Arrival Port Saint Charles and a loose end retrieved.

After a few hours of delightful Carribean sailing up the west coast of Barbados, at 1115 local time we dropped anchor under sail to the astonishment of the natives and other yachties (well they might have been) and quickly got the boat sorted out enough to break out the G&Ts!

Thanks to all the motoring we had done over the last couple of days we had enough power to make ice and freeze the Mahi-Mahi. We'll have some of that for dinner tonight!

After a couple of G&Ts it was time for lunch of more fresh homemade bread thanks to Mick with salami and cucumber - the only green thing to have lasted the passage. Then we hit the sack for a few hours. Check in can wait until tomorrow!

The sun found a way to wake me hot and sticky at about 1700, so I got up and went for a swim. I untangled the rope round the prop whilst I was at it.

Shortly after getting out the sun set for the day and on our passage to Barbados.

Tomorrow we check in and explore our new surroundings.

Day 20 28/12/23 Part 2 - A slow dramatic dance and we slowly close in on Port Saint Charles!

You'll remember I've two slightly different/contradictory things about not having a useable engine. The first being one doesn't pwant to approach a strange port in such circumstances and the second being not to worry because we'll only be anchoring off Port Saint Charles. Well now I have a third statement on the topic - one really doesn't want to be becalmed OUTSIDE a major busy port without an engine.

Well you can guess what's coming can't you?! That's right in the dark in the early hours of this morning, the breeze deserted us and we started drifting slowly back the way we had come a couple of miles of Barbados's major commercial port - Bridgetown. Now fair enough, Bridgetown ain't Dover but it is pretty busy, and two ships had already crossed our bows on their way in as we drew abeam of the port. To the west, a couple of miles away, there was a 'que' of about 4 other ships lining up to make their approach. I wasn't too concerned to begin with because they were all more or less stationary and I assumed, waiting for daylight and in any case we had got past Bridgetown - hadn't we! But what I hadn't realised at the time was that we had drifted back on our track and were, (which I only discovered later) slap bang on a transit between them and the port's pilot pick up area.

I kept an eye on all the AIS signals from the ships and after an hour of drifting aimlessly, I noticed that the cruise ship Britannia one was now on the move at a slow 3.5 knots. Hmm! I thought I'd better let her know we were here so called her up on the VHF to explain we couldn't use our engine, were drifting and unable to 'make way'. A phrase which came to me out of nowhere but which I thought might make it appear that I was in control of the situation. A very British and reassuring voice told me he knew we were here and could see us drifting slowly south and that they were preparing to close the port to pick up a pilot. Oh, that's news (the drifting south bit) to me I thought, I'd better check, but kept that to myself and thanked the nice British man.

Half an hour later, we had the faintest of breezes and I managed to turn Bonny round and head north, very very slowly indeed. "Sailing vessel Bonny, sailing vessel Bonny, sailing vessel Bonny, Britannia, Britannia." Oh heck I thought now what? I dashed down to the chart table and took in that Britannia had upped her game and was now travelling at 6.5 knots directly for us. I answered the call and was asked to go to Channel 6 which I did. The same very pleasant voice said he had noticed we were moving north and had we managed to get our engine going? "No, I'm afraid we have a rope around our propeller and won't be able to tackle that until daylight. We are now sailing very slowly north but could start drifting again at any minute." Understood came the reply. We are now heading into to pick up our pilot and you are directly in our path so I would be most grateful if you could do your best to continue on your present course as quickly as possible. "I certainly will do my very best" I assured him.

There's nothing like a few thousand tons of cruise ship bearing down on one to sharpen the senses! In the event I think we probably made 500 metres over the next 20 minutes, at which point he passed our stern about 500 metres off!

After that the wind died once again and we came to another halt. Over the next few hours a feint breeze blew in fits and starts and we made a few more hundred metres until around 0700 the NE Breeze filled in properly and we started sailing at a decent speed close hauled up the coast on a beautiful morning...

- not too hot - towards Port Saint Charles, which as of 0800 local time is 7 miles off. We'll have to put in a tack to lay it and so may end up doubling that distance but it does now look pretty certain we'll be in later today without the need for me to go over the side out on the ocean!

Day 20 29/12/23 - Wind, Barbados; a lose end and a dramatic end?

The view on our Starboard Beam at 0130 this morning - the south eastern coast of the island of Barbados. Nearly there, but there's a twist in the tail or rather, the absence of a twist in a line! Remember I said earlier that the last place one wanted to be without an engine was a strange port? Well......

Around 1900 yesterday evening just as I was about to go off Watch, the wind arrived from the north east. Nothing much but enough to get us sailing. 

A few hours before that at about 1700, with Barbados showing as only a dim loom of light on the horizon of a dusk sky, just after Mick had retired for his afternoon snooze, I saw ominous dark clouds in the same area and thought we might be in for a deluge.

So I went up to the foredeck to make the cruising chute and all its many bits of string secure by lashing the chute to the guard rails and by coiling and making fast the bits of string. The last thing we wanted to happen was for a lose line to fall overboard and foul the prop and prevent us from using the engine. Earlier I'd rejected Micks suggestion to remove all the lines because we may have needed to use the chute again. Once done, I checked it at all carefully and satisfied all was well, went back to the cockpit having warned Mick to be prepared for heavy rain.

Well, the rain never arrived, but of course the wind did. I therefore decided to hoist the mainsail first and then the genoa. I went up to the mast whilst Mick handled the cockpit end of things. With the mainsail nearly up I was struggling to untie knots in the reefing penants that someone had tied to prevent them pulling through, when Mick called, "the engine's just stopped and I bet I know why". "Why?" "Because there's a rope round the prop". Did I imagine a certain smugness in his reply? 

I sorted out the pendants, finished hoisting the main and we started sailing. Then the genoa and soon we were going along nicely at 4 knots. Then I went back up to the foredeck and eventually found the errant line bar taut over the bow. One of the pole guys. Clearly I had not checked thoroughly enough!

So here we are now at just after 0200 sailing up the leeward coast to our destination port about 6 miles away without a useable engine. It rather looks like I shall have to go over the side in daylight to free the wretched guy line. We may be able to free it by putting the engine into reverse and puling the rope at the same time but for now I just hope we don't lose the wind!

Actually, it's not really that bad a prospect. Our 'port' is actually an anchorage outside the swanky Marina village of Port Saint Charles. I can't afford their marina rates. Anchoring under sail should be perfectly doable🤞!

It's a very pleasant night as we sail at 4-5 knots up the western coast over a flat sea. We're currently heading north west on a close reach but when we bring Bridgetown abeam in about an hour and a half, we'll turn north and have to start beating to windward to make Port Saint Charles. However, that should be no hardship in these very pleasant conditions.

Day 19 28/12/23 - Part 2 - The one that didn't get Away

With a photo like that it's a bit difficult to keep the punch line until last!

But a little scene setting is probably appropriate. We've never had much luck fishing apart from landing Mackeral a few times in home waters when we've gone through shoals of the daft things and they've launched themselves at bare hooks. 

The first problem is we're both a bit too squeamish to deal with the consequences of landing anything bigger than a mackeral. The second is that as a consequence we've never seriously tried.

However, whilst in Plymouth in July I decided we should equip ourselves with some modest gear so that we could at least try. I therefore bought a hand line with four hooks/feathers and a weight. It stayed firmly in a locker until a couple of days ago when our tinned meat diet of the last week finally became a little tedious.

The line therefore went out. For two days we got not so much as a nibble. The line went out again this morning but we were really just going through the motions and pretty quickly we forgot all about it. Then eatlier this afternoon, just as were about to tuck into lunch with more of Mick's lovely home made bread when....

