Thoughts from the bilges

 As we prepare Tomia for her passage to Cuba, Anthony shares the second part of his thoughts on keeping the ship running

Navigation, safety and creature comforts

The watermaker is wonderful. It draws in seawater and passes it at about 7bar (100psi) through membranes and will dump 90% back over the side and make 10% pure water at a rate of 30 litres an hour. Water is often difficult to obtain and sometimes quite expensive and in short supply so it is great to be independent. We cannot run the watermaker when in marinas or when there is a lot of sediment in the water which occurs in some of the more enclosed harbours. Our tanks take 550 litres and we estimate to use about 40 litres a day for showers, washing up, drinking etc. so it is not normally a problem. We therefore run it for between one and two hours a day usually when we are running the generator because it will use about 9 amps per hour. Maintenance is easy with a change of the intake filter about once a month. If left for any length of time (over a month) you have to ‘pickle’ it by putting some chemical through it to ensure no bacteria grow inside and then re commission when you return.
The ‘heads’ (loo compartments to some of you!) have probably been the most demanding to look after. We have two onboard one forward to port and one aft to starboard so which ever tack you are on when sailing there is always one with the inlet and outlet in the water! These are obviously in regular use and we have run through a lot of ‘O’ rings and seals. Over time you also get a build up of calcium in the hoses and we dose with vinegar to help alleviate this. In the forward heads we have a separate shower. All inlets and outlets that go through the boats hull have a bronze skinfitting and then before any hose is attached, a seacock, which is a special tap that can be turned off so that you can isolate the item that it is connected to, such as the heads, and work on them without flooding the boat.
We have a fairly standard pressurised water system with a hot water tank heated either by a heat exchange system from the main engine if it is running or by a 240 volt emersion heater from the generator. Water is piped to the basins and showers in both the heads and to the mixer tap in the galley. All outlets, showers, basins and sink have electric pumps and these have caused a few problems and instead of now having to repair them we have replacements which can be exchanged immediately and the defective pumps worked on when convenient.
We have a four burner gas cooker with oven and grill fitted in gimbals to make cooking in a seaway possible. Before we left we had all the flexible hoses replaced and a new regulator fitted which means we can use either Butane or Propane gas.
We have two fridges but generally only need to use one. It is a chest style which is not the most convenient but we have got used to it. It is run from a small compressor which is installed in a vented cupboard under the sink. The sink itself is a double unit with mixer tap, a hand fresh water pump in case the electrics give out and a salt water pump – yet to be used!
Some of the most important equipment on any cruising yacht is situated around the chart table. Luckily TOMIA was not overburdened with navigational equipment when we bought her so we were able to research and buy new what suited us. Wherever we go we make sure that we have paper charts and will always check these against the local pilot and the electronic charts. Modern electronic charts however are a very quick and easy way to navigate but with a lot of caution when approach reefs and rocky shores. Basically TOMIA appears as a small boat symbol on the chart using the satellite navigational system (GPS _ global positioning system). She will be in her exact position on the earth’s surface. The GPS picks up her track every few seconds and will move the symbol accordingly. The screen will display the boat’s speed through the water plus the speed over the ground, course over the ground, the direction to any waypoint we may have entered plus the distance and estimated time to reach that waypoint at the current speed. It will also show the wind speed and direction both true and apparent, and any other information that you wish to show such as depth. We also have an Autohelm which links into the system and when that is set you can ask the system to go directly to the waypoint and allow for any leeway, tide or current. And the boat will sail herself. When there are just two of you on board this is a really almost essential bit of kit. When either of us is off watch and asleep the other can keep up with the navigation, make a cup of coffee, adjust the sails while TOMIA is gaily sailing to her next destination and she always seems as keen as us to get there!
We have a radar system linked into the same screen so that we can pick up any ships within a 24 mile radius, a SeeMe antenna which detects a radar beam picking us up, enhances the signal and sends it back so that we appear as a slightly larger blob on their screen. We have both VHF (very high frequency) and SSB (Single side band) radios. The VHF can be used within a 25 mile radius of a harbour or another yacht although sometimes a hill in the way might affect that distance. The SSB is used for longer distances of up to 2500 miles but sometimes much further. A nice Sony music system so that we can listen to all our old records which Celia transferred onto a little memory stick measuring 2inches by half an inch. I am not sure I fully understand how a four foot stack of LP’s can be reduced to that but it all works and what is more it tells you what is playing on the small radio screen – amazing!
We have a Webasto diesel heating system which blows hot air via ducting into each cabin – unused.
TOMIA is cutter rigged which means two headsails both of which are on furlers. These are controlled from retrieving lines led back to the cockpit so that we can set them and then roll them up without having to go forward. The main is furled into the mast when not in use and again this is all controlled from the cockpit. We sail with Main and Yankee most of the time and staysail when the wind is on the beam. A Yankee is a very high cut small genoa which allows good vision forward. We have a large genoa which is kept hidden under our berth. Two downwind sails are a full spinnaker which we find we can fly easily in up to 15 knots of wind and is easy to control with a snuffer, a sock of light material approximately a foot in diameter which rucks up at the top when the sail is flying and which you pull down to collapse it We also have a cruising chute or asymmetric which we can fly as small spinnaker or with the tack attached at the stemhead. Again we had a snuffer made for this which makes it easy to control.
Over the cockpit we have a bimini, a cover which shades the seating area so that you are out of the sun – essential. It sits just underneath the boom so gives 6 foot 6 inch headroom and extends out to the sidedecks. There is a clear window in the top so that we can keep it up while sailing and still watch the sails. Over the main hatchway there is a close fitting spray hood so that when the waves wash over us when we are out in a blow we keep dry and even more importantly water does not go down below.
In addition to all the above there is a fair amount of safety equipment. We have an EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicator Radio Beacon). If we have serious trouble and TOMIA is in danger of sinking or has in fact sunk, we jump in the liferaft and the EPIRB will be either manually or automatically activated and send out a GPS signal which includes our unique identification number and within a couple of minutes rescue services will know that we have a problem and will have our position which is updated every few seconds so that if there are strong tides or wind making us drift from the original sinking position they can keep track of us – unused! Life jackets, dan buoy and liferaft all of which are self inflating, need to be serviced regularly. The liferafts next service is due in February 2011; I wonder where we will be to have that done!

