Our position at 10.00 (12.00 GMT) Wednesday 8th March was
01 43N
038 58W
on a course of 300T with 50% cloud cover.
Our 24 hour run from 10.00 yesterday to 10.00 today was 117 miles. Average 4.8kts – not very good. We have 1401 miles to go to Barbados

We sailed slowly yesterday as our average speed shows. The boat speed yesterday went from 3kts to 7kts and anything in between. The wind is filling in slowly from the east but very fluky. We’re probably still in the ITCZ because it’s supposed to go up as far as 02 degrees north and there are still squalls around. We sailed slowly through the night but another mini squall took the wind this morning so we motored for an hour until the wind came back then we were sailing at 5kts again.

The sun is really fierce when the clouds clear. If I’m sitting in the cockpit on watch I have to keep moving around to stay under the bimini cover in the shade. I had the sewing machine out yesterday. One of the diesel can covers (everything has to have a cover on it to protect it from the sun) had rotted because of the sun. I was going to repair it but it fell to bits in my hand. As I’ve got spare material it was easier to make a new one. While I had the machine out I also made a Barbados courtesy flag. Is there no end to the ladies talents???

I have to tell you of a funny thing that happened last night. The birds are back and one of them decided to perch on the guardrail at the bow and go to sleep. It’s bum was hanging over the boat and it was pooing on the deck. Bill came on watch and decided to get rid of it. He opened the fore peak hatch carefully and in Monty Python style slowly poked it with a stick. The bird fell off and woke up mid air and flew off with a loud squawk, hopefully he won’t be back. Haha

This morning we passed the quarter way from Fernando to Barbados mark which is also about two thirds of the way from St Helena to Barbados. I like to look forward to these.

Last night I cooked a packet of dried tortellini, not as nice as fresh but fine for a passage meal. I also fried half a packet of lardons (bacon bits) and added that to the cooked, drained pasta with a dollop of cream and a good shake of parmesan. stir it all up and serve with a sprinkle of black pepper and you’ve got tortellini carbonara. No calorie version of course 😉

And so the soap opera that is Camomile continues.

All well on board. 🙂

The blog goes through to facebook but we can’t see facebook or your comments. I’ll catch up with them all in the Caribbean. If you wish to email us please use mdqf6 @ sailmail.com (take out the gaps) Stay safe everyone.

Our position at 10.00 (12.00 GMT) Monday 6th March was
00 35.1S
036 17W
on a course of 300T with 30% cloud cover.
Our 24 hour run from 10.00 yesterday to 10.00 today was 136 miles. Average 5.6kts. We have 1614 miles to go to Barbados

We are now entering our third week at sea with probably another week or two to go, hoping to arrive in Barbados around 18th. This will have been our longest passage to date and it WON’t be repeated. We left Simonstown 7 weeks ago so we haven’t done badly considering we have to cross a quarter of the globe in 4 months. We have caught up with our desire to do 500 miles a week after our stay in St Helena

We lost the wind at 3pm yesterday when the wind suddenly swang round to the north and died and have motored through the night. So this is the doldrums. Yesterday afternoon we motored through what felt like a black corridor, then the cloud cleared to reveal blue skies before the next black cloud rolled in. So far there hasn’t been any thunder and lightening just heavy rain showers. This morning I woke to blue skies and sunshine. We are still south of the equator and hope to cross that later tonight or tomorrow morning. The grib files show light winds for the next 24 hours so we are going to take the twizzle rig down later today.

The watermaker has been on all night so I did some washing this morning.

I also made bread this morning but after my last wonderful effort today’s wasn’t very good, it didn’t rise. Maybe it’s too hot here I don’t know. It tastes nice just a bit heavy. It will make nice toast.

For dinner last night we had …. guess, yes chicken curry although I just opened a jar of Korma and added it to some chicken served with rice, so easy.

Good luck to Tintin and Divanty who were leaving Cape town this morning. Safe sailing guys. x

All well on board. 🙂

The blog goes through to facebook but we can’t see facebook or your comments. I’ll catch up with them all in the Caribbean. If you wish to email us please use mdqf6 @ sailmail.com (take out the gaps) Stay safe everyone.

