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Sitting in our living room
poring over Jimmy Cornell’s World Cruising Routes, it was the
easiest thing in the world for my wife Christina and I to plan
our family’s two year cruising itinerary. For starters, we
would cruise the East Coast easing into the lifestyle and
checking out the boat, never too far from a West Marine or God
forbid, a travel lift. Then we would breeze down to the islands
with the Caribbean 1500 from the Chesapeake to Tortola. After
cruising the islands for the season we would make our way to the
Bahamas and then, we agreed casually, we’ll sail off for a
couple of years in Europe. Easy squeezy Portugeesy.
One little detail that
threatened to pop our balloon of enthusiasm was the 3500 mile
voyage across the Atlantic. To say that as the trip got closer
it started to loom large and scary in the back (and front) of
our minds would be an understatement Could we pull this one
off? And with the kids? How would we keep them entertained?
Safe? Perhaps we should consider closer cruising grounds like
South America. Maybe we should ship the boat over or hire a
professional crew and just fly the kids over to Europe.
We discovered that dividing
the trip into smaller, more manageable segments was a good way
to ease our anxiety. We divvied it up into 3 legs; Bahamas to
Bermuda at 750 miles, then to the Azores at 1800 miles and
finally to the Northwest Atlantic Coast of Spain at about 1000
miles. Breaking it down into separate passages helped but
they were still pretty hefty legs for us. We had a 1250 mile
passage to Tortola under our belts but all three of these legs
would be in the open ocean and not in the company of 50 other
boats as was the Caribbean 1500.
It’s All About the Window
Here’s an obvious but relevant
piece of advice that I picked up from a book somewhere. If you
choose a good weather window, you will in all likelihood have a
good voyage. It is simple but sage advice. We used Chris
Parker’s Caribbean weather service as well as Ocens Weathernet
to put together the complete weather picture for our voyage.
Using Chris Parker’s advice, we chose our windows for departure
from both the Bahamas and Bermuda. During the passages, we
could download weather files from Ocens Weathernet on our
Globalstar sat phone or via SSB email. The GRIB files are
small, easy to use, and eerily accurate. We used the 7 day wind
and pressure forecast to make course changes during the passage
to avoid nasty weather and take advantage of fair winds.
One Knot Gusting to Three
We left Marsh Harbor, Bahamas
for Bermuda facing a forecast of very light winds. We would
have waited for some decent wind if it wasn’t for the self
imposed deadline of awaiting plane tickets. True to the
forecast, for a 5 day trip we ended up motoring for about 4
days. The really sad part is that Zia will sail much faster
than she will motor so the engine misery made for an even longer
trip. But, we had to make our flights out of Bermuda or risk
losing the tickets. Another piece of sage advice came to mind,
deadlines often cause grief. One of the few benefits of
motoring is that standing a watch is simple (if boring). For
crew on this leg, we brought along a nonsailing friend, Larson
Thune. Since we were under power most of the way, he had no
problem standing a watch. All that had to be done was to keep a
sharp lookout and monitor the engine and of course, the fishing
lines. Fish turned out to be a four letter word on this leg.
We lost lots of lures and did not boat a single fish.
It’s a Big Ocean But a
Small World
Around dusk, as we were
sailing along about 100 miles west of Bermuda, we were slowly
overtaken by a glistening 200 foot Superyacht named Phoenix. As
we were debating on how to call them on the VHF, the mate hailed
the “eastbound sailing catamaran” in a cultured British accent.
We had a long and friendly chat with the professional charter
crew right there in the middle of the Atlantic. They had lots
of questions for us, particularly after they discovered that we
had two kids on board. We mentioned that we had just had an end
of the school year celebration and told them about our friends
who hurled their school books over the side after their school
year was done (wish we had done that). Somehow in the course of
the conversation, we determined that we had mutual friends from
Mallorca, Spain. We swapped email addresses and then ended up
meeting the crew just before they left Bermuda for Gibraltar.
The contacts that we made that evening are already standing us
well here in Spain and we are looking forward to hooking up with
them in Mallorca later this summer.
Bermuda was a beautiful albeit
expensive island and we wish we had made more time to explore
it. Between our visit home and getting the boat ready for the
next passage, we didn’t have much time for touring. We left Zia
tied up under a portrait of the Queen at the Royal Bermuda Yacht
Club and flew home to Annapolis for a short visit.
