2005 Cruising Season
2005 Cruising season
written 18 Dec 2005 at sea
This year is a kaleidoscope of images. In May/June we traveled over land to ancient desert sites in the Middle East while the boat waited for us in port. (see webpage for details). From Israel, the end of the Med, we turned around and started west. It felt good to look at the Rock of Gibraltar from the east side and reflect we had circumnavigated the entire Mediterranean in five cruising seasons. We ended the season with re-crossing the Atlantic Ocean in December, from Las Palmas to Antigua, 2764 nautical miles
in 16+ days. Total under the keel miles for 2005: 7593, a record for us and TEKA III.
After the Middle East, David, Denise and the boys joined us in Antalya, Turkey for a ten day cruise to Bodrum for their return flight to Istanbul and SanDiego. We anchored at seven different exotic spots working our way west, including a day to take a local boat up the Dalyan River to explore the marshes, mud baths, rock tombs in the hillside, along with many hundreds of other tourists arriving by Turkish tour boats or by land transportation.
Then we re-visited places in Greece, Sicily, Sardinia, Balerics, and Spain, as well as adding some new ones. The only “missed” in the Med were Corsica and Malta.
Once Marvin Day, our long time cruising friend, arrived in Gibraltar to take up crew duties, we started watching the weather carefully. First order of business, contact our “weather guru” from the initial crossing in May 2001. Walter Hack had recently died, but his partner, Bob, stepped in nicely and we began getting lengthy reports as to what weather patterns were forming across the Atlantic north and south, and a detailed daily expectation run for five days. This we added to our other weather faxes scheduled through the single side band radio and computer. And, watched the sky.
It would be a 3+ day trip to the Canary Islands, so we wanted to know what brewed at the beginning, at destination on arrival, and in between—no surprises.
In the Canaries we would wait out the end of hurricane season before striking out across. Two late season Tropical Storms brewed mid Atlantic and went east, not west. There must be something wrong here. We experienced Tropical Storm Vince while in Rota Spain and T/S Delta hit the Canaries while we were there. To top it all off, Tropical Storm Epsilon turned into a hurricane, and we had to avoid it on our crossing. Fortunately it dissipated, or a cold front absorbed it, before we arrived at its coordinates. Cold front winds and seas were uncomfortable, but nothing like a full blown storm at sea.
Leaving Gibraltar we picked the tide and stayed close to the Spanish side for better current. Spent one night in Barbate, then 6 days in Rota, Spain. After hearing “This is NATO Warship 72” checking on ships in the Ionian Ocean while on our transit from Greece to Sicily, we heard them again on VHF 16 as we approached Rota. Warship #72 announced its departure and “all ships needing conversation with them should call on Channel 13.” We finally saw them in person.
At the marina in Rota we had easy access to town. We had met Barry and Carmen Blitch there four years ago when we arrived from Portugal. They befriended us and we enjoyed their company. I wanted to see if we could find them. We walked through the main street and looked up and around for a familiar place. Never found it, but did find a nice young man, about 10 years old walking a dog. I asked if I could pet the dog. He said, “Yes, and I speak English.” So I asked him about the people I wanted to see. He answered, “You’re talking about my Grandma, Carmen. They left for the States two days ago.” You could have knocked me down with a feather. His name was Alex and he promised to have his older brother email Carmen and tell her of our chance meeting. What a small world, again!
T/S Vince paid us a visit at the marina, blowing up to 40 knots of wind and sending wavelets with white curls into the protected water. We stayed secure at the dock, waited for the cold front to also pass and then took advantage of our weather window to head south to the Canaries.
After 83 hours of travel, full moon included for night passage, we arrived at Francesca Harbor, Graciosa Island. We woke up the neighbors dropping the anchor at 11:30 p.m. just outside the circled group of ten sailboats swinging on their hooks. In daylight we learned these flew French or Dutch flags. On the trip down we had two sets of dolphins come by and gannets kept flying over, thinking we were a fishing boat I guess. Many flying fish were about, including one who flew on deck, committing suicide. Denis talked to the Captain of a large tug pulling a semi-submersible oil platform en route from Angola through Gibraltar to Sicily and on to Egypt.
The second day presented us with a problem. The boat took an independent turn to the right and wouldn’t stop. Well, after turning off the Autopilot, Denis jumped onto the swim bridge to see if there had been a problem with the keel, like losing a part. Nothing wrong there. Then, he hastily moved many things aside to slide under the aft cabin desk and check for hydraulic fluid leak. Nothing. But alas, the cable had broken which worked the rudder steering capability with autopilot. Marvin hand steered while I fetched tools and Denis problem solved, making a new cable from heavy duty fishing line. We only lost 20 minutes of travel time and the seas were pretty calm for the event. We were glad it didn’t happen at night or when the seas were rough.
