Day 18. A feathered friend and St Peter and St Paul:
We passed close by st peter and St Paul rocks which is a very small island right on the equator. It’s owned by Brazil, who keeps 5 people there in order to maintain a claim on them and the surrounding waters. The island was apparently named after the Portuguese caravels Saint Peter and Saint Paul, one of which was wrecked on there and the crew rescued by the other.
As best as we could tell it is primarily a seabird nesting area, and it wasn’t long before one decided to come aboard.
It was a brown boobie that stayed with us for most of the day and night.
Although we never got close enough to see the islands we could make out the faint sweep of light from the lighthouse.
For those who are big Patrick O”Brian fans of the Jack Aubery and Stephen Maturin series, as we are, this is where Stephen was marooned at one point in the series. It would have been fun to stop there but that meant clearing Brazilian customs and it didn’t seem worth it.
Day 19. A Noddy and an airplane.
As I sat on deck reading my book and watching the stars a small black bird, not much larger than a robin, came around Scouting the boat for potential landing sites. It first tried the outboard motor, but that proved too slippery. It flew in a big loop away and back again before attempting another landing, this time on the much more promising platform of my head. This attempt thwarted, it finally settled on the mainsheet where it wedged itself securely between two lines where it stayed for the next 6 hours. It was nice to have the company through the absolute blackness of the night before the moon rose around 2am. I believe the bird was a black noddy and this is the first time we’ve had the pleasure of one’s company aboard.
Later that night I was down below when I became aware of a low roaring sound. The sound was so out of place in our world of wind and water that I rushed up on deck, thinking a ship must have somehow snuck up on us and was about to run us over. The moon revealed an expanse of ocean unoccupied by ships or any sign of humans clear to the horizon. I then remembered stories of squalls that come through with no warning but a distant rumble. While the sky was black with clouds to the north, I didn’t think it resembled a squall and the barometer was steady at 1018. It wasn’t until I spotted a red and white flashing light tracking south-east across the night sky that I realized what it was. It has been so long since we have seen or heard an airplane that it came as a shock.
A rain squall did come through later that night with a very similar roar and the air was so full of water you could barely breathe.
Day 20-23: The Doldrums.
That squall marked our entrance into the Atlantic ITCZ (intertropical convergence zone) or also known in days of old as the doldrums.
Starting at around 4°n and running all the way to 7°n or about 180 nautical miles across where we were at 30°w. As we sailed deeper into it the clouds closed over us and rain squalls formed all around us. The squalls could be seen from a great way off as a low dark cloud with grey rain slanting down to a line of broken white water whipped up by the wind. When one hits you the wind will go from 3-5 knots to 25-35 in less than a minute and often from an entirely different direction. After a few minutes the rain hits. It comes down so hard it seems to stun the wind and flatten the waves. The rain lasts anywhere from a few minutes to a half hour and once it’s gone it leaves you bobbing on a dead calm ocean until the wind pulls itself together again. These squalls are often accompanied by bright lightning which puts on quite a light show for our night watches.
There are usually 3-5 squalls in view at any given time, but only a couple hit us each day. Nonetheless this does make for a good deal of work with the wind changes and our hank on headsails. Oh the joy that a roller furling unit would be!
Far behind us was a gap in the clouds and blue sky, but it too soon vanished into white and grey of the doldrums.
The Atlantic ITCZ was much more forgiving than the Pacific had been where we spent days in dead calm waters just drifting around. In the Atlantic we made good progress, averaging around 80nm a day which was primarily made up during the squalls.
At around 6°N we started to see clumps of seaweed and little swimming crabs. Soon the surface of the ocean was covered in long streaks of the brown seaweed, which continually fouled our fishing line. Despite this, on day 21, we caught a dorado which was soon turned into a delicious and much appreciated supper.
Our freshly caught dorado
On the morning of the 23rd day the sargassum seaweed became so thick it covered the ocean in solid mats. It almost felt like we were sailing across a brown rolling meadow and you could step off the boat and walk across it.
Around noon the wind picked up and soon we were rocketing along at 6-7 knots.
We were now clear of the ITCZ!
In our time in the ITCZ we had managed to collect 10L of fresh rain water, but it was murky brown with the Namibian desert dust that had worked its way into our sails and rigging. Even after two days of heavy rain, the water still came off the sails a dark brown and tasted foul. We set our newly captured water aside in case of emergencies and cut our water ration down to 2.5L each per day. This would give us an extra six days of water and a larger safety margin if things don’t go to plan.
In this area we had been seeing strange lights under the water. They appeared to be about 12 to 18 inches across and usually just below the surface. Sometimes they would just flash once and then disappear, other times they seemed to flash rapidly 2 or 3 times. They were quite bright and when one happened to flash next to the boat its glow dimly illuminated the sail. There was only very dim phosphorescence in our wake so we discounted the idea that it was fish disturbing the water. Our best theory was that it was some sort of jellyfish. (we later found out they were squid which use the lights for hunting and mating).
Day 24
I downloaded the latest weather models through our sat phone. There were two tropical depressions at 28°n near Bermuda which was still 1600 nm miles away, too far to have any real impact on us, but maybe a sign that there would be some excitement later in this voyage after all.
We are sailing into hurricane season in the Atlantic but so far it looks like we are going to have to weave our way through a series of high pressure areas with little wind.
Day 25-27: Breakages and a blueberry pie.
The next few days passed in much the same way. We were absolutely flying along. Shooting down the faces of the waves at 8-9 knots before burying the bow in the next wave with a jolt and a cloud of spray before climbing up it and rocketing down the next one.
We had more sail up than was quite prudent, but we couldn’t bring ourselves to reduce it despite the very uncomfortable, and often violent, motions that such great speed entailed. Soon the first casualties started to come in. First it was a fresh batch of peanut butter cookies thrown to the floor right out of the oven, followed by a number of other minor mishaps, then just before midnight on day 27 one of the lines connecting the wind vane to tiller parted and we shot up into the wind. It took me almost an hour with my headlamp to undo the salt-hardened lines and tie it all back together, during which time the waves, which were now breaking on the motionless hull, soaked me through.
Next morning Callum replaced my repaired line with a new length and we were good as new.
The wind let off a little after that and things were much more comfortable. So much so that I even tried my hand at a blueberry pie. I made it in a used fray bentos pie can and I was quite pleased with the results, it actually looked, and more or less tasted, like a normal blueberry pie.
Day 28: Half way!
On June 8th we passed the halfway mark between Saint Helena and Halifax NS. Hopefully the second half goes faster.
We have now done over 25,000 nm since leaving Salt Spring Island.