Author: kerri

Cayenne to Ille de Salut (Devil\’s Island)…..

July 19th, 2013 – Time: -3 on GMT

We were able to rent a car in Cayenne and a very nice young guy who spoke fluent English (originally from Guiana ex: Brit Colony) gave us a bit of tour of the town.
Andre brought us to the Tourist Office and we quickly discovered that despite this being very low tourist season, the Korou Space Center tour was booked for two weeks!

We are wait listed for Friday, but it doesn\’t look good. They have a Space Museum there which can be visited for a small fee anytime. The tour, when available takes a maximum of 15 people, twice a day and is free.

We got fuel, went to Carrefours (a well known French Food Market chain). We also met a nice Scottish Couple, Ian and Meg who were anchored next to us at the marina. Marina is an odd word to use for Cayenne, it\’s more like an old rest home for very old boats. Most of these boats don\’t seem that they ever may leave the dock again. All the locals said that they were so badly maintained that they all stopped paying slip rental as a group. No one said anything and it will be interesting to see how the local politics play out. Fortunately, we\’ll be long gone by then!…:-)

The town itself is a bit old French Colonial and things don\’t look like they change very often – lots of cafe\’s and bistros. We went to \”Palmistes\” Pizza and Cafe where we had good internet briefly and an okay pizza.

We left yesterday morning for the 40 mile jaunt up to where we are at Ille de Salut. These three islands made up the infamous French Penal Colony known as \”Devil\’s Island\”. All three are quite small and within 100-200 meters of each other (250 yds). We are anchored at Ille Royal which is the main area and Ille St. Joseph is within a shout. Ille Diable (Devil\’s Island) is on the other side of Ille Royal. We\’re experiencing heavy rain at the moment and as I write we\’re waiting it out to go ashore in the dinghy. Not sure if we\’ll go to Korou to try the Space Center Tour or not. They are open tomorrow, but closed Sat/Sun/Wed and Thursday mornings. Welcome to France!…:-)

We think we can see the Space Center facilities from where we are anchored and we understand that when they launch, these islands must be cleared of all people!
We\’re due East of the facility and it\’s the direction they sling shot their Ariene spacecraft toward to maximize fuel efficiency during a launch.

I\’m not sure, but we may be able to see from here, either a real Ariene Rocket or perhaps a model at the museum which is full scale?

That\’s it for now. We\’re getting near the end of the ITCZ. The NE Trade Winds should be as close as 50-150 miles north of us.

KIT,
Scott and Nikki

Ariival at Cayenne, French Guyana…..

July 14th 2013 – Time: -3 on GMT

We motored yet again most of yesterday, teasing our record previous motor sail at 72 hours. Fortunately, with a few sailing attempts including yesterday afternoons few hour spinnaker run, we didn\’t break it! Late yesterday, we again tried to use the spinnaker and it was brilliant…for about an hour and twenty minutes! Then poof went the winds and back to the iron genoa\’s.

The water had notably turned \”Amazon Green\” yesterday and remained that way as we entered the shallow waters off the coast. Interestingly and most likely due to the centuries of the outflow of the Amazon and the Orinoco, this coast is very shallow a long way off shore. In some areas, a few hundred miles out, it\’s less than 250 feet deep.

Timing is always an issue on a sailboat with arrivals as to try and enter ports during the day and not on weekends. We flopped on both counts and arrived on Sunday morning at 0330 a.m.! The French are sticklers when it comes to proper navigational aids and lights and fortunately here they are no different. The lights were all where they were supposed to be and the narrow, shallow, long (8 mile!) channel was properly buoyed. The average depth of the outer channel was only 15 feet (3.8 meters); no worries for shallow draft \”Miss Piggy\”. I kept one daggerboard down at 2 meters as if we\’re going to go bump in the night, that\’s what I want to touch bottom with first. Alas, no \”wukken furries\” as the Aussie\’s say and we hooked up near a docking area with lots of small boats.

It IS hot and humid here and I cannot imagine being in this \”jungle\” without some modern conveniences like air conditioning to rely on in their homes and offices. Ah, those pioneers of yester-year. The Cayenne river is a dark muddy color and jungle mangroves come right down to the river banks edge. This is a sparsely populated and with a population about 90,000 in the entire country – Cayenne is it\’s largest \”city\”.

