Taking the Plunge

Posted on May 4, 2024 by Roz

It was over ten years ago when it all started. It felt like it was time for an adventure and we spent many an hour enjoyably chatting on the terrace of our farmhouse in Kent about what our adventure might look like.

Dreaming and planning in our garden in Kent.

Often, when you imagine adventures, you feel that they are achieved by special individuals. Athletes, fearlous and talented or people with years of experience and knowledge. However having decided that this adventure would involve buying a yacht and spending sometime on the water, our research made us think otherwise.

We read about and met folk who lived permanently onboard and frequently sailed offshore. We spoke to people who had completed the Oyster world rally and we attended a World Cruising Club open weekend. We chatted with a friend who had crossed the Atlantic and read a book from a couple who sold everything to sail into the sunset. It dawned on us that these were just ordinary people, ordinary people doing out-of-the-ordinary things.

We will never regret our decision to sail around the world. It wasn’t all plain sailing but it was the most amazing experience.

Writing about it has also at times been difficult but has allowed our adventure to live on in my mind. ‘Sailraya: Every Landfall Celebrated’, tells the story of the first half of our journey from the initial inklings of an idea, through the challenging early days, to crossing oceans and our eventual arrival on the shores of New Zealand. If you enjoyed the blog and want a little more, you can find the link to the book on the banner or search for ‘Sail Raya’ on Amazon.

And if you ever find yourself contemplating taking the plunge we would always be happy to carry on chatting. Contact us through comments.

Weather worn sailors. Celebrating our arrival in New zealand

Sail Raya – Every Landfall Celebrated

Posted on April 22, 2024 by Roz

Monday 22nd April 2024

Almost five years on from my last post I return to announce the imminent publication of ‘THE BOOK’.

Sail Raya – Every Landfall Celebrated is the story of the first half of our journey from the inception of the idea to our arrival on the shores of New Zealand.

Less a literary tome, more a light dabble in the inkpot, it was written in fits and starts as life allowed. I was lucky to have this blog, a ships log kept every hour we were at sea and tens of thousands of photos to keep the memories fresh. All in all, I enjoyed the writing process. However, I have discovered that the writing is only half the challenge. I now know why publishers are paid so much. The editing, formatting, proofreading, cover design, editing and more editing have taken over a year.

The final proof should arrive this week. After yet another flick through, I will nervously press the self-publish button and send it out into the world. If you fancy reliving our adventures a copy it will be available on Amazon in paperback or as an ebook.

Watch this space for the link.

So Long and Thanks

Posted on July 6, 2019 by Roz

Saturday 6th July 2019

We have thought long and hard about when we should write the last sailraya blog, closing this amazing chapter of our lives. We are still feeling tired and rather disoriented but we are starting to integrate back into normal life, I actually have a working phone for the first time in nearly four years, yesterday we bought a car and the hunt for a new home has begun, our minds are slowly turning to life ashore, now, feels like the right time.

This evening I booted up my long ignored laptop and while it charges the screen saver is scrolling our photo collection, a fabulous summary of our trip. How we will manage without all the wonderful sights and experiences, the continual challenges and the satisfaction of achieving each stage of something so special, is hard to know, but one thing is for sure my Instagram page will be taking a turn for the worst.

Did the highs outshine the lows,? On that there is no doubt, every minute of those cold and tiring night watches was worth the five we spent absorbing the song of a humpback whale just 10m below us. Every uncomfortable roll of the boat was worth it to glide along side a manta ray or a whale shark. The exhaustion of a night in a rolly anchorage was easily washed away the moment we put our heads below crystal clear water above a magnificent coral reef and the pressure from the ceaseless demands of keeping Raya and ourselves safe was made manageable with the assistance of so many friends afloat and at home.

It’s difficult to know where to start thanking these people for their support, so many have helped us in so many ways, from those who accompanied us across oceans, Ian, Eric, Hartmut, Jonathan, Sheridan, Penny, Stephen, Richard and Tony, to everybody that sent newsy emails to raise our spirits during those long passages.

Andy who got us through the boat preparations, Peter and Joanna who spent hours putting together our medical kit, the numerous friends who joined us in Southampton to wish us well and Chris who has been there for us from the start to the finish.

Our fellow cruisers whose easy friendship was one of the trips highlights, their generosity and support was nothing less than life affirming. Nina, Toothless, Yolata, Pawpaw, Britican, Into the Blue, Randivag, Alexandra, Crazy Daisy, Knockando, Moonshadow, Il Sogno, Influencer, Vela and so many more, it was a pleasure to sail with you.

Thanks to the folks at Oyster especially Eddie and Regina, Harry at the rig shop for a faultless rig, Chris and Stokey for their weather help through the tricky bits, mailasail for keeping us in touch with the world and Navionics and Google maps for their help keeping us in the blue.

Thank you to all the blog readers whose continued loyalty and encouragement kept me writing, to everyone who opened their homes to us when we returned to the UK that kept us warm and fed and everyone who responded to our bizarre requests to secure boat bits that kept us afloat.

And a huge thanks to our families especially Nana who tracked and encouraged us every step of the way, Penny who, uncomplaining, worked as our unpaid PA throughout and Rachael and Matt who, despite their mad parents selling the family home and running off into the sunset, have yet to disown us.

Finally thank you Raya, our home for the past four years, her speed won us awards at the ARC and has kept the long passages as short as possible, her toughness has shrugged off high winds and large waves keeping us safe and her simplicity of handling has made things relatively easygoing for these two amateur sailors. Her spacious design has meant we have circumnavigated in style, her elegant lines still catch our eye.

Raya, our cruising community and all our family and friends who have joined us, what wonderful times we have shared.

Home!

Posted on June 30, 2019 by Roz

Friday 28th July 2019

The wind is screeching through the masts that surround us in the marina so loudly that it’s difficult to think straight but the gales sweeping across South West England are not the only thing causing us to feel disorientated, we are home and have the challenge of a whole new life to organise.

We left Horta in calm seas and yet again the engine was on, more confident of our fuel range after all the motoring up from the Caribbean, we pushed quite hard, the easterly winds that are battering us now had shown up on the forecast and we were keen to arrive before they set in. Thursday, finally, we picked up some winds and quickly things became a bit livelier. After a fantastic day sailing, inevitably the waves increased in height and a nasty beam swell developed, rocking us back and forth. This was much more how we had imagined the the North Atlantic and although uncomfortable we were eating up the miles. Each day the temperatures continued to drop and this, in combination with a few showers, drove us into wet weather gear. On night watch everyone was now bundled into as many layers as was practical, boots were dug out from where they had sat for four years and rather musty woolly hats and gloves bought out for an airing.

Gradually putting on more clothes

The wild life, however, didn’t seem to be put off by these cooler temperatures and despite the rougher seas we spotted a couple of what we think were fin whales a hundred or so metres off to starboard and numerous pods of dolphins came to say hello, but the highlight was a group of Orcas. Easily identified by their black and white colourings we were delighted when a few swam closer and closer, ducking and diving right next to the boat just like the dolphins had.

Killer whales swam right next to the boat, this one seems to have a rather big chunk out of his fin.

Such sights brought into focus our feelings of sadness that our adventure was nearly over, that the wonders we have been treated to over the past four years were near an end, but as we struggled to get some sleep in the choppy conditions a still bed grew more and more desirable.

Emotions continued to be mixed, Monday morning the log clicked over to 40,000nm, the total number of miles we have sailed on Raya and we felt a certain pride in our achievement. As we sailed nearer and nearer to home, the SW of England appeared on the chart plotter for the first time since May 2015 and excitement began to build.

UK coast on the chart plotter for the first time in four years

Early Tuesday morning, our last day at sea, I came up on watch to find not just sunshine and calm seas but a very excited Rick, a hazy outline of the Lizard, the most Southerly point of the UK was visible on the horizon. We were surrounded by a mass of small fishing boats, so while I steered us through the traffic, Rick and Tony strung flags from our bows to the stern. It is a privilege of circumnavigators to arrive in port dressed in flags and Plymouth is a Navy port and flag signals are important, we were delighted when two Royal Navy boats acknowledged us by sounding their horns.

The temperatures had been increasing over the last day or so to warm us, on the dock were a dozen friendly faces to welcome us and in their bags plenty of bottles to celebrate with, a perfect home coming.

Raya arrives back in the UK

Volcanoes and Street Art

Posted on June 23, 2019 by Roz

Wednesday 19th June 2019

Here we go again, weather window antics, we plan to leave Tuesday, no Wednesday, no Tuesday, no Wednesday. I think we have settled on Wednesday but maybe that will be Tuesday afternoon or perhaps next week.

In the end we left rather quickly Tuesday lunchtime and before I had managed to upload this post, there are photos but I will have to attach them when we reach the UK. Reach the UK, how strange that sounds.

Horta the main port and capital of Faial in the Azores is a pretty town full of often crumbling but decorative terraced buildings. Churches white, with black detailing stand out in the sunshine and flowers greet you on every spare piece of ground.

Church of Nossa Senhora das Angustias, in Horta

The Marina was friendly and being Europe the formalities straight forward. It was choc-a-bloc with transatlantic boats that continually arrived, stretching the facilities to the limit, for most of the stay we were rafted three deep.

The first few days were warm and sunny as we rushed about getting the normal mundane tasks completed. The laundry, run on a confusing part service, part do it yourself regime, was dictated over by a woman with Hitler pretensions and with so many boats continually arriving with weeks worth of dirty washing, it was a slow and painful process.

The supermarket however was well stocked and although everything was totally in Portuguese and it took us a bit of time to find what we needed, we, for the first time in a while, enjoyed delicious lunches of fresh fruit and tasty local cheese.

With the weather forecast looking unsettled for the weekend, Friday morning we took a taxi tour of the island. As we left the town of Horta and climbed into the hills, the smell of freshly mown grass assaulted our senses, with the lower temperatures, cows grazing in buttercup filled meadows and familiar bird song we could almost have been in Devon.

However, like most of the oceanic islands we have visited, the Azores were born from past volcanic activity. As we continued to drive higher we entered the cloud base that cloaks the highest peak here, as the mist swirled and thinned we caught glimpses of fantastic views of the island and the huge picturesque volcanic peak on the island across the channel, Pico.