Our position at 10.00 (12.00 GMT) Sunday 5th March (just noticed my days of the week were out)was 01 55S
034 00W
on a course of 300T with dark squally skies.
Our 24 hour run from 10.00 yesterday to 10.00 today was 135 miles. Average 5.6kts. We have 1747 miles to go to Barbados

After yesterdays squally start the rest of the day was spent sailing with our twizzle rig with a south east F3. As soon as the wind changes, and looks as though it will stay, we will takes the poles down and put up the main but at the moment the gribs are giving us yet another 24 hours.

There were further squalls in the evening with more wind but, thankfully, no thunder and lightening. Each time the wind would disappear for half an hour or so and our speed would be down to 3 – 4kts but we persevered and eventually it came back. Still no need to motor. We’ve only ran the engine for a total of 11 hours since leaving St Helena and that’s only been for charging the batteries. This morning, at almost the same time as yesterday, more black cloud rolled in from the north carrying torrential rain but this time the wind was blowing in the right direction so I didn’t have to run with it. I sat in the cockpit under the cover with my umbrella up to keep me from getting wet from the rain blowing in from behind. We are now officially in the doldrums aka ITCZ (inter tropical convergence zone).

I ran the net this morning with the rain pouring down outside and everyone seemed well. Ganash is through the ITCZ and reporting good NE trade winds on the other side, MariekeIII had a day of motoring so are about 60 miles ahead of us, Antares has left the Fernando islands and is about 60 miles behind us (not for long) and Norsa and Solstice had just arrived at the anchorage in the Fernando group so they have a few days off. We chose not to stop because it’s expensive but with the good weather forecast we have I think we would have kept going any way.

Last night I sat in the cockpit having my half way party for one (Bill has to go to bed early so I can get him up at 1am to take over the watch) with my glass of wine, just one, and my last Crunchie, saved for the occasion. I had my 70s disco music playing on my ipod, I had to be careful not to start singing and wake Bill up. In between squalls, the quarter moon peeked out from the clouds and sprinkled moon dust on the tops of the waves; at the same time a pod of dolphins came to visit, the phosphorescence made them look like torpedo’s darting back and forth under the boat. Magical times.

For dinner I cooked the steaks which we had with some frozen wedges baked in the oven. The steaks were lovely having come from Woolworths (think M&S) in South Africa but not the same without a nice salad.

All well on board. 🙂

The blog goes through to facebook but we can’t see facebook or your comments. I’ll catch up with them all in the Caribbean. If you wish to email us please use mdqf6 @ sailmail.com (take out the gaps) Stay safe everyone.

Our position at 10.00 (12.00 GMT) Friday 4th March was
02 57S
032 05W
on a course of 310T with sunny skies.
Our 24 hour run from 10.00 yesterday to 10.00 today was 132 miles. Average 5.5kts.
We have 1899 miles to go to Barbados “Whoo we’re going to Barbados” can’t remember the rest of the words to the old song.

I put our clock back 1 hour yesterday to bring us in line with the daylight. As we’ve gradually made our way north west towards the equator we are back to 12 hours days but instead of getting light at 6am and dark at 6pm it was becoming later and not getting light until 7am plus the other boats had all changed their clocks to Fernando time so we followed suit.

We watched the clouds marching across the horizon yesterday to our north passing us by until just after dark a big black cloud crossed behind us taking all our wind. We wallowed around for an hour or two before our speed gradually picked back up again.

On the evening net Ganash who is 100 or so miles north of us was reporting NE squalls with strong gusts, Marieke III is only 35 miles south of us and was motoring as the squall that had taken our wind had also taken his, Solstice and Norsa are about 130 miles behind us and still enjoying south east trade winds and Antares had anchored safely next to WOW in the Fernando islands. I envy their complete nights sleep.

