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.

Looking for Noli

Location: 13 50.57 N 61 03.80 W

Our interlude in the UK went by in a flash. 

Well done, Peter!

It was wonderful to catch up with family and friends and we were proud to attend son Peter's MA graduation at Cambridge University.  Even the weather was warm and settled, nourishing the spring flowers and waking up the countryside.

*    *    *    *    *

Back on board, we found it really hard to leave Le Phare Bleu.  The ship was overwhelmed with tentacles of mangrove wrapping themselves around the ship and tying down our arms and legs too – in short, a very bad case of port rot indeed.  But leave we eventually did, and dragging ourselves away, we sailed around the coast to St Georges.  Fortuitously delayed here for 24 hrs by poor visibility from heavy rain, we were delighted by the arrival of the catamaran Saba, belonging to our German friends Daniel and Silkae, with their delightful daughters Lenna and Anna.  We hadn't seen them since the Canaries, and it was good to hear all was well with them despite a catalogue of problems with their new, French built boat.  Heading south, they are aiming for Panama and the Pacific, an adventurous enough trip even without two children under the age of 5!

The next day, sailing north in the lee of the island, we were pleased to cross paths with Paul on Stardust, an Oyster 56, on passage from Barbados to join the Oyster Regatta.  We were sorry to miss this great social event, held in Grenada this year, but with such a late Atlantic crossing we needed to be further north if we were to see more of the Caribbean before the start of the hurricane season.

So onwards we sailed, pushing hard against the headwinds and west-going current towards Isle de Ronde.  Our route took us close to Kick 'em Jenny, an active underwater volcano with a 1.5 km exclusion zone around it.

Diamond Island, near the underwater volcano

The volcano last erupted in both 1988 and 1989, and it is thought the next eruption will form a new island.  We anchored for lunch only 2 miles away at the uninhabited Isle de Ronde, and were much relieved that the volcano slumbered on.  Apart from a pair of pelicans roosting in an old fishing boat nearby, we were the only occupants of the bay, and we enjoyed a good variety of corals and colourful tropical fish whilst snorkelling off the reefs at the head of the island, no doubt due to their remote location.

Our next stop was at Sandy Island, a tiny coral island with perfect white sand, though now with less vegetation since the hurricane Lenny.  We anchored here for the night, and after a morning swim we made a long dinghy journey to Carriacou for provisions and customs clearance.   This island is friendly, charming and relaxed.  With far less development than its neighbour, it looks pretty much like the Grenada we remember from 32 years ago.

A short sail northwards again, and we anchor behind a reef at Petit St Vincent, a pretty island that is now an exclusive resort where the guests stay in remote stone cottages, each equipped with a flagpole to summon room service!  The hotel was built by two ex-pilots from the US Air Force who sold up and sailed to the Caribbean in an old wooden yacht.  They chartered, and it was one of their charter guests who thought it would be fun to buy an island and build a hotel.  The hotel is still owned by the wife of one of the pilots.

Petit St Vincent

The sail northwards from Petit St Vincent took us through a narrow pass in the reef between two tiny sand cays, Mopion ('crab louse') and Pinese ('bed bug').  No doubt these islands were more than a minor irritation to those unfortunate sailors who were wrecked on this shoal in the days before accurate satellite navigation.

Mopion.  Not much to do here...

The attractive anchorage at Clifton Harbour, Union Island, is tucked between two reefs, and is justifiably popular, especially with charter boats.  With deteriorating weather, the wind and rain blew hard through the night.  Thankfully our anchor, dug in hard against a rock, held fast.  But our neighbours were not so fortunate.  As the wind got up to a howl and the boats danced around each other, there was lots of shouting as a French Beneteau 43 with a crew of 3 older men struggled made several attempts to re anchor in the dark, their torches fading rapidly. By morning they had managed to moor up just behind us, but the skipper was still not happy.  Despite the absence of his two crew members who had escaped ashore in the dinghy, the skipper decided he was going to have another go.  The local 'boat boys',   who offer their services - mooring buoys (sometimes dodgy deals), ice, collection of rubbish etc. - got involved, and one climbed aboard, so there was a lot more shouting especially as the skipper was motoring forward over the anchor chain and the boat boy who was supposed to be pulling up the anchor was busy on his mobile phone!  The crew eventually did return to find their boat gone, and looking a little perplexed motored off in their dinghy to search the anchorage.

