Believe in fate, but lean forward where fate can see you.
-Quentin Crisp-
We've been in Saint Helena for ten days. The departure is easy. We know that there's nothing but sunshine and light winds ahead of us. Some squalls around the equator, no problem, and then into the gentle NE trades of the Caribbean.
I like light winds. I don't particularly like sailing, though I've got used to it. It's nice to move along slowly with the boat rocking gently and the sun shining. Some cruisers long for punishment. They want to go to Cape Horn, Greenland, Antarctica, Up the Amazon River, cut through the roaring forties or sail the whole lot non stop. Not me.
We had no clear plan about the remaining 3800 Nautical Miles. We gave up Fernando Noronha as a destination after hearing from two other yachts that they are now charging up to 60 euros per day in anchoring and clearing fees. I set a waypoint in the GPS for Ascension and we started sailing downwind, slowly. Very slowly.
The rattling sound from the propellor shaft is still a mystery. I suspect a misalignement, perhaps the engine has moved just enough to make the shaft touch the stern tube? Whatever the reason, I don't want to run the engine. We spend 11 days at sea and arrive to Ascension at night. We've done 700 miles, 65 miles a day.
A large floating hose was marked on the chart and in the morning the massive rubber coated pipe swang next to us.
Our only reason for stopping in Ascension is the lack of water and cravings for more yummies. Cheese, eggs, tomatoes, butter, beer and so on. We're still on a low budget but there's no point in sailing a small yacht across the ocean without some comfort. Whatever comfort you can get. Chocolate bisquits, cigarettes, cabbage and carrots.
I call the port control and they advice me to go straight to the police station in Georgetown and pay my harbour fees and clear in. I put the dinghy in the water and put the outboard on. (We're a fair distance from the landing and the plastic tender is too light for the load of water I want to bring in with jerry cans). The outboard won't start. I pull and pull and pull the chord but not even a promise. Shit! I suspect dirty fuel and pull the carburetor apart. No help. Finally, in frustration, I bang the motor with a large spanner. One more pull and she starts running. Perhaps the float in the carbie bowl was stuck?
There's a large sign by the dinghy landing in Ascension that says: "It is against the law to land on the island without permission. The permission can be obtained from the police station in Georgetown." Whatever I do, I'll be a criminal. So I go ashore and fill my jerry cans with water from the tap near the wharf. After three trips back and forth, Aliisa is loaded with water. I return ashore and walk to the bank to get some cash. Then I go to the Solomons Supermarket and load up with food.
An old ground swell still makes a spectacular entry in the shore but the anchorage is comfortable.
After I get all the groceries onboard, it's almost 4pm and I sit in the afternoon heat, having a cold beer. I turn the VHF off in case the port captain decides to ask me about clearing in. We pull up anchor in the morning and leave. I have committed a crime, though I don't feel particularly guilty of anything. At least I wasn't stupid, like the law maker who wrote the sign about illegal landing.
I've been told that it's legal to shit into a bucket in Europe and throw it over the side, but it's illegal to shit into a toilet and flush it to the sea. I will let you know how we - the European Bureacracy and me - get along.)
Ascension to Tobago
We sail off in less than ten knots of breeze. I spend a few hours playing with the wind vane and get it to steer. We're wobbling along in a gentle breeze, hardly any swell and blue skies. Slow but pleasant. Aliisa doesn't move along very well in light winds. Life is pleasant. We cook nice meals. Paula does most of the cooking but I do my best to show off my limited skills too. (Risotto, Finish style soup, meat balls and gravy, pasta carbonara, spag-bol, satay chicken stir-fry and lasagne. If I ever invite you for dinner, make sure to pick from one of them.)
Night watches are a joke. Paula wakes me up at four AM and I get out of the bed in the aft, walk through the cockpit into the saloon and go back to sleep. I sleep 15 to 30 min at a time and get up to look at the empty Atlantic horizon before going back to sleep. The only frustration is our speed. We're comparing positions with four other yachts once a day and some of them are slipping away almost 100 miles each time I talk to them. We seem to be sitting in the lightest winds with the slowest boat.
A bottle of bubbly is always kept for the equator crossings. This is our third, with only one more to go before Australia.