.... Mick spotted what looked like wreckage floating in the sea a few hundred metres away. Were those people clinging on for dear life? Thankfully not. As we got nearer we could see the 'wreckage' consisted of polystyrene fishing floats with a few birds perched on them. 

These were not the first we'd seen in the day but they were the biggest. 

We turned away with a mixture of relief but also disappointment! Imagine being at the centre of a 'mid' ocean rescue! 

As we left the scene Mick who was looking back at it, said - "did you see that fish jump?" A few seconds later I did. Hang on I said "I think we may have caught a fish"! I picked up the line holder and yes there was clearly something on it. It took a lot of hand over hand turning of the line holder but fairly soon it was clear that the jumping fish was on our line!

After another few minutes I had a beautiful (😔) Mahi-Mahi of about 1 metre alongside the boat...

"It looks like he's given up said Mick. "Hmm, I'm not so sure, I think all hell may let lose when I try and lift him out of the water" (we haven't got a landing net). Sure enough he went berserk as I lifted him into the cockpit. Just as I got him in, the line parted and he fell onto the cockpit sole. A second earlier and he would have been free albeit with a hook in his jaw!

We were both rather stunned as the beautiful blue and yellow creature thrashed about. Suddenly the plan to knock him out with a hammer seemed an unlikely one. Alcohol in the gills - I suddenly remembered being told by Alexi in Sal. I rushed to the drinks cabinet. Shame to waste the last of Howard's Jack Daniels! Ah, perfect a small bottle of White Rum. Charles's favourite but not mine. I quickly poured a generous measure into one of his gills which quietened him down considerably. Then I turned him over and did the other. There was still slight movement so I pierced the poor thing's head with a knife. Loads of blood. Dam got his gills not his brain. Another go. That did it.

By now, with the rear of the cockpit swimming in blood, Mick was looking decidely green! I put him in our largest bucket ..

... and we resumed lunch. Tuna Mayonnaise with Mick's lovely bread rolls!

I've never gutted a fish before. Mick appeared to understand the technique but clearly had no appetite for doing the deed, so with him directing operations from a safe distance I set to work. I fully expected to find it all to much to bare, but to my surprise I just got on with it and soon we had enough fish flesh for what turned out to be 11 generous fillets.

Enough to keep us in fish for days. As luck would have it, with the engine now producing enough Amps to meet all our needs we had recommisioned the small fridge/freezer to make ice in preparation for celebratory G&Ts on arrival. The fillets therefore joined the 'to be' ice cubes. With the massacre of the poor creature still fresh in our minds, neither of us thought we fancied fish for dinner tonight. 

Tomorrow we can pretend we bought it from Sainsbury's!

In other news, at 1745 GMT we had 75 miles still to go and the engine was still running! We are hopeful of a breeze finding us later this evening, but for now we are motoring through a truly glassy sea. I don't think I have ever seen it so clear 'mid' ocean.

You'll note cloud in the distant horizon to the North West however. We know there is 'weather' in that direction (an area of low pressure) and that cloud is probably related to it. There is also a significant low undulating swell coming in from the same direction..

Day 19 - 28/12/23 - Part 1 - The Rules of the Game

Up at 0030 to start my Watch and guess what? No wind, still motoring towards Barbados with about 125 miles to go to our destination, Port Saint Charles, on the north west coast. 

If our estimate of fuel consumption (2 litres per hour) at our current speed of 4 knots is correct, then this time tomorrow (0215 local time) we'll have 25 miles left to run, but the main fuel tank will be out of useable diesel! If we've under estimated our fuel consumption, the engine will conk out before then! 

Currently, the different weather models vary quite a bit in the detail of how the wind will behave over the next 48 hours between our current location and our destination. Broadly they range from none to speak of anywhere en route, to useable wind kicking in, from around the southern tip of the island and northwards, in the early hours of Friday morning (GMT).

We have 15 litres of fuel in reserve in jerry cans. In theory that gives us just over 7 hours of motoring - enough to cover 28 miles! The thing is though, the last place one wants to be when the engine dies is entering a strange port! Hopefully therefore, the more optimistic forecasts prove to be the most accurate!

Of course we could just drift and wait for sufficient wind to get us moving again. However, I have done what every sailor knows they should never do, but which most of us inevitably do, do, on occasion and that's impose a time constraint. In this case, Sharon's arrival on the afternoon of the 2nd of January! There's also the small matter of New Year's Eve to factor in! I don't think either Mick or I will be looking forward to a 'Rave', but it would be nice to be in a bar somewhere!

Day 18 - 27/12/23 - The Poker game continues and a spectacular end to the day!

I took over the Watch at 0100 and was greeted by the same scene as when I went to bed - a near calm ocean with a long undulating swell and Bonny under power at around 4 knots.

At 0315 the mischievous wind played her 1st bluff of the game. A light shower of rain brought with it a fair north easterly breeze. I unrolled the genoa and waited 10 minutes for things to settle down before calling Mick so that I could hoist the main. By the time he was up the wind had died once again! 

We continued under power with the genoa providing a little help in the feint breeze left behind. Within a further 10 minutes event that feint breeze had viven up and so I rolled up the genoa again.

All that activity disturbed our Christmas Fairy who was still with us resting on some rigging in the bows of the boat! 

Unfortunately, most of the accounts I have read by other sailors who have had similar visitors on the ocean, report the ultimate demise of their winged companions!

Our Fairy went foraging just after dawn, then came back for a further rest and then departed for good around 0630.

We got the chute up at 0830 on two poles which is we think something of an innovation. The engine went off and we sailed serenley onwards for Barbados with only the slightest drop in speed to 3-4 knots.

The wind has died somewhat now - 1130 and we've slowed to 2 knots. However, it should increase slightly in a few hours.

God it's bloody hot. Sweating doing nothing. Any activity and it pours off me. Sponging down with cold water every 5 minutes. Cold drinks essential. We may have just enough to get is to Barbados! 

The wind didn't pick up! Latest forecast now = no wind for 24+ hours. So motoring once again.

Consolation prize, gorgeous sunset..

 followed by spectacular moonrise....

Time for bed said Zeberdy!

26/12/23 - Boxing Day 🎄- A game of poker with wind and fuel & a Christmas Fairy

The very light wind and very slow progress continued through my Watch too. And it was still very warm - no need for even a T shirt. Four days ago I was still putting on a light fleace in the early hours of the morning. This morning around 0400 with the temperature at its lowest I put on s T shirt for a couple of hours. 

During the last hour of my Watch (which ended at 0800 Barbados time) the wind backed to the North and it rained for 10 minutes or so. I hoped this heralded the arrival of more wind too, but it proved a very short lived affair and very soon we were wallowing around in anticyclonic puffs of wind from all directions and mostly going backwards which at that point meant south! The Hydrovane finally gave up but it's ability to keep steering Bonny - no light-weight let's face it - in wind relative speeds down to around 4 knots, was impressive. I also noticed a small tear in the cruising chute. So once Mick was up we doused it and continued under power at an economical 1500 revs giving us 4 knots. 

Midway through the day our visitor arrived. A tiny little thing not much bigger than a sparrow. I think it's a Fairy Prion...

With Sharon arriving on 2nd January, I'd like enough time to get settled in and find the best place to anchor, clean up the boat, and do some washing and shopping (and possibly find out whether we can find anywhere to stay ashore in case she finds the boat at anchor too uncomfortable - I don't know how much rolling we'll experience) before she arrives. Therefore, I don't really want to arrive any later than the 30th.

At a speed of 4 knots or so, we would make our waypoint (now) just to the south of Barbados at around 0400 on 29/12/23.

But there's a catch. We don't have enough fuel to motor all the way there. The fuel tank gauge is unreliable and so we have to estimate the amount of fuel we have left, based on engine hours chalked up. We think that from the time we started the engine we could motor for another 2.5 days and possibly 3. But the more we push it to 3, the greater the chance of sucking up muck in the bottom of the tank which could put the engine out of action.