The following day, we sailed around the windward side of Union Island and past its short airstrip perched on an outcrop of rock.  With hills to skirt on the landing approach, Stella and I mused over how difficult it must be for planes to land there.  It was then that we noticed the remains of a small passenger plane at the side of the runway!

Happy landings, Union Island style.  Safer by boat, I think...

Onwards, up the lee of Mayreau, and then we sailed past the huge sailing cruise-liner Club Med 2 and into the Tobago cays, a marine national park set inside a protective reef.

Club Med 2 - a different kind of sailing experience!

Anchored off Boradel island, the variety of marine life was amazing and swimming with green turtles in their natural habitat was just wonderful.  The following morning, Walter, a local 'boat boy' (grandfather?) bought over some bread and a banana loaf from the mainland, freshly cooked by his wife.  With 3000 miles of Atlantic Ocean stretching before us, it felt strange to be anchored with only a reef to protect us from the open sea!

Our next stop is a tiny deserted island called Petit Nevis.  When we last called here on our first boat 'Coot' some 33 years ago, we found many huge old bones, remnants of the island's past history as a whaling station.  Now it has been cleared up, but plans to develop the island have come to naught and it remains a peaceful place to hang out.  The only other boat in the anchorage, the Canadian motor vessel 'Tasman', kindly offered us some fish.  The blue marlin they had caught was over 8 feet long – rather a lot to eat on your own!

Petit Nevis

Where is Noli?

Bequia still has an easy-going and yacht friendly atmosphere.  Admiralty bay, a protected natural harbour, remains unspoilt and is a hive of activity.  We're on a quest to find Noli Simmons, a friend from long ago, and we tie alongside a fishing boat to ask where he might be found. 

The fishing boat has just arrived after 4 days at sea, and our conversation is interrupted by the crew blowing a conch shell 'horn' to announce their arrival!  We buy some Dorado from their huge catch, which they fillet for us on the shore and rinse in the sea.

Com' buy me fish man!

Tracked down at his favourite drinking haunt, Frangipani's, Noli is great company. The last time we drank at this bar, I was a moustachioed hippy playing my guitar under the frangipani trees.  But Noli still remembers me.  In those days he was building a 70 foot wooden boat right next to the restaurant, using traditional materials and techniques.  The frames were of solid local cedar, each tree chosen for a specific part of the boat, and it was planked with silver Bali imported from Guyana.  The owner to be?  None other than Bob Dylan!

Noli - 32 years on

As well as building and sailing traditional sailing yachts, Noli is a trained architect and built his own house too.  He still lives on Bequia, building another house whilst researching local history.  He remains a great fan of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Another lounge lizard at the Frangipani bar - this one is cannibalistic!

And Dylan's boat?  Sadly, it had an unhappy ending.  Not long after completion it was lost on a reef - a complete write-off.

It's only 14 miles to the next island, St Vincent, and we anchor in a tiny deserted bay called Petit Byahaut, which we initially have to ourselves.  Just down the coast from the bay where 'Pirates of the Caribbean' was filmed, this bay is unspoilt with beautiful coral reefs which we dive on.  We take a dinghy ride around the headland to a large and dark cave.  I swim to the entrance, and inside I can see hundred of large bats flying around, the size of seagulls!  There's a 30 foot long dark tunnel that apparently leads out through the cave into a rock fissure about 30 foot high and 40 foot deep, but it's just too spooky for me to attempt to swim through it.  Chicken, or what?

Part of the film set for the film "Pirates of the Caribbean" in Wallilabou Bay, St Vincent, now sadly in disrepair.  No sign of Johnny Depp.

The sail to St Lucia was fast and comfortable with enough wind until we sailed into the lee of the Pitons – two mountains rising 2500 feet straight out of the sea.  Here, the water was so deep that we picked up a mooring and tied the stern of our boat to a tree.

The Pitons, St Lucia.  We moored at the base of Petit Piton, the one to the left of the picture.

*    *    *    *   *

Just give us the banana and sod off...

Cocoa, rum and spice

Location: 12 00.20 N 61 43.45 W

"Ahoy there skipper!"

As we pulled into Prickly Bay, Grenada our friends Tim and Barbara, on holiday from the UK, were waiting for us on the shore!  After clearing customs, we welcomed them on board with 'Ananda juice' – a spicy cocktail with ginger, honey and lemon (not to mention the ubiquitous rum, of course).

