The Log - part 5                            

May 26^th  Angra do Heroismo is a most beautiful town and appropriately under UNESCO protection. A quick walk in town for a delicious breakfast, and then a top-up of fuel and we were off again for the long last leg towards Gibraltar. A brisk 20 knot breeze from two squalls sent us sailing along at a constant 8 knots, getting us well under way.

At long last, tonight we have a bright full moon to illuminate the world and raise the spirits of the lonely night watch-man. He can now see the horizon, the sky and its clouds, the surface of the sea with its waves and breaking white crests, the very boat and the sails up front, as well as the shimmering silver pathway across the sea, leading to the smiling friendly face of the Moon itself. The hours pass quickly, without apprehension, as you can observe the small tranquil world that surrounds you. This is another world, compared to the moonless, spooky black nights of the first part of the voyage.  

 
At night, constant companions are the cold and the faithful compass

With the first light of dawn we leave the last island of the Azores, Sao Miguel, whose lights are faintly visible on the horizon 36 miles away. The Azores are very widely dispersed, covering some 300 miles from one extremity to the other, magnifiying their isolation from the rest of the world.

The wind, as foreseen, has dropped so we have to help by using the engine; this is however necessary to charge the batteries, either engine or generator and we have good reserves. Dolfins again, very frequent appearences in these parts. We don’t shout anymore: “Oh, look, dolfins!”

Our course for the Straits of Gibraltar is 99°, just a little south of due east, with 940 miles remaining to destination, should take about six days.  Already thoughts are turning towards the end of the voyage and yesterday there was conversation about air fares from Gibraltar to home. The adventure and it undoubtely is an adventure, will soon draw to an end, with the realisation of a long-time dream “to cross the Atlantic”. Apart from this personal achievement for each one of us, I find that it is a character-forming experience, of “having made it”, of being able to get on with a small group in restricted spaces and work as a team without bickering and not having maddened through boredom and isolation.

You hear many stories of persons being sea-sick all the way, of some actually going crazy, with erratic and dangerous behaviour, of persons hating every minute of it and going straight to the airport the minute they arrive in port. One must be very careful in choosing the crew, making sure that each one is basically mentally stable, appropriately motivated and prepared for the harsh conditions of an Atlantic crossing – it is not possible for them to simply say: “Stop the boat, I want to get off!”

Perhaps I am speaking too soon, we still have six days to go! No, not at all. I am very please with my choice and would not change any of the current crew members.

May 27th. With first light the wind picks up and the boat charges on again at 7 and 8 knots. The boat sails through a large flock of sea-birds frantically intent on catching small-fry, which also means food for us and in fact, the fishing line immediately starts screaming. Fabio comes running up and the two of us prepare the catch, slowing the boat, getting out the grapple and fish scoop and strapping on the rod holder to Fabio’s waist, who will have the honour to bring it in: yes, a fine 4 kilo yellow-fin tuna. Afterwards, Riky most expertly filets it and at midday Fabio prepares a most excellent meal, partly rehabilitating the Italians’ onboard cooking reputation. In the evening, I made a fish soup with the tuna head and fruit salad for desert, with apparent consumer satisfaction.

May 28th We proceeded at a good pace all day with the gennaker, a sail which is ideal for light winds, being made of a very light material, so that it doesn’t require much wind to keep it inflated. But at sunset we had to take it down, as being rather obstinate and difficult to furl, I don’t want to do it in the dark with risk of doing damage. However, soon afterwards the wind died down completely and the sails started flopping with the risk of wearing and tearing, so down with everything and onwards with only the motor... slowly at 4.5 knots to save fuel, it’s a long, long way still.

Last week there was a gale near Gibraltar, but now the whole area is covered by a large high pressure system, which we are now entering with flat seas and no wind. We will probably have to cross it all by motoring, but this was foreseen and we have extra fuel on board. High pressure systems have the capacity of halting the advancement of low pressures and making them slide up over their left side and over the top, pushing them with their clockwise motion wind. So, in here we are safe from storms, probably until we reach Gibraltar, that is unless the high dissipates, or moves on over Morocco and lets the low pressure overtake us.