We were headed to near the top of the Caldera do Faial, where a tunnel has been created through the rock side to a viewing platform to see the interior of the still perfectly circular cone. At 2km wide and 400m deep a unique ecosystem has sprung up in its base, with plants and birds not found anywhere else flourishing in their own tiny world.

Caldera do Faial

During the eruptions that created this volcano, pumice stone was flung out onto the island and this has made the soil here very fertile but acidic. Crowding every hedge row and many gardens are hydrangea plants, the acidic soil turns the normally pink flowers a bright blue and Faial has become famous for this magnificent summer display.

In stark contrast to the lush growth of most of the island is the barren headland on the NW coast, created by an eruption that took place less than 60 years ago, it resembles a moonscape. A huge slab of rock juts out to sea backed by rocks of solidified lava and slopes of sweeping black sand.

Volcanic landscape at Capelinhos

We were glad to have taken the time to explore because the weekend turned out to be quite stressful. We were tied up to the harbour wall, right in the corner, where the wash back from the swell, with the weight of two boats hanging off us, had us straining and jolting uncomfortably on our cleats, the creaking and groaning of the lines keeping us awake. Hours were spent tightening this rope, then tightening another, then loosening everything again as the tide dropped.

Finally Monday afternoon things quietened down and the showers cleared, time to get creative. As in a lot of ports and anchorages where ocean sailors gather, people like to leave their mark. Often it is in the form of national or yacht club flags, that adorn the insides of local bars and cafes or, as in the Percy Islands off the Australian East Coast where crews carve plaques that are nailed to the large A frame shelter on the beach. In the Azores the tradition is street art, every inch of the walls and paving of Horta marina are covered by paintings left by previous visitors.

We were keen to join in the fun and Rick had in his head planned a complex design to include the names of everyone who had helped us by joining us for an ocean passage. Unfortunately the combination of the busy first few days followed by the wet weather, had thwarted our attempts to put paint to concrete. Eventually, Monday, as an evening sun appeared we picked our spot and painted the background. This was nearly as far as we got, with a change in the forecast later in the week, making a quick departure looked advantageous. The original complex design had to be ditched and I and Tony were still painting Rick’s much simplified effort, as he refuelled Raya just an hour before we left.

As Rick and Tony prepare the boat for departure I’m still busy painting

It is our first night out and we are motoring again in very light winds, the full moon shines brightly, the only star visible in the light sky is Jupiter twinkling to our south. In the log Rick described the sea state as, motoring through melted chocolate, it’s glossy dark surface heaving gently beneath our keel.

Wind is promised in a few days time, Plymouth and reality beckon.

Ocean High

Posted on June 11, 2019 by Roz

Monday 10th June 2019

We have finally arrived in Horta in the Azores, after a couple of weeks of very little wind, it has been a slow but comfortable crossing. I, particularly, get range anxiety when we have to do such a lot of motoring but this time even Rick, not confident of the fuel gauge, was measuring the inexorable draining of the fuel tank with the dip stick on a very regular basis. In the end about 50nm out from the marina we picked up some wind and sailed the whole of the last day, approaching the island reefed and doing 8kts, with at least 150 litres of fuel left in the tank.

‘Got here beer’ in Horta

Our crossing from the Caribbean might have been the slowest of our ocean passages but stuck in the middle of the Azores high pressure system, it also became the calmest. And calm seas don’t just mean more sleep and a much more comfortable life onboard, it also means our fellow ocean goers are easier to see.

On Wednesday I spotted what I first thought was rubbish, it looked a bit like the end of a child’s clear pencil case decorated with a pink rim. Then I saw another and another. We looked more closely and realised they were a type of jelly fish, a jelly fish with what appeared to be a three dimensional semi circular sail. Enquiries back home to those who have access to Google revealed them to be in the Portuguese Man-o-War family. We learnt that each creature was in fact not a single organism but a colony of much smaller ones, all working together to create a viable unit. And what was also incredible, was that five days and nearly a thousand miles on, they were still passing us by in a steady stream. The whole ocean is full of them.

A clump of a dozen sailing jelly fish

A rarer sight was a pod of whales. In a rougher sea we probably wouldn’t have spotted the telltale blow in the distance, but any thing that breaks the surface in these calm conditions is obvious. Too far away to identify conclusively, their small size suggests they were probably pilot whales. And just when we were beginning to give up on dolphins over the last few days of the passage we saw three or four large pods, They were Atlantic spotted dolphins and they gave us a spectacular show leaping from the water and dancing in our bow waves.

A pod of dolphins charging in to swim at our bows

The journey has also been big on the pure grandure of the open ocean, the only ripple to be seen was our wake as we motored over a glassy, inky blue, undulating sea, that stretched out to a huge horizon. We have been treated to dramatic dark orange sunrises and sunsets and one night the ocean was so smooth, I sat mesmerised by a whole sky full of stars reflected in its surface. As always we gaze in wonder and reflect on how honoured we are to witness such things.

Sun rising over a silky sea

While we enjoyed all this we were slowly travelling northward and we were noticing many changes. The temperatures of the sea and the air dropped daily forcing us into more and thicker clothing. The Southern cross that has for so long been our focus in the night sky, a few days ago disappeared below the horizon and after years of pretty much 12 hours of darkness each night, the shorter nights are taking a bit of getting use to. With the sun setting later and later each day, despite our routine changing of the clocks as we travelled through different time zones, we had eventually to push our night watch system back an hour because we were struggling to get to sleep. Even the duration of dawn and dusk is changing, the sudden onset and disappearance of darkness of the tropics is being replaced with the hour long fading and brightening of light of higher latitudes.

We hope to have about a week to enjoy the Azores, we suspect the passage back to the UK may not be so tranquil, so we must be patient and wait for a good weather window.

Homeward Bound

Posted on June 5, 2019 by Roz

Sunday 2nd May 2019

There’s one certainty when you’re ocean sailing and that is you can guarantee that whatever conditions you have now, they will be different very soon. Currently we are sailing at about 7.5 kts, as high into a F4 wind as we can, trying to make our track to the Azores in persistently easting winds. The boat is well heeled over which means we are living on a slope, it is hard work!

Beating into calm blue seas, 500nm north of the BVI

Just a few days ago on the other hand, we were wishing for more wind, with so far to go we were reluctant to use too much of our fuel and so we were sailing as much as we could, often barely reaching 5 kts.

Last Sunday, however, the conditions in the mighty Atlantic were still just a forecast. With only a day to prepare for our departure, it was an exhausting day, especially in the humid heat of Road Town. We were extremely pleased to have the extra pair of hands belonging to our friend Tony, who has joined us for this crossing.

We walked to the customs office determined to keep our cool whatever procedures or rudeness were thrown at us. Thankfully the terrible experience we had had during check in wasn’t repeated and with our clearance papers ready, the fridge and fuel tanks full, we set off Monday morning just in time to miss the mass of dark clouds descending on Tortola.

Leaving the islands calmed the sea and cleared the sky but didn’t produce any wind, we tried our best to relax and enjoy the comfortable conditions, making ourselves stop obsessively watching the speed dial, we had no deadlines to meet after all.

The sun was shining, the sea a deep royal blue and we had plenty of entertainment from a flock of shearwaters that seem to be following us, gliding in and landing right next to the side of the boat, we assume they must be snapping up tiny fish that are being stirred up in our wake.

Manx shearwater feeding right next to the boat

At night we have had the odd squall bringing erratic winds and torrential downpours but for the most part the nights have been tranquil too. With just a slither of moon the stars are incredible, one magical night-watch at around midnight, I sat with the warm breeze brushing my face, watching a display of a thousand sparkles not just above but in the water too, we were passing through a patch of dense phosphorescing algae.

The early calm conditions meant our warnings to Tony of what to expect and the difficulties he may have to endure appeared exaggerated but now when just getting from ones side of the salon to the other is a challenge and everything from preparing a meal to cleaning your teeth has its problems, our words are beginning to ring true.

A bit tricky washing up on a slope

Luckily the sea state is still reasonably clement so although heeled over we, at least, aren’t slamming too badly into the approaching waves and everybody is getting some sleep.

For a bit of a break this morning we furled the Genoa and put on the engine to flatten Raya out so we could more easily, shower, make tea, do a few jobs…., it was a relief to be able to walk around the boat without having to cling on to every hand rail.

We also took the opportunity to tackle a couple of issues, the AIS was accidentally turned off with the nav lights yesterday and when turned back on didn’t seem to be connecting back up to the chart plotter. We used the time on the engine to reset all the systems, unfortunately in the absence of anything close to us in this huge ocean for the receiver to pick up, it is difficult to ascertain if it’s working or not.

At the other end of the technical scale, our 25 degree angle is causing problems with our sinks and toilets, as water finds the lowest corners, a lot is flowing to the other side of the bowls from the drains and so can never really be emptied and in the warm conditions are quickly becoming unpleasant, the level boat gave us a chance to give everything a good clean.

Now with sails back up, we are again clinging onto our seats, moving around downstairs as little as possible and trying to see when the next change might take place.

Can’t really complain, just routine problems, such is the life of ocean sailors.

Goodbye to the Tropics 😢

Posted on May 26, 2019 by Roz

Sunday 26th May 2019

Preparations in full swing, Rick scrubbing a very furry prop

As we lifted the anchor today and headed towards the marina to prepare to leave tomorrow it occurred to me that, rather sadly, this may be the last time we ever anchor Raya. Our next destinations, Horta in the Azores and then the South Coast of England will most likely have us tied up in marinas for the rest of the trip, our trusty anchor unneeded. By strange coincidence, while I play about with the possibility of writing a book of our adventures, I was just yesterday writing down my thoughts about our very first night at anchor, off the coast of Portugal as we sailed towards the Mediterranean.

Where on earth have the last four years gone?

Since our arrival in the Caribbean we have found ourselves trying to absorb the details of everything we love about our tropical watery life, fixing them into our memories to be conjured, at will, to brighten dreary November days.

