Episode 6: Who Said the Atlantic Crossing Would Be Boring??

Hi Everyone!

As I write, many waves have passed below the bow. We are now into our 10^th day at sea aboard Marmax and 2 days from being half way across the Atlantic … and what a cracking sail!

I managed to post the last blog as we threw the lines from our Gran Canaria berth in the Canary Islands. Unfortunately, the marina was so full, there was no room for us for another night as we had hoped to do a bit more exploring. This is the “off season” for yachting here, Lord knows how everyone gets on in peak season!

Gran Canaria, The Canary Islands

Unbelievably, over 2 million people live in the 7 islands that make up the Canaries, the majority clearly living in the city of Gran Canaria. Prior to arriving, the mere name of the Canaries had suggested to us delusional Kiwis, islands of lush growth and tangerine trees teeming with colourful tweeting canaries. Although considered a romantic holiday and cruising destination, we are not sure about the rave on this one. A quick excursion ashore revealed a kaleidoscope of different architecture with no clear sense of the true culture. I believe it has lost its way a little over the years. Still Spanish but lacking the authenticity of our previous travels. A bit of a melting pot of different cultures may be the reason.  It was nowhere near as beautiful as other islands and the streets and pathways were quite littered and one could not help but notice the security fencing and cameras everywhere.  If we had time, we are sure we would have found some cultural substance in the hills, but such is life. 

A very busy Gran Canaria Marina

Loving these little pontoons for smaller boats...a very cool idea

At short notice, we were getting kicked out of port, yet we still had a few important tasks to complete. Glenys, Janelle, Les and I threw on our backpacks and walked about 3km to the closest supermarket while Bruce, unable to find a taxi, departed on a 5km jaunt to find Customs for our clearance out of Spanish territory. What a drama!  I won't go into too much detail but just as we were at the supermarket checkout, laden with groceries, Bruce called to say we needed to join him at Customs pronto. Our drama involved very heavy loads of groceries being hauled miles in the heat because we too could not find a taxi and few people appeared to speak English. Custom officials wanted to eyeball us so, with our laden grocery bags and knuckles almost scraping on the ground, we made it back to the marina several hours late for our intended departure time.  A rush for our last luxurious hot showers on land, groceries stowed safely, blogs sent and the lines were finally thrown at 1.30pm. Sadly, due to our lack of land transport and the inability to carry 100kg each through the streets, we could/did not stock up on alcohol. Yeah, ”we can do without it, we have enough for 25 days”. Sure.

Marmax settled in for the night at the Gran Canaria fuel jetty

As the last of land disappeared behind us, good ol' Les says “Gee, we haven't seen rain since we've been here.  Wouldn't it be nice...?” Weirdly, within 30 minutes, it bucketed down, completely out of the blue!  A quiet, gentle night of motor-sailing due to lack of wind, the last of life as we know it on land, disappeared behind us.

We headed south down the Western Sahara Coast to hopefully catch the Trade Winds and scoot east, just above the Cape Verde Islands. Destination St Lucia, Caribbean Sea.

We were becalmed a few times on the way, but just had to sail our way out of it as we hold only 7 days' worth of fuel aboard Marmax.  The clanging of the mast, sails and gear drives you nuts when there is no wind; I can only imagine what it's like in the Doldrums. Every little sound is magnified. The clunk of the boom vang hitting the mast, the whacking of the sails desperately trying to fill, like a dying fish on the deck...

Our great thrill during the calms has been hearing from afar, the gentle breath of dolphins bounding towards us from all directions. “Dolphins!” is the cry, and all crew leap to action, clambering from bunks, seats, homework, reading, whatever, up the galley steps to chat away to these remarkable mammals.  You never tire of them, do you?!  The Atlantic dolphins appear to be much smaller than their Mediterranean pals; their bellies are also a light grey with speckles all over them, not unlike a slug's belly and not so many scars on them either.

One hundred and twenty miles off the Canary Islands' Coast, we almost sailed into a heap of white marker buoys with a flag on top of each one. No radar reflectors to be seen.  At 4500 metres deep, we doubt if it was a fishing net, so we shot by and cooked up a juicy little story about it possibly/probably being a drug pickup set up; what else would it be? There were still a few container ships about. Very interesting on an otherwise, uneventful day.

Les and Bruce got bored and transformed our tender into a flying machine...Nar, just kidding!
This is a real flying tender though off a 62 metre yacht called "Athos" which is currently cruising around the world
Pretty cool hey!

The following day, the wind picked up to 8-10 knots, still slow going but at least it had an energy about it. Imagine our excitement when a pod of some 20 orcas cruised past in the opposite direction, their stunning black and white bodies translucent in the sapphire blue coloured water. The Atlantic is so utterly unreal in its blueness; we often take off our sunglasses just to enjoy the true intensity of the colour.  A lone turtle drifted by, along with sightings of dozens of shining Man-O-War jellyfish sails and another five groups of dolphins during the day – truly a time to feel alive!