The plan for now therefore is to continue under power until around 0800 on the 27th by which time we should have just enough wind to continue onwards slowly under sail. More sustained wind is then due on Friday 29/12. That should enable us to get in on the Saturday/Sunday 30th/31st!

25/12/23 - Christmas Day Part 2

We continued to make pretty good progress under the cruising chute and for a few hours the extra speed it gave us (4-5 knots) combined with flatter seas, dramatically reduced our rolling. Apart from the improved progress, two other welcome consequences became apparent.

Firstly we were able to get a Starlink connection - via our patent pending gimbal device and the reduced rolling - within 25 minutes! 

I was able to hold a video call with Sharon and the whole family including our American visitors as they were having Christmas dinner. 

Secondly, the conditions in the galley made Mick's job of cooking our Christmas dinner of Spam Fritters and roasted vegetables much less challenging than it would otherwise have been. It turned out very well too. Indeed we were both so stuffed that we had no room for dessert. Which was just as well because we hadn't made one. The chocolate cake will have to be a Boxing Day or later treat.

The wind fell even more during the afternoon, evening and night and by nightfall Bonny had slowed to a crawl of 1-2 knots and annoyingly a steep swell had reappeared knocking what little wind there was out of the cruising chute and causing it to tangle round itself and the rigging. 

And so things continued through Mick's Watch.... and ....

25/12/23 - Merry Christmas 🎄

Christmas Day started for me at 0120 local time when my alam went off - time to take over the Watch from Mick! I'd just had the best sleep of the passage to date. I went off quickly, woke after 4 hours for a pee and was soon back to sleep!

Mick reported very light airs throughout his watch barely giving the boat steerage as the vane flopped from one side to the other in the swell. A breeze had however just come up and surprisingly we were making 3-4 knots over the ground with the sails snapping due to the combination of the light wind and swell. Mick had set the vane to starboard for a broad reach because what wind there was, was now from the North East and would otherwise be pushing us SW. I was surprised the twin headsails would set with that angle of wind but they did just about. The wind should veer back to the East in the next few hours but we'll see.

It's a very pleasant night with the boat gurgling gently along under an almost full moon and a largely clear, stary sky.  It would be perfect if it wasn't for the still persistent swell knocking the wind out of the sails as the boat rolled - for the most part gently - to it.

Mick had also reported a close encounter with a sodium type light which he took to be a marker beacon for a string of long fishing lines like the ones we had passed yesterday.

After 10 minutes I noticed another glow on the port bow and assumed we were approaching another. However, as we got closer it became clear that this was not one light, but multiple lights. This was a sizeable vessel and I thought it was most probably the mother ship attending the long lines. The fact that it was not transmitting an AIS signal made me even more certain. Fishing vessels often don't transmit on AIS so as not to give their location away to competitors. 

I hand steered for half an hour to ensure we stayed well off the unidentified vessel and then we resumed our previous heading of roughly west. It just goes to show that even these days with AIS mandatory for commercial vessels, one still needs to keep a good lookout even on the open ocean.

Earlier, before noticing the light, I'd made a cup of tea which I managed to drink whilst keeping the boat away from the fishing vessel. I'd boiled too much water and so used the excess to boil some potatoes in preparation for frying them for our Christmas breakfast. I'm doing the breakfast and Mick's in charge of lunch/dinner.

We have eggs and bake beans but no bacon and so I'll try making corned beef fritters instead and of course we'll have Mick's excellent bread. 

It sounds like the centre piece of Christmas lunch is to be Spam Fritters. Apparently Mick is absolutely mad about them! We have plenty of potatoes and sweet potatoes so there'll be no shortage of starch. I must pursuade him to make Yorkshire Pudding too! There's also talk of home made chocolate cake for pudding!!

It's going to be a busy day especially if it starts as expected with a major sail change just after dawn!

It's going to be a strange Christmas day. I've never spent one at sea before and indeed have only ever missed Christmas at home once before and that was in 2016 when Mick and I arrived in Forte de France, Martinique on Christmas Eve, just in time to get to the shops to shop for Christmas lunch! I'm going to really miss the big family gathering at home, especially the excited little ones as they open their Christmas presents, but I'm sure Mick and I will have an enjoyable day. Christmas at sea will have its own special charm I'm sure. Indeed, as I write this, just after 0400, the nearly full moon is just about to set on the western horizon and will then leave the stars alone to guide us on our way. Venus is also already high in the sky behind us to announce the coming dawn.

Back home, it's 0800 and no doubt Sharon and hopefully some other helpers too, will be up preparing Christmas breakfast. Some of the family may have stayed at the house last night, those that didn't will turn up during the course of the morning and bedlam will break out as seven grandchildren create the excited chaos of another Christmas Day.

Christmas breakfast Curtesy of the Skipper.

The Mate will cook dinner later. Spam Fritters Atantic!

Now sailing under Cruising chute in light winds.

Day 15 - Christmas Eve 🎄- UFOs sighted, Barbados time and a Baker's triumph!

Well why let the facts get in the way of a good headline? The UFOs were actually Unidentified Floating Objects! Also it's stretching a point to say they were unidentified because we, or to be more precise, Mick, seemed pretty certain about what they were - long line fishing markers. For a couple of miles or more we sailed down a line of these football sized bouys spaced about every 200 metres. Then we passed one very closely that had a second float attached to it with a 3 metre antenna sticking out the top. This was presumably transmitting its location to the mother ship!

That, putting the clock onto Barbados time and Mick baking a second loaf were the highlights of the day. At the time of writing Mick's second creation had just come out of the oven and looked most impressive. 

No problems rising this time! Can't wait to try it.

As of 1500 (GMT - 4) Barbados time, the winds which had been moderate to fresh for most of the day began to ease and this is probably the beginning of the decline we have been expecting. 

If the wind behaves as forecast, we'll change our rig tomorrow morning at the change of Watch. The twin headsails will come in and we'll hoist the mainsail and boomed out cruising chute. That should provide us our maximum sail area for light down wind sailing.

Lunch was a slightly sorry afair of salami salad (old cucumber, old tamatoe and old cheese) with knuckets of brick soda bread!

Dinner will be light - probably pasta with pesto sauce accompanied by slices of Mick's latest creation!

Day 13 - 22/12/23 - It's all about the Amps!

Despite a reasonable 'night's' sleep I still felt very tired during my 6 hour Watch that started at 0100 and so after a couple of hours of reading I cat-napped in the cockpit, checking our heading and horizon every twenty minutes. 

The wind veered further south early in my watch requiring a change to the Hydrovane setting to ensure we continued to track a course of about 260° which we hoped would avoid the lightest of the light winds forecast further west in a couple of days. For now though Bonny continued at a reasonable pace of around 5.5 knots.

The sky is overcast - not great for solar charging but by 1230 our batteries had recovered from their morning low of 30% to 46%. I think they should reach at least 50% by the time the sun is obscured by the shadow of our sails later this afternoon. 

In the event the batteries charged up to 56% of their capacity, 1% less than the day before. Their total capacity is 200 Amp hours, all of which is available thanks to the Batteries being Lithium.

Another grib forecast would be useful to help us navigate around (if possible) the area of previously predicted calms ahead.

Given our recent previous experience of operating Starlink on the ocean it may take 4 hours before we manage to get a connection which will consume about 16 Amps. Amps and fuel management will be important over the next few days therefore. There's no point in running the engine for any longer than necessary for sufficient charge to get us through the passage or even the next few days.