Stunning tropical colours in the BVI

Not just the incredible events we have been honoured to experience but also the small every day things, like the feeling you get when, sweaty and hot, you jump over the side into the water, it’s delicious silky coolness enveloping you. The anticipation of what might be revealed today as you dip your head into the magical underwater world whose sights rarely let you down. Or the spectacular shows of the seabirds as they swoop and dive or dance above your heads. And the kaleidoscope of colours of the fish and the coral, the burnt oranges and baby pinks of the sunsets and the turquoise of shallow seas.

How can I live without that turquoise.

Not sure who this chap is but his home is a colourful mini reef

It’s difficult to imagine living without these things, however, I have recently caught myself contemplating other aspects of our life and thinking how nice it would be to wear perfume rather than insect repellent out to dinner, how great it would be to have a fridge full of green vegetables and what a luxury it would be to be able to flush the toilet paper.

So perhaps this is a good time to be leaving this life while our tolerance of the inconveniences, the price we pay to enjoy these things, is still high.

Thursdays sunset

You can track our homebound route through our Yellow Brick tracker, found at http://my.yb.tl/sailrayatracking/

Fish and Officialdom

Posted on May 20, 2019 by Roz

Monday 20th May 2019

The sea around the BVI has become rather rolly and we are finding it hard to find a spot to escape. Swell is a very difficult thing to predict when sailing around islands, it has the tendency to creep around headlands, bend through passes and enter bays that look on the chart like they should be protected. We are currently on a mooring off the Cooper Island Resort and during the night a swell that in the ocean is from the E/NE, bizarrely began entering the bay from the SW.

It might be rolly but the views pretty good

It’s been quite an up and down week in other respects too. Last Monday we went back into Village Cay Marina, we needed to top up provisions, get the laundry done and extend our visas. We had mentally prepared ourselves, determined to smile through the unhelpful attitude of the immigration officials and to relax through the normal inefficiency, what we weren’t prepared for was the 2 3/4 hrs we would have to wait for a simple stamp on our passports. The office was crammed full of anxious people trying to get resident or work permits. We were all told there would be about a 20 min wait, so nobody dare leave feeling sure they would be called any minute, frustration levels were high. Finally we were seen but only given an extension to the end of the month, desperate to just get out of there, we didn’t argue but with our friend Tony not arriving until late on the 24th that doesn’t leave us a very wide window for departure.

To make things even more irritating, despite only being allowed 15 days extra on our visas we have had to pay the full $200 to import Raya for the whole year. Although we knew all this in advance it doesn’t make it feel any fairer and that evening we felt exhausted. It is amazing how tiring, just sitting or standing, feeling cross, while gradually dehydrating in a very hot room, can be.

As soon as our town tasks were completed, we left the marina and got back out to the islands, where jobs could be interspersed with cooling swims.

The pain of our visit to immigration was quickly erased by a particularly good late afternoon snorkel. Back in our favourite spot anchored in Privateer Bay we took off to visit the caves with the sun, now lower in the sky, shining straight on the cliffs, highlighting the caves interiors. Immediately we spotted a baby pelican, unfortunately our arrival frightened him and with his flying skills not yet up to parr, we watched as rather comically he struggled to get airborne.

A slightly clumsy take off but he made it.

As I entered the first cave his sibling was hiding inside and his exit took him only inches from my head, while below me a 5ft long tarpon emerged through a veil of a million tiny fish escaping the cave just below my feet. The light inside was glorious however and the shoal of inch long fish glinted in the sunshine like a curtain of slithered glass..

The cave was full of thousands of fish, tiny and huge (see bottom right corner)

Outside the cave it was crowded too, a large shoal of bar jacks followed me as I swam. If I swam right, they all turned right, if I went to explore a cave, in they came with me, if I slowed they all bunched up so as not to get ahead of me, I felt a bit like the Pied Piper.

From the blue depths, three large tarpons, their ugly mouths showing off their sharp teeth, cruised in, more shoaling fry filled the water, along with of course the ever present blue tang and sergeant major fish. With a good scattering of plankton in the water and gulls above us, it felt like whole food chain was ready to start supper.

Tarpons carolling their supper

Most of the rest of the week has been spent on preparations for the journey ahead. While I cook for the freezer, sort out the admin and start the passage plan, Rick has been carrying out some routine maintenance. In the marina I winched him up the mast so he could check the rigging and instruments. He has repacked the lazerette, our big storage compartment at the back of the boat, so the fenders can be put away for the passage. Batteries for torches and radios have been charged, the generator serviced, a broken fan replaced and lockers cleaned and sorted.

Touching wood as I write, which is not so easy while I cling onto my cup of tea which is threatening to be thrown off the table as we roll, everything has been in good condition, so far we’ve found only a few minor issues.

The plan today was to dive under the boat to clean a rather furry prop and slow cook a beef stew, but in this swell perhaps we’ll just abandon trying to work and head out for a snorkel instead.

Family Fun

Posted on May 12, 2019 by Roz

Friday 10th May 2019

We have just waved the kids off at the airport, it has been fantastic to have them with us to share our last bit of tropical cruising. We now have only a couple weeks to ready ourselves and then we head off back across the Atlantic. It is impossible to comprehend that in a few months we will be back in the UK with Raya up for sale and us beginning the search for a new land based home.

Final walk along the beach at Trellis Bay

After leaving Privateer Bay we headed for a surprisingly windy Great Harbour. The kids, continuing their efforts to tick off every famous bar in the Islands, a visit to The Willy T’s floating restaurant was high on their list. We were in desperate need of refilling the fridge and the small supermarkets we remembered scattered around the islands were either no longer around or very badly stocked. So after a fun evening, bright and early the next day we headed off to Village Cay Marina in Road Town, the capital of BVI on the main island of Tortola, to restock at the bigger stores.

We also thought we’d take the opportunity to wash the decks, clean the bathrooms and fill our water tanks. Unfortunately we hadn’t read the small print of the marina contract. Often Marinas will put on a small extra charge for water, but here, unnoticed by us, they were charging 25 cents a gallon and we were faced with a shocking $90 bill just for water. To add to our woes Andy discovered his bank card had been cloned and used liberally a few miles away in the US Virgin Islands, it took him many frustrating phone calls back to the UK to sort everything out. Lessons learnt we put the water-maker on full steam ahead and none of us let our cards out of our sight again.

Feeling somewhat disgruntled we headed off for Gorda Sound, here the effects of hurricane Irma was still very much in evidence. The only restaurant open on the coast is at Leverick Bay, Saba Rock is a building site and despite a website speaking of rebuild plans, the legionary Bitter End Yacht Club has been seemingly wiped from the map. We found a nice anchorage however on the northwest side the sound, off Prickly Pear Island, next to a pretty little sandy beach.

Fruit Salad Beach, Gorda Sound

We discovered this beach many years ago during a charter holiday, nobody else seems to go there and while we enjoyed having the sand to ourselves, on the surf in bobbed a piece of pineapple, then a half of lime, a slice of orange, more pineapple……., we christened it fruit salad beach. Thankfully there was no food waste this time and after admiring the view we put on our masks and went for a snorkel. The visibility wasn’t that great but the rocky landscape of the sea floor, filled with soft corals, looked like an underground garden and with a good sprinkling of fish it made for an enjoyable hour.

Fan corals in Gorda Sound

Our next stop was on the South of Virgin Gorda, an area called the Baths, a jumble of gigantic boulders that sit on a pure white sandy shore. Although the boulders look like they have tumbled down from some long forgotten hill their geology is much more complicated. During a period of volcanic activity about 50 million years ago molten rock was forced to the surface, cooling to form granite. As it cooled the rock cracked and split into slabs and over the eons all surrounding softer rocks have eroded away and the slabs themselves rounded and smoothed to produce the magnificent spectacle we see today. It is a national park and a trail through, up and over the boulders leads you into small passages, picturesque pools and amazing spaces. If you arrive by boat as we did, to add to the adventure you have to leave your dingy tired up to the provided buoys and swim ashore. The water is crystal clear and the landscape beneath the waves as dramatic as above.

Robyn exploring the Baths

Back onboard we discussed what to do next, although the youngsters were enjoying the bars and the internet they provided, everyone agreed it was the swimming and snorkelling that were our prime objective. We got a bit of both at Cooper Island and then it was back to Privateer Bay.

Again the snorkelling was superb, Rick and I swimming far out on the point even spotted a reef shark our first in the BVI. Rachael and Andy continued there long swims around the shore line and back to the boat. And then there were the turtles, turtles everywhere. Robyn’s squeals of delight as turtles surrounded her summed up our excitement. And finally Matt got us that perfect shot.

Hawksbill turtle with a couple of small remora hitching a lift

Bubbles, Bars and Big Fish

Posted on April 30, 2019 by Roz

Monday 29th April 2019

It’s a rather blustery morning with dark clouds rushing across the sky, but with the early light playing spectacularly on the hills, I am enjoying a few moments of quiet, in our calm anchorage in Privateer Bay, to catch up on my blog.

Hills of Tortola in the morning light

Last Tuesday morning we sailed to one of our old favourites, Diamond Cay and opted to drop the anchor in the slightly deeper water at the centre of the bay to escape the crowds. It is a beautiful spot with the shallowing sea providing every shade of turquoise imaginable with, in the distance, Sandy Spit. Sandy Spit with its Robinson Crusoe look of white sand with a solitary palm tree had often acted as the poster boy for the BVI, sadly, post Irma, the tree has gone but the sand island still acted as a good focus to paddle out to in the kayak, as did the bar on the opposite shore. Our kids were using every moment of their holiday to the full.

The walk through the mangroves to the ‘bubbly pool’ has also been stripped bare, the dead trees cast aside leaving open beach. However the view here where the mighty Atlantic is halted in a froth, by a wide reef, to produce a tranquil lagoon is still great, as is the clamber up the hill to the cliffs.

Mangroves stripped bare but the Atlantic forces its way into the lagoon just the same.

After a short 15min walk you are brought to the main attraction, a small bay where the same power of the ocean is squeezed, this time, through a gap in the rocks, each wave turning the calm pool into a seething mass of bubbles.

Having fun at the Bubbly Pool, Diamond Cay

After a couple of days we pushed on to visit two of the ‘must dos’ bars here in the BVI; the Soggy Dollar Bar and Foxy’s Bar. Both were full to the brim, in fact Josh Van Dyke Island, at least as far as the tourist dollar is concerned, appears to be very much business as usual.