That night, we were sailing along making good time under light wind conditions when Marmax, for no apparent reason, slowed up and almost stopped even though the wind was still blowing 6-8 knots. It had us stumped. An ink black night and no apparent reason for her lack of movement. Had we become entangled in a fishing net or a mass of weed?  Spreader lights on and torches out, we examined the hull, the surrounding dark water; still stubbornly stationary with the sails and rigging getting angry in the heaving ocean rolls.  Nothing to be seen at all. Since we could not move forward, we turned on the engine and threw Marmax into reverse; no feel of release, still nothing to be seen. Throttle forward, after a couple of minutes of backing, and we were free. No rhyme or reason, but we were off on our merry way, thank God! Don't want to over think these things!

When you are at sea, one of your main entertaining activities is food!  We looked to our fearless hunter and gatherer, Les, and hinted that another tuna would be kind of nice to catch so we could make sushi and sashimi. Lure trailing for the day and into the early evening, the exciting scream of fish on line went off like a steam train. Oh geez, I thought, I hope it's not a marlin; I saw a fish leap high out of the water about 500 metres behind us as the line took off.  When you are sailing a yacht under full sail, even on a reasonably calm day, to drag a fish in of this size, on a braid line is really quite a feat.  You can't stop the boat, but you can slow it down a little by pointing into the wind, releasing the pressure in the sails.  A 15 minute fight, man against beast, and jubilant “ye-haaing” as Les and crew landed a rather spectacular Northern Blue Tuna otherwise known as “Chicken of the Sea”.  Les filleted it on a heaving, slippery and very bloody aft deck, while us girls acted like nurses dealing with all the excess blood, buckets of water, handing of gaff, knives etc.  What a team! That tuna was divine! Soft as butter, delicious for 7 meals feeding 5 people. The wind has steadily picked up now for the past 5 days and it is almost impossible to get to the back deck, let alone throw a line over, so Les will have to wait for his next fix of adrenaline some other day. Janelle has been crowned Master Chef of Sushi aboard.

Funny looking at this photo, it looks so calm yet we were tossing around like a cork!

Thursday 28 March

Bruce surprised us today with a stint of singing!  He dug out 'his' music on his tablet and connected it proudly to the bluetooth speaker in the cockpit: The title: “Beer Drinking Songs”, headbanging favourites from his heyday.  Hmmm.... who would imagine?!  We often sing all day long, sometimes in unison, often not. Bruce is probably sick to death of listening to us and our repertoire of Marmax Songs. By the way, for those of you following our Marmax Spotify list, it is being added to daily. “Knee Deep in The Water” by the Zac Brown Band has become our anthem aboard, Glenys has carefully transcribed the words so Bruce can join in.😊 (I can hear my 4 sons laughing their heads off)

Janelle exhausted by her college work...Les and I are hard task masters but she is
leaping ahead in her school work now!

We must be hitting the Trade winds now as the winds have become steady and establishing a pattern of 15-22 knots.  We also have more of a 'life' route going on, most of it revolving around two-hour watches on the wheel, reading books, Janelle's home schooling at 'Marmax College' and happy hour between 5-6 pm as we watch the colour's of the glorious sunsets sinking low.

The sailing, in the past few days, has been phenomenal. You can smell the sea and feel the sky as Marmax powers through the water. Some pretty heavy rolling swells with breakers crackling beside us and is keeping us on our toes – literally. We are all now collecting plenty of mean bruises as we get thrown into bulkheads, jammed in fridge and bathroom doors, our hips getting hurled unexpectedly into the galley table or the stove.  Les's head connected with a fire extinguisher last night and I went airborne in bed, landing with a great whoosh from poor Les's lungs as I landed on top of him. (lucky boy!).

The highly organised communications desk!

Carrying two cups of hot coffee up to those in the cockpit is probably the greatest talent you can have on board right now though; a double rum & Coke is on par, to say nothing of whipping up meals on a bucking horse with flames dangerously close to your belly button all the time!

Just putting the rubbish out is a challenging ordeal!

I am lucky enough to do the 12 midnight to 2 am watches, easily one of my favourite times of the 24-hour routine on board.  The skies out here are a true sight to behold with stars and planets laying on a superb display of magnificence, night after night. As we rocket through the water on these crystal-clear nights, you can feel the rhythm of the earth spinning as the sun settles, the moon rises, and the most incredible things can happen. My personal “biggie” came the other night; one of the most amazing experiences in my whole life.