After three nights anchored at Francesca Bay and exploring the small island, we journeyed around to the east side of Lanzarote and south to Puerto Calero Marina. Familiarized ourselves with the marina facilities-- chandlery, laundry, internet hookup, and restaurants, before renting a car in Puerto Carmen and exploring the island for three weeks.
Lanzarote claims to have over 300 cinder cones. Timafaya National Park covers the six volcanoes that erupted constantly between 1730 and 1736, destroying the best agricultural section of the island, and adding several more acres with its huge lava flow to the sea. We took a guided walk (in the rain would you believe?) with a local woman, who said we were special that it rained for us so we could see what peeked up out of the lava beds. Much lays dormant waiting for a chance to get a drink and sprout. Since there is very little rain, all plants, especially the grapevines buried in holes surrounded by lava rocks, normally depend on the heavy dew for moisture.
While we walked down below, we looked up among the peaks and saw tourist buses making their way up, down and around the landscape. We also rode the bus before leaving Lanzarote and what a pleasant and yes, awesome, trip. The bus would stop right at the top of a crest with very little on the road’s edge, and we looked way down into craters or far ahead down and around the bend. At the end of the ride, a “ranger-type” man herded us over to where he scooped some tumbleweed into an open pit. It promptly ignited. Then we picked up some ground, only to drop it like hot cakes. HOT rocks. Lastly he poured pails of water into holes and steam gushed up. We were definitely standing on some active volcanic stuff.
Images from our rides around the island—lots of volcanoes from small to large; very white houses, single story, with blue or green trim on doors and windows; touristy towns with plenty of tourists (mostly Brits); nice large public buses; palm trees; no snakes; no homeless; rabbit hunting dogs (very skinny) riding in trucks; wine grapes growing in lava pits designed to catch and capture any available water; and of course, trade wind clouds forming and filing by all day. Boats were collecting there towards the December crossing and we shared time with many of them before leaving for Fuenteventura (good fortune) Island.
Stopped for the night at the bottom of the island—Morro Jable—before continuing on the Las Palmas, GranCanaries. That passage kept us busy holding on as waves were 10-12feet on the beam most of the way.
In Las Palmas, the ARC (Atlantic Rally Crossing) had gathered. There were 150 boats at least ready to cross en masse on Nov 20. This ARC has been going on for 26 years—an organized “pays your money to go” crossing from the Canaries to St Lucia. No room at the marina for anyone else, so we anchored out, trying to stay in the “dotted line” between red markers on the chart. Red is on the port side in Europe. No “red right returning” here. On our six days there we socialized with other people on boats in the anchorage who were planning to also cross independently of ARC, starting out after the big group left (and no fees involved), ate Chinese a few times, swapped books, checked out Christopher Columbus’s house and church where he prayed, and had an oil slick.
On to Tenerife Island with Marvin’s wife, Nancy on board for two weeks. Initially we anchored a couple of nights at a quiet indentation along the southeast coast, just below some giant wind generators. Now that told us something—the wind did blow there at times. All we saw was some slow lazy swirls of the blades, but I bet it can get pretty boisterous, being in the wind acceleration zone according to the chart. At the Santa Cruz Marina, twenty miles north, we tied to the inside dock and instantly liked that town, right near the marina. About twenty of us got together for a pot-luck Thanksgiving dinner, with turkey tetrazzine the closest to a roast turkey entrée. We did have cans of cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie mix, so the celebration went well.
Two days with a car gave us access to the whole island. One day we stopped to see the special museum at LaLaguna along with its famous church, Iglesia de Nuestra Senora, where I lit a candle and whispered a prayer for our voyage; La Orotava, a village climbing up the hillside near Tiede (10,000’ volcano) with its old world charm in architecture, balconied houses and small streets, and where we had lunch. Driving to Garachico huge poinsiettas grew in tree size clumps alongside the road and Nancy had to have a photo. Such color! On another day we grabbed sweaters when we took off from the marina as we were to visit Tiede. Pine forests were plentiful and we picked up some special pine cones for Christmas decoration around our cloth Christmas tree purchased at La Laguna. At Vilaflora we ate a traditional typico Canarian lunch. Garachico had a fort museum on the water where you could see what the port used to be, before Tiede’s last eruption which swallowed half of it. We also bought gifts at their nice giftshop and enjoyed a special ice cream treat.
Weather appeared to be changing so we took advantage of a good day and went back to Las Palmas. Nancy had to catch a return flight to Galveston and son, David, would be coming in a couple days after that, so we had to be in place. T/S Delta arrived the day after we did in Las Palmas. We had tied every which way to the dock for the 30 knot wind and surge coming in from the marina breakwater (southwesterly). That lasted a day then in the night the wind shifted to the northwest and several boats received damage by being blown back into the dock. We had re-positioned ourselves forward so nothing happened to us. In the morning we all watched “Harbor TV” as boats from the anchorage came in attempting to locate a moorage. More damage occurred when wind caught some and they lost control and hit a parked boat. No boats sank and no one was injured.