Azores
For the last two legs, we
brought along an experienced crewman, Glenn Harman, to help with
the watches as well as to keep the insurance company happy. We
settled on a standard watch schedule that had Glenn doing the 9
to midnight, me doing the midnight to 3 and Christina taking the
3 to morning shift. We would hold this schedule throughout the
trip and it worked well for us since we could each get 6 hours
of uninterrupted sleep and then make up the deficit with naps in
the afternoon. We departed Bermuda as TS Alberto was churning
its way up the US East coast. The forecasts all had Alberto
heading northeast to menace Newfoundland. We figured that if it
turned our way, we could dash back for the safety of Bermuda.
The breeze was perfect and Zia knocked off day after day of fast
and easy sailing. We took a northwards course so that we could
get over the top of the Azores High and pick up the favorable
westerlies. We saw breaching whales, flying dolphins and
sleeping turtles but still not a single fish made it into the
boat.
Oh, about the kids, what do
two young girls do for 10 days at sea? Pretty much what they
would do for ten days in a house, minus the TV. We had lots of
games, crafts and books as well as rigging the bosun’s chair as
a swing from the bimini. This proved to be a huge hit even when
the motion of the boat and the movement of the swing conspired
to whack the swinger into the helm seat. We sighted land at the
western most Azore island, Corvo, on the tenth day and arrived
in Horta early the next morning. We had sailed a just under
2000 miles with only a little bit of motoring thru the center of
the high.
Green Right Returning
As we sailed into port
(remembering to keep the greens on our right) we were greeted
with the sight of our buddy boat Cenou tied up at the seawall.
Aboard Cenou are our longtime cruising friends the Dussauds who
have two young daughters that match our kids’ ages. We rafted
up with them to celebrate the crossing. The Azores are
Portuguese islands and Portugal had just won their World Cup
quarter final match the day we arrived. They sure know how to
party in the Azores; every horn, church bell, firecracker and
voice joined in the celebration. It is a decades old custom for
voyagers to paint their boat logo on the expansive seawall in
Horta. There are hundreds of signs, of all colors and
nationalities. We saw a few signs from our hometown of
Annapolis and we were proud to add Zia’s sign to the list.
The Azores archipelago is made
up of 9 volcanic islands that are tall and lush with waterfalls,
green meadows and cliffs visible from the sea. We toured Faial,
Terciera and Sao Miguel where we found natural hot springs,
flower lined roads and local bullfights in the street.
Toro Toro Toro
The bullfights were a
miniature version of running with the bulls in Pamplona. They
would block off a local street and line it with food and drink
stands. The huge crowds would mill about in a boisterous
carnival atmosphere. Hundreds of spectators would line the
street perched on ledges and behind walls and fences for
safety. Then they would let out one furious bull after another
while the locals (including our crewman Glenn) would get close,
but not too close, as the bull chased them up and down the
street. We didn’t see any injuries but we saw a greatest hits
tape in a café where the bulls won quite a few rounds by
stomping, butting and goring the hapless matadors.
The Continent
We left Sao Miguel at 8PM with
a forecast for fair winds for the 860 mile trip to Spain. The
winds were solid and we made good time for the first couple of
days. On this leg, we finally lifted the curse of the “f-word”
(fish) and boated two nice Albacore and two Black Fin tuna.
Sushi was finally on the menu.
On our third day out, after
completing our standard weather download, we got a nasty
surprise. A gale was brewing off Cape Finisterre and would
threaten our arrival with strong headwinds if we didn’t step on
the gas to get in early. When we sailed out of the breeze into
a calm, we put the hammer down on both motors (we usually cruise
with only one) and made all possible speed. We ended up just
catching just the leading edge of the storm and spent the last
18 hours careening along double reefed with 25 knots just
forward of the beam in lumpy seas. Thanks to the midcourse
weather report, we were able to avoid the really heavy stuff
that would most likely have caught us towards the end of the
journey.
Med Moor
As we made our approach to
Bayona, I started reviewing European med moor procedures in my
mind. Let’s see – motor into the quay and find that you have a
gusty cross wind, drop the anchor about 100 feet out and pay out
rode frantically while backing into a tight spot between two
rusty old steel fishing boats that are tied to a battered
concrete dock. While these nightmare scenarios were running
through my head, we rounded the breakwater to see a sparkling
new marina with miles of brand new floating docks. Talk about
easy squeezy – we had made it to Europe.
Looking back on the voyage, it
was trouble-free yet exciting trip. We will certainly make long
crossings again and the next time it will be with slightly less
trepidation. We now have a pretty good road map on how to
prepare both Zia and ourselves for long passages. It’s not
rocket science but it can all boil down to a simple formula.
The combination of a well prepared boat and crew with a good
weather window (and maybe a bit of good luck) should equal a
good voyage. Now that we are cruising Europe and the Med, we
will mostly be daysailing from port to port with perhaps a few
overnighters every now and again. I can’t honestly say that I
will miss my midnight to three watch too much.
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