George and I take off one early morning from Horta for an overnight passage to Ponta Delgada where Jarno (my new crew) will arrive and where George will join a Norweigian yacht. Ponta DelgadaJarno and I pushed Aliisa off the dock in Ponta Delgada, Azores. We had 1200 miles to England and a plan to push non-stop to Amsterdam. Charlie the Cat had seen the cat-doctor in Trinidad and is now travelling with a full complement of European paperwork and certificates. Unfortunately UK and Sweden both have a special rule which makes Charlie an illegal animal on their shores. I had heard warnings about the animal quarantine laws in England and I wasn't going to take a risk of having to pay for flights for the cat as well as large fines etc.
North Atlantic is tame. We make barely 100-mile days in very light winds. I'm on a home run. The tank is full and I have another 120 litres of diesel on deck. When the wind dies, I turn the key. By the time we get close to the the coast of Europe, we've done a good 120 hours of motoring. The wind? Where the fuck is the wind??
North Atlantic was tame but the days of tropical heat were long gone. Pouring more diesel into the tank, mid voyage.
Then it comes. 15-20 knots on the nose, about 200 miles from Falmouth. We spend three days tacking and making hardly any headway. I'm angry. I want to go home. I've had enough of this stuff. I really need a rest, I need to do some serious maintenance to Aliisa, I need more money. I need a rest. I start adding up miles and looking at my old charts which were given to me in Caribbean. I decide to go to Isle of Man or Falmouth to take a rest and top up with diesel. To hell with the quarantine, they don't need to know about Charlie.
With only 60 miles to go to Falmouth, I decide to turn on the engine and push in. The wind is still against us and the seas a little confused in the ever-changing tidal flows of the English Channel. The last night is a pain in the ass as I stand awake, praying that the engine will last, pushing at about 3kn against a 1 to 2 meter sea, dodging the increasing traffic of fishing trawlers and container ships. We arrive in Falmouth harbour early in the morning. There is not a breath of wind, though the bay is full of local yachts fully dressed up, drifting around while the owners are enjoying... enjoying being on the water? We motor in. It is the hottest August day in recorded history with temperatures near 40C in some parts of England.
I hoist a Finnish flag to the back of Aliisa, pretending to be a Finnish yacht. Australian flag might attract attention and I don't need any problems with the cat. We tie up to a mooring and pay our fee in the harbour office. I fill in the paperwork and Aliisa's home port becomes Cairns, Finland.
I top up the tanks, again. We get pissed in a pub and continue a few days later. The English Channel offers us fog, heavy traffic, a few thundery showers and one squall. But no wind. No wind at all.... We motor all the way to Dover but instead of going in, we turn to the right and travel with the ferries to the French side. My Yanmar is working hard. After a 1/2 day sail in a fresh afternoon breeze, we are in flat calm again. The fog arrives.
English Channel was busy but the shipping lanes were well marked. This ship would be totally invisible to me, even in the middle of the day, during fog.
I'm navigating with 15-year-old Imray charts. The fog makes me crazy. I'm staring into it for hours. We are motoring in a cellar, against an invisible grey wall. I can hear a fog horn of a ship. Someone comes on the VHF, calling a fishing boat. We are passing Zeebrugge, a Belgian port. I decide to make a "securitay" call and announce our position and say that we are in zero visibility with no radar. I get a rather nasty reply: "Report immediately to the Zeebrugge pilot station and stay away from the ships! You are crossing a pilot boarding area!"
Well, fuck that! I'm in the middle of a pilot boarding area, in thick fog and there's nothing I can do to avoid the ships until thery are about 20 meters away - the limit of the visibility. The pilot station sends another securitay call, warning ships about a small yacht with no radar. One container ship talks to the pilot station over VHF: "..Yeah, we have him on the screen, I'll pass him on the port side, no problem...". Soon I see a grey wall passing us about 20 meters away. It takes about a full minute for it to pass. I'm shitting myself. I look at the charts and gladly notice that we won't make it past Rotterdam until midday next day. By then the fog will surely be gone.
I meant the kinda fog like this...
Rotterdam one of the busiest - if not the busiest - port in the world. Almost every minute a ship enters or exits the port. It's the Heathrow of shipping. And the bastard fog did not go away. For the first time during the whole time of owning Aliisa, I was ready to buy a radar, at any price. After a few passes by large dark walls belonging to 100m plus ships, I decided to turn on the laptop, connect the GPS and play the old videogame with Cmap. We drove right into the shallows, near the coast and away from the shipping. We crossed the harbour entry with the kind guidance of the harbour master, slipping between the invisible ships.
After Rotterdam I relaxed a bit - something that is often a problem for me. Jarno took over and let me sleep a good 6 hours or more. When I woke, the fog was gone and we had a good pleasant wind with us. Amsterdam, here we come.