Sopers hole on the other hand looks to be using the devastation to rebuild bigger and better, the whole place is currently one large building site, with nothing open we moved on to Norman Bight.

And finally we found some good snorkelling not just on the edge of the bay but around the corner to an area known as the Caves. While the younger crew opted to investigate another beach bar, Rick and I took the dingy out to explore. The water was beautifully clear and right on the southern point of the bay we found turtles. They were quietly relaxing on the rocks just under the surface, they were so close we could almost touch them. Surprisingly unbothered by our presence, they just sat there, rarely have we had such a good photo opportunity. Unbelievably, and probably for the first time ever, we had forgotten the camera!

In the morning we took Raya around to the Privateer Bay just beyond the caves and we all snorkelled most of the day intent on getting that perfect turtle shot. Typically there were none to be had, but there were plenty of things to enjoy instead.

The local big fish here are tarpons. They can grow to be 6 or 7 ft long and we have seen them, attracted to the light at the back of the boat, most evenings since Antigua. They are easily identified not just by their size but by their startlingly, shiny, silver scales that reflect in the spotlight. Yesterday we saw them as we swam along the cliffs, lurking in the blue of the deeper water their size was slightly intimidating despite knowing that they are harmless. In the shallows were smaller but more colourful specimens, from the crowds of sergeant major fish that Matt and Robyn fed with old bread to large parrot fish, elegant french angel fish, bright queen triggers and peculiar looking file fish.

A queen trigger fish snapped by Matt and a perfect Parrot fish caught by Rick

As the name suggests the cliffs here are full of small caves, the light playing on the water as you enter is magical and for those less frightened than me, the dark interiors fascinating. As everyone investigated I was excitedly floating above a large spotted eagle ray and later in the afternoon Rachael and Andy even found a nurse shark for company.

No turtles today but nobody was complaining.

Back to the BVI

Posted on April 24, 2019 by Roz

Tuesday 23rd April 2019

With the wind behind us and a bright moon above us, it was a lovely night sail from St Barts to the British Virgin Islands. We sailed excitedly through the outer islands into the Francis Drake Channel as the first signs of light appeared in the Eastern sky. It was in the BVI , over a few charter holidays, that the seeds for this trip were sown and, as such, is a good place to have our final tropical fling before we set off back across the Atlantic to cooler climes.

Unfortunately our happy memories were immediately soured by the check in process. The anchorage in Road Town was small and very choppy in the brisk wind. The dingy dock for customs required us to squeeze between a ferry and the rocks. Once inside the custom office the procedure had about seven ill defined steps, each one requiring either form filling or payment and the receiving of numerous stamps. We have occasionally seen worse bureaucracy but nothing like the bad attitude of the officers here, they were incredibly rude, arguing with us and each other and being purposely unhelpful.

So it was two tired and rather cross sailors that docked a few hours later in Nanny Cay marina, to spend a couple of days on the normal marina jobs. Hose down the boat, laundry, cooking gas refil, provisioning…… It has to be said that it took us a few days to find the Caribbean vibe that a stay in the BVI normally brings

Every where has a not quite familiar feel to it. Of course not only has it been about 7 years since our last visit but during that time the country has suffered the effects of a devastating hurricane. On the 6th September 2017 Cat 5 Hurricane Irma passed directly over the islands. Producing wind speeds in excess of 180mph, it was the strongest open sea Atlantic storm on record and nothing much survived its fury. Eighty five percent of the housing stock in Tortola was distroyed or damaged, Island infrastructure was mostly wiped out and the charter yacht fleets, a major source of income for the area, were decimated. Miraculously due to the effective early warning systems in place only four people lost their lives.

The Islands after a huge effort have mostly recovered but signs of wreckage are still in evidence. Particularly poignant for us were the yachts that Irma left high and dry and that still line the beach at Trellis Bay, their typically jaunty nautical names, ‘The Good Life’, ‘Chillin”, ‘Starry nights’, now seeming cruelly incongruous.

Wrecks still litter Trellis Bay

We were however there for a happier event, Trellis Bay is five minutes from the airport and Rachael, Mathew and their partners Andy and Robyn arrived Saturday on the evening flight. Despite the fading light they couldn’t resist an immediate swim, in fact they have hardly been out of the water since.

Readying to snorkel around Monkey Point

We have been nicely surprised by the lack of crowds, of course we return with a lot more experience and are, where possible, anchoring, instead of being squeezed tight in the mooring fields. And there are so many protected anchorages here it’s easy to just hop from one to another each day as the conditions dictate.

Not so good is the lack of life in the sea, we remember the BVI for it’s good snorkelling but it seems Irma has taken her toll under the water as well as on land. Monkey Point always one of our favourite spots was teeming with baby fish but with very little coral the reef fish were missing.

The sea is still a remarkable blue, the beaches are of soft sand and the green hills of the islands still make for a stunning back drop.

Cane Garden Bay

Having six people onboard has rather embarrassingly shown exactly how much we have spread out over the past four years, emptying lockers and clearing bunks took us a couple of days but by Saturday there was plenty of room for everyone. The cooking and washing up is a bit of a mission, the beer seems to somehow be disappearing and the rails are permanently full of damp towels. However the conversation is good, the laughter is loud and trips ashore frequent, I think everyone is having fun, despite the captain dishing out cleaning tasks.

Crew earning their keep

Money, Money, Money

Posted on April 17, 2019 by Roz

Monday 15th April 2019

On Wednesday we left the superyachts of Antigua, for, if possible, the even more opulent world of St Barts. In the immortal words of ABBA, it certainly is, at least around here, a rich mans world.

We are anchored off the west coast of St Barts, it is windy and the fetch combined with a bit of a swell is making things rather uncomfortable. The conditions are not improved by the continuous wake of large fast tenders racing back and forth from their luxuriant motherships.

The most luxurious of all is Le Grand Bleu, who at 113m long is one of the largest private yachts in the world and on her deck has, indulgently, a 22m sailing yacht (that’s 5m longer than Raya) and a 20m motor yacht. If Wikipedia is to be believed it was exchanged in payment for a lost bet between two Russian oligarchs.

Just plain greedy

Despite all this and the rocky anchorage outside Gustavia’s harbour, we are loving it here. From the efficient customs check in, to the restaurant staff, to the well stocked supermarket everything has been friendly and very french and unlike some of the French islands we have been to everyone is happy to speak English. Despite the superyachts in the harbour, the multi million pound villas that sit above us in the hills and the designer shops that line the Main Street, prices are unexpectidly reasonable. We decided to stay a while.

Not having local Sims for mobile data, we have been forced to spend time over long lazy lunches using the restaurants free and fast WiFi services. Not much beats eating fantastic food, with a cooling breeze and nice views.

Lunch time view

In fact overall St Barts has a very different vibe to the other Caribbean Islands we have visited, I decided to look into its history. Named by Christopher Columbus after his brother Bartomoleo. Little more than nine square miles of rugged rock, for years nobody paid much interest in it, even the local Caribs it appears only visited on occasional fishing trips. However in the 17C as the Europeans battled for dominance of the area, the French claimed the island and an increasing number of settlers began to live on its steep hills. In 1784 the French gave the islands to Sweden in exchange for trading rights in Gothenburg. As the only Swedish interest in the Caribbean they spent time and money modernising the island, building roads, forts and with no flat areas for plantations, they instead took advantage of it protected harbour to create a freeport, naming the capital Gustavia after the Swedish King. This in tun attracted more trade, legal and not so legal, and the island began to prosper. Eventually after a hundred years, with the population still mainly descendants from the original French occupation, Sweden returned the island to France and St Barts today is an ‘independent overseas collectivity’ and part of the French West Indies.

Pretty streets in Gustavia

Its main focus is now tourism, with many hotels and upmarket holiday villas. It restricts the number of large cruise boat visits and instead encourages cultural and sporting events. Including, another reason for us lingering here, the Voiles St Barts yacht regatta. For the past week amazing sleek racing yachts have been arriving and we have been enjoying watching the action as they prepare for first race today.

Racing Yacht Sorcha setting out for a sail

To escape the turbulence of the outer harbour anchorage we sailed around the corner to Colombier Bay. The water around St Barts is exceptionally clear and we had an enjoyable snorkel along the its rocky sides. As with the rest of the Caribbean there was little coral and few fish but an enjoyable swim never the less. The bay was still busy, escaping the large motor yachts seems impossible here and so when the next day a wind shift bought fierce gusts into the anchorage, we moved back to Gustavia to make ready for the overnight sail to the British Virgin Islands we plan for this evening.

Nautical Giants

Posted on April 8, 2019 by Roz

Sunday 7th April 2019

The stunning 200ft schooner Athos joins us in Hermitage Bay.

Torrential rain beats down on the hatches, I’m up to my elbows in laundry, which, if the rain doesn’t stop soon, I’ll have nowhere to dry and Rick has his head over the innards of a broken toilet. The cruising life is not all sand, sun and sailing. Luckily, in compensation, we have had our fair share of each of these over the past few days.

English Harbour, a quick walk from our anchorage in Falmouth Harbour, is home to Antigua’s premier historical sight, Nelsons Dockyard. The bay was recognised during the 18th Century as large and sheltered enough to protect the Royal Navy’s Caribbean fleet from hurricanes. It quickly grew into a working dockyard repairing ships that otherwise would have had to have made the long and arduous trip back to England. In the 1780’s Horatio Nelson, then a Captain, was stationed here for three years and when the dockyard was restored in the 1950’s it was named in his honour. Now full of restaurants and gift shops it still retains its marine links with numerous yacht services based in its old buildings and docking for large yachts around its edge.

The old dockyard buildings although converted to commercial use still overlook large sailing boats

Last week the dockside was gradually filling with Oysters, the participants of the World Rally arriving for the official completion of their circumnavigation and boats gearing up for the Oyster Regatta that starts tomorrow. Oyster engineers were, as always at these events, on hand to help check over the boats and happily extended their advice to us and any other Oyster yachts anchored near by.