More Friends

 Friday 26th February 2010. 8,331 miles, day 497.  Carlisle Bay, Barbados.  13 deg 05'.35 N, 059deg 36'.68 W
Friday 5th March 2010.  8,475 miles, day 504.  Prickly Bay, Grenada.  11 deg 59'.96 N, 061deg 45'.68 W

Do you remember those wonderful friends of ours, who took an apartment in Barbados last year, to give us a surprise Christmas lunch after our Atlantic trip? They have come back to the island, so it was our turn to sneak up on them. This meant a bit of a detour off our route from Dominica to Bonaire – but what’s 500 miles between friends?

(This, by the way, is the reason the blog has been so out of date, we were trying to cover our tracks.)

We waited for a weather window before leaving Dominica, and were rewarded with a good sail for the last 24 hours, with the wind giving us a close reach all the way to the island. The current was against us, but that just seems to be a fact of life around here. Surely it’s not possible that our log is over-reading? Just as we left Dominica we came across a small pod of dolphins grazing in the shallows; one left his colleagues to join us for a way, apparently because we could give him a better back scratch than they could.  (Sorry, can't get the video to load.)

We managed to explore Barbados a little more than on our previous visit, getting away from the mega-rich developments on the coast into the beautiful central hills, covered with rolling sugar cane, and with spectacular views down to the surrounding ocean. Over towards the east of the island is St Nicholas Abbey, not, in fact, a religious establishment, but a marvellously well-kept Jacobean house, in the centre of its sugar cane estate. The house, which dates back to 1658, was bought a few years ago by a Barbadian architect, and the restoration of the gardens and the distillery is clearly a labour of love, overseen by two fine Moluccan Cockatoos, Lance and Baby.