We\’ll do a shore recky later and find out about check in\’s/fuel/marketing/taxi\’s and most likely make our attempt tomorrow morning. It\’s Sunday and the offices are all likely to be closed. If they give us the \”you have to pay 500 USD for an agent\” story, we\’ll food/fuel up and do a day sail up to Korou (where the space center is) and try our luck there. Korou is directly adjacent to the famous \”Devil\’s Island\” in the three island, Ile de Salut group only about 8 miles off the coast. We\’d like to see if we can do a tour there as well.

I spoke with the \”boys\” this morning on \”TSU\”, \”OZ\” and \”Jongilanga\”. All is well, passed on the weather to them and we\’ll try and catch their evening schedule (when I\’m usually asleep).

The trip here was 5 days, 18 hours (misprint in the position report) – 895 miles.

So from HOT CAYENNE, KIT. Only 860 miles to Trinidad and Tobago.
Scott and Nikki

Forteleza, Brazil to Cayenne, French Guyana…..Day 5

July 13th, 2013 – Time -3 on GMT

We got the current back yesterday and it really showed in the days run of 190 miles. All but 2 1/2 motoring!
We did put the spinnaker up for a few hours, but the heading was really bad and the speed just okay. Hence, back to the iron genoa\’s.

Despite the short break yesterday, this is effectively the longest motor ride ever for Beach House. I\’m not afraid to motor when the sailing conditions are not happening, so off we\’ve been. It\’s been very comfortable and after all. WE ARE IN THE ITCZ. The two boats behind us, \”This Side Up\” and \”OZ\” are going to hit this area with much better winds and most likely be able to sail it most of the way through. Ah, the luck of the draw.

The magic latitude seems to be between 6 – 8 degrees North. Once there, the North East Trade Winds will be re-established and we\’ll be off sailing the rest of the way to Tobago. That will happen essentially as we leave French Guyana.

Last night we passed the local fishing fleet. I thought we were back in Indonesia. Really junkie looking, improperly lit 70-80 footers. We could pick them up on radar, so no worries on dodging them which indeed Nikki had to do on her watch.

This morning, we\’ve seen two Super Tankers and that\’s it. It\’s squall-ier now, but still little rain and less wind. We have seen some interesting lightening shows the last two nights. Fortunately, none close!

Short one for today as there isn\’t much to report. 130 miles to go, Cayenne is French and the navigational aids therefore will be superb. A very well lit big ship channel is there and I think we\’ll be able to go in after dark. Next blog and position report will hopefully be \”at anchor\”.
KIT,
Scott and Stargazer Nik

Forteleza to Cayenne, French Guyana…..Day 4

July 12th, 2013 Time: -3 on GMT

Yesterday we just motored. The water has not turned Amazon green, but I suspect the south side of the \”fan\” was negating the nice current push we were getting.
Today, we\’re on the north side of the \”fan\” that is the Amazon\’s outflow and we\’re getting a great push. With very low RPM on the engines, we\’re maintaining 8++ knots.
We are also again on the underwater escarpment of South American continental shelf. The water goes from 10,000 feet (3000 meters) to only 600 feet (>200 meters) in a very short distance. Hence, the water stacks up against the underwater shelf and gives us this great push northward.

Last night we had very little rain, but did see lightening in the distance. I heard distant thunder only once.

Every 24 hours (which will be shortly), we change over our auto pilot hydraulic pumps and turn the engines off (usually one at a time) to do the engine checks.
I check the oil, coolant, transmission fluid, hoses, belts and fuel filters. This gives great piece of mind and yesterday all was well. Our new digital engine temperature and oil pressure gauges are a nice \”quick check\” which we can read out on any of the seven displays around the boat. I keep the idiot buzzers/lights ON with the engines as they would be a first alert if we lost oil pressure or had high coolant temperatures. Once every few weeks I also operate the seacocks that provide salt water to the heat exchanged cooling system to make sure they are operationa. As we\’re doing the motoring tango, I just thought I mention this for cruiser crowd who often ask me what my protocols are.

