Category: 2013 June Blog

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 (Brazil)…..Day 6.7

June 28th, written from the anchorage on June 29th, 2013 (Western Hemisphere) Time: -2 on GMT

Yesterday morning, we set the full main and genoa on a port tack beam/broad reach. The wind predictions were from the NE, but a few hours later, the rains
came constantly all day and the winds went to the NW!!! That made us very close hauled, but laying the island. Eventually, the winds actually went WEST and we had to
motor through those areas. The swell was from three directions (shades of the Indian Ocean), but we knew it would be a short lived and local phenomenon.

We approached the island around mid night and fortunately, the skies we\’re clearing, the wind down to 3 knots and the swell quite comfortable.

This island is a National Marine Park of Brazil and as such, there is only one place on the island we\’re allowed to anchor. San Antonio Bay is actually a pretty little spot and reminds me of a Yasawa Island in shape and size like we found in Fiji as well as the spires of Ua Pou in the Marquesas. Add a little Kelefesia from Tonga and you have….Fernando de Noronha.

\”This Side Up\” arrived the day before we did and did some engine and traveler repairs. Despite a light air prediction, they headed out for Forteleza this morning which should be a three day, two night sail. We\’re anxious to hear about their experience as the marina there has \”mixed reviews\” to say the least.

It is Saturday here and we hope what we\’ve found is the exception rather than the rule. There are 15 party boats out. Some playing music that is so bad and so loud a 13 year old would cringe. The speaker system sounds like something out of the 1930\’s and I have no idea how the tourists aboard can tolerate it. It is giving me a pounding headache and I\’m 100 yards away. No one aboard could possibly carry on a conversation. We shall see…hopefully, it\’s a Saturday affair.

We\’ve also noted that fireworks, even in the middle of the day are shot off near their small marina. Again, we have no idea why? It\’s not a visual delight and the noise is….well, just that – noise.

The reputation of this island is \”Eco Tourism\” at it\’s finest and we can certainly see why that should be. There are apparently some world class white sand beaches here and at Isla Rata, one of the supposed world\’s finest surfing spots. I doubt there would ever be a crowd at the break, that\’s for sure. This entire island is only 5 1/2 miles long and at most 2 miles wide. The water is 80 deg F (27 deg C) and the air is 87 deg F (29 deg C). We\’re only 200 miles south of the Equator. We\’ll cross the Equator after we leave Forteleza.

We got a pretty good nights sleep and we\’ll try and go ashore later this afternoon.
Don\’t be strangers and drop us a note!
More from Fernando as we discover…
Final Stats: 1237 miles sailed on a Rhumb Line of 1100 miles. We averaged 7.75 knots for the sailed mileage. The trip took 6 days 14 hours. And remember, \”Your mileage may vary\”….:-)
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

Ascension Island to Ferndando de Norohna (Brazil)……Day 3

June 24th, written the morning of June 25th, 2013 (Western Hemisphere) Time: GMT

Yesterday the winds were fairly strong in the morning and our speed was good so we passed on putting up the spinnaker. It was an uneventful day until around 11 am a ship tripped off our AIS (Automatic Identification System). It was the \”VTR Dragon\”, a 550 foot cargo vessel en route to Rio de Janeiro.

At six miles we were effectively on a collision course and he didn\’t seem to notice us. I hailed him on the radio, he looked at his AIS and radar and said he would take our stern. He passed about a mile behind us and I still think it\’s amazing how low the odds are that two vessels in the middle of nowhere on a right angle course could be that close! We like our AIS and Radar and other navigation goodies aboard!

Last night, for the second night in a row, we saw one ship. This one was about six miles astern and most likely a large commercial fishing vessel. The previous nights was quite strange. It was about 400++ feet and it\’s decks completely lit up. It was not moving, did not display an AIS signal. It had \”RAM\” lights (restricted in ability to manuever) which actually gave it the right of way over us. He was about two miles away and I tracked him on radar to make sure he wasn\’t closing.

We passed uneventfully, but again, the middle of nowhere and two vessels are pretty darn close. I assume he may have been a survey vessel given the \”RAM\” lights and his lack of movement. He did not appear to be fishing. With the full moon we\’ve had the last few nights, the horizon has been visible for at least six miles all around us.