It felt like I had a bit of a lay in this morning getting up at 6am because that would have been 7am in the old time. Bill went back to bed while I took a watch. I sat there watching the clouds slowing form into a huge BLACK cloud bank to the north of us on our starboard side. At first it looked like it was going to miss us and go behind but then the wind started coming from the NE, it was the NE trade wind breaking through the ICTZ. The one disadvantage of the twizzle rig is it can’t take a wind shift so I put the auto pilot on (the hydrovane wouldn’t be able to control the boat in such a wind shift) and started to run with the wind in a south west direction – the wrong direction. The cloud split and enveloped us on both sides bringing with it heavy rain. I quickly shut all the hatches and stood on the steps watching the instruments. There was nothing I could do, poor little Camomile was running as fast as she could making 8kts. The black dark cloud passed over us like a thick cloak and I could see blue sky all around the horizon. We are supposed to be on a course of 310 degrees but now we were heading 260! Eventually the rain stopped and the cloud cleared leaving behind higher whiter cloud and I spent the next half hour gradually bringing Camomile back on course as the wind moved back to the east then east south east and our course was 305 degrees. All this had taken about 2 hours and Bill was still asleep. (I have to say normally it’s the other way round)

After all that we reached the waypoint north of Fernando and I advantaged the course onto the next one just south of Barbados 1905 miles to go

BUT

we are half way now. Half way from St Helena to Barbados and half way between Cape Town and Florida. So we are having a half way party today. I’ve got some steaks out of the freezer.

I made fish crumble last night. The piece of fish I had bought in St Helena had cut into 3 pieces, we had 2 last Friday but the last piece wasn’t enough for both of us on its own so I skinned it and cut it into cubes spreading it around the bottom of an ovenproof dish, then I took a tin of prawns I had bought in the Seychelles and sprinkled them over the top then added 2 x hard boiled eggs cut into quarters. I don’t have any capers (don’t like any way) but had some little gherkins in the fridge so cut up 3 of those. It was starting to look nice and colourful. Then I chopped up half an onion and a couple of cloves of garlic and fried them in a little butter. Add a cup of white wine and some cornflour to thicken – not too thick not too runny, and poured that gently over the fish. Sprinkle with dill, salt and pepper. Now take half a cup of flour and rub in some knobs of butter and add a hand full of grated cheese and stir. Sprinkle that over the fish filling and pop in the oven for half an hour – delicious. I served on top of a portion of sliced carrots in a bowl as always.

All well on board. 🙂

The blog goes through to facebook but we can’t see facebook or your comments. I’ll catch up with them all in the Caribbean. If you wish to email us please use mdqf6 @ sailmail.com (take out the gaps) Stay safe everyone.

Our position at 10.00 (11.00 GMT) Thursday 3rd March was
04 01S
030 11W
on a course of 310T with sunny skies.
Our 24 hour run from 10.00 yesterday to 10.00 today was 145 miles. Average 6kts.
We have 136 miles to go to a waypoint about 10 miles north of Fernando de Noronha.

Another down wind sailing day with speeds from 5.5kts and up to 7kts in our familiar F3. The forecast gives us another 24 hours again. Still hot.

We have decided we aren’t stopping at the Fernando islands and have changed our course to a waypoint about 10 miles north of the islands so we are well clear of them after dark this evening. Our next stop will be Barbados another 1700 miles – deep joy.

Didn’t get any birds or, more importantly, lightening, last night. The squall that hit WOW has hopefully moved on. WOW are anchored at Fernando checking their boat over.

Started getting a moon in the evening now. When you’re land based you don’t notice the phases of the moon but I always know what phase the moon is in and when the next full or dark moon is. It makes such a difference at sea to have the moonlight, especially as we get closer to Brazil and have more chance of fishermen being out here.

Big congratulations to our friends Tom and Susie on Adina who have just completed their circumnavigation in Grenade. Getting excited and looking forward to completing ours next month. 🙂

I made chicken curry again last night (can you tell it’s Bill’s favourite, he always suggests it if I ask)

All well on board. 🙂

The blog goes through to facebook but we can’t see facebook or your comments. I’ll catch up with them all in the Caribbean. If you wish to email us please use mdqf6 @ sailmail.com (take out the gaps) Stay safe everyone.

Our position at 10.00 (11.00 GMT) Thursday 2nd March was
05 27S
028 18W
on a course of 305T with 1 – 2 meter swell and broken cloud.
Our 24 hour run from 10.00 yesterday to 10.00 today was 147 miles. Average 6.1kts our best since leaving st Helena.
We have 264 miles to go to Fernando de Noronha, which is our half way point, but it’s looking more and more likely we won’t stop and will continue on to Barbados.