Yesterday was exercise day and we\’re getting fit again, yeah!

We\’ve 300 miles to go to Cayenne and hopefully we\’ll get some sailing in. In any event, we expect to be there on Sunday before mid day.

At least the conditions are nice and the ocean, it\’s moods, sunrises and sunsets – beautiful.
KIT,
Scott and Nikki

Forteleza to Cayenne…..Day 3

July 11th, 2013 (Northern & Western Hemisphere) Time: -3 on GMT

The Amazon Between our hulls?
We\’ve been motoring for the last 27 hours. NO WIND. The prediction says that in about 5-7 hours it is supposed to come up to 8-14 off our stern.
If so, we may be able to sail. The key feature however is the current. We seem to have lost it for the moment. I suspect that despite being 250 miles from the mouth of the Amazon River Delta, it is effecting us. First, the water isn\’t as clear as it was yesterday and the natural fanning movement of the water as it comes out of the delta would seemingly \”check\” the positive current. There\’s nothing to do about it and I\’ll get a clue if my guestimation is correct once we\’re on the north side of the delta. So will all apologies to the singer/songwriter, Paula Cole. I paraphrase her line. \”I feel like the Amazon is flowing between our hulls!\”
If you want to google the song. Beware, it\’s very racy – \”Feelin\’ Love\” by Paula Cole.

Yesterday on a technical note. We usually use what is called the Navigate Function on our auto pilot when motoring. It keeps us on an absolutely straight line.
We noticed yesterday that using this feature, we were overall staying in a straight line, but rhythmically making large \”S\” turns. We\’d turn 20 deg to port, then 20 deg to starboard of our intended course, weaving back and forth. At first, I thought this might be the mighty Amazon at work. It IS the largest river by volume in the world and produces just under 10% of the worlds fresh water. Therefore it\’s effect IS going to be felt far offshore. However, that wasn\’t it. I re-calibrated our electronic compass and voila, the \”S\” turns stopped. It\’s just another mystery of Marine Electronics. Nothing new!

I\’ll shut down each motor in the next few hours to do the full checks or oil, coolant, transmission fluid and the ubiquitous fuel filters. Despite having had the fuel polished in Richards Bay, the port tank has algae in it. It\’s all dead as we \”biocided\” it, but it will have to work through the systems filters to get rid of it. I\’ll most likely polish it again in Trinidad; just to be safe. \”Polishing\” for those of you who don\’t know is cleaning the fuel via multiple pass filtration. This is usually done by a company that has specialized equipment for the job.

It\’s exercise day and other than that, we\’re very glad for the air conditioned stateroom so we can sleep in cool dry comfort!

NOTE: I sent the position report out this morning and it came back with an error from Winlink. Hence, those of you on the list may have gotten it (per their note), but the website was most likely NOT updated? If someone could let me know, I\’d appreciate a short note to my sailmail address.

Day 3, 162 motoring miles. 468 miles to Cayenne.
Thanks,
KIT,
Scott and Stargazer Nik

Forteleza to Cayenne….Day 2

July 10th, 2013 (CROSSED THE EQUATOR LAST NIGHT) Time: -3 on GMT

This is the first time \”Beach House\” has been in the Northern Hemisphere since June of 2009 when Cindy and I went from Cocos Island, Costa Rica to the Galapagos.

Yesterday with did it with smoke and mirrors! The winds were at 10 knots in the early morning and we managed to sail for 20 hours in nothing!
The flat sea and beam winds allowed the big spinnaker to keep us moving with the aid of the current, we did a respectable 167 nm yesterday. We\’ve been motoring since
0400 this morning in absolutely flat seas. Welcome to the ITCZ and it\’s usual partner…no wind. Interestingly, we\’ve had almost no squalls in the last 24 hours.
The current was working well for us, but a wind shift took us too far away from the continental shelf and we lost it; hence motoring. Once we headed back on course with the engines, we\’ve picked the current up again, but alas, less wind.

Though my fifth crossing, the highlight of yesterday was Nikki\’s first crossing of the equator. She went from \”Polywog\” to \”Shellback\”. Duly all ceremonies were performed including the offering to King Neptune. This is an ancient sailor\’s rite of passage and for more details, \”google it\”. Look up something like \”Crossing the equator by sea rituals\”…:-) AND, let me know what it says!

