring 116' motor yacht, even gave us a bottle of champagne and chocolate truffles to celebrate!

'Ananda' safely moored off the helipad at Port St Charles