Another Fish Story…..:-)
So last night at 5:30 in the morning, I\’m up in the saloon reading a book on watch and I hear Nikki scream. I quickly run down into her cabin and she\’s mutter something incoherently. I think she\’s having a bad dream. Finally she answers me and tells me \”Flying Fish\”! I turn on the light and indeed, a flying fish about 10 inches long has managed to \”fly\” right through the cabin ceiling hatch onto the bed. First of all, it\’s kicking all over the place shedding scales everywhere and second of all they are the WORST smelling fish imaginable. As many of you know, I don\’t eat fish and one of the primary reasons is I CAN\’T STAND THE SMELL. I quickly got a paper towel, picked the beast up and tossed it back over the side out the ceiling hatch. Most of them die on deck and are found in the morning. This one lucked out and got a reprieve. Of course the stench required the bedding to be immediately put in the laundry and it\’s now hanging up to dry.

My previous best flying fish story was that both Cindy and I were simultaneously flown into at night while at the helm. A sudden whack in the face followed by a flaying object on the cockpit sole let you know what happened, but the scaly stench comes off on you right away. A quick shower is often the solution. Thank goodness we\’ve plenty of hot water. So the brave \”fish girl\” from Norfolk had to be saved by the Captain. It\’s good for my ego anyway…:-)

We\’ve 632 miles to go, a 176 nm day and we may or may not put up the spinnaker. We\’ll be half way in about 10 hours and looking forward to the luxury/eco island. I have visions of \”Fantasy Island\”…We shall see.

KIT,
Scott and Fishy Nikki

Ascension Island to Fernando de Noronha……Day 2

June 23rd, written the morning of the 24th, 2013 (Western Hemisphere) Time: Staying with GMT for now

We\’d had a lovely night and decided if the winds were below 20 knots, we\’d run the spinnaker during the day. First we jibed and it seemed the wrong thing to do so
we jibed back and put up the big kite. It\’s actually a small spinnaker for a boat this size, but it does really give us some speed.

We flew along doing 7.5-9.5 knots most of the day and as the winds built around 5:30 pm, we decided to take it down. After that, we jibed on to starboard tack and we\’ve been that way since yesterday afternoon. Full main and genoa for the night, easy sailing, lovely conditions.

We did 170 miles on day two and I cannot remember a much easier sail. The one thing that was a bit interesting was that we did have a noticable wind shift that undulated back and forth from E to ESE for several hours in a row. It would shift every 10-15 minutes and we had to compensate our course with the auto pilot. That\’s no big deal!

On my first night watch last night, we passed within 2 miles of a big ship. It was all lit up and didn\’t appear to be moving. He did not have AIS nor his radar on.
Don\’t know what to make of it, but it was the first ship we\’ve seen since night two leaving the African coast. The vessel also had \”restricted in ability to maneuver\” lighting on? Again…who knows?

Yesterday, we were able to get all of our four boat mini fleet on the HF radio at 1445 UTC. \”This Side Up\” was 380 miles ahead of us, \”Jongilanga\” – 70 miles behind and \”OZ\” about 850 miles behind us as they just left St. Helena en route to Fernando. They\’ll be skipping Ascension.

Not much more to report, 797 miles to go, we hope to be there on Saturday sometime…

REMEMBER SHOULD YOU WISH TO WRITE NIKKI DO SO ON THE DIRECT BOAT EMAIL (FOUND IN YESTERDAYS BLOG AND POSITION REPORT). Her GMAIL is not forwarding to the boat.
KIT,
Scott and Nikki

Ascension to Fernando de Noronha Island (Brazil)…..Day 1

June 22nd to the morning of the 23rd, 2013 (Western Hemisphere) Time: Still using GMT

We got a bit of a late start yesterday morning. The boat was completely ready to go, but the previous three days on the anchor was anything but calming.
It was tough to get a good night\’s sleep and we waited the extra day to get good rest. Nikki must be a sailor as she was adamant about not leaving on a Friday too!
And as you may know, sailor\’s are superstitious. Murphy was a sailor and HE was an optimist.

John on \”Jongilanga\” left two and half hours ahead of us, we quickly caught and passed him by noon. John really sails quite under canvassed. It makes his passages very long, but he feels he gets better rest trying to never exceed 5 knots. I have a different philosophy!…

A good thing was that we got John\’s HF radio going and I think he will be able to at least hear if not transmit to our mini group out here. We have Steve and Pat on s/v \”OZ\” who left St. Helena yesterday and are heading straight toward Fernando as we are. They are 800 miles behind us. \”Jongilanga\” is too heading toward Fernando and s/v \”This Side Up\” (Mike and three crew) are heading directly for Forteleza, Brazil which will most likely be our next stop and 300 miles or so west of Fernando.