We finally saw one tanker this morning which surprises me as I would think we\’d see lots of coastal traffic. There has been only the one ship.
Of note, we are essentially due east of the entrance to the Amazon River delta. We were told if we get too close, the water turns opaque and green.
No sign of that yet, but we are still 380 miles away. Our closest point of approach will be about 170 miles away in a day or so.

Yesterday did not seem particularly hot despite the 88 deg F temperatures and 70% humidity. It\’s already hotter today. After all, we ARE on the Equator.

More tomorrow,
KIT,
Captain Scott and \”Shell Back\” Nikki

Forteleza Goodbye…\”Hot\” Cayenne on the menu!…..

July 8-9th, 2013, (Western Hemisphere) Time: -3 on GMT

The Marina Park Hotel where our Marina was, hosted a \”SAMBA BRAZIL\” event last Saturday night. Nikki and I got tickets and joined the 30,000 screaming fans.
Amazingly, the \”Samba\” culture here is very alive with the youth of Brazil. It has a Justin Beiber twist to it of course, but they know all the words, the artists and go wild for it. The age range was mostly 12-25 with some parents in attendance with the young kids. We had a good time and met a young guy who is an English teacher who explained it all to us.

Sunday was really hot and mostly a recovery day for us. We really hadn\’t taken a day off since leaving Cape Town and just needed to be human beings rather than human doings…

Forteleza is a mixed bag. Hundreds of high rises, some new, but mostly quite old, lots of poor, very crowded, but in it\’s own charming way; I\’m glad we made the stop.
The big deal for us was good markets and fuel! We think our propane will hold out to Trinidad, but I\’ll check if available at our next stop in French Guyana.

We left the Marina at 9 am yesterday and of course as we\’d Med Moored, lots of stuff to put away. The winds were light from the ESE at first, but steadily picked up.
In fact, just before dark, we took in a reef and put out the staysail instead of the genoa. The really big key to this route is the Guyana Current – WOW.

Where friends Dave and Kathie of \”Sunflower\” seemed to send us endless emails about the lack of a good current or worse, a counter current, this coast is like the SE Coast of Africa. It\’s an express train! We are only on occasion moving 5 knots \”through the water\”, but \”over the ground (bottom)\” we\’re going 7.5-9 knots! AND, in the right direction, this current lasts all the way to Trinidad! Winds currently are 10 knots from the east, but we\’re going 8-9 knots. That\’s terrific. The other nice thing is that as the winds are calm the sea is very calm with a less than one meter swell behind us.

The ITCZ, (inter tropical convergence zone) however is just being entered by us and extends to about the north side of French Guyana. So, all bets are off until we get to the North East Trades from Surinam to the north. We spoke with \”OZ\” and \”Jongilanga\” on the radio today. John on Jongilanga is 215 miles north of us and OZ is about 300 miles ESE of us. They both have light winds and not as much current. I suggested they get closer to shore for better winds and of course…the current ride.

Speaking of weather, we note that Tropical Storm \”Chantal\” is just about to the Caribbean, we hope it turns north and misses Grenada. Also, another as yet un-named system is developing West of the Cape Verde Islands and looks to be a humdinger as well. Being close to the coast and of course not in the hurricane belt; the ITCZ is actually acting as a block for us of the nasty stuff up north. At least so far, the coastal route seems the way to go. We\’ll be 40-100 miles off the Amazon delta when we pass both the Para and Amazon Rivers. I\’ll go into why I\’m not comfortable stopping in Belam, Brazil in tomorrow\’s blog.

Due to the current, we did 178 nm in 21.5 hours, whoopee!

For the moment, we\’re going fast, flat, calm and happy. IT IS HOT out here now as we approach the equator. The crew appreciates the air conditioning when the generator or engines are on in the sleeping cabin.

We\’ll cross the equator in about 150 miles and should have the entire Nikki goes from \”polywog\” to \”shellback\” story…. And with that teaser, we\’ll write more tomorrow.

Feel free to drop either of us a note at the sailmail or land addresses.
KIT,
Scott and Soon to cross the Equator Nik!