The fridge is the main constant drain on the batteries and consumes about 22 Amp hours a day with other bits and pieces (raspberry pi computer for navigation and weather downloads, VHF Radio, AIS transceiver, navigation lights, compass light, cabin lights, charging phones and tablets) accounting for about 36 Amp hours a day. 

In addition when we run the watermaker that consumes about 6 Amps. Currently we're running it for about 45 minutes every other day to produce 4 litres of drinking water. So a rough daily equivalent is 2.5 Amp hours a day.* 

We haven't run the water heater on this passage, partly due to the power problems but also because, in these temperatures and given the fairly warm ambient water temperature of the water in the water heater tank, there's no great discomfort to have a 'cold' shower. Indeed it is rather pleasant!

So on average (not counting Starlink) we're using about 60 Amp hours every day. Therefore that's how much power we need to generate to keep up with demand. As mentioned above, by the time the sun had stopped charging our panels yesterday afternoon our batteries were up to 56% of capacity. 

Clearly, over the duration of the passage so far (we started it with our batteries fully charged), charging has not kept pace with consumption. That's despite running the engine for 4.25 hours a few days ago which contributed about 100 Amp hours of charge - 50% of total capacity. 

On this passage thus far we've run Starlink for a total of 15 hours and have had a usable connection for perhaps 5 of those 15 hours. Starlink draws on average about 4.5 Amps (it uses most when trying to make a connection). That's 67.5 Amp hours to download a few gribs, and exchange emails and messages and have a couple of quick chats with home. 

I had simply not 'budgeted' for that rate of consumption when I made the decision to buy it and the plain fact is we need more solar power or wind power to keep up with all the extra demand I've created. Remember we've already decommissioned our small fridge/freezer (sacrificing our ability to make ice in the process 😱) and since exhausting our supply of fresh meat, have increased the temperature setting for the main fridge! Quite what I can do 

Back to Starlink. Although we hope that placing the dish in our home made gimbal will reduce the 4 hour connection time previously experienced, at this stage that is only a hope. It could take 4 hours once again or even longer! 

So lets say we have it on for a total of 4.5 hours, that's 20 Amp hours of electricity - 10% of total battery capacity -  consumed. If we manage to get our batteries back up to 56% of capacity by the end of charging this afternoon, after Starlink we'll be down to 36% of capacity. On average we use about 26% of capacity overnight (that is from when the solar panels stop providing a net charge to when they start doing so once again). That would reduce capacity tomorrow morning to a low point of about 10%. Which means we will most probably have to run the engine in the very near future. 

We had our best daily run so far - 135 nautical miles. As at 1745 local time today we have 652 to run to our waypoint just north of Barbados. Given that, for now our ETA remains 28/12. That may change tomorrow once we download and digest a new grib.

[*Due to our power issues we mainly only use the water maker to produce drinking water and we are therefore running our main water tank down. The original intention had been to run it a few hours everyday to keep our main tank topped up too. We have plenty of water left for this passage but it does mean that at some point we'll need to fill our tank from a shore supply]

STOP PRESS - Next post will include exciting news re round 2 of the Mid Atlantic Bake Off!

Day 12 - 21/12/23 - The Ocean stirs

A much better night's sleep was had on the Starboard Saloon bunk.

Thanks to yesterday's Starlink connection we had downloaded an updated grib which showed we were at risk of hitting a large patch of low winds, 2-3 days out from Barbados. The further north of 13° North we tracked the less wind for longer periods we were likely to encounter. We therefore made a slight course change to take us south of west for the next day or so in the hope we can hold onto decent winds for longer.

The Starlink connection also enabled me to have a brief WhatsApp call with Sharon and say hello to her brother Martin over for Christmas from Dubia (to where they are currently expatriated from the USA) with his wife Robin and kids Kloe and Kaj. With all the rest of the family there, it sounds like Christmas at home will be very hectic and a lot of fun. Certainly a contrast with that to be enjoyed on board the good ship Bonny!

A negative consequence of waiting 4 hours for Starlink to connect yesterday plus the two hours we used it for, was the hammering our batteries took. From a charge level of 87% at the point we turned it on, the battery level dropped to 72% by the time it was switched off. This morning we were down to 50% and it's cloudy which means we're not replenishing them very much. As of 1130, they're only up to 54%!

We've agreed we will try setting the dish in a gimbal arrangement again next time we try and use Starlink. Last time we used one we gave up after an hour but maybe it might reduce the excessive 4 hour connection time experienced on the last two occasions we actually got a connection!

After the alarm pierced my ear plugs at 0120 local time I poked my head outside to converse with the Mate who informed me the wind was up to 20 knots and suggested that, given the boat was veering around all over the place, it might be time to reduce sail. This we did by the relatively simple means of furling the genoa until it was of equal size to the jib. That and some adjustments to the Hydrovane settled things down and we continued to make a good speed, averaging in excess of 6 knots.

Once Mick had retreated below I realised that the occasional flash I was noticing out of the corner of my eye was caused by lightning beyond the western horizon. Another sign that we were making progress towards the Carribean but slightly unnerving given we were heading straight for it. However, I reasoned that it must be a very long way off because I could never see the lightning itself.

I had a rude shock after a couple of hours on Watch in the cockpit, when a rogue wave slammed into the boat depositing dollops of the Atlantic Ocean over me. Fortunately, it was just a one-off and was not repeated.

The lightning flashes continued throughout the hours of darkness but remained beyond the horizon. When dawn broke we were still thundering along at 6 plus knots and occasionally surfing down waves at 9 knots! The rotating noise of the prop-shaft speeded up in response to the boat's increase in speed, thereby providing a useful, but slightly disconcerting clue as to the boat's speed.

At 0745 under cloudy skies we ran into our first serious rainfall of the passage which very probably is linked to the lightning over the then horizon, I had noticed earlier. For the first time we had to put the transparent washboard in and close the hatch! Fortunately, it's now Mick's Watch, not mine :)! It was however only a shower and we were through it in 15 minutes or so.

All in all, today was feeling more like our 2016 crossing on Arctic Smoke than any other day so far. With the increased wind, have come bigger waves,  the bigger ones are now around 3 metres high. We have also started to reach the sort of speeds that Arctic Smoke achieved for large sections of the crossing especially the latter stages - consistently 6+ knots. However, it's far too late in the crossing for Bonny to make up for the time 'lost' earlier in the passage. Arctic Smoke's average speed of 5.5 knots and the 16 days it took her to cross from Mindelo to Martinique (100 nautical miles further than to Barbados) will not be challenged. Indeed, given the forecasted windless zone ahead, we may struggle to meet our ETA of 28/12 - which would take us 18 days!

Today we started consuming the product of the Mate's Mid Atlantic Bake off endeavours. Whilst on Watch overnight I ate it with Bread, butter and Romanian jam.  After muesli late morning, I plastered it with butter and marmalade. Very enjoyable!

Day 11 Part 2 - The Mid Atlantic Bake-Off Round 1

Part 2, because after 4 hours of Starlink gobbling up previous Amps, we finally got a connection and amongst other things I updated the blog with the previously unpublished posts, including the first part of this.

Earlier in the day, the Mate had his entry into this year's exciting mid-Atlantic 'Squid Games-Bake Off' accepted and set too in the galley to produce the first fresh bread of the passage, whilst both the skipper and purser were asleep in their bunks having their morning recovery snooze.

I can now reveal to my expectant and excited reader that the judges awarded  the Mate the following points:

For perseverance and effort in challenging conditions - 10 plus a bonus point;

For ingredient logistics, planning and application skills - 5. His failure to consult the purser before he went off watch led to the use of out of date yeast, which as every baker worth his or her or their Salt, knows is a cardinal sin; 

For committing a cardinal sin - a dozen lashes of the "Cat" at the grating at midday in front of the entire ship's company;

For technique - 10 points. The judges noted the exemplary fashion in which the Mate incorporated the vigorous rolling of the ship into his kneeding regime, thereby ensuring maximum compression of the dough at all times. Also observed was the Mate's ingenious use of clothes pegs to ensure the rising dough was contained in an air tight plastic bag stretched over the baking tin. 