Dolfins, whales, dolfins, turtles and more dolfins, the same old routine. I am pleased however, that at least the dolfins seem to be surviving well in the world, until of course Man runs out of other edible fish to eat. Ships on the other hand have been rare, but last night we sighted two, one going and one coming from Gibraltar. This traffic will increase considerably as we get closer to the Straits, as it is a very busy channel. I hope not to encounter fog again, as I did on the way out last November, quite a hairy experience in busy shipping traffic.

When you travel extensively overland, you realise how big the continents are, but all-together they cover just over 30% of the world’s surface, the rest being all ocean. It is only when you sail across the Atlantic ocean that you begin to realise just how big it is, it seems to be never-ending, yet the Pacific Ocean is bigger still and there are also other oceans. So Earth really is a water world, of which we know very little.

Though large as the oceans are, Man is still managing to depauper them of their marine-life, which he is gobbling up. We managed to catch only one tuna in over 2000 miles of ocean fishing and Riky, who has worked in the sport-fishing business in Costa Rica on the Pacific Ocean side, says that big-game fish are now a rarity. As I have said earlier, Mother Earth does not have the capacity to feed such a huge population of Mankind, so we must seriously start thinking of re-sizing our population, or many species will be fished into extinction. On Bequia island in the Caribbean, I saw defenceless sea-turtles slaughtered and their meat sold openly in public and not to mention the millions of conch shell-fish (lambi) eaten everywhere everyday. You will see mountains of conch shells used as foundations for housing, for breakwaters and even for building up new islands! This cannot go on forever!

The slight breeze has just shifted to north, which means that we are past the centre and into the right side of the high, with the clock-wise wind coming down from the north, so we might start to get some wind tonight or tomorrow.

What a lazy day today! A warm sunny day with flat, flat sea, not a breath of wind, in the centre of this high pressure area, where we putt-putted along, full bimini sun-shade up, everyone lying about reading, snoozing or just gazing mesmerised at the oil-calm sea. The boat seemed to be cradled in the arms of Mrs Neptune, soothed and lulled by her bosum slowly heaving up and down with her breathing, inducing slumber to everyone on board. We slept, we showered and shaved, we cooked, we read, we emailed, we wrote home – a thoroughly lovely, lazy day. Even the dolfins relaxed and refused to go chasing after the boat, as they usually do, like a pack of country dogs chasing after a passing car.

With oil-smooth water, you can better locate the turtles and in fact there are many of them, one every few minutes. But they appear to be weighted down with barnacles and are surrounded by a school of small sardines, which makes me think there is a pathological condition for them and cause for worry for the general health of the world’s turtle population.

The only serious activity was when I stopped the boat for a few minutes to check the level of the engine oil and pour a jerry-can of fuel into the main tank. We used up so little fuel in the past 20 hours, that I increased the speed to 5 knots, as we can well afford it. With nightfall, some wind comes which permits us to turn off the engine after 27 hours of motoring – blissful silence, only the sound of the rippling water against the hull.

May 30th. Just over 500 miles to go to our waypoint at the centre of the Straits of Gibraltar – we are closing the gap! Only three or four days now and I am looking forward to our arrival, it has been a long trip. I have no news of the outside world (apart from home and from the office) and wonder what has happened. Has Man landed on the moon? Have the Commos invaded America? No, I haven’t been away that long!

May 31st. Idyllic conditions do not last long in the Atlantic and that night we had NE winds on our eastwards course, meaning that we were close reached, steering very close to the wind and with cross, short, choppy seas, making us all very uncomfortable. With the boat slamming into the hollow of the waves, we had to hand steer all night and none of us got much sleep. These conditions lasted all the following day and we were violently thrown around inside of the boat and this constant erratic motion took its toll on one of the crew, who was out of action for several hours with sea-sickness. I for example bumped my head on the bathroom mirror, fortunately cracking neither and I am covered in cuts and bruises. The cook of the evening thought it prudent to serve only simple boiled rice for all, to the disappointment of us few hardy members.