It was great to link up with old faces, one family that we met sailing their Oyster across the Atlantic with us nearly four years ago, were also on the dock. However, they have turned to the dark side, swapping their sails for a 72ft motor cruiser. They kindly gave us the tour, the engine room alone seemed nearly as big as Raya, a lot of pipes, connections, filters etc. to look after but all comfortably at eye level. The living quarters were as luxurious as expected but the thing that caught our eye was that chairs sat unfixed to the floor and picture frames adorned the shelves, having stabilisers makes life at sea much more comfortable.

Back across the headland in Falmouth Harbour there were plenty more nautical wonders to admire, megayachts filled the marina and they were quite a sight, at night, their tall masts fully lit,the scene was reminiscent of a huge oil refinery..

Nightscape created by dozens of mega yachts.

Near the entrance of Falmouth Harbour is Pigeon Bay with its pretty beach. Monday we took the dingy over to investigate and nestling, almost hidden, in the trees, we found Catherine’s Place a lovely barefoot beach restaurant. With great food, exceptional cocktails and friendly service, all a few steps from a cooling swim, we couldn’t resist and retuned the next day to do it all again.

Wanting to explore Antigua a bit further, for Phil and Julia’s final trip we set off around the coast. The first planned anchorage was very full, the second, although pretty was gusty and noisy from building works. Eventually we found Hermitage Bay, it was still a bit windy but there were few boats and the holding was good. We enjoyed a quiet couple of days at anchor, even finding an empty beach, our first in the Caribbean. It took a wet and bouncy trip in the dingy around a small headland to get there but was well worth the effort.

First impressions of the reef that ran the length of the beach was rather disappointing, but the more you looked the more you saw. Soft corals swayed in the current and amongst the scattering of small fish a few giants lurked, including, at three foot long, the largest porcupine fish we’ve ever seen.

Large spotted porcupine fish

We are now tied up in the Jolly Harbour marina, our friends have left, the large supermarket has been raided and the normal list of jobs actioned. Tuesday or Wednesday we head off for the British Virgin Islands, where Rachael, Mathew and partners join us for one last tropical fling.

As I begin to plot our trip back across the Atlantic it seems impossible that our journey is almost finished, last week as I sunk my toes into soft white sand, my feet bathed by the warm Caribbean Sea, it felt impossible to imagine giving all this up. However today as we contemplated another set of custom officers, tried and failed to get our cooking gas canister refilled, decided the water on the dock tastes too musty to fill our tanks, while the washing machine decides to lock up full of now precious water and a very soggy set of clothes, moving on to our next adventure, whatever that might be has its appeal.

Island Hopping to Antigua

Posted on April 3, 2019 by Roz

Sunday 31st March 2019

It was with relief that we entered, past the Pillars of Hercules, from the choppy beam sea off the south coast of Antigua, into the still waters of English harbour. Unfortunately anchoring is tight here and we were forced back out and around the corner to the larger but thankfully equally protected Falmouth Harbour. Over the last few days we have been making our way north, day sailing the 200nm from St Lucia.

The journey passes three large islands, Martinique, Dominica and Guadeloupe and again involves some interesting sailing. Luckily the trades had veered slightly to the SE keeping the winds mostly behind the beam. Still, the 40nm passage between St Lucia and our first stop Grand Anse was quite lively, throwing our poor guests in at the deep end. Luckily we had taken the precaution of dosing up on seasick pills and had pre-made lunch, everyone survived unscathed..

Grand Anse turned out to be a bit disappointing and feeling rather tied we were not pleased to discover that the customs check-in was no longer in this bay and required a walk over the hill. We fled back to the boat deciding to check in the next day in St Pierre our next stop in the north of Martinique.

The French ports, rather conveniently, have computers placed in restaurants and small shops to allow easy check in. L’Alsace Kay served us cold beer and wine while we filled out the required forms and then lunch in their first floor restaurant overlooking the bay. The menu was in French, the boys took the easy route and ordered the dish of the day, chicken curry but Julia I opted to tackle the translation. I ordered ham with potato salad and Julia an onion tart from the vegetarian selection, or so we thought. What arrived was a little different, Julia was presented with a giant chicken vol-a-vent and I, a whole knuckle of ham. Luckily Julia does eat meat and decided it was too difficult to complain, the leftovers from my plate fed all four of us that evening!

We made an early start the next day and with a little less wind we had a fantastic sail across to Dominica, once in the lea of the island the wind dropped completely and we had a smooth motor up to Portsmouth near the top of the island. The boat boys, who in their small motor boats, scream out to meet you as soon as you appear around the headland were thankfully very organised. Anthony found us a mooring, took Rick to customs, relieved us of our rubbish and the next morning led us on a tour up the Indian river.

Beautiful Indian River

Named after the few final native Indians that took refuge here as the British and French battled over the island in the 17 century, the Indian river tour takes you a mile into the forest. Motors aren’t allowed so the tranquillity of the still green water, lined by large mangrove trees, with amazing gnarly buttress roots, is undisturbed.

Amazing roots of the Mangrove trees

The rainforest river scene from the Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed here, but Calypso’s, hut has been mostly destroyed, along with, unfortunately, many of the large trees. Hurricane Maria devastated the island 18months ago and the people, some of whom lost everything, have only just got back on their feet.

Faster to recover has been the river and it’s surrounding rain forest and they are home to, amongst other things, 20 varieties of crab, large shoals of mullet, juvenile barracuda, blue herons, snakes, humming birds and Iguana’s.

Iguana sunning himself in the early morning warmth.

We saw a good selection of these occupants as we glided serenely through the water, before taking a stroll amongst a plantation of fruit trees, the visit ended at a fruit and rum bar for refreshments. An enjoyable few hours that is well recommended.

Keen to get to Antigua before the wind returned to the North East, with the resultant rougher passage, we forewent the Saints Islands and took off for Deshaies, in the north of Guadeloupe.

We arrived mid afternoon to a very choppy anchorage and, despite the pretty town ashore, decided to stay onboard avoiding having to check in and a soaking from what was going to be a very wet dingy ride. Instead, as we had every evening in these west coast bays, we enjoyed a lovely sunset from the cockpit, watched 4ft long tarpons glinting in the light off the stern and prepared for an early start the next morning and the 40nm to Antigua.

Pretty Town of Desharies

The English and neighbouring harbour Falmouth are the Superyacht centres of the Caribbean, we are looking forward to a bit of nautical voyeurism.

Rum, Rain and Reunions

Posted on March 27, 2019 by Roz

Tuesday 26th March 2019

Marigot Bay became much more fun with arrival from the UK of Phil and Julia and then three more Oysters, two of whom were celebrating the finish of their circumnavigation as they sailed into the bay.

Undeterred by their long journey Phil and Julia were happy to get straight into the Caribbean vibe, we took the dingy across the bay in time to watch the sunset with a rum punch. Doolittle’s restaurant, is named after the 1967 movie Dr Dolittle that was partly filmed in the bay. The rum punches turned out to be extremely strong and although there are no longer any animals here to talk to that didn’t stop us from trying.

It was four groggy passengers that joined our driver for a short tour of the island at 9am the next morning, the steep, windy roads testing our constitutions. The views were spectacular despite the succession of showers that were passing over the island. Near the coast we looked down on a sparkling blue sea full of yachts, beaches where rows of local fishing boats sat back from the often black sand and valleys full of tightly packed colourful roofs.

Marigot Bay from the cliff top

Inland we climbed high into the rainforest, the air became humid and the smell of the undergrowth thick and peaty. Huge ferns, leaves the size of a child, jostled for space in the thick undergrowth with fruit trees and large clumps of 15ft high bamboo. Deep valleys like gashes in the landscape made for precarious drop offs right next to the road.

The Pitons, two, tall, narrow peaks are the symbol of St Lucia and stand in the middle of a still active volcanic area. We gave the crowded natural hot springs a miss and went straight to see the centre of the collapsed caldera with its pools of boiling mud and steam vents. We didn’t stay long a combination of the sulphurous air and darkening skies sent us scurrying back to the car.

The Pitons with the roof tops of Soufriere lying in the valley

Our final visit was to the botanic gardens, an oasis of lush greenery and a feast of exotic flowers. We marvelled at the incredible shapes and colours of the blooms, it hardly seemed possible that they had evolved naturally. A tiny iridescent humming bird hovered enjoying the nectar, a waterfall cascaded over a cliff and a stream, coloured grey from volcanic minerals, meander downward.

Monday still feeling a bit tired and with the weather against us, we decided to spend one more day in Marigot Bay. The showers had turned into longer periods of rain but with the temperatures still warm we headed for the pool. The sun beds were covered with puddles of water and the towels sodden but the restaurant was open and a very talented singer was in full song. We spent a pleasant couple of hours swimming in the rain and drinking beer at the swim up bar.

What else is there to do on a rainy day

During the day the bay had become crowded with Oyster yachts, five in total. For our friends on Vela, whom we’d last seen in Richards Bay South Africa, Marigot Bay marked the completion of their circumnavigation. So that night they invited us all onboard to celebrate. With a lot of the round the world yachts reaching their completion points in the Caribbean it looks like a few more reunions and bottles of champagne are still to come.

Crowded Caribbean

Posted on March 23, 2019 by Roz

Thursday 21st March 2019

View of Marigot Bay from the resort

Today’s stop is Marigot Bay, a very pretty, extremely protected inlet on the west coast of St Lucia. It is wonderfully still and the perfect place to give Raya a bit of love and attention and prepare for our friends who arrive on Saturday. However it is crowded, hooked up to our mooring ball, we are at times, as we all swing in the gentle breeze, no more than 3m from our neighbours. We knew that this is how things are in the Caribbean but the reality is still a bit of a shock.

Crowded mooring field at Marigot Bay

It’s not just the anchorages we are finding busy, sailing up the coast of the islands there is a steady stream of yachts coming towards us, requiring constant vigilance. Cruise boats disgorge their occupants into the small towns and beaches, and local ‘boat boys’ whiz around offering you everything from help hooking up to a mooring to live lobsters.

The crowds are here. of course. because the Caribbean has a lot going for it. The islands are beautiful, the sea is clean and warm, restaurant and bars are everywhere and the climate is near perfect.