The first days sail was very comfortable, the seas haven\’t been too big, the winds steady between 15-22 knots. We\’re running as deep as we can as the wind is directly parellal to the course; so again we\’ll be jibing back and forth. We\’ve been on the port jibe since we left and we\’ll most likely jibe to the north side of the rhumb line within the next 24 hours. So far, we\’re actually SOUTH of Ascension, though quite a bit west.

The first 21.5 hours, we\’ve done 153 nm That\’s pretty good and would have projected out to around 170 nm day. No stress too! I did a \”short day\” report because it\’s more convienent for me to do them at 8 a.m. local time. Tomorrow\’s will be a full 24 hour run.

We\’re keeping two radio nets (still based in South Africa) for as long as we can and will keep our mini net going as long as possible too.
Soon, we should start hearing the \”BIG\” nets in the North Atlantic and Caribbean which will have lots of boats, net controls, relay stations and check in\’s.
The Maritime Mobile Service Net on 14300 USB (1600 UTC) for all you \”Hams\” is one of the real biggies around the world.

PLEASE NOTE: NIKKI\’S EMAIL IS NOT FORWARDING TO THE BOAT (SHORE SIDE GLITCH). YOU CAN EMAIL HER DIRECTLY AT: Wdb5638@sailmail.com
PLEASE: NO ATTACHMENTS, PHOTOS, POSTS OR GROUPS. If you CC: attachments, they will be deleted by sailmail but go to her GMAIL account.

So far, so good!
KIT,
Scott and Nikki

Ascension Island – Departing on June 22nd…..

June 21st, 2013 (Western Hemisphere) Time: GMT

We\’ve been at Ascension Island for six days now. The small Capital of Georgetown is a sleepy little vista with lots of history. The British based ships out of here to watch for \”Black Birder\’s\” (slave ships) in the 1800\’s. There are many, who infected with Yellow Fever, sadly never left. Today, Ascension\’s main industry is the US and British Military along with being a major relay station for the BBC. The Air Base was used as a major staging area in the Falkland Islands War in the early 1980\’s. The US presence here seems (who really knows!?) to be about monitoring the 30 satellite GPS constellation that we all now know so well. Apparently, it\’s monitored from six sites around the world and this is one of them. It is interesting that the command here is called, \”45th US Space Command\”. How that should be taken, I am again uncertain.

It seems there has been a great deal of activity lately as this airfield will be used as an emergency/diversion field for President Obama on his trip in a week or two to South Africa on Air Force One. Lots of extra infrastructure including jet fuel has been delivered, \”just in case\”. The former need of this airfield from a US stand point of view was as an alternative landing site for the Space Shuttle. Fortunately, it was never needed, but the runway is very long.

The US Air Force personnel here told us that their standard billet is only 3 weeks. There are no married couples and I don\’t really think this is a highly requested location for most service personnel.

We did a drive of the island by ourselves one day and a formal half day tour the next with John from s/v \”Jongilanga\”. We did see the old NASA site which is now for all effective purposes gone. There is one building left and it is in complete disrepair. Ariane,(The European Space Agency Program) has a very efficient – compact one man telemetry station here for their launches out of French Guyana. They now launch more commercial satellites than anyone else on Earth and use a location near the equator to get the \”sling shot\” effect. This reduces fuel consumption by around 17% we\’re told as it\’s the \”fat\” part of the Earth which moves about our axis faster than the poles and sling shots the orbiter more efficiently.

Large guns from HMS Hood\’s last re-fit before WW2 are here as well. These guns were removed to have new anti-aircraft ones installed just prior to the war. HMS Hood was unfortunately most famous for being completely obliterated by the famous German Battleship, \”Bismark\”. The guns here were fired once \”in anger\” during WW2 at a German U Boat which was not hit, but had the good common sense to leave.

This IS the trickiest and hence potentially most dangerous dinghy landing I\’ve seen in 6 years of cruising. The first three days we were here it was pretty mellow, but the last two days we\’ve had three meter swells and it\’s down right scary getting ashore at the wharf. It\’s also made the anchorage quite less comfortable than when we first arrived. About a month ago, a dinghy off one of the cruising boats flipped over at the wharf, all hands apparently safe however. One day was so bad, I swam out to the dinghy and quickly made three dashes in between the sets of waves to pick up all ashore. I won\’t go through the technique in this blog, but if any boaters want information on \”how to land your dinghy\” at Ascension Island…email me.

The BBC has the largest antenna farm I\’ve ever seen here. It\’s enormous and covers in total at least a square mile. Their TV and Radio Broadcasts to Africa are re-transmitted from here and they have quite a power grid with wind and solar as well as generators to keep it all going.