Denis and I drove around the northern part of the island in our rental car a few days later. Trees had toppled or snapped and debris lay still over the road. Clean up had begun however. We learned from the Cruisers’ Net that Santa Cruz, where we had just been on Tenerife, had experienced 40-60 knot wind and heavy rain. Dock damage had hurt several boats, including one with a crack in her hull from banging into the sea wall. On Lanzarote, part of the sea wall near the bathrooms had fallen down at the Puerto Calero Marina, the roof blew off the maintenance shed, two boats on the hard surface out of the water had fallen over—all with 60-80 knot winds. So guess we were very lucky in our Las Palmas marina.
This storm gone, we watched T/S Epsilon become a hurricane, right in our way. Every year people plan to start their crossing at the end of the hurricane season. This one did not want to end. Epsilon was storm #29. And it, with Vince and Delta, formed mid Atlantic and headed east, not west, the normal pattern. Still December looks like the best month and it does allow people to be on the other side for Christmas and New Years.
We picked up David at Las Palmas airport about 6:30 p.m. Saturday, December 3. He said he looked down from 35,000’ to see the sea just a-churning while flying over France, Spain and Portugal. That Low Pressure Center looked huge on paper, but he said it really looked nasty from his seat. However, that was not our storm. It continued northeast. Epsilon just formed, stalled, looked for a way to go, moved a little, gained strength, then moved more, slightly eastward. We would go south to put miles between it and us, watching carefully, especially since our weather guru felt it might “hook” back and be a problem. What actually happened—it got absorbed into an approaching cold front and we still got some of it that way, yet no real big strong storm at sea. Yeah!
So we are off! Left Las Palmas about 10 a.m. on Sunday, 4 December, anticipating a 16 day journey to English Harbor, Antigua on the Caribbean side. Dawn and Larry made an “on-line tracking system” on our website so interested people could follow along and see us at sea. Many sailboats went south to Cape Verdes, a 7 day trip, to rest, refuel and break up the crossing into smaller parts instead of one big leap. In fact, all those crossing were sailboats with the exception of us, a 46’ Norhavn, Supr’r (Australian flagged), and a 65’ steel boat, Pamacea, from Seattle, no less (purchased in Europe though).
Our days are full. Along with the ability to pick up ten weather faxes a day over the single side band radio and computer set-up, we had four radio times for check ins with others. The Atlantic Crossing Cruisers’ Net is twice a day and we talked to the other power boats also twice a day. I started tracking on the paper chart 25 boats at first; this filtered down to 6 over time as people spread out or ran out of wind so stalled. In the morning they exchange weather information gleaned from many sources, report positions and conditions, and share information, good or bad. Good: how many fish caught? Bad—How many got away! One boat hit a sleeping whale and headed to Cape Verdes to check for damage. Another one got a fishing net caught on the prop, but released easily. The day before leaving Las Palmas, we learned about 30 rowboats were to be in our path, rowing for 100 days across the Atlantic to the Caribbean in two men teams. That made me nervous. How would I see them at night? We never did see one, but heard Rowboat #24 calling some boat somewhere once.
What we did see made us marvel, as if we were in a National Geographic filming. Dolphins came several times, Atlantic spotted at first, Pantropical striped another time. One morning about 9:20, David pointed off the bow. Two fins in line with each other showing out of the water, one a mama, the other, a baby. They swam at the surface for a minute, dove, surfaced once more, then we never saw them after that. Another time a pygmy killer whale surfaced and blew not too far off the starboard bow. Both times we were able to made identifications with the dolphin/whale book on board.
Sunrises and sunsets are spectacular out at sea. Also moonrise and moonset of the full moon. The moon rose late on Saturday, Dec 17 and when it did at the stern, the phenomenon of a “moonbow” around a cloud off the bow made your mouth drop. Awesome!
We eat very well, including fresh fish, mostly mahi mahi, caught by David. We celebrated Marvin’s #64 birthday on Dec 12 with great gusto and anticipate a special event on arrival in English Harbour soon.
This year you can read about our Middle East Adventure on the webpage; look forward to a Spring issue of Passagemaker featuring the Greek Islands; and I may have found a home for my Tipper dog story.
We finished 2005 with a trip to spend holiday time with Dawn and family in Tacoma, as well as David and family in San Diego. TEKA III waits in Jolly Harbour Marina, Antigua for our return and a leisurely cruise in 2006 to Trinidad where she will remain during the hurricane season.
P.S. TEKA III has sails now, both for auxiliary power if needed, and a special “angel” image. See photo for the real view.
posted by Mary Umstot @ 8:17 AM
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