We spent two days off Sandy Bay enjoying the classic Caribbean view, we still had plenty to do to get Raya straight after two months at sea but the anchorage was a bit too rolly to comfortably get things done. So we relaxed, strolled in the soft white sand and snorkelled in the shallows where shoals of tiny fish filled the water.

Lovely beach on Sandy Island

Each group of islands in the Caribbean are different countries, which makes for a lot of checking in and checking out with officials. Sandy Island and Carriacou are still part of Grenada, to move on we had to get our clearance papers. Tyrell Bay, just a couple of miles away had a customs office and first thing Monday we were waiting at the door so we could clear out and set sail for the island of Bequia, part of St Vincent and the Grenadines.

The prevailing winds here, at this time of year, are still dominated by the trades, so generally come from the north east or east. As we are travelling north through the islands we are sailing mostly into the wind which is unusual for us and has taken a bit of getting use to, but Raya seems to like it and the 40nm sail to Bequia was fast and exhilarating.

The anchorage when we arrived was very busy and the only area free meant trying to drop the anchor in one of the few patches of sand between a mass of sea grass. It took us three tries before we were happy that the anchor had set firmly, it was reassuring, especially during the night, to have our anchoring App on my iPad to warn us if we started to drag,

Busy Bay at a Port Elizabeth, Bequia

Bequia was one of our favourite places as we sailed south three years ago and although this time the island had been invaded by the passengers of a cruise ship, ashore it still had a charming and friendly feel to it. For lunch we revisited Jack’s, a beach bar right on the sand and just a minute or so dingy ride from the boat, a great spot to eat and swim.

The next morning we sailed on, passing by the stunning scenery of St Vincent and on to St Lucia. It was another nice trip with varying conditions keeping things interesting. In the channel between the islands, open to Atlantic Ocean, we had plenty of wind which again made for fast and fun sailing but in the lea of the islands the wind dropped and the sea calmed giving us time to make lunch, have a cup of tea and enjoy the view.

A shower threatens over the stunning Mountains of St Vincent

The marina in Marigot Bay is part of the Marigot Bay Resort which means we have access to its restaurants and swimming pools. Once we’ve stopped scrubbing and polishing and if we can find the space to park the dingy we’ll go and see what it has to offer.

On Dry Land

Posted on March 16, 2019 by Roz

Friday 16th March 2019

We have just arrived at Sandy Island, a small half moon slice of sand just a mile off Carriacou. It’s nice after our time on passage to be at anchor again, just chilling, while being gently rocked, watching the sun go down. The view from the cockpit is a bit more crowded than we are use to but we are now in the Caribbean, the yachties playground

Today’s view from the cockpit.

Our week in the villa was fantastic, we ate, drank, talked and enjoyed the pretty pool. We lounged on the comfy sofas and put the world to right in the shade of the pagoda. And we slept, whole nights, in still beds. The sole disturbance being swarms of mosquitos that seemed to be everywhere, we all rapidly became covered in bites and the only fluid consumed faster than the wine was the DEET insect spray that was being applied liberally.

In the background of course Raya was still demanding our time. After three weeks at sea she was a mess, the decks covered in salt, the laundry basket full and the bottom of the fridge was supporting its very own eco system. She also needed some time on dry land, to fix the leaky through hull fitting and give the hull a once over before our trip back to Europe.

So just a few days after we arrived at St Louis Marina, Thursday morning, we, plus our villa crew, let go the lines and motored her around to Clark’s Court Boatyard. We had had the hull scrubbed by a diver in CapeTown but were still surprised how clean she looked.

Raya being lifted out of the water by the Hulk, a huge lift in Grenada.

While Rick supervised the cleaning of the hull, topsides and superstructure, replaced the through hull fitting and changed the engine impeller, I took a day off to join the others on a hike to a waterfall. When I say hike, stroll would be a better description of our pretty walk that took less than half an hour. Of course, as seems always to be the way when I visit waterfalls, the lack of recent rain had severely lessened the flow, the waterfall was still a pleasant site but the pools mentioned in the guide as swimming opportunities look uninviting.

Mount Carmel Falls

We drove back towards the coast, the small towns that line the road were full of Caribbean colour, with houses ranging from ramshackle purple and red huts to grand yellow and turquoise villas. And in keeping with the mood, the hotel we found for lunch that sat on the lovely beach at Sagresse Bay was bright pink.

Girls taking a cooling dip

Although all a bit of a rush, having Raya on the hard while we lived at the villa, was perfect timing and having the use of the car meant we could easily get back and forth and top up with provision. Penny and Stephen dropped us back on their way to the airport with just one day to cope with living on the hard. Yesterday a very shiny Raya was put back into the water.

Without a doubt one of the highlights of this cruising life is the people, not just the locals we meet all around the world or the pleasure of being able to get together with family and old friends in exotic places but also the comradery of our new cruising family.

In the bay next to Clark’s Court were our friends on Britican, Britican is also an Oyster 56 and we sailed across the Atlantic together. While we have been on the other side of the World they have explored the waters of the US and the Caribbean, we have stayed in contact, following each other on Facebook and via our blogs. It was great to catch up with them again in real life and we enjoyed a delicious Caribbean lunch swapping stories and comparing Oyster notes.

Revived from our spell on dry land and with more friends flying out to St Lucia next Saturday, we have a week to enjoy some quiet time and slowly sail the 120nm north to pick them up.

All the Way Round

Posted on March 9, 2019 by Roz

Thursday 7th March 2019

We are circumnavigators, on Tuesday morning we sailed into Port Louis Marina on the Caribbean Island of Grenada, where 3 years and 45days ago we had set sail for the Panama Canal and the Pacific. We have been swamped by messages of congratulations and have been toasted with champagne but I’m not sure our achievement has really sunk in.

We are being very kindly treated to a week in a luxurious villa, with Jonathan our sail mate, his wife and my sister and husband. Slowly we are unwinding but the last few months of continuous sailing have taken its toll and we feel pretty tired.

The pool at our lovely villa in Grenada

The second half of the passage from Ascension was much windier than the first half. Having cleared the squalls the sea calmed down and for a day or two we enjoyed perfect trade wind sailing. With the sea flatter Jonathan put the rods out and we finally had some fishing success catching a small tuna and a few days later a Mahi Mahi.

Successful fishing day

The days rolled by, sleep, watch, eat, read, eat, sleep, crossword, eat sleep, watch……. We sailed on in our ever changing disc of blue, some days calm others a mess of conflicting waves, the oceans colour varying with the sky from deep ink blue to somber grey. The moon gradually reduced to a slither that rose later and later each night and as the nights grew darker we were treated to skies of a trillion stars.

We were mostly completely alone, the occasional brown booby flew close catching the flying fish we disturbed with our wake and a few AIS targets passed by on the chart plotter but too distant to appear on our horizon. So it was rather a shock when, with our waining vigilance, we spotted a fishing boat less than half a mile away. It had no AIS, in fact, covered in rust, it’s waterline thick with algae, for a moment we thought it may be abandoned but no, tossing wildly in the waves it’s crew valiantly fished on.

Ever since the equator we had been sailing through increasingly large patches of free floating, bright orange Sargassum seaweed. With no engine running it wasn’t a problem for the propellor, but we sat aghast trying to imagine how many acres of ocean it must cover, hoping that it was at least using up lots of carbon dioxide to help the atmosphere.

Masses of Sargassum seaweed covered the ocean

We were sailing fast which meant our eta had us arriving the morning before the arrival of our welcoming committee, who were flying in from the UK Tuesday afternoon. But after 15 days the thought of slowing up and spending an extra night at sea didn’t appeal to us, we pushed on. Until suddenly, and against every chart and source of information we had for this area of water, we encountered a negative current and for 36hrs we stared depressingly as our speed over the ground struggling to reach 7kts. Thankfully about 200nm from Grenada the current firstly went neutral and then positive, at times we screamed along at 10 knots towards the finish line.

The traffic had increased also, not only more fishing boats, with and without AIS but tankers and cargo boats, plying their way between the Americas and Africa or the Far East. The radio sparked into life with a large drilling platform calling up to ask us to leave them a minimum perimeter of two miles as we passed. On our final night we had to call up two cargo boats to ensure they were aware of our presence and as always they were happy to change course to give us plenty of space.

Tuesday morning we arrived off the SE corner of Grenada, land ahoy was excitedly written into the log. But we weren’t quite there yet, blackening skies and high winds built as we approached the island, overfalls tossed us about and we had to slow to let the rain pass so we could prepare the boat for docking. Then we faced the challenge of the complicated mooring system at Port Louis Marina, it was with a sigh of relief we secured the final line.

The ‘got here beer’ tasted good but not as good as the Champagne we shared with our friends that evening. We’d made it, we’d sailed all the way round.

Got here beer Grenada

Back in the Northern Hemisphere

Posted on February 25, 2019 by Roz

Sunday 24th February 2019

Latitude : 02 12(N). Longitude : 034 54(W)

South Atlantic sunrise

Raya is back in the Northern Hemisphere. We crossed the equator about 400nm off the Brazilian East Coast heading for the Caribbean and celebrated the event with four glasses of bubbly, one each for the three of us and, as tradition dictates, one over the side for Neptune. Strangely it is almost to the day exactly three years since we crossed the equator going southwards in the Pacific.

Capturing the moment

We left Ascension Island under blue skies, with light winds and calm seas. A nice easy start while we settled into the pattern of eating, sleeping and night watches that would be the rhythm of our lives for the next 18 days or so. The going was a bit slow but we were saving our fuel to help us through the Doldrums.

Either side of the equator in the tropics run the trade winds, winds generated by the rotation of the earth that blow from the NE in the northern Hemisphere and SE in the Southern Hemisphere, we have been enjoying their consistency for most of our trip and they are the reason for our westerly circumnavigation. Running around the equator however is the intertropical convergence zone, the ITCZ. Here the winds drop dramatically, historically the doldrums were dreaded by mariners as they could become becalmed for days on end. These days with most yachts equipped with an engine it is more a matter of motoring through them as fast as you can to pick up the winds on the other side.

