Author: kerrizane

Fernando de Noronha and Departure…..

June 30th, 2013 (Western Hemisphere) Time: -2 on GMT

When we first arrived here on Friday night, all was calm. Saturday however was a holiday here and the party boats came out in force.
The music was bizarrely loud and the stereo speakers were blow out years ago. Frankly, I have no idea how the tourists could tolerate it as at 100 yards, I couldn\’t.
Another interesting thing. This is the first place I\’ve ever been that when you wave to other boats passing close by, they don\’t wave back. Quite strange actually.
Fortunately, the music mayhem only lasted a few hours and all of the boats ran off to Golphino (Dolphin in Portugese) Bay to show the tourists the Spinner Dolphins this island is famous for.

The topography is stunning, the infrastructure, not so much. At the next internet opportunity, I\’ll post some photos retro to this blog and let you all know.

We did go ashore yesterday and found the party atmosphere wasn\’t too our taste. Something about men over 35 in Bikini speedos and women who are way overweight in string bikini\’s didn\’t quite appeal…:-) Welcome to Brazil! The tourists at this time of year are predominantly from South America. There were 40 Police in force to watch the drunken behavior.

Today, (Sunday), things were MUCH quieter and we took a dinghy tour along the north side of the island. There are some lovely beaches, but alas, I think the hotels have seen better days. We went swimming with some Spinner Dolphins 50 yards from the boat, using the dinghy and a local paddle boarder came over to tell us it\’s \”not allowed\” to swim with the dolphins. When the Dolphin Police show up, I know it\’s time to go. This same syndrome exists in Niue and Tonga and it\’s frankly unpleasant. What they really mean is, \”you can\’t swim with the Dolphins unless you pay for a boat ride with us\”. Before his arrival, Nikki had some nice opportunities to swim quite close to the Dolphins who seemed to enjoy the experience as well. We noticed lots of the tour boats having their clients swim with the Dolphins as well.

According to the charts, you may not anchor anywhere on the island except where we are in San Antonio Bay. Of course…the local tour boats ignore the rule. So much for Eco Tourism in the world today as we know it. This is actually quite common; it\’s about money and turf; a shame.

The island is also ridiculously expensive. Think prices in Hawaii! So, we were a bit disappointed in the people, food, prices and infrastructure, but again, the island itself is stunning. It reminds me a bit of Ua Pou\’s spires in the Marquesas, the foot print of a Yasawa in Fiji and the general feel of Kelefisia in Tonga.

A mixed review, but I\’m glad we stopped. We\’ll be off tomorrow morning to Forteleza, Brazil on the main land. This will be my first ever stop on the continent of South America. It\’s a funny thing that I\’ve been to three South American countries and never yet set foot on the continent itself. Cindy and I went to the Galapagos (Equador), flew to Easter Island (Chile)from French Polynesia and now I\’ve sailed all the way around to the East coast here in Fernando de Noronha (Brazil).

S/V \”This Side Up\” is ahead of us and in radio contact so we hope to get a full report on the Marina in Forteleza. We here the docks are horrible, we must Med Moor (which I hate to do), it\’s expensive (but negotiable) and if we don\’t stay in the Marina, expect problems with locals coming out to steal things off the boat. The shopping is supposed to be quite good. So it will be food, fuel and most likely a short stay as we then cross the equator and head toward the Amazon!

We\’ll be departing around 9 a.m. local time tomorrow, July 1st.

KIT,
Scott and Nikki

Ascension Island to Fernando de Noronha, Braill…..Day 6

June 27th, written the morning of June 28th, 2013 (Western Hemisphere) Time: -1 on GMT

Yesterday was a bit frustrating. The squalls were all around and for the most part they would take the wind away.
The short bursts would get us to put up the spinnaker and then a huge shift would have us heading toward anywhere but where we wanted to go.
So we only sailed about 6 hours yesterday and motored the rest. As soon as Nikki\’s up, we\’ll again set sail as the NEasterly has kicked in and we\’ll
be able to reach across it (we hope) over the last day of this trip.

We did 177 nm yesterday and we\’ve 135 to go. Despite the possible frustration of wind and shifts, we should be in by tomorrow morning.

Other than the rain squalls, clouds and wind shifts, not much to report. That is not necessarily a bad thing…:-)

Nikki uses her IPAD nightly and explores the stars with her star program; she enjoys the night sky.

KIT,
Scott and Nikki

Ascension Island to Fernando de Noronha Island, Brazil…..Day 5

June 26th, written the morning of June 27th, 2013 (Western Hemisphere) Time: -1 on GMT

We ran with the spinnaker on starboard tack all day yesterday. This was a pretty neat feat as we really didn\’t seem to have enough wind to
do so. We were making speeds in the 7-9 knot range with only 12 knots of wind on a tight beam reach. Miss Piggy rocks!
We do seem to have a nice current of up to occasionally 1.5 knots helping. It sure beats the alternative.

So far, we\’ve been escaping the squalls; that is until this morning. Between 4-6 a.m. we had three and there was just no avoiding them. The problem is that they are
\”Wind Thieves and Rain Makers\”. Sometimes squalls really give a boost to the wind, indeed, more than we want. This area at this time seems to do just the opposite.
Of course when they come, the direction changes and it can be a bit of a Chinese Fire Drill while adjusting course and sails.

Two things happened yesterday that we\’re really cool. First, on the sailing side, we had a great spinnaker run AND we figured out (mostly) how to get our auto pilot to act like a wind vane. This means that instead of sailing a straight line, the boat actually will go left and right to keep the sails adjusted to the wind. Despite the \”straight line\” sounding better idea, this can cause the crew to have to make frequent sail adjustments. With the \”wind mode\”, it just adjusts the boat to keep the sails trimmed. We had to alter some settings like \”wind shift\” was too tight and the damping on the wind sensitivity was too quick. Once we got that tweaked, it sailed in light air for hours without our touching much.