Prickly Bay

It's about 95 miles to Grenada from Tobago, our last port of call, and too far for a day sail.  So, the previous day, we had enjoyed a last minute swim off the nearby reef then an early supper and a sleep before weighing anchor at midnight.  The night voyage was a pleasant one, a close reach in moderate seas and with excellent visibility.  An obliging passenger ship, The Oceanic, with 'peace boat' painted in large letters on its topsides, altered course for us.  As we reached along the south coast of Grenada at dawn, Stellie baked banana muffins.

Grenada is known as the 'spice island', a well deserved description.  Despite the terrible devastation wrought by hurricane Ivan in 2004, the interior of this volcanic island is like a giant botanical garden with exotic spice and fruit trees in abundance.  Almost anywhere, if you stop at the side of the road, you are likely to find nutmeg, cocoa, bananas, avocado, papaya, lime, pineapple, cinnamon, cloves and ginger all growing together.

The rain forest is slowly recovering, and there are lush green mountains with waterfalls.

The fish arrive at De Big Fish Bar, Prickly Bay

 

Grenadian school and friendly children

Rum…

At the River Antoine Rum factory, a strong (73%) white rum is made in much the same way as it ever was in 1780.  A giant waterwheel powers the mill that crushes the sugar cane, and the dried residue of the cane burnt to heat the juice in giant cast iron bowls.  The juice is scooped into them with giant wooden ladles and then fermented.  The copper still is heated by burning wood, and the rum (about 1000 bottles per week - for domestic consumption only) is bottled by hand.

The waterwheel - no frills, ecological too.

Cane mashin' machine

 Driven by the water wheel, the cane is crushed and the juice flows into a wooden trough (by the worker in the blue hat, who is scooping out any floating residue) and then into a pipe that leads to a large vat.  The cane residue is then heaped into the rail cart that then runs along a track.  It is then unloaded manually and then spread out to dry in the sunshine.

Hot stuff

Bottling it all up

 Taking only about 2 weeks from start to finish, the whole process is virtually independent of electricity, and so production wasn't even halted for the hurricane!  Was this one of the reasons why the Grenadians managed to cope with Ivan's havoc and destruction as well as they did?

..cocoa…

At the cocoa station, the beans are removed from the pods and left to ferment for a couple of days before being laid out in the sun to dry.  Ladies wearing wellington boots trudged through the trays each day to turn them over and ensure they dried completely.  If desired, the beans are then polished in a large drum using a belt driven electric fan before being weighed into sacs and sent off for export or to the Grenada Chocolate Factory.  The empty pods are used as mulch around crops, so nothing is wasted.

The cocoa trays are built on rails so they can be pushed under shelter when it rains

...and nutmeg!

Before the hurricane, Grenada was the world's second largest nutmeg producer.  But now that so many of these shallow rooted trees have been lost, Grenada has been overtaken by other countries.  It was sad to see the nutmeg co-operative plant at Grenville only running at a fraction of its former capacity and employing only 16 people instead of over 100 in better days.

One hopes that the intensive replanting of the past few years will (literally!) bear fruit and improve matters.  But we saw untended nutmeg trees, with the fruit going uncollected, when we toured the island, making us wonder whether there may be other, more economic reasons why production has declined.

The south coast of the island is indented with beautiful sheltered inlets where we spent peaceful nights at anchor amongst the mangroves, watching the amazing birdlife.  An osprey dived to catch a fish off our stern, and magnificent frigate birds with their forked tails and white breasts circled overhead.  Cranes hid amongst the mangroves, well camouflaged with their long legs.

Some of the inlets had been tastefully developed, with exclusive waterside resorts including docking facilities for yachts.  Tim and Barbara were based at True Blue resort which had just opened, with bespoke metal artwork of turtles and fish and a wonderfully haphazard waterside restaurant, the 'Dodgy Dock'.

View from aft cabin, True Blue Bay

But we loved Le Phare Bleu, where the office, clubhouse and washing facilities were incorporated into an old Swedish lightship, as well as an exclusive restaurant on its upper decks.  Built in 1905, the Västra Banken stood guard over the bank of its namesake until, bought by the owner of the resort, it was completely restored in Germany.  The ship still has its original engine – apparently in working order, though rather smoky! 

As temporary berth holders we also had use of the resort's swimming pool and catamaran dinghy, but with a flight home booked, there was little time to relax.  We prepared Ananda for a spell on her own, removing a deck fitting for modification in the UK, mooring her up securely and flushing preservative through the water maker.

*    *    *    *   *

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