We travelled up there by bus, a rather more organised and calm experience than the rambunctious free-lance minibuses of the other islands, noticing on the way that all the little bus shelters have girls’ names. Why girls only, we wondered, and who chooses them? The bus shelters are tidy and uniform little structures, painted white, picked out with the blue and gold of the Bajan flag.

Tomia anchored again in the beautiful clear waters of Carlisle Bay – not that we had any choice, as the only other place where yachts are permitted is the berth-holder only marina at Port St Charles. The whole of Barbados is a bit like this: stunningly beautiful, but largely exclusive. The surf crashing onto the beach gave us our usual wetting as we tried to come ashore to drink at one of the beach bars – at least we have learnt from our previous visit, and the mobile phone is securely in its waterproof pouch.

And then, after only five days, it’s off again, a further 130 miles to Grenada, a convenient stop off on our way to Bonaire, where Anthony’s son will meet us. To our delight, several friends from our previous visit are there, and we make the most of our time in a sociable way, as well, of course, as stopping off at the local chandlery to cosset Tomia a bit – no chance of her taking a back seat for long. The main expense this time is charts for the east coast of the US; after Bonaire we will be on our way north, leaving the Caribbean sunshine. While life will become easier there in many ways, and we shall be overwhelmed with culture and history, we shall leave a part of ourselves behind here with much regret.

Meeting friends

Friday 5th February 2010, day 476, 7,910 miles. 18° 01’.97 N, 063° 05’.11 W Simpson’s Baai, St Maarten.

Monday 15th February, 2010, day 486, 8,124 miles. 15° 17’.19 N, 061° 22’.65 W. Roseau, Dominica.


Meeting friends.

We leave Saba with all the usual regrets, but we have to go to St Maarten, for our other habitual occupation – spending money on Tomia. St Maarten as an island has little to recommend it (well, apart from the usual white sandy beaches, constant perfect weather, blue sea) but it is a centre for yachts, and a good place to kit Tomia out with the various parts and charts she needs.

It is hard to believe the island is under 30 miles from tiny, remote little Saba – as we approach we see hotel tower blocks lining the coast, the peace is shattered by jumbos taking off every half hour or so, there are jet skis, speed boats, themed bars, traffic jams and duty-free shopping malls. Just our sort of place.

A week whizzes by deciding how to spend money, organising people to spend the money, and getting the money spent. A big plus is the presence of a couple of boats with friends on, and several more with new friends – St Maarten is the yachting equivalent of the Hotel Georges V in Paris – sooner or later everybody you know ends up there. We have met some really great people on this trip – you don’t hear much about them because I don’t like posting stuff about other people on the web – but it is such a joy to come into a harbour and find them there.

St Maarten is also a mecca for many of these vast motor yachts. The one thing that strikes me when I look at them all parked up next to each other is that, to want – and to be able – to own several million pounds-worth of gleaming fibreglass, you probably have to be a pretty competitive, coming second is for losers sort of person; someone who thinks that their character is determined by their possessions, and the one who dies with the biggest toys wins. But when you fly down to join your yacht, glowing with the admiration of your family, and bitter envy of your friends, what do you find? Something even bigger and swankier and more gold plated parked next door. Why keep them all together, when everybody bar one is guaranteed to have their nose put out of joint?

We had a couple of trips across the virtual border to St Martin, the French half of the island, to stock up on wine, saucisson and smelly cheeses, and then set off for our next appointment in Dominica, 195miles to the south..

Two lovely sets of people awaited us there – one some Americans who are running a small charity to help schools on one or two of the poorest islands. They work really hard, putting up bookshelves, painting classrooms, giving guidance and support to teachers, as well as channelling thousands of donated books to places where they are needed. They are also excellent company, so it is just splendid to sail into a bay and find them there.