It was a fairly calm night, with a lovely 10 knot breeze pushing Marmax quietly through the water under full sail; the only sound being the waves bubbling along the waterline glowing in the phosphorous light. Suddenly, I heard from far away, the clear sounds of a school of dolphins galloping through the water from behind us. In turning, seriously, my eyes nearly fell out of my head. Not sure how many there were, maybe 20-30 dolphins surging in a big frothing phosphorescent triangle of bubbles, zooming in behind our stern, splitting into halves up both sides of the boat, giving me, the most magical performance I could ever hope to witness.

The dolphins' smooth bodies rhythmically surfaced with their soft gasps, streamlined with glowing bubbles and iridescent mercury balls trailing deep under the water as they cut ribbons in the smooth glassy water alongside. It was as if Marmax was sailing through the Milky Way… 

I could not yell out “dolphins!” to the crew, as we would during daylight hours, as they were all sleeping (trying to!). I could not go down and shake anyone awake for fear the dolphins would leave while I was below, as they usually don't stick around for too long. I just could not believe it. Tail thumping and pirouettes across the tops of the waves, some of them looking up at me with one eye as they saw my face in the dim lights of the navigation lights.

They flew alongside the hull for around 5 minutes, leaving in a formation to port, joining together as they gleefully took off.  I just slumped back behind the wheel, leaned right back to look up at the stars and shook my head. Did that really just happen?  Who said these big ocean crossings were boring?!

Today is the 16^th day of our Atlantic Crossing and yes, we are getting a little tired of the constant rock 'n roll motion, of meals served in a bowl (can't do plates; everything slides straight off them!) and broken sleep. But we're eating very well, and everyone is in good spirits. There's a great vibe on board, and Janelle's routine of schooling is keeping us all amused. 

Marmax College...all very serious!

Janelle also keeps herself occupied by
regularly sending out her messages in bottles

I can paint a picture of sheer bliss here, however, life is obviously not always perfect on such a voyage; we do have things that go wrong which requires calm heads to fix problems. Emergency situations, usually in the dead of night where it is “all-hands-on-deck”. Again, on another of my “witchy” watches, we experienced another bazaar occurrence where we appeared to have sailed into some sort of wind vortex.  It was after midnight, blowing 20-25 knots, a following sea and not exactly a calm night. Screaming wind in the rigging, big rollers from behind and random punches left and right on the hull from the uneven swells. Suddenly, a complete wind change, from the opposite direction.  We had 2 reefs in the main and the genoa furled right up to a storm size sail. SLAM!! went the boom (racing on the traveller across to the other side of the aft deck). Everyone leapt from their bed, scrambled for life jackets and life-lines to be clicked on before entering the cockpit. Geez! “GYBE!” (to opposite direction). We slapped over to port, ropes whacking, mast trembling, winches screaming. Again. “GYBE!”. Opposite direction. Hold it!  Hold it! “Okay... GYBE!”  Oh boy, we slammed around four times until she settled.  What the heck was that about?”

Broken reef lines at sea...oh what fun.

And a nice Wahoo caught in among the chaos of sails down, reefing being repaired 

The brand-new furling rope on the genoa almost chaffed through, as a result of non-stop sailing under full load. That had to be replaced. The first reefing rope on the main sail has rubbed through and broken. Not sure how we'll fix this one as it is too dangerous to get near the boom in this weather. There are always running repairs going on, as the wear and tear of the movement of the ocean takes its toll on the gear – let's say; there is rarely a dull moment!

Glenys announced that we will be out of milk in a couple of days.  Great!  Should have thought about that before custard squares, cheesecake, muffins and scones were being made; scrummy as they were!  A more evident crisis – we are almost out of alcohol!! We are down to potatoes, onions and a lonely cabbage so our creativity in the cooking department is becoming exemplary. No meat, lots of pasta and rice with a few interesting cans of 'stuff' on top. Most of our canned and packaged stores are Spanish – thank goodness for the pictures on the labels.  Others have questionable contents so it's a bit of a guessing game. There are several theories and reasons as to why we have run out of stores aboard but I’m trying to keep this blog short!

The sushi kitchen

Les needs to catch us another fish but the wind and the swells are still too great, there are increasing numbers of large sea weed mats floating by and Marmax is moving too quick to put the line out. Suffer little children. Les is so frustrated about it though he has had several flying fish crashing at his feet in the cockpit these past few nights.  They zoom off the crest of high waves and land with a soft thump onto the deck or right into the cockpit. They really are rather beautiful and we are seeing more and more of these wondrous creatures as we approach warmer waters of the Caribbean. “Can we eat them?” “Nar... too bony”.   A bird landed in the cockpit one night too; lucky it escaped without getting its legs crumbed.

A little friend of Les's...flying fish!