On most boats, as happened to me on the outward crossing, there will always be one of the crew who thrills in pushing the boat to its limits and objects to every sail reduction. They think that they are on a Sunday regatta of their local sailing club, where if a rig breakage occurs they can motor home and next morning, go to the shop and buy the broken pieces. But not here in the middle of the Atlantic. There sure aint no shops here! So if you bust the rig, you are busted and it may take weeks to get back with a makeshift jury rig, if you get back at all. A broken mast can even be fatal and can act as a ram driving a hole through the hull of the boat. That is why it is obligatory to have on board enormous wire cutters and hack-saws, to urgently cut off the fallen rigging and cast it into the sea before it produces worse damage.

I always prefer to be on the safe side, notwithstanding any complaints and reef early and prudently even at the risk of being over-reefed, rather than under-reefed with too much sail up. Our one and only mission is to get the boat and all of the crew across the Atlantic safely and without any major damage. This is definitely not a race.

There are several more ships now, as we approach the Straits, so we must keep a constant lookout, although the rain, squalls and mist make it more difficult, so we must check the radar often as well. We noted two underwater mountains right on our path in 5000 metre deep water, with their peaks reaching to wintin 23 meters from the sea surface, so we altered course, as there could possibly be very rough seas there.

We are constantly making repairs as the wear and tear on a sailing boat on an ocean crossing is enormous, at a guess, one month equals three years of normal summer holiday use. Things break, wear down or work themselves loose, like the two vertical column hand-holds in the dinette reaching up and fixed to the ceiling, which grabbed and twisted by everyone passing, loosened and one actually came unstuck, fortunately not at a critical moment, otherwise someone could have gotten hurt. But repairs in a moving boat are difficult and also to get to the various parts. In this case the lower extremity of the columns were in a highly inaccessible part of the bilges, making the repair very tedious.

One man on watch and the other resting on standby

There are exactly 300 miles left for Gibraltar (two and a half days), even if the Portuguese coastline is only 140 miles away. It is a black night again, with dense clouds hiding the moon and I am writing my last report from the boat, as the final one I hope to write comfortably seated at a bar on the sea-front. I am writing on a damp, heaving deck, surging blindly through night, with the bows shooting spray out as we hit the waves, tainted by the ghostly green navigation light. The wind is whipping the pages of my notepad and a tiny torch illuminating my scratchy writing, which I wonder if I will be able to interpret when I type it during my 5am morning watch.

June 1st. Another fine sunny day with favourable winds, to help us relax and get over the hard last two days. The wind was from the North, which is more favourable to our eastwards course and allowed us to skim along at 7 knots and when it eased off in the afternoon, we put up the gennaker and ran at 8 knots. We were fortunately just out of the declared danger zone of American Warship 75 which was having live fireing practice, so it was a pleasant day again, with a good curry chicken for lunch by Dave.

We had a wall of fog roll suddenly in, but it rolled off just as quickly, thank Heaven, as I hate fog. Then in the evening when all was going well, the gennaker suddenly came down into the water because of a chafed and worn-through halyard, nothing serious though. We pulled it aboard and returned to the normal sails and a more sedate pace. (Perhaps our mast-head was hit by a Cruise missile fired by Warship 75)

During the night, at 100 miles from the Straits, I counted 15 ships on the radar screen surrounding us and I contacted one that was creeping up on us to make sure it had seen us and to ask on which side it intended to pass.

The wind dropped completely and we had to motor and on into the next day, our last of the crossing, which was a sultry hot sunny day, our first taste of the coming European summer.

Th Straits of Gibraltar are one of the most congested shipping routes of the world, as all the Mediterranean traffic passes through this narrow eight mile passage. No wonder that the British hold on firmly to “The Rock”, a strategic checkpoint even today.