The other people we met came all the way from Waldringfield, travelling in the civilised surroundings of a cruise ship. What glamour and luxury! We are duly impressed, but sorry that their intention to smuggle us aboard for a bath doesn’t come off. How nice to catch up with all the really important gossip about our friends at home – and get an update on The Archers from another aficionado.

Carnival is in full swing – it is Shrove Tuesday, and everybody is saying farewell to the pleasures of the flesh with gusto. We watch the glittering costumes going by, and the floats with troupes of dancers behind, and later in the evening take to the streets ourselves to have our ear drums blasted, and our feet exhausted as we follow our chosen mobile sound system. It is such a good-natured crowd; everybody intent on having a good time, with no aggression or obvious drunkenness. [Though some of us, says Anthony pointedly, dance with an exuberance that is inexcusable if not alcohol fuelled.]

Our time in Roseau is enlivened by one of the boat boys and guides, Pancho, the Rum Tum Tugger of Rastas. He is on a one man mission to make the world a less boring and predictable place, with a cheerfully irreverent attitude to time, plans, speed limits (not that that marks him out around here) and any minor laws that stop him having a good time. While guiding he is endlessly patient and good, light-hearted company, though a little vague on any but the most common birds, but his favourite occupation is chattering away with a can of our beer in his hand, telling stories and screaming with laughter at his punchlines, which normally find him being caught out in some misdemeanour. Not even writing off his car seems to dampen his exuberance – he is a one-off and we shall miss him.

Diving

Sunday 17th January 2010, day 457, 7,823 miles. 17° 14’.96 N, 062° 39’.50 W. White House Bay, St Kitts.

Thursday 21st January, day 461, 7,863 miles. 17° 28’.71 N, 062° 59’.32 W. Oranje Baai, Statia

Thursday 4th February, day 475, 7,910 miles. 17° 38’.29 N, 063° 15’.41 W. Ladder Bay, Saba.

Our sail across to St Kitts from Antigua took us past Montserrat in the morning light, in the middle of one of its periodic eruptions. A thick roiling of smoke and ash pours out of one of the vents as we pass, and becomes part of the miasma hanging at a few hundred feet downwind of the island. At the north of the island, what looks like a veil of rain is actually ash and dust falling down on the remaining inhabitants. It is only a couple of days since the tragic earthquake in Haiti, so the whole region is clearly having an geologically active time.

The ash shadow from Montserrat stretches for over 50 miles, giving us wonderful diffuse scarlet sunsets. When it’s not raining. Which it is in St Kitts. The rain comes slanting down from a slate grey sky. The green fields on the lower slopes of the central volcano are soaking up the rain. The wind has roused the sea into large relentless heaps. If we were in England, it would be a day for crumpets and log fires. We have our first attempt at putting out a kedge anchor to steady us against the ferocious rolling (in the pouring rain, with visibility fading in the quick tropical dusk) – well, it was certainly a learning experience, and we are still married, so it can’t have been that bad.

[Sailors can skip this next bit: What is a kedge anchor?

Normally, in non tidal waters, a yacht on a mooring or at anchor would “lie to the wind” – that is, lie with her bows pointing into the wind, falling back from the anchor or mooring, and swinging gently with any change in the wind direction. In calm water this is fine, but when a swell comes into the harbour, the boat can be affected by this more than the wind, which makes her very uncomfortable, as the swells catching her on the side make her roll heavily back and forth. The answer is to set a kedge anchor – a second anchor from the stern, which you use to pull the boat round so that she lies at right angles to the swell. The boat then “pitches” – rises up and down with the incoming waves – but this is much easier to live with than being rolled from side to side, like a jelly bean at a funfair, when you’re trying to sleep.]