It should be noted however, that one of the judges marked the Mate down here, citing this technique as yet another example of the Mate's tendency to be a, too clever by half, smart arse. He then referred to the 1642 Charter of the Mid Atlantic Bake-Off and quoted: ".. any contestant found to be a too clever by half smart arse by a majority of judges shall be expelled from the competition and shall be whipped to within an inch of his or her or their life. 

This extraordinary outburst, taken together with the afore mentioned triggering of 'Cardinal Sin'  clause,  immediately triggered a hastily arranged, 'in camera', judges' mediation conference. An unattributable source later reported scenes of "python-esc uproar, consternation and extraordinary silliness" as the judges struggled to reconcile the wording of the ancient constitution with the norms of civilised society. The panel appeared split down the middle with one group citing the example of the constitution of the USA giving every and any mad bastard the right to bare arms as evidence that the Mid Atlantic Bake Off had every right to be just as bloody crazy and stupid as the USA, with the other group saying that US constitution is in this day and age, is so patently anachronistic, that to cite it as evidence that "too clever by far smart arses" should be whipped to within an inch of their lives was self evidently very, very silly indeed.

Apparently at this juncture the skipper as Chairman, or Chairperson, or perhaps just a Chair, of the judges, called a halt to any further debate and said he would make a ruling on the matter once the panel had considered the matter of the "Cardinal Sin". It was further reported that this announcement and decision caused yet further uproar with some judges threatening to leave the competition and indeed the ship itself. However, after further consideration of their options in this regard, their instinct for self preservation overcame their indignation and order was restored.

Arguments (as in the repeated stating of bigoted and fanciful views as opposed to evidence based civil reasoning) were considered and the Mate was then summoned to defend himself.

In essence he did not dispute the facts of the case but pleaded mitigation. His error was committed out of concern for the Pursers welfare. He would have had to wake him up to find out where the fresh yeast was stored. "There you go" blustered the judge who had invoked the Cardinal Sin clause, "told you so, too clever by half, whip the bastard". 

At this point, pandemonium broke out once again and order was only restored with some difficulty. The Mate was dismissed and consideration of his plea was given and eventually a majority decision to accept his plea was made. 

An emergency majority ruling was subsequently issued which said "After a full and frank exchange of views and after full consideration of the evidence before them, the judges have ruled:

"A Cardinal Sin was committed by the Mate but after consideration of a plea of mitigation which cited his concern for the welfare of another member of the crew, the Mates punishment of a dozen lashes is commuted to a final written warning. Any repetitions will be punishable by two dozen lashings of the Cat.

In response to the very serious charge of being a "too clever by half smart arse". We find the Mate guilty BUT after very, very serious consideration of the punishment and the arguments for and against its implementation we have, on a majority decision, ruled that the Mid Atlantic Bake-Off Constitution shall be amended to remove the punishment "to be whipped within an inch of his or her or their life" and replace it with "a severe reprimand for being a very, very naughty boy, or girl or whatever you are"."

So, the Mate's final score was 26 points (out of maximum of 30), subject two written reprimands for behaviour likely to cause offence to other members of the crew.

A date for round 2 of the Mid Atlantic Bake-Off is to be announced when conditions are appropriate and communications possible, so keep a watch on this channel!

Day 14 - 23/12/23 - The Squid Games Mid Atlantic Bake Off - Round 2

[An Amps correction: as Mick pointed out, the calculations in my previous post failed to take account of the Amps being contributed throughout the day. Once that is done, our daily consumption is in the region of 100 Amp hours a day not the 60 previously stated].

Despite the Mate's, to say the least, rather stormy passage through Round 1, which he survived by a very close reach indeed, it looked as if he would walk away with the crown of Mid Atlantic Baker of the Year 2023 for want of any competition. Then, moments before the competition closed, a messenger burst in on the judges as they were preparing to leave to announce the Skipper had made a last minute entry.

"Poppy cock", "who does he think he is", "well blow me down", "never did like the cut of his jib", "dam scoundrel", "should know better in his position", "what a cove", "I say", "what about my dinner" "I'm not rising to this" "whip him" ... were just some of the responses made to what by general consensus was most unwelcome news indeed.

An emergency meeting was quickly constituted and the Skipper, having, by his actions forfeited his position as Chairman of the panel, was summoned to explain himself. His case was simple there was nothing in the rules preventing him from entering prior to the closing date.

After lengthy consideration the judges were forced most reluctantly to agree and the Mid Atlantic Bake Off - Round 2 formally got under way.

The Skipper, being a lazy Cove had a secret devious plan to wrest the title from the grasping hands of the Mate. He would woo the judges with the speedy delivery of a perfect loaf. Not for him a long drawn out kneedy process, no he would produce a perfect Soda loaf in less than an hour. The Skipper set to with much gusto and a knowing grin as the mate retired to his bunk in despair at this most unexpected development.

But within minutes the Skipper was running into danger. He misread the  quantity of flour from his secret recipe and only just discovered in time to avoid foundering at the very start. 

With disaster narrowly avoided he noticed that whilst the recipe demanded Bicarbonate of Soda but he only had Baking Powder. Inspecting the ingredients he noticed that the Baking Power contained Bicarb' "so it must be alright" he reasoned. Next he noticed that whole Milk was required but not only had the wretched Purser not purchased any Bicarb' he had also only provisioned the ship with semi  skimmed Milk. He made a mental note to flog the Purser once he'd finished. For now he decided, "chuck an egg in, that should do", so he did.

He ploughed on ahead as quickly as possible. Mixed the flour, baking powder and salt together. Added the lemon juice to the milk, let it stand for a minute to turn into butter milk, add the honey, add it all to the flour and mix.

"Hmm, it's a bit bloody runny" he mused, "maybe the lack of scales was to blame. No matter I can just add more flour". So he did. Made the ball of dough, scratched a cross on top and bunged it in the oven for 40 minutes.

It looked impressive from the top, but oh dear it was rather flat! 

"Bugger, I'll have to try and hold it down low so they just see the top."

"My word" said the new Chairperson of the panel, Vice Admiral Poppycock, "that looks good, perhaps it will keep us going until dinner, pass it here and let's have a taste". With a sinking heart the skipper replied "but that would spoil it, surely you wouldn't want to do that". "Don't be silly Skipper, pass it over immediately, of course we need to taste it. Ah, oh dear, what have we here, it's as flat as a pancake and as heavy as an anchor." On cutting the 'loaf'; " is it even cooked"? 

"Deary me, this really isn't very good at all is it Skipper?" He said and passed it to his fellow judges who proceeded to "tut tut" vigerously, shake their heads in unison and unsuccessfully stifling their sniggers.

"No, no, no" he said looking round at his fellow judges all of whom were shaking their heads "this really won't do at all Skipper. You lazy good for nothing scoundrel, you took the easy option, produced a complete flop (loud guffaws from the other judges) and then had the audacity to try and fool the panel by your artful presentation of this, of this, well, there's no other way of putting it, this unmitigated disaster, this apology for a loaf, this stone. It might be useful as ballast, but it's certainly not fit to eat, I don't think one could even feed it to the crew without risking a mutiny. 

Seargant, lock him up. Score? You have got to be joking. Signal the fleet, "Court Marshall Sunset tomorrow, all Captains to repair aboard Bonny".

Call the Mate, then for goodness sake lets have dinner, it had better be bloody good after that apology for a loaf... 

And so ended the Squid Games Mid Atlantic Bake-Off 2023. The Mate was crowned Mid Atlantic Champion and his earlier sins quite forgotten.