A large percentage of this traffic involves the transport of petroleum and its refined products, as the Mediterranean countries refine fully 10% of all the world’s petroleum. Italy alone has 17 refineries and being a tourism based country, should think about getting its priorities straight. Several Mediterranean north-African states produce pertoleum and the rest comes from the Arabian states and the Eastern European states, all to be refined within the confines of this beautiful enclosed sea and fully 10 million tons are transported annually through the Straits of Gibralta. One therefore realises just how precarious the health is of this beloved Mare Nostrum where a large oil spill would be fatal for all the countries bordering it, so greater precautions should be taken and serious limits placed on the transport of petroleum and all other dangerous products.

I am in fact shocked at the lack of control of VHF channel 16 which is dedicated to safety communications and used by all these ships to talk and to avoid each other. This channel is constantly occupied by fools whistling, singing, making lewd noises and transmitting music. It should not be impossible with todays technology to trace these idiots and to put an end to this idiotic practice which jeopardises the safety of all this shipping with its crews and most dangerous cargoes.

 
After the perilious shipping lanes, finally "The Rock"

However, with much caution while night was falling, we managed to dodge the endless line of ships coming out of the Straits and we crossed the shipping lanes as fast as we could, but as soon as we made it, the FOG came in, thick as pea-soup, frightening me no end. Rob courageously volonteered to lash himself to the mast to peer ahead and listen for any trace of oncoming ships or fishing vessels, while every minute blowing a long blast on the fog horn, all the while suffering the terrible cold and dampness. Dave was the next volonteer, followed by Fabio. Well done boys! I was at the helm constantly checking the radar and with headphones on listening to the radio traffic to ensure that no-one was telling us that we were on a collision course and the rest of the crew was on concentrated lookout. The fog lasted six interminable hours and lifted only when we approached Tariffa, 15 miles before Gibraltar.

At 4am June 3rd we finally motored into a quiet corner of the bay (indicated by the 2004 pilot-book I had) and had one or two celebratory beers and then, quite thoroughly exhausted, we retired to a well-earned sleep. However at 8am we were abruptly awakened by the Gibraltar military police telling us we had to move on as it was no-longer permitted to anchor here, so we sleepily up-anchored and called the marina, who fortunately found a mooring place for us. Our Atlantic Crossing, after 26 days at sea, was finally concluded!

The Pillars of Hercules: 
the Rock of Gibraltar and Jebel Musa in Africa on the other side of the Straits 

Epilogue

In the two following days of our arrival, we slept a lot and then the crew slowly started to leave, rather sadly that the adventure was at a close, but fully satisfied at the success of its outcome; me too, as there were no casualties amongst the crew and the boat suffered only minor damages. A jubiliant young delivery crew we met in a pub in Gibraltar told us of 51 knot winds they encountered in their 56 foot Oyster in their travels further north towards the depressions, which enabled them to shave two days off and complete earlier, but at a much increased risk, both for crew and boat. We had motored for 150 hours, about 6 days of the overall trip.

I found a good modern marina, Smir, in Morocco and sailed over by myself, waved off by my friends Vincent and Louise of Sottogrande who had seen me off for the Canaries last October. My departure was stalled for fog in tha marina, you could hardly see the control tower! At midday I set off and the visibility was not too good in the Straits and ships would suddenly appear out of nowhere and I had to decide quickly whether to accelerate or whether to slow down, in order to miss being run over. After the busy shipping lanes, it was a quiet run down to Smir.

As the dolfins saw that I had appreciated their shows in the Atlantic, they put on their grand finale for me and all 200 dolfins paraded and cavorted before me near Ceuta. Of course I made a standing ovation.

Arriving late Saturday, the shipyard was closed so I had to wait again for the Monday to hand over the boat, which will stay here for up to three months, till Mabi and I can get away from the office and visit Morocco and Spain.

I was very disappointed to note that the Mediterranean Sea is much more polluted and dirty than the Atlantic, as you come across plastic bags, bottles, cartons and muck every few minutes. In its favour, it is a flatter sea, with the boat more stable and with much more to see, land always being very close by and most varied and interesting, so far three different countries in three days. I am looking forward to seeing much more of it. I love it.

Lorenzo (Laurence) Camillo

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