Still sailing with the twin headsails up, not sure for how much longer but Bill reviews the weather daily and keeps saying another day of the same tomorrow. As we get nearer to the ITCZ our plan is to sail as far as we can before the wind stops. Then there are 2 schools of thought, go in close to the Brazilian coast and pick up the current that is supposed to be there to give you more speed but after crossing the equator further west you run the risk of having head winds OR alternatively from our position start heading towards the equator and cross the ITCZ at its narrowest point between 30 – 32W, as recommended by Jimmy Cornell, even though we may have a couple of days motoring. We are unlikely to get current but have more chance of favourable winds. Looking at the grib files the NE trades are tantalisingly close but we just need to get through the doldrums first. We’ve decided to do the latter, we would rather forgo a current than a good wind. The net is divided and in fact 3 are going one way and three the other so it will be interesting to compare notes on ‘the other side’.

More flashes of lightening in the distance to the north last night, which is not good. Our friends on the catamaran WOW were hit by a 30kts+ squall last night and lightening hit the water very close to them taking out their wind instruments although they are fine. They are about 150 miles in front of us but it shows the weather is out there.

ALERT ALERT not for my sister Angela to read!

The birds have arrived!! Our friends in the boats ahead of us are reporting Sooty terns roosting on their solar panels overnight. Last night I heard a noise in the dark and switched the torch on and shone it at the solar panel, sure enough their were several of them sitting in a row looking at me looking at them looking at me. When Bill got up he tried to scare them off but they just kept flying off and coming back again. In the end he left them as they had their bums hanging over the edge and weren’t pooping on the solar panels. I thought if my sister was here she would’ve jumped overboard, what do you think Ang? Haha

I was lazy last night and just shoved some wedges in the oven which we had with sausage, baked beans and an egg. It was nice though the sausages were locally made in St Helena (for the cruisers behind us if you see some get them), the baked beans were from the last tin of Heinz so it was divided into 3 x thirds to make them last, 2/3 in the fridge, and the egg was a free range one again from St Helena so all sort of healthy?

I baked bread today which smelt, felt and tasted like real bread. Really pleased with it. Also made flapjacks.

All well on board. 🙂

The blog goes through to facebook but we can’t see facebook or your comments. I’ll catch up with them all in the Caribbean. If you wish to email us please use mdqf6 @ sailmail.com (take out the gaps) Stay safe everyone.

Our position at 10.00 (11.00 GMT) Wednesday 1st March was
06 45S
026 16W
on a course of 308T with 1 – 2 meter swell and broken cloud.
Our 24 hour run from 10.00 yesterday to 10.00 today was 140 miles. Average 5.8kts getting better. We have 407 miles to go to Fernando de Noronha, which is our half way point.

Still holding the wind, which considering it was forecast to drop a few days ago, is good. We saw our first ship on the AIS yesterday afternoon but it was 15 miles away so couldn’t see it. Bill also saw a flash of lightening in the distance to the north, which is not good. Possibly a sign of things to come. The wind picked up to F4 overnight so Bill reefed some of the twin headsails away before he went off watch. By the time he got up the wind was back to F3 so they came out again.

Unfortunately that bit of extra wind increased the swell slightly making the boat roll more causing any unsuspecting object to levitate from one side of the boat to the other if it wasn’t tied down; including me. The aeropress went over last night before I had a chance to put the top on. It was unbelievable how the equivalent of one cup of coffee could go so far, it was every where and the coffee grounds are so difficult to wipe up. I managed to clear most of it away with the red light on but I found more coffee grounds down the side of the cupboard this morning. It had also gone down my leg but luckily it didn’t burn.

Another milestone this morning and that was we passed 466 miles to go to Fernando which is three quarters of the way. The Navionics micro chip in the chartplotter was also changed to ‘central and south America’.

The heat is making it increasingly difficult to sleep in the day time and I’m gradually getting more and more tired. Another week or so to go yet.

After 4 days the missing vessel checked in with the net last night after the port control at St Helena emailed him, he said he hadn’t been able to hear me but I suspect he had been turning his radio on at the wrong time. Any way at least they were OK. I was probably worrying over nothing but the rescue services said it was better to alert them to a possible problem than not.

Last night I made Passionate Pork casserole – the only reason it’s passionate is because it’s supposed to have passion fruit juice in it but as I haven’t got any so I put tropical juice in instead. It was very nice, fry an onion and some garlic, I then added some really nice pork fillet I had picked up in SA cut into cubes to seal. Then add 200ml of passata, 200ml of juice, 1 tbsp of honey, chop up a piece of ginger (I use stem ginger in syrup)and stir that in with salt and pepper, simmer for about 40 or 50 minutes and serve with rice. It’s a sort of sweet and sour dish.