The island itself is only 1 1/2 million years old as where St. Helena is about 20 million years old. It\’s much more volcanic in appearance and around 1/3rd the size of St. Helena. The last eruption was estimated to be around 800 years ago.

The Green Sea Turtles are the big eco-tourism event here. Every sand beach on the island is a Turtle hatchery. Unfortunately, we\’re here at the end of the season.
Two months ago we were told that 400-600 (250-500 pound) 125-300 kg females were coming ashore just on the beach where we are anchored. Now there are at most 5-7 a night. Still, thousands of baby turtles make the mad dash every night after sundown. We see them off our stern with the underwater lights. This night time dash reduces their predation by Frigate Birds (an endemic species exists here) and the voracious Trigger Fish. The Triggers sleep at night and give the little guys a chance. We also saw a Sooty Tern nesting site yesterday where they estimated there are about 20,000 mating pairs.

Long Beach, (the beach we\’re anchored at here in Clarence Bay), is the single largest Green Sea Turtle site apparently in the entire world. As such, their are lots of Tiger Sharks here in the season, but the locals say they don\’t come in close. Oh yeah?…. The beach is very steep and the large swells the last two days are refracting heavily off the beach which does not make the anchorage a particularly nice one. When calmer, it was lovely.

We\’ll be leaving on Saturday morning. We\’re all checked out and just resting and tidying up before the expected 8 day passage to Fernando de Noronha Island (Brazil).
Fernando is located just off the \”beak\” of South America that sticks out into the Atlantic Ocean. We hear it\’s a bit pricey, but very beautiful and worth the stop. It\’s a major location for sighting large schools of Spinner Dolphins which never disappoint and are there in large numbers. I did indeed get a tourist visa for Brazil in Cape Town, as Nikki has a British Passport, she does not need one.

I\’ll try and post some photos inside this blog when I next get internet – maybe in Brazil. If I retro-post them, I\’ll let you all know!
Next post we should be \”at sea\” en route to Fernando.

KIT,
Scott and Nikki

Arrival and First Day at Ascension Island……

To see the Photo Gallery associated with this post, click:   06-2013  Ascension Island – UK (Mid Atlantic) Photo Gallery

June 14th-15th, 2013 (Western Hemisphere) Time: GMT

We arrived at 4:30 pm on Friday the 14th. I really wanted to be here before dark (which we were) because of the published hazard of a floating pipe line to transfer jet fuel from cargo ships to on land storage tanks. GOOD THING too! We were advised by Ascension Island radio that fuel off loading operations were in progress and we did not see the pipeline (which is only 6 inches above the water), till we were 100 feet from it. There was a spotter boat, but he was slow on the warning and I\’m not sure if he\’s there during night time operations. It off loads 7 million liters of jet fuel per ship! We would not want to breach that pipeline.

There is a major US Air Force base here as well as a large British base. NASA used to be here, but has pulled out as the shuttle program is over and due to budget constraints.

We were able to check in on Saturday (which was really good), but had to do so before noon which we did. A MAJOR bonus for Nikki was finding Walker\’s Smoky Bacon Crisps! We also found some Easy-Yo yoghurt mix and stocked up on some long life milk. The main cargo ship comes on Monday and we hope to get eggs, fresh fruit and vegetables when it arrives.

We will do the island tour, hire a car for a trip to Green Mountain National Park and do a tour of \”Long Beach\” which is right in front of the boat. This is the largest Green Sea Turtle nursery in the world and the conservation group here does tours every night at 9 p.m.
We turned on the underwater lights tonight while running the generator and lots of baby green sea turtles showed up. We\’re glad that lots are making it to sea.
We hope to have the experience of the tour on Monday or Tuesday night. I\’ll try and post a photo of the baby turtles Nikki kept scooping out of the water. There are lots!

We did figure out the photo posting issue and should have the St. Helena photos up on the blog (of the day we left) tomorrow when we get back on the internet.

There are two other boats here. One a delivery of a Moorings Power Cat to Ft. Lauderdale and the other our friend John (single handing) off \”Jongilanga\”. Jongilana (for Dave and Kathie) ironically means \”Sunflower\” in Xhosa. Xhosa is the second most common language in South Africa and is the native tongue of Nelson (Mandiba) Mandella.

So, that\’s our tale from arrival to Ascension. Hopefully some photos from here and details of our touring.
P.S. Nikki got all excited as we\’re now seeing the \”Big Dipper\” constellation. This is the first time I\’ve seen it (while sailing) in almost three years.
KIT,
Scott and Nikki the turtle catch-tress….