The next thing was a wonder of nature. Last night when I came on watch at midnight, I noticed phosphorescence in the wake of our twin hulls. On closer inspection, I realized these were MILLIONS (no exaggeration) of jelly fish. Between 6 inches and 24 inches in diameter. The bioluminescence of plankton \”inside\” their clear bodies looked like the ocean was full of stars. This went on for 3 hours and I don\’t know how long it was going on before I noticed it! Imagine, we moved over 24 miles in that period of time and it was non stop. We can only guess how wide to our left and right this phenomenon reached. We could only see about 50 feet to each side and it was truly an unforgettable sight. It reminded me of many of the reasons I began this voyage with Cindy. She would have loved it. Nikki was enthralled and watched for long periods of time. It was so thick, I was concerned the water maker or the generator might have sucked some up as we\’ve had tiny krill clog our strainers before. The good news was, upon inspection, all was clear.

We\’ve been motoring for about two hours, but the squalls are clearing and our slight wind seems to be returning. Hopefully we\’ll be sailing within the hour.

REMEMBER, NIKKI\’S SHORE SIDE EMAIL IS NOT FORWARDING TO THE BOAT BECAUSE OF A TECHNICAL GLITCH. SO IF YOU WANT TO EMAIL HER, DO SO DIRECTLY TO THE BOAT.
AND YES SANDRA, SHE DID GET YOUR MAIL AND WILL WRITE SOON…:-)
KIT,
Scott and Phosphoresent Nik

Ascension to Fernando de Noronha Island (Brazil)…..Day 4

June 26th, written the morning of June 27th, 2013 (Western Hemisphere) Time: -1 on GMT

A most interesting day. It started with just enough wind not to have me put up the spinnaker and lasted that way till around 2 p.m. local time.
Then the winds started to drop into the mid teens and we decided to \”pop chute\”… Right after we did this, our first (and so far), only rain squall came by.
Beach House got a nice freshwater bath and the seas started to flatten out in the rain. We were honking along at 9 knots on a beam/broad reach on starboard tack.

Right after the rain, the wind got really light and we thought we might even have to motor! We gave it the \”10 minute rule\” (that is, wait 10 minutes to see what happens before making any changes), the wind came back and we\’ve been off to the races ever since. Yesterday, I figured out that we didn\’t have enough dagger board in the water to assist the steering to track easily. The dagger boards are our version of a keel without weight. Mostly, we use them up wind, but they greatly help in proving a \”foil\” surface for the rudders to work against in steering. We\’ve been sailing a pretty steady course ever since. Prior to that, Nikki and I had to make course corrections way too often with the auto pilot and it wasn\’t very restful and hard on the gear (hydraulic auto pilot pumps) as well.

First thing yesterday, we went to make coffee and discovered the stove\’s \”safety switch\” which detects propane leaks was not working. We had this happen last season and I had a voltage converter (24-12 volts) to fix it in spares. No such spare now and it again WAS the culprit as determined by our using a Volt/Ohm Meter.
Since the system is intrinsically 12 volt to start with, Nikki and I found an appropriate open breaker at the panel and just moved it. Voila, works like magic!

No ships last night, but what a night. Flat water, wind on the beam (at only 10-14 knots), the current behind us and we\’ve really been having \”that sail\” everyone sees in Cruising World Magazine on the cover every month….. It was very humid just before yesterdays rain squall but despite the outside temperature being 81 deg F (28 deg C), and the humidity at 94%!, it\’s actually pretty comfortable. We\’ll see around noon however.

We just received an email from old friends Jim and Pat on s/v \”Wetnose\” out of Marina del Rey, California. They just arrived at Fakarava Atoll in the Tuamotus after a 2600 mile passage from New Zealand skirting the Southern Ocean. A tough sail (they hove too for 3 days in a 50 knot gale), but they have arrived in paradise.

Fakarava was an absolute high light for me and Cindy. Diving there with the huge schools of Gray Reef Sharks was amazing and if you\’ve never seen it, go into the original website at my home page on the bottom left. Inside, go to the videos and look for the 3 minute or so video to music, \”The Sharks of Fakarava\”. It was a fabulous place and I wish we\’d spent many more days there.

We ended up having a good days run of 175 nm due to running the spinnaker for the last 14 hours and we\’re still at it. \”Jongilanga\” is about 220 miles behind us. Hard to believe as he left 3 hours before us! \”This Side Up\” is about 265 miles ahead of us, we\’re closing, but won\’t catch him and \”OZ\”, en route from St. Helena is about 900 miles back. We\’re having good success on our mini/daily radio net on 8137 USB. We share our positions, boat speed and current and past 24 hour weather conditions.

John on \”Jongilanga\” and Mike on \”This Side Up\” have no ability to get weather updates, so I give them too them on our net. I\’ll help Steve on \”OZ\” a bit as he\’s having radio to shore side connection issues. He\’s in between the two sailmail stations he can connect to via HF Radio. I get lazy and use the Satelite Telephone for weather a great deal as the files can be a bit big.

No more Flying Fish stories, but we are seeing lots of them. We\’ve been very fortunate on missing the squally areas so far and are continuing north of the Rhumb Line to try and avoid more. The winds should actually start to go ENE then NE before we reach Fernando due to a very weak low pressure system that will form to our south and east. 470 miles to go and we should arrive \”some time Saturday\” if all remains as it has been. A very pleasant 175 nm day, go Miss Piggy go!

KIT,
Scott and Nikki