We motor sailed for a couple of days before the wind picked up a little and we managed to sail for a while. Friday evening however the wind dropped again, but when we turned on our engine, we were assaulted by a loud and worrying banging from the prop. As we crossed the equator we had thought of taking a mid ocean dip but decided there was a bit too much swell, now it looked like Rick would be getting wet after all. We sailed slowly through the night until at first light, equipped with his mask and a knife he went to investigate. For the past few days we had been passing through dense patches of weed, and to our relief it was this that was entangled around our prop and the simple act of stopping the boat freed it up. Rick stayed down to check things were ok before we continued on our way.

Where the trades meet the ITCZ there is often an area of unsettled weather and unfortunately as we sailed through the northern boundary we had 36hrs of squally conditions. Ominous dark clouds would continually build on the horizon and we’d watch as they either scooted past, missing us or relentlessly approached. Each squall brought high winds that backed northwards and torrential rain that fell for about half an hour. With light winds between them the trick to not getting continually soaked was to reef the sails with the wind increasing just before the rain arrived, this was not always that easy. On the upside our decks that were still covered in dirty South African dust have been cleaned beautifully.

Another squall comes through

Thankfully we are now through the squalls and are picking up the northeasterly trades which, with an accompanying current, are whisking us quickly towards Grenada. Just over three years ago we took off form Grenada for the Panama Canal and the Pacific Ocean, as we arrive back we will cross our outward track and unbelievably our circumnavigation will be complete.

For now however we have another week or so of sailing to do. We are pretty low on fresh fruit and veg but have plenty of frozen meals, we are all swapping Kindles to ensure everyone has plenty to read and we are becoming better and better at the four o’clock crossword. Raya as always is preforming well and our spirits are buoyed by a continuous stream of entertaining emails from home. The sight of land however will be very, very welcome.

Green Highlights in Ascension

Posted on February 14, 2019 by Roz

Thursday 14th February 2019

Ascension Island turns out to be a place that is far more captivating than first appearances would lead you to believe, from the tropical cloud forest covered peaks to its pristine beaches, from the large Greenback turtles to the land crabs, even the sun sets have been special.

The passage from St Helena was very slow and rather frustrating. The winds were light, under normal circumstances we would have resorted to the engine but obtaining fuel in Ascension is difficult and with a further 3000nm to go until Grenada every drop of diesel is precious. Ever since our return to the boat at the beginning of the year we have had one date that has been driving our schedule, the 9th February. With only one flight a month into Ascension Island this was the day, our good friend Jonathan, would be arriving to join us for the trip to the Caribbean. With little tourism there are no hotels on the island so our arrival to pick him up on time was particularly important. We sailed into Clarence Bay the anchorage off of Georgetown, the capital of Ascension, at first light on the 9th just a few spare hours before Jonathan’s arrival that afternoon!

Georgetown and Long beach

When I describe Georgetown as the capital of Ascension I should point out that the population of Ascension is only about 800 people. There are only four areas that could be classified as towns, the American base, Georgetown and two small villages. Georgetown has a few houses, a shop, a church, a bar, a police station, the main government offices and little else.

And when I say that the Island receives few tourists, I should explain that so rare is their presence that when we checked in to all the normal authorities not only were we expected but everyone knew Jonathan would be flying in to join us.

Further the shop mentioned above is not exactly Tesco’s, its few short aisles are rather bare and any hope of finding fresh food were quickly dashed. Our diet for the next few weeks will be interesting to say the least. The bar, and our access to internet, has turned out to have rather erratic opening hours and the lasting memory of the much talked about cafe on the American base that we visited last night, will be the delightful aroma of deep fat frying that lingers on our clothes.

Despite all this we have had just the best time, we are so glad we stopped. The people, all in some way employed by the military or the island government, couldn’t have been more helpful and friendly. And the scenery and wildlife have been really special.

Ascension unlike St Helena has some spectacular beaches. The central peaks of the island are surrounded by barren lava fields, and industrial signs of the islands military status are everywhere, oil storage tanks, radar domes, huge arial fields, secret Sam type warehouses etc. etc… so it is wth surprise that you suddenly find yourself enjoying the sight of a stunning beach, the turquoise of the sea and the white of the sand exaggerated by the blackness of the rock.

Stunning beaches

Its not only humans that enjoy this coastline every where there are warnings that sharks frequent these waters. Intrepid as we are and avoiding the high risk times of dawn and dusk we have swam and snorkelled most days.

Shark warnngs

Visitors of a more gentle nature are the large Greenback turtles that incredibly swim the thousand or so miles from their feeding grounds in Brazil to lay their eggs in the soft sand, particularly on Long Beach right in front of the anchorage. By day they swim around the bay popping up next to us with the familiar puff as they breath out at the surface. By night the females climb up the beach and begin the laborious process of creating a hollow above the tide line, laying and then covering the eggs. Monday night we joined the conservation team, carefully making sure not to frighten the females climbing up the beach. They found, in red torch light, a female in the middle of laying, she weighed in at about 200kg and 115cm long. Once the nest has been dug, the turtles go into a trance like state and are not disturbed by an audience, so we were able to watch for half an hour before leaving her as she began to shovel sand to cover the eggs and gradually wake up.

Turtle laying her legs

Tuesday found us walking near the 859m peak of Green Mountain. Now a lush rain forest it has an interesting past. Seen by some as an innovative ecological terraforming experiment and by others as the worse type of man made biological invasion, over the past couple of centuries the mountain regions have been transformed from a sparsely vegetated arid area to the luxuriantly green landscape that gives the mountain its name today. In 1836 Darwin visited the island and noted the lack of vegetation and the complaints of the British marines that the island was “destitute of trees” on discussions with his friend Sir Joseph Hooker, later to become director of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew a plan was hatched to increase the vegetation. Plants and seeds from all over the world were planted and the survivors remain to create this unique environment.

Walking on a Green Mountain

The islands other highlights include the bright yellow land crabs, crisp horizons that gave us a brilliant ‘green flash’ one sunset, clear rich water from which Jonathan supplied us with an iridescent green Dorado for lunch, amazingly caught from the dingy and donkeys that seem to require refuelling at the local petrol station.

Only customers at the petrol station

Tomorrow we leave for the Caribbean and will be at sea for nearly 3 weeks. Follow us on the tracker.

Swimming with the Whale Sharks

Posted on February 9, 2019 by Roz

Friday 8th February 2019

Stunning views all around St Helena

St Helena, just a speck on the chart of the South Atlantic Ocean, is home, for a few month each year, to magnificent 10m long whale sharks. Nobody knows why they gather here or why for hours on end they come up to near the surface of the water and seemingly just float about. But for the few visitors to St Helena this behaviour means we get to see them up close and personal.

We arrived in James Bay at 3pm last Thursday and were almost immediately summons to the authorities so they could process our papers before the end of their working day. St Helena, at least when there are yachts moored n the Bay, has a very convenient ferry service that runs between the boats and the yacht every hour. Stepping off the ferry that surged up and down about a metre next to the dock, on legs that had been at sea for over nine days was not easy but we made it. We cleared customs and Port control filling out the normal raft of forms and then in the afternoon heat trudged up the hill to immigration sited at the police station.

We needed refreshments, in town we spotted an Edwardian hotel with, on its first floor, behind wrought iron filigree railings, an inviting breezy balcony. We sat and took in our surroundings over a very welcome cold beer. Jamestown is a thin strip of urbanisation running down a gully between high steep cliffs. The majority of buildings and houses which mostly seem to date from the late 19th century, cluster around the one main street, whilst the newer developments perch on the cliff tops high above.

James Town

The islanders are a rich mix of ethnic backgrounds, reflecting the history of the island as an important staging post for shipping heading east and west around the Cape of Good Hope. Everybody seems to know everybody else and life is led at a slow island pace.

Running impossibly steeply up the hillside is the infamous St Helena ladder, an almost vertical set of nearly 700 steps that rises straight up from the town, challenging visitors to climb it. I’m so glad we decided against it, if my vertigo thought climbing up would be difficult, standing at the top, a couple of days later when we visited it as part of our whistle stop island tour, it looked to plummet straight down.

St Helena Ladder

As is the way in small communities the ferry man turned out to be the man who also ran the whale shark trips, so on the return run to the boat we booked to go out the next morning. The dive boat retraced our track, following the sheer rock faces that we sailed past on our way in accompanied by lively spinner dolphins the day before but this time it was the telltale shadow in the water of two whale sharks that caught our eye. Their fins and tail tips cut through the surface Jaws style, but unlike Great Whites, Whale Sharks are plankton eating placid creatures. We slipped in and they seemed happy to just swim along with us. The trip was very well regulated with no more than 8 swimmers per shark and a limit of 40mins with them each day. It was such a privilege to be able to interact with them so closely, these amazing animal encounters are without doubt for us the highlights of this trip.

Wow! Swimming with Whale Sharks

Raya, with the pressurised schedule we’ve had for the past month, has become rather high maintenance and the weekend turned out to be no different The high pressure hose that feeds the watermaker has starting to split . We quickly filled our tanks with as much water as we could before Rick dismantled the offending piece and with the help of what appeared to be half the island tried to find a solution. They almost got there but were one connection short, luckily he had time to order what hopefully will be the right bits to be delivered to Jonathan who flies out to meet us tomorrow.

We couldn’t visit St Helena without seeing a bit more of the island, so putting down his tools for a few hours, we took a quick tour of the Island. Our guide had spent almost all of his 82 years on the island and was extremely knowledgable. St Helena’s greatest claim to historical fame is as the place of exile for Napoleon. Napoleon spent the last six years of his life, surrounded by members of the French court, in a large villa with exquisite gardens and extensive views. In fact the views everywhere on the island are fantastic, steep green valleys, forest covered peaks and dramatic rock formations all surrounded by a sparkling blue sea. Not too bad a place for a prison cell.

Napoleon’s residence while in St Helena

In between times I was trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to buy some fresh supplies. Luckily we still had some fruit and vegetables left from CapeTown, but that after another 5 days at sea is now almost gone, fingers crossed we will find more on Ascension Island for the 3000nm passage to Grenada.