All well on board. 🙂

The blog goes through to facebook but we can’t see facebook or your comments. I’ll catch up with them all in the Caribbean. If you wish to email us please use mdqf6 @ sailmail.com (take out the gaps) Stay safe everyone.

Our position at 10.00 (11.00 GMT) Tuesday 28th February was 08 04S
024 21W
on a course of 303T with less than 1 meter swell and sunny blue skies.
Our 24 hour run from 10.00 yesterday to 10.00 today was 137 miles. Average 5.76kts much better than the last few days. We have 544 miles to go to Fernando de Noronha,

The wind picked back up in the morning and we were flying along all day with speeds of 5.7kts and 6.2kts and 7kts recorded and it continued through the night. Our average speed has gone up which is pleasing.

We saw our first birds yesterday. During this leg of the journey, apart from Antares sailing alongside us on the first day, we’ve absolutely nothing – no ships, no fishing boats, no other yachts, no dolphins or whales, nothing. As the horizon is only 6 miles away there could easily be some thing out there but we haven’t seen it.

Bill had the portable generator on all day yesterday charging up the batteries with the watermaker on filing the water tanks.

As I said yesterday it’s getting really hot and sticky. It will be like this for the next week or two until we cross the equator.

I have the nickname ‘Sailing Mum’ because I run the net and worry about my ‘ducklings’ if they don’t check in. I’ve been put to the test over the last few days because one of the yachts on the net suddenly stopped checking in and had previously been very chatty. I left it 3 days then decided to contact St Helena port control to see what they suggested. It was passed through to Falmouth MRCC who have located the vessel which is still on its way to Trinidad. They said it was good to report it and better to be safe than sorry and I can only assume his SSB has suddenly broken. I was worried because they are an elderly couple and he hasn’t been well lately. We have to hope all is well on board.

Last night we had lamb rumps with mint sauce and Bisto gravy (no you can’t I brought it out here from the UK) the very last of the potatoes 😦 and carrots, I’ve still got 4 left. I also made apple crumble with the tinned apples I bought in St Helena, and custard, it was delicious. Fortunately there’s enough left over for seconds tonight. All well on board. 🙂

The blog goes through to facebook but we can’t see facebook or your comments. I’ll catch up with them all in the Caribbean. If you wish to email us please use mdqf6 @ sailmail.com (take out the gaps) Stay safe everyone.

Our position at 10.00 (11.00 GMT) Monday 27th February was
09 55S
022 22W
on a course of 297T with less than 1 meter swell and sunny blue skies.
Our 24 hour run from 10.00 yesterday to 10.00 today was 114 miles. Average 4.75kts 😦 We have 679 miles to go to Fernando de Noronha,

We’ve been out here a week now and making good speeds. In 7 days we’ve covered 962 miles averaging 5.7kts, not bad for a little Westerly. Yesterday the wind held despite the forecast saying it was going to lighten over the weekend. Bill’s gribs had the ‘blue hole’ moving west in front of us so hopefully we’ll ‘push’ it out of the way.

It was the dark moon last night and without the glimmer of moonlight the stars lit up the night sky with an eerie loveliness from horizon to horizon. Planets and galaxies could be seen with the naked eye; a fantastic sight. Should get a slither of new moon tonight.

We had a heavy shower at midnight and you could see a weak front crossing over from behind us. The clouds took the wind again and our speed dropped a couple of knots causing the boat to roll and the sails to flap. After that we averaged a frustratingly 4.5kts over night losing some of our ground. It’s gradually picking up this morning and the skies have cleared.

It’s getting really hot as we get closer to the equator. I’m back to sailing in bikini and shorts with bare feet, even at night although I sometimes put a light tee shirt on.

I cooked chicken curry last night adding a few tinned potatoes. Disguised in the curry sauce they weren’t too bad.

All well on board. 🙂

The blog goes through to facebook but we can’t see facebook or your comments. I’ll catch up with them all in the Caribbean. If you wish to email us please use mdqf6 @ sailmail.com (take out the gaps) Stay safe everyone.