What happened to the Skipper? Stay tuned....

.........

In other news....

Once solar charging had finished in the late afternoon we placed the Starlink dish in the gimble and switched it on. Within an hour and ten minutes we had achieved a connection and were able to download updated grib files and exchange messages and emails.

Only further attempts will reveal whether this was down to the gimbal or just a fluke.

The gribs showed no significant change from the previous ones - there's still predicted to be an area of very llght winds up ahead which may require us to motor for the last couple of days. Hopefully we can avoid that through use of the cruising chute.

 

Day 11 - 20/12/34 - Halfway to Barbados

I slept better last 'night: having relocated to the starboard saloon bunk. 

Mindelo lies at 25° West and Barbados at 59.5° West; about 34.5° to the west of Mindelo, which is about 3.5° further north than Barbados at a latitude of 13.5° North. As of 0500 today, 20/12/23, Bonny was at around 13° North, 43° West. We had therefore increased our westward longitude by roughly 18°, which means we have covered roughly, just over half the distance between Mindelo and Barbados. 

We're 1064 miles from Mindelo and 970 from Barbados. Also, just over half way between the two. It's taken us 9.5 days to cover that distance (the difference between that number and this day 11 is because I counted our first part day at sea as day 1 and we're only part way through our 10th 24 hrs at sea) but we expect to cover the second half of the passage a little more quickly than the first, because typically the winds are stronger and more consistent on the western side of the Atlantic. Certainly in 2016 on Arctic Smoke, we experienced some exhilarating sailing thanks to the renown "Christmas winds". If that proves to be the case this time, we may arrive as early as the 27th!

Dawn arrived around 0530 but with clouds on the horizon to our East the sun was still hidden at 0603 when its light finally wiped Venus from the light blue dawn sky higher up. 

Day 10 - 19/12/23 - A Weedy Ocean

Well I think I am going to change my sea berth for the rest of this passage, to the starboard saloon bunk because  in these warm temperatures and with the boat's down wind rolling, the pilot berth is virtually untenable. After a bouncy four hours with no sleep and an incredibly sore back, I moved to the starboard bunk and eventually got off to sleep.

The boat's motion was quite lively due to a stronger wind pushing us along at 6-7 knots through bigger waves than hitherto and so that was the reason for the extra bouncing but even without that added discomfort, I'm now convinced the disadvantages of the pilot berth outweigh its advantage. The decision does reduce the choice of seating area below for Mick on his Watch, but he doesn't appear to use it much anyway, unlike me.

The wind had eased somewhat by the time I started my Watch at midnight local time (we belatedly put our watches back a further hour at the change of Watch and are now three hours behind GMT).

Despite the slacking of the wind, we're still averaging about 6 knots. The moon went to bed before I got up and we now have a clear(ish) starry sky overhead. Orion is high in the sky in front of us and The Plough is standing on its handle low in the sky off our starboard quarter. Polaris is hidden by low cloud to our north.

0220 local time and it's raining. Discounting a few scattered drops earlier in the passage, this is the first proper rain we've had and an indication perhaps that we are closing in on the Carribean (although we are not quite halfway yet). It turned out to be a short lived shower of only a few minutes!

A new phenomenon on this passage is the amount of seaweed we're encountering and occasionally plowing through. We just sailed through an enormous patch of the stuff, about the size of a full tennis court. It was so big that we slowed down noticeably and the waves were flattened by it. Scattered on its light copper coloured surface were the remains of a few dead fish and more disagreeably some bits of plastic rubbish. After going through this watery carpet, the build up of weed on the Hydrovane rudder was such that it really needed to be removed. I had tried doing so with the boat hook earlier in the day but the pressure caused by our speed through the water was too great to hold the boat hook vertically on the rudder. So this time we furled the genoa and let the jib flap freely, which slowed us down sufficiently to enable me to hook the weed off the rudder in clumps. I fished some of it up into the cockpit to examine it more closely. 

A light copper colour with searated leaves, a bit like small bay leaves, but very densely packed together with  numerous - what I took to be - seed pods, to form a thick blanket on the surface of the sea. 

The most surprising thing about was it's texture. Not at all slimey or rubbery, but firm and dense, almost, dare I say it, as if made of plastic. It reminded me of the plastic imitation flowers, one comes across in 'cheap' gift shops and some the Christmas decorations we have at home! 

Is it the famous sargasso sea wead? Given the prevailing winds, I assume it originates on the African coast, but it clearly doesn't need to be anchored to the sea bed to thrive. Perhaps it's the same weed that Sharon said had closed the beaches of Barbados's East coast a couple of years ago when she was on holiday there with her sisters? We may find out in a week or so!

Mick cooked Pizza for dinner. Didn't quite work out - the base was a bit solid; perhaps because of too much wholemeal flour. However, it did the job and we finished off the bread and butter pudding.

I hoped my full tummy would help me sleep better tonight.

Day 9 - 18/12/24 - Unease at Sea

Double dam, another poor sleep whilst off watch. The pilot berth which I sleep in whilst at sea is high up and this probably accentuates the rolling, gets hotter and less air flow than the berth on the other side of the cabin. However, that's in the main thoroughfare and is a bit short due the presence of the cabin heater.

I've therefore continued the practice of taking 20 minute catnaps on that berth when ON Watch and as a consequence over these last two nights, I've got more sleep then, than when OFF Watch!

During our Watch handover at 0200, Mick reported what looked like a rather disturbing equipment failure. The sea toilet was not pumping out properly. Now I know hardened sailors will consider this no hardship at all and indeed many of them prefer the "bucket and chuck it" approach to their toilet. Personally I've never tried it.  The thought of remaining safely perched on a bucket in the cockpit whilst doing a crap with the boat rolling - sometimes quite enthusiastically - from side to side and then having to finish the job and then having to dispense with the bucket's, lets face it, rather unsavoury contents without mishap, does nothing to ease the spirits! 

On top of all that, Sharon is due to join us in Barbados on 2nd January and she's not known for her fondness of "roughing it". 

We decided to tackle the job in the daylight and hoped neither of us would need to use the facility before then!

My Watch passed without incident but we slowed considerably in lighter winds and probably only averaged 3.5 knots during most of those 6 hours. Towards the end of my Watch the wind did pick up and we were back to an average of 5 knots or so. 

Looking at the forecast for the weather ahead it looks like we should be able to average around 5 knots for the rest of the passage and so our best ETA is still 28/12/23.

After I'd snoozed for an hour at the start of my off-Watch, with some trepidation we tackled the loo. 

At first sight the evidence was that one of us was suffering from a bizarre attacke of kidney stones. Bizarre, because how either of us could have passed a stone of such generous proportions - without noticing - indeed without being reduced to absolute agony, one could only wonder!

On closer inspection however, the Mate declared that the object lodged in the pump's exit valve was in fact a chick-pea. This was preventing the valve from closing fully, so reducing the outlet pressure to near zero. Once the offending chick-pea was removed and the pump re-assembled everything worked normally.

However, whilst we no longer had a medical puzzle to solve, a puzzle there still was. That chick-pea must have been in the pump for months because we had not consumed any chick-peas since leaving Pasito Blanco. Indeed, it was while I was there on my own in September that I last used chick-peas in a meal. Why and how did that one chick-pea make it that far? What had it been doing all that time? Why hadn't it blocked the valve before? 

I guess we'll never know. Of course the Mate took great satisfaction in ruling himself out of having any responsibility whatsoever for the incident! "I would never swallow one whole", he announced, with his usual air of absolute conviction and smugness!!

Tonight I cooked the first of our non fresh meat meals. Corned Beef Hash. It was OK. Better was the second Bread and Butter puddings of the passage. I didn't make it quite sweet enough but it was still pretty yummy!