We had meant to go to the races – a big St Kitts tradition, with everyone dressed up in their finest – but it was rained off, so we went down the coast to White House Bay, where the hills are covered in a heather-like scrub. With the lowering clouds and driving rain, it is like being in Scotland. Apart from the troop of monkeys scampering and screeching along the rocky beach. This whole southern end of the island has been sold off for development, so it won’t be so empty and barren and beautiful next time we come by.

From St Kitts, we drop down for a couple of days to its sister island, Nevis, the birthplace of Alexander Hamilton, one of America’s founding fathers; and also the place where Nelson met and married his wife, Fanny. Snorkelling off one of the little reefs, there is a school of tens of thousands of six inch long silver fish. They move as one, like starlings massing for roost, but if you make a lunge for one, they split away from you into two separate groups, whisking away, reforming behind you. No way I could catch one, even armed with Barracuda-like teeth.

And then on to Statia (St Eustatius if you’re being formal), one of the five islands in the soon-to-be-disbanded Netherlands Antilles. Being part Dutch, it is quite different to the other French or English ancestry islands in the chain. The houses are mainly one storey, with lots of pretty white painted fretwork (known as gingerbread) some with those Dutch shutters painted to look like gathered curtains, some of the streets are paved with neat, regular bricks, the shops sell every colour of de Kuyper and Bols liqueurs, the fort is beautifully preserved, and the whole has an air of neatness and organisation. The vibrant, noisy, cheerful hurly-burly of the other islands is missing – not that Statians aren’t friendly, our arms get tired from waving to every passing car which greets us – just a bit more, well, planned.

Our main reason for being here is to do our PADI course, and become able to dive. The cost has put us off up till now, but Tomia hasn’t been too demanding for the past couple of months, and we feel it would be daft, having spent so long here, not to take the plunge (ouch).

Diving turns out to be utterly fabulous. The teaching is excellent, just calmly getting us to do all sorts of unnatural things so often that they become second nature, and when we first go down, after three days of studying theory, and an afternoon shivering in a swimming pool practising the basics, we are so absorbed in the fish and the coral that we quite forget we are under 30 feet of water.

Most of the fish we saw were those we had spied on from above, while snorkelling, but down in their world we can swim among them freely, apparently unnoticed. When we are on the surface, I suppose we look like predators, but down here we don’t match any known recognised danger, so they just ignore us. What a variety of fish there is: colours from silver to royal blue to scarlet and emerald green, every size from the minute ones that live in larger fishes mouths to big ugly groupers that lurk under rocks, every shape from spherical to flat to the two foot long, one inch wide needle fish.

There is a great calmness down on the seabed, even when the waves are pounding up at the top. The peace amongst all the piscine activity is what impressed me most strongly. A stingray dozed on the sandy bottom, and we could get right up close to him, and lie, nose to nose, watching him breathe in and out. Of course, we swam around, but I would be quite happy just sitting cross-legged on the bottom, letting it all flow around me.

Over the next days, we do five more dives, going down as deep as 100 feet; we dive around the wreck of a ship, with a giant barracuda lazily patrolling the interior; we see a spotted eagle ray, and learn how to breathe from each others’ tanks, and at the end of it all, are qualified to dive anywhere we want in the world.

On land, we meet Dutch friends of my sister’s, last seen at her wedding, who have retired out here, and explore a bit, climbing up and into the crater of The Quill, the dormant volcano, filled with a lush vegetation that has thrived on the volcanic soil including magestic Mahogany and Silk Cotton trees, and where we spot a Lesser Antillean Iguana (iguana delicatissima, which may explain why they are almost extinct) immobile on a moss covered rock. An ancient scaly head with heavy hooded eyes; stumpy legs on a boulder-shaped body, attached to a two foot tail, it is the nearest we will ever get to seeing a dinosaur.