Paula and me? Hmm. Our perception of the everything is very different. If we see a red yacht, we could not agree abou its color. If we speak with someone on the street, five minutes later we could not agree about anything that I said, she said or he said. I could elaborate on this but it's better if I don't. I would only be tellig you my perception of her, my perception of her perception of me, my perception of her perception of my perception of her and so on. We experience life in a different way. I may be crazy or I may be not. But being me is the only option, the only sure thing for me to do, even if I end up being wrong at the end.
Somehow we manage to keep together even though the fights are getting worse. The good moments are still good and they still come frequently. We work well together as friends. We talk about working in Caribbean and the possible tracks that the future may throw us into. One day Paula announces that she has decided to fly back to Australia. From Caribbean? From Finland? From somewhere inbetween? I don't know.
We both agree (hey, we do agree on some things!) that a break will do us both good. When I think of it, Paula has done a magic job in enduring both me and the life at sea, for nearly two years. Not many men and much fewer women would settle in such living conditions for so long. Suddenly Paula is in a much brighter mood, planning her next move in Australia, talking about all the friends she will see and what she will do with them and what sort of work she might apply for. A seemingly endless and pointless life of floating from port to port, anchorage to anchorage, has changed to a voyage that has an end and something to look forward to.
While Paula had her mind in Australia, my mind was now filled with new questions. If she goes from Caribbean, will I try to get work and stay there for the hurricane season? Will I continue to Finland? Who would join as crew? Could I go alone? Would Paula continue to Finland? The only resting place for me, the mid-way stop, had always been Helsinki, Finland where I could work, spend time with friends and family and prepare for the following years of cruising back to Australia.
It's hot and a bucket of water helps only as long as the water keeps running over my skin. Clear nights offered some relief, letting the heat of the day escape up in space.
We pass Fernando de Noronha from the south and close in to the Brazilian coast in search for the Guyana current which sweeps along the continental shelf. We get the position of the ITCZ (Inter Tropical Convergence Zone) from a ham station each day. The sky starts to darken and I, once again, start feeling the anxiety as the potential of thunderstorms and squalls increases. The first squall is a blessing, though. A gentle 15-20kn from behind and bucketloads of rain. Paula and I run to the deck for a rain shower. Aaaahhhhhh...the air has been hot and humid and standing in the rain felt wonderful.
During the next three days we watch the coulds build up and thunderstorms to grow bigger. For some reason we manage to slip between all the worst ones. One morning I spent five hours watching a large storm system slowly move alongside while another one was flashing on the other side of us. In the end, like in all human life, the fear of bad things was much worse than the bad things. None of the squalls had none of the energy than the Sumatran storm a year and a half ago. The sun comes up and the sky is blue again. The wind arrives from the NE and we enter the northern hemisphere.
Later the ITCZ swings on top of us again and we get another awfully black night. Heavy rain, no moon, no horizon but the wind never arrives and the little we had disappears. I turn the engine on and we motor for half a day. Trinidad and Tobago is only 400 miles away. I start calculating the possible arrival time. We need to get in by Friday to avoid overtime charges by customs and immigration.
A group of dolphins appear. They are huge, much larger than their cousins in Indian ocean. We're moving along only at about 4 knots and there's hardly any swell. I take a rope, tie one end to a cleat and jump in with the other end. The dolphins are almost within arms reach and I watch them for a while. I turn my head to look at the hull of Aliisa. I can see the reason for our slow speed. A whole forest of barnacles and long footed clams are being dragged across the ocean, perhaps 30kg of them covering the hull.
On Friday night, 7th April, we spin the lump of barnacles in the prop and slowly drive in calm seas into the Man of War Bay, NW of the island of Tobago. The CMap guides us further in to Pirate's Bay and we drop anchor next to three other yachts. Roland from Yacht Dragonfly comes over with a care package, two apples, a fresh loaf of bread and a packet of smokes. Thank you Dragonfly! Aliisa has arrived to the magical Caribbean Sea. I can hear loud reggae from the beach, though I later learn that it is Calypso that is truly the music of Trinidad and Tobago.
Dolphin watching in the open sea. I also discovered the reason for our lack of speed. The hull was hopelessly covered in marine life with hardly any anti-fouling left.
Hey Maaan. Drink da rom an smook da ganja. The rastafarians live in the bush and grow their own food. Some of them carry mobile phones too.