Day 8 - 17/12/23

Dam, I thought I had finally got into sleeping at sea, but last night (the first part of it, any way, when I was off Watch) I did not sleep at all well.

The good news is we made reasonable progress during the first half of the night and continued to do so during my Watch.

Dinner by Mick - Chicken Pesto. The last of our fresh meat. From now on it's tins and packets plus the fresh root vegetables we still have - probably 4 days worth in total of potatoes, yam and squash plus 6 onions. We'll have to start rationing those.

Of course we may catch a fish but there doesn't seem much appetite amongst the crew to tackle the logistical challenges and more gruesome aspects, of landing, killing and gutting such prey!

Apart from the ever present rolling, the sailing continues to be pretty much effortless. We've had the twin headsails up since leaving Mindelo and all we've had to do so far is adjust the angle of the wind vane to keep us pointing vaguely west. If the winds behave as predicted by our most recent grib, we may well carry them all the way to Barbados. Aside from coping with the rolling in the galley and when trying to sleep, this rig places minimum stress on boat and crew. As mentioned in a previous post, the wind and sea state have been pretty benign too. 

Otherwise nothing of any great significance to report.

Day 7 - 16/12/23

Well we ended running the engine during the first four and a half hours of my Watch and got the batteries up to 87%. The day was sunny and so by around 1300 local time we were up to 100% and decided to give Starlink another try. Four and a half hours later just as I was about to give up and switch it off we finally got a connection!

We spent the next hour downloading gribs and messages and sending them and I spoke to Sharon briefly via WhatsApp. All seemed OK at home which was a relief after a string of minor disasters and domestic disruptions. Sharon's younger brother Martin and family from the USA (but currently living in Dubai due to Robin's, his wife's , job) are flying in for Christmas on the 20th, so there are frantic preparations on-going at home preparing for their arrival. Vincent has even cleared out the small front room that had turned into a general store room full of all sorts of detritus. Clearly, I'm going to miss a very busy Christmas. We now expect to still be at sea on Christmas Day with an ETA at Port Saint Charles of around 28/12.

The amount of time it took Starlink to connect is a bit of a pain. I never planned to use it for more than downloading weather info and catching up on messages every few days but given the amount of power it consumes before we even get a connection, we'll be lucky if we manage to get another one before we reach Barbados. Next time, we'll try rebooting earlier in whichever stage of its connection cycle it appears to get stuck in. 

In a way I regret getting it in the first place. It does, of course, bring the modern and every day world closer, when one of the reasons for doing something like this is to get away from it! On the other hand, with weather systems becoming more and more unstable, being able to get up to date and detailed information on what's going on is increasingly important. It's unlikely to be a critical factor on our current passage - the Atlantic North East Trades very rarely throw up anything nasty at this time of year, but when we head north up the American seaboard next summer, we'll have much less stable weather systems to contend with. The question now of course, is will Starlink be of much use?

It was my turn to cook today. Scrambled eggs on toast for brunch and Chicken curry - again - for dinner. We've now got one half 'fresh' chicken left. Hopefully Mick can come up with something imaginative tomorrow. Maybe after that we'll try our luck with fishing!

Progress has been reasonably steady - we're probably averaging around 5 knots with the generally Easterly breeze blowing for the most part between 10 and 15 knots. We're just over a third of the way across now. Waves have been no bigger than a couple of meters, generally from behind and on the quarter. Life on board has therefore been reasonably comfortable although the constant rolling is a bit of a nuisance especially in the galley and at meal times.

Crossing Day 6 - 16/12/23

For the first time on this passage I was asleep when my alarm went off and it took a while for it to penetrate my ear-plugs. Whilst not exactly raring to go at least I didn't feel absolutely knackered.

It was 0100 local time so we tried Starlink again for half an hour. Same result - no connection! With hardly any sun yesterday our batteries are very low - around 40% of capacity and will therefore be around 20% by the time the sun comes up - so that's it for now. 

We'll need to run the water maker for an hour or so later which will consume about 6 Amp hours. Hopefully we'll get sun tomorrow and if so we'll probably run the engine once the solar panels are shaded by the sails in the late afternoon.

Crossing Day 5 - 14/12/23

A cloudy day for the most part.

I came up with what I thought was a better solution for a gimbal for the Starlink dish. There was just enough room to suspend the dish in front of the top solar panel using the Arch structure and the top of the pole I installed as fixing points. 

By the time Mick emerged from his morning snooze I had finished the installation and the dish was swinging merrily. Too much as Mick acknowledged - it did need damping as I had suggested it would. It's a pleasure to be right when Mick is involved! Anyway, he added a bit of bungee cord as a dampener and made a couple of other refinements and with great expectations we switched Starlink on. However, after 45 minutes we still had no connection and being low on power we turned it off. 

Mick then tried our previous idea of settling up a gimbal low in the cockpit where the dish would be further away from the rigging. Same result. The only thing left to try other than leaving it on for a couple of hours (which would have to wait until we had full batteries - which in turn would probably require running the engine for a few hours) was to try it at night when atmospheric conditions may be more conducive to making a connection more quickly.

I cooked a roast chicken dinner using the second of the 4 half chicken joints we bought in the market in Mindelo. I even managed to make gravy which was quite a feat given the boat's rolling! The meal was enjoyed by all the crew!

Off Watch I had my best half night's sleep to date, but even so became aware that we had slowed down.

Crossing Day 4 - 13/12/23

A better sleep over night so not quite so knackered when I got up at 0200 GMT to relieve Mick.

Recommenced battle with the Weather Routing software and this time managed to get it working. User error of course albeit aided and abetted by non existent instructions. Still it's all free so I have no complaints.

That took a couple of hours and I would still need to configure the boat parameters (known as a 'Polar') to use it, but that would have to wait. Despite my better night's sleep I was knackered once again and spent the rest of the Watch napping in between checks of the surroundings every 20 minutes. Nothing at all apart from stars in a hazy sky. The new moon was obscured by clouds and the light of the sun.

Later in the day I configured a Polar for Bonny for use with the weather routing software and after a few amendments from Mick we were ready to compute an 'ideal' route to Barbados. All we needed was an updated grib file. Unfortunately even after 1.5 hours Starlink was unable to connect to the internet and we had to give up due to the amount of precious electricity it was consuming!

We moved boat time back one hour today to compensate for our (albeit modest) progress westwards. We're now two hours behind GMT where we'll remain until we reach

The boat's rolling from side to side was clearly too much for the system to cope with. Mick came up with the idea of placing the dish in some sort of gimbal rather than having it attached to the pole I had installed. Initially I thought making a suitable gimbal at sea would be beyond us but Mick had already come up with the bare bones of a design that we could make with bits of rope and string. Between us we came up with a plan for making and installing one in the cockpit. It wouldn't be a permanent installation like the pole, but just something to rig up at sea every time we used Starlink.

One positive step forward - our decommissioning of the small fridge and the lowering of the temperature in the big fridge - enabled us to put more Amps into the batteries than we took out - that is until   our failed attempt to achieve an internet connection over Starlink!

Dinner by Mick - pan seared rib of Cabo Verde pork (probably) chops served with sauteed vegetable medley - honest!

Drinks served by the barman in bespoke anti roll beer mats (patents pending)!

Crossing Day 3 12/12/23

Up at 0100 local time to relieve Mick. Bonny still going well but we had moved north of our ideal route. I adjusted the Hydrovane to send us further south but after a few hours the wind did ease off - we were clearly now in the area of lighter airs and for the remainder of my Watch we only made an average of about 3 knots!