Passage to St Helena

Posted on February 1, 2019 by Roz

Wednesday 30th January 2019

As the sun rose my spirits rose with it. Our first three nights out of Cape Town were chilly and the sea rough, the wind making our night watches cool and the rolly seas making sleeping difficult. It’s hard to explain just how nice, when you are cold and tired the coming of daylight is. The skies were full of cloud and glimpses of sunlight rare but still being able to see the waves as well as hear them and feel the small amount of warmth from the hazy sunshine came as a relief from the hours of darkness.

We had timed our departure from Cape Town, last Tuesday, not on the tide but on the earliest opening time of the fuel dock. Designed for much larger vessels we hadn’t quite realised just how high the sides of the dock would be and at low tide this was exaggerated further. The only protection from the barnacle encrusted wall were three huge tyres and the only cleats languished about 10ft above our heads. The surge from the ocean swell entering the outer harbour, pushed us on, off, up and down against the all. All my strength was not enough to throw our heavy warps up to the fuel manager, luckily Rick managed to get one up and I then tied us off on a couple of rusty brackets. Once full of desiel there was then the problem of transferring R8000 (£450) across the watery gap and into the air. We placed the bundle of notes into a zip lock bag and Rick threw as hard as he could, for a moment as Raya lurched it looked like it would go into the ocean but with relief it landed safely on the dock. We didn’t bother with the receipt!

Dodgy fuel dock, Cape Town

We headed out of the harbour into crowded waters, small, local motor boats fishing, huge cargo boats queueing to come into Port, pilot boats ready to guide them, a large fast ferry, flocks of cormorants and dozens of sun bathing seals. The seals lounging on their backs with their flippers in the air seemed uncaring of the passing traffic, quite a few times we came to within a few metres of them they didn’t bat an eyelid.

Unlike the huge male that had lorded it over our marina pontoon, one day aggressively barring Ricks access to the boat. Rick had popped out for a selection of nibbles for our lunch, unfortunately seals don’t seem to be keen on vegetable samosas and resisted the temptation to be lured after one into the water. After a 15min stand off, Rick clambered on to a wall at the back of the pontoon and sneaked around the seals back before making a leap for the boat. The seal now very cross stationed itself right next to our step off the boat. A good day for jobs onboard we decided.Pontoon wars

There traffic quickly thinned out once we left the coast of Africa, there have been a few AIS targets on the chart plotter, mostly cargo boats heading to the Far East, but none that actually were close enough to see by eye. There have been no dolphins or whales and few birds, just us, the sea and the sky.

It was a chilly first few days

When not catching up with sleep we have been reading, doing crosswords and fishing, two bites, two got away. A slight leak around a through hull fitting kept Rick busy for a day, but luckily he managed to stem the egress to a slow drip that can wait for our arrival in Grenada. We’ve enjoyed a couple of nice sunsets, well stocked from Cape Town the food has been fresh and we have even toasted the halfway point with a sneaky beer.

And as we have sailed north gradually the temperatures have increased and with clearing of the clouds, by day 5 we were back in shorts and T shirts, unfortunately the fine weather came with light winds and eventually we had to give up sailing and put on the engine. Thankfully the winds have picked up and we are sailing again today and winds are forecast to stay with us all the way into St Helena tomorrow afternoon.

Very much looking forward to getting there.

Cape Town

Posted on January 22, 2019 by Roz

Monday 21st January 2019

We have loved our short time in Cape Town. A vibrant city of stunning views, bright blue skies and an eclectic mix of people. We will be sad to leave but this morning we have checked out with the authorities and plan to set off on the ten day sail to St Helena first thing tomorrow.

Our visit started well when the guys from North Sails who with only two working days to restitch our main sail and hoist our new Genoa, were actually waiting on the dock as we arrived into the marina on Wednesday afternoon. The good service continued when thwarted by the high winds on Friday they came, out of hours, to bend on the two sails early Saturday morning.

Our location moored right in the middle of the V&A Waterfront complex is ideal. Not only is there, close by, a supermarket that I trudged to six times, back and forth, to fill the boat with enough fresh food for the ten day passage, but also street buskers to entertain, a very nice arts and craft market and dozens of restaurants many perched right next to the docks, affording great views

Table mountain from the V&A Watefront.

In fact there are great views everywhere, Table Mountain dramatically dominating wherever you look, but the best views of all have been from the top of the mountain looking back down. Having worked flat out for three days, everything was ready and we took Sunday to enjoy the city. With so little time we opted for the open top sightseeing bus that wound its way past the most interesting sites before heading up to the cable car base station. We had left early and were rewarded by clear fresh skies and short queues. The views from the top were incredible, in every direction – peering down to the city centre that sits snug in the bowl of the mountains, looking out to far off towns and hills that fade gradually into the distance or gazing down to the Cape where the sea sparkles in the sunshine.

Signal Hill and Cape Town City

The Cape Peninsular and the mountain are an area of floral importance, recognised by UNESCO as one of the worlds special areas in terms of diversity, density and number of endemic species. Flowering shrubs, succulents and exoctic flowers nestle between the boulders that cover the plateau at the top of the mountain. For the intrepid, paths wind through this unique landscape, steeply up the mountain side that takes about 3hrs to scale, for those like us who opt for the slightly less strenuous fives minute ride in the cable car, paths zigzag around the top to make the best of the surroundings and it’s majestic scenery.

Taking a break and enjoying the view out to the Cape.

Back down at the bottom of the mountain we took the bus to Camp Bay, one of the lovely seaside communities that surround the beaches SE of Cape Town. Th sea looks welcoming in the heat but unfortunately a cold current runs down this part of the coast, a few brave souls were playing in the surf but most of the visitors were just soaking up the sunshine from their deck chairs. Having never been to anywhere on the South Atlantic I felt the need to dip at least one toe in the water, I can confirm it is freezing. We strolled along the beach for a while and then went for a very pleasant lunch, enjoying the waves from the warmth and comfort of our restaurant table.

A bit cold for a swim

Every time we have looked at the weather over the past few days the winds for Monday and Monday night have been getting lighter and lighter, it seemed foolish to leave just to motor for 24hrs, using precious fuel that we may need later in the trip. We took the decision to wait to leave until Tuesday morning, this having the added benefit of giving us a little more time to further enjoy the city.

We chose to visit a vineyard, we have really been loving the wine since arriving in South Africa and the oldest area of wine production in the country is just 20mins out of town – Constantia. One vineyard, Groot Constantia, was establish in 1685 and quickly became known for its production of excellent desert wine, drank by Napoleon while imprisoned in St Helena, the cellar still produces bottles of Grand Constance to this day. We had to try some and very delicious it was too. We left a few rand down but loaded up with a selection of bottles and some of the delicious chocolate they have produced to accompany each of their different wines. A white chocolate to pair with Sauvignon Blanc, a blackberry flavoured milk chocolate for the Pinotage and a dark chocolate to go with their Grand Reserve.

Groot Constantia

Next stop St Helena, where we can complete the Napoleon experience and see where exactly he sat to enjoy his wine.

Rounding the Cape

Posted on January 18, 2019 by Roz

Wednesday 16th January 2019

As we rounded the most southern point of Africa, Cape Agulhas, we turned north for the first time since July. Taking advantage of a short weather window we had left Port Elizabeth at first light the day before. We were expecting high winds for this part of the journey and this notoriously rough passage didn’t disappoint.

The previous week we remained trapped in Port Elizabeth. Two large low pressure systems, passing to the south, kept the wind against us and the swell large. This wind and swell crept around the headland and into the marina, setting us rocking and our warps creaking. The dodgy dock wobbled and bent as the yachts either side bounced and pulled at it. However despite looking like it might collapse at any moment it held fast and kept us all safe.

Rather rickety pontoons in Port Elizabeth Marina

We decided we deserved a day off from the continual buffeting, so Saturday we hired a car for the day and drove from Port Elizabeth along the picturesque Garden Route to visit the Tsitsikamma National Park. We headed for the mouth of Storms River that cuts through the country side in a deep gorge and can be crossed by two precariously looking suspension bridges.

As we arrived at the coast the full strength of the large ocean swell was dramatically demonstrated as waves pounded into the rocky shore line sending plumes of spray spectacularly into the air. It acted as a good demonstration as to why we were still in a marina and not at sea.

Large waves pounding the coast

Rick had tweaked his calf muscle a few days before so I took off on the kilometre walk out to the bridges alone. The path crossed a small beach and then twisted and turned its way up and around the cliff affording breath taking views of the coast line and the rough seas below.

The small beach at Storms River Mouth

At the end of the trail steep steps led down to the bridges, Despite their height, so rough was the sea that spray splashed up on to the bridge, timing my crossing wrongly I ended up with wet feet nearly 7m above the waves. From the bridge you could see just how steep the sides of the gorge were. The difference between the seething waters to seaward and the calm river that disappeared into the hills was striking. For the half dozen intrepid kayakers that entered into the water at the bridge the still waters in front of them must have been a relief after the sight of the surf as they trekked to their crafts.

The suspension bridges at Storms River mouth.

Sunday a glimmer of a weather window opened up, it meant motoring to windward for the first day and a half and then rounding the Cape in winds of F5 but in the perfect direction. The swell continued to be at nearly 5m but with the top of each wave being 13 seconds apart and light winds, we were ashored by the locals they wouldn’t be a problem.

So first thing Monday we set out, and sure enough the slowly rolling swell caused us no problems. As we motored along the wild life kept us entertained, Cape Gannets formation flew before dramatically diving for their supper, dolphins appeared at our bows, whales passed by a few hundred meters away and for the first time since New Zealand we saw seals, fins high out of the water they floated seemingly asleep.

As we approached Cape Agulhas the wind backed to the SE and picked up, by nightfall we were sailing in 30kts with an increasingly rough sea. We turned North and luckily the seas and wind turned with us, by the time we reached the Cape of Good Hope it was even stormier but Raya as always just ploughed through it all. We were extremely pleased however to find as we sailed further up the coast that conditions eased and as we approached Cape Town we were again motoring in calm seas. The spectacular sight of the city with Table Mountain looming above it was yet another high moment of this trip. And we were finally out of the Indian Ocean and all its challenges.

Welcome sight as we entered Cape Town

Passing through the bridges to get into the V&A Marina.