A few days ago, it was particularly warm with only a very gentle breeze blowing 
mid-morning. Our washing was strung up over the deck, it was just gorgeous. Glenys and Janelle sat on the stern of the boat wafting their feet in the water to cool themselves down.  Then they begged Bruce to go for a swim; we all wanted to.  Just as we were ready to pull down the sails and 'hove to', we saw on the horizon, a large ship coming into view. If we were to stop our tracking across the water and pull down the sails, it might signal to the ship, who would surely have us on their radar, that we were in some sort of distress. The last thing we wanted was a 900ft cargo ship pulling up alongside to check us out. So, we waited for the ship to pass, which took about 20-30 minutes. The trouble was, by then “the moment had passed”, the wind had again increased, and with a sigh of sadness, we resigned ourselves to the fact there would be no swimming in the Atlantic today. Bummer.

The large floating carpets, of spiky, yellow seaweed mats, are becoming more frequent now, sometimes up to 10 metres in diameter and 50+ metres long. The seas are still azure-blue, stunning sparkling clear waters, just so amazing. The stars at night are so dazzlingly bright, the sea appears always to be bathed in moonlight. We all do star-gazing and compare notes the next day. Les's most precious night-watch story involved shooting stars of which there were many.  As he was gazing up to the skies, a burst of bright light zapped in front of his eyes. ZAP! Gone! “What the hell was that?” He scrambled to the radar and zoomed in with the scroller to see if he had overlooked the sighting of an approaching ship. Perhaps it was a flare he saw? A meteor? As he stared again, he was mesmerized by a series of 5 shooting stars over a 20-minute period, all from the same quadrant. Which got him thinking... that dynamic and bright light he saw only momentarily, must have been a shooting star; shooting out from the spot directly at him.

Sea weed mats everywhere!

We are three days out from the Caribbean now, 19 days at sea. A bit of excitement on the deck as we saw the first jet streams going overhead since we were last on land. A family of mother and their baby dolphins thrilled Janelle up on the bow, some of them only 18 inches long!

Day 23 and we now 70 nautical miles away from our new destination, the island of Virgin Gorda, one of the northern most British Virgin Islands in the Caribbean. We have decided to change course from St Lucia, in the south of the Caribbean, to Virgin Gorda because of prevailing wind conditions and the best point of sail for the boat. We’ve had a steady 20 knots for the last several days, glorious, glorious sailing! Broke the first reefing line on the main sail yesterday, we’ll have to continue with a full main now, that’s 2 down. Glenys and I had a ripper of a rain storm early this morning which pushed us along with an exhilarating ride through the waves for a while; now it has dropped right off, and we have the painful slapping of the rigging going on. Never to lose an opportunity, Glenys coerced Bruce into dropping the sails so Janelle, Glenys and I could go swimming. Oh Wow! The warm water was like jumping into bright blue champagne! A bit scary watching Marmax’s big wide hull lurching about, careering a few metres up and down in the ocean swells; that would be a big donk on your head and send you 5 kilometres the bottom! We had floating safety ropes out, pretty thrilling stuff for us 3 girls anyway!  

Feeling a little sad to be leaving the mighty Atlantic knowing this is our last night out here before getting to Virgin Gorda. To have 23 days of total isolation and peace from our usual busy worlds has been indeed a privilege. So much time to think clearly, dream and truly relax, no emails, no phones; you can imagine it can’t you…sheer bliss! The last night at sea totally without coffee, alcohol or ice is the only heart retching reality in our tiny world!

Glenys and Bruce are setting course while Les checks out our
dwindling supplies of alcohol - the important stuff!

We have no British Virgin flag to fly when entering port in Virgin Gorda! Yikes! So I made one...spot the difference with a real one! I am sure the queen won't mind that she wears a luge helmet on one side! It worked! Squint your eyes...you'd never know!

The real British Virgin Island flag

  

The Marmax version - one side

The blonde luge helmet version :)

The ocean depths have gone from 6 kilometres deep to a very shallow 17 metres as we entered the Caribbean Sea. We weaved our way through dozens of tiny white fishing buoy’s while hard on the wind…The landscape looking amazing as we approached, the sea is as Caribbean blue as you can imagine! After 3300 nautical miles (that is approximately 5280 land miles), we have arrived in Virgin Gorda, the British Virgin Islands. Time to party!

Safe in Virgin Gorda!

And just for those who, like my son, Sam, wonder what it takes for wi-fi...here we are, finally communicating again and this is how we do it!

Me doing the blog

The crew catching up with the world

And we are relaying from the illustrious Marina office!

Some amazing adventures ahead, thanks for following us, happy Easter to you all and we’ll catch you all again with our new tropical episodes!

Happy Easter to you all! 

Cheers for now from Bruce, Glenys, Janelle, Les and Debbie