We leave Statia with regret (as for every island) and go up to Saba, where the diving is also excellent. Saba is a tiny island, so small that it feels more like a pause in the ocean rather than a complete entity. It rises almost vertically from the sea bed, with the two little towns nestling, Shangri-La like, in valleys 500 feet up. Again, the Dutch influence produces an orderly, white-painted, fret-worked neatness – and great community spirit – the island is too small for buses, so every body hitch-hikes up the near-vertical hills.

We manage two dives on the lava fingers that flowed out to sea from the last eruption of the volcano. On our last dive, we meet two reef sharks, totally uninterested in us (we are too big to eat, too small to be a threat), hovering patiently while they wait for something toothsome to come just that bit too close.

That is all we have time for on Saba, with one visit to the interior – we are totally free, and have all the time in the world, to do whatever we want, but are due in Bonaire, down near the Venezuelan coast, in six weeks’ time, and have lots to do before we get there. What a rush it all is!

How the other 0.001% lives

Tuesday 12th January 2010, day 452, 7,772 miles. 17° 00’.85 N, 061° 46’.49 W. Falmouth Harbour, Antigua


Sailing is one of the few places where the lives of normal people come up against those of the hyper-rich. Falmouth Harbour in Antigua must have a higher average net worth than any other place on earth at this time of year, even allowing for us scruffy yachties lowering the tone. The squillionaires are always with us, of course, but I guess most of the time they swish past in dark-windowed four-wheel drives, and unless we have a job turning down their sheets or selling them derivatives, we and they pass in our different worlds.

In Antigua here they are, though, in their Gucci-loafered hordes. We counted 20 boats over 100 feet long at Christmas. Sleek super-fast racing machines; gentlemen’s motor yachts, all shining varnish and gleaming brass; J classes and their mother ships; vast motor boats with three decks, gyms, discos and a wood-panelled library. To think we used to find the little white Essex gin palaces on the River Deben pretentious.

We have seen yachts with sailing boats bigger than Tomia stored on one side of their aft deck – and a 40 foot motor launch on the other. As we putter into the dock, we gaze in amazement at the 3,000 cubic feet “garages” that open on hydraulic hinges at the side of the boats, with space for tenders and dinghies, jet skis, windsurfers, waterskis … one ship carries a perfect little 26 foot Herreshof as a toy for the guests.

A bit like computing the number of grains of sand in the universe, measuring the wealth of these yacht owners leaves our brains feeling soggy, and limp as a piece of over-stretched elastic. To put it in perspective, we count among our friends many who have dailies, quite a few with nannies or au pairs, a couple who get a cook to come for the summer holidays, and one or two with a live-in housekeeper, which seems to us the utterly giddy heights of luxury. These yachts have a permanent staff of anything from five to forty. For a boat that the owner may use for three or four weeks a year.

We were in DesHaies, Guadeloupe, the night after Lionel Richie had given a concert in front of several thousand people. A 150 foot boat was anchored there, and just before dusk its tender started ferrying people over to a bar on shore – “closed for a private party” we had read. After they had all been got ashore, and enough time had passed for champagne cocktails to be drunk, the crooner’s tones wafted out across the bay …just a little private concert for twenty or so of the owner’s closest friends. Cool or what?

But there’s one place where these pampered lives (jealous, moi? Not really, honest) and ours cross: the dock. No matter that, on board, they swan around in ankle-deep carpeting, with their personal masseur or tame ghazal singer constantly on hand. No matter that they can sit in a hot bath whenever they want (yes, I admit it, there the green-eyed monster has got me), or that the toughest decision they have to make is whether last season’s Chanel can be given just one more outing – they still have to get from the land to the boat. And (short of a helicopter, and actually only a tiny few of these ships have heli-pads, shame, huh?) we take a certain sneaking pleasure at the thought that every single gilded person at that private concert in DesHaies had to get to the yacht using the same crumbling, stinky fishermen’s dock as us; their Jimmy Choos got entangled in the same ropy pieces of fish-encrusted netting; they also had to take a gasp of fresh air to see them through the worst smell when their tender passes the fish gutting area.

Bet they don’t have as much fun as we do.