Having set a 20 minute alarm to remind me to check outside at that interval, I did the dishes and then tried but failed to get our weather routing software to work. Not a big deal but it would be good to be able to compare a computerised route with the one I had plotted manually. Mind you with the wind likely to be from astern or on the quarter for the majority of the passage there's not that much to calculate. The main objective being to work out the best compromise between direction and speed to achieve the fastest passage.

After a couple of fruitless hours at the computer I was feeling very tired and gave up the task. I was now half way through my watch and tired enough to sleep! I therefore kept the 20 minute alarm on and slept between each visit to the cockpit to check on things and in particular whether there were any vessels visible. I saw none and nothing registered on the AIS either.

Mick took over at 0700 local time and the wind picked up and our speed was back up to 5 knots plus. 

I dozed for an hour during which a ship set off the AIS alarm and passed us within a mile or so. Mick said she altered course to avoid us.

I had a boiled egg breakfast and then we decided on our fridge strategy for the rest of the passage. We decommissioned the small fridge, transferred the meat and some drinks into the large fridge and turned the temperature down. That should hopefully reduce our power consumption noticeably. I also insulated the coolant pipes running from the compressor to the cold plate in the fridge box in an effort to reduce energy wastage. By good fortune we had some pipe insulation material on board!

Crossing Day 2 11/12/23

0300, time for my Watch. No change. Still crawling along in roughly a south westerly direction. The only thing of note was that we were using a lot of electricity to keep the meat frozen in the small fridge. We'll see how much we can make up in the sun during the daylight to come but I suspect we will have to abandon our attempt to keep the meat frozen.

Well before dawn we were completely becalmed and so at first light I got the sails in and motored south westwards at 3 knots in search of wind. Slowly a breeze began to fill in and after an hour we were sailing once again. I kept the engine running for another 30 minutes to get some more charge in the batteries. I also turned Starlink on to get an updated grib file. It took an hour to get online and the new grib was very similar to the previous one. The wind shadow cast by Sao Antao was shown in the same place as before, but clearly in reality it extended further eastwards than predicted by the grib.

We headed SSW for a few hours to clear the south east boundary of the wind shadow and then turned south west. We'll be able to turn a bit further westwards later, once we hopefully clear its southern extremity. 

We're moving steadily now, but only averaging about 4 knots (and are still on a detour to try and avoid more light winds ahead) and the trade winds are not looking particularly well established over the week ahead. Our chances of making Barbados by Christmas, therefore, are not great!

Mick cooked dinner - a chicken stew - very good too. I went off Watch at 1900 local time. I dozed and perhaps slept for brief periods but Bonny was going pretty well at 6+ knots (still heading south west to try and avoid light winds to our north west) and was rolling a fair bit and I was still not exhausted enough to sleep properly!

Crossing Day 1 - 10/12/23

We should have left yesterday but the only way we could fill our water tank without having to make multiple trips to the supermarket to buy bottled water, was to pay for a marina berth for one night. Given that requirement we thought we may as well stay for the night. So we went in to Marina Mindelo late yesterday afternoon and had a rather tasteless meal at the floating bar after chatting to Guy in his Nicholson 31, our neighbour for the night, who will shortly be undertaking his first ocean crossing and is aiming for Australia!!

Marina check out is at 1200, so I got up early (7.45) filled the water tank and then did my washing on the pontoon. Meanwhile Mick continued his fight with Voxi (Vodafone) to get his voicemail back on line. He's spent many hours over the last week or so but today was a red letter day - he cracked it. Mind you the down side is he had no time left to do his washing!

We said our good byes to Lasse and Birgitte who now hope to depart for Surinam on Tuesday (as long as Birgette doesn't catch Covid from Lasse). A little later - about 1230 - they sounded their fog horns as we passed by on our way to the anchorage where we needed to spend some time to set up Bonny's rig for the down wind sailing we were expecting for our Atlantic crossing.

That took a few hours. We had briefly used the 'twin' headsails and two poles when sailing around the corner of northern Spain and it took us a while to figure out where and through what and which side of this and that all the various bits of string should go. At last, come 1500 local time, 1600 GMT, we had the poles set up and it was time for a spot of lunch. We finally got the anchor up at 1530 local time and motored out of the harbour. Once out we sailed slowly north west under just the jib to get a decent offing and then turned south west and set both headsails on the poles with the wind more or less behind us.

Our plan was to sail roughly south west to avoid the wind shadow to the south west of Sao Antao and for 3 hours we slipped along nicely at 4-5 knots. Then at around 1900 local time just as Mick went to grab a couple of hours sleep the wind started to die. I headed the boat further south in an effort to find more wind but to no avail. Our grib forecast was way out. The wind shadow was either much bigger than it predicted or it was in a different place. Either way short of motoring there was not much we could do other than carry on crawling along. Eventually we would find wind.

I went off watch at 2100 local time.

Porto Palmeira to Mindelo - 2-3/11/23

We spent yesterday on board, me updating the blog and Mick attending to the various projects he's involved with back home. He also investigated the pros and cons of converting our Starlink system to 12 volts in order to save on our power consumption. He discovered it would be quite a complex job requiring new bits of kit to be installed and would then only reduce the existing power consumption by 15%. We decided that for now at least it was not worth the cost and hassle of sourcing the parts nor worth the time. We reckon that we should be able to increase our power generation by re-siteing the two solar panels on the cockpit rails. At present they are all too easily shaded by the top panel on the arch over the rear of the cockpit.

Yesterday evening a modern catamaran anchored nearby and a couple of hours later the two person French crew, Alan and Silvia, came over in their dinghy. Alan asked if I could run him ashore in the morning, he had to fly to Paris to collect some equipment and Silvia wasn't confident driving the dinghy on her own. Of course I said.

So I picked him up this morning at 0815 and took him ashore and whilst there went to check out with the police. They returned Bonny's registration document and provided a check out document which we should take to the police in Mindelo.

On the way back at the boat I stopped off to say goodbye to Alexi and Charlie and then went to say goodbye to Shane. 

The locals were fishing nearby as we prepared to leave...

It took a few hours to get ourselves sorted out and ready for sea but finally around 1300 local time we attempted to get the anchor up. But, dam, it was stuck fast - we assumed, under a rock. Someone would need to dive down the 5 metres to free it. Unfortunately my cheap flippers had broken so I couldn't even try. Alexi or Charlie would have tackled it in a minute I'm sure, but they had just left to collect their diving pupils at the airport. Luckily Shane was aboard his boat and seeing our predicament volunteered to come over and have a go himself. The water was quite murky and so it wasn't a straightforward job, but finally after a few attempts he managed to free it and we were off. We said our thanks, gave him a couple of cold beers and motored slowly out of the harbour. On the way out we said hello to another OCC boat that had just arrived and by 1430 local time we were headed for Sao Vincent on a broad reach with one reef in the main and making 5-6 knots in the pleasant afternoon sunshine. If we maintain the same speed we should arrive tomorrow (Sunday) morning.

The passage to Mindelo was uneventful in near perfect sailing conditions. With wind of around 12-15 knots from the north east we cracked on under the one reef with it on a broad reach at 5-6 knots most of the time. By 1100 GMT we reached the waypoint I had set a few miles north of Mindelo where we gybed and headed for the harbour. 

The wind was quite fresh for a while and then fluky due to the high ground surrounding the harbour. 

We sailed up to the anchorage, noting wrecks and land marks we recognised from our visit in 2016 and a number of changes too. 

There were less wrecks littering the harbour and what looked like quite a few new buildings on the shore line. There were also less boats in the anchorage compared with 2016. 

Mindelo's Table Top!

Our anchor went down around 1200. We had arrived in Mindelo harbour; last stop before our Atlantic crossing and the island of Barbados.

We plan to stay a few days to do a few jobs on the boat. The main one being to re-site our side solar panels to avoid them being shaded by the one on the Arch. 

The scene looking west towards Sao Antao this evening.