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Psn: N39.03, W028.13. Tuesday July 1 2100gmt. Hello,
Friends: We're
at sea again. Lydia B has just passed through the shallow, choppy waters
of the San Jorge channel between the Azores islands of Faial and Pico
and once again is in the deep water of the rolling Atlantic, heading for
Maryport. Very shortly we'll turn 40 degrees to starboard for a rhumb
line course to the Little Sole lightbuoy in the western approaches to
Britain. Right now Lydia's trotting quietly along in a 12-knot
southwesterly breeze at a sedate five knots. High pressure's building
again over the Azores and to the northeast, so we want to make as much
ground before winds become impossibly light. The weatherfax suggests
winds will fade over the next two or three days (we'll see!). For
the last hour we've been accompanied by a single whale. It arrived off
our port beam, only 20 yards or so off, spouted and swam alongside for
half an hour, then changed to the starboard side. " It's just a
small one", Dave said. "Lifejackets on!" I said. It
hasn't appeared for the last fifteen minutes. All's well. Love
and best wishes,
Hello,
Friends: Radio
propagation's been difficult these last few days -- so we couldn't send
a position report yesterday. Could be more of the same ahead. At this
moment we're plodding our way north, with a little west, trying to get
round a warm front that's had some nasty winds in it. We're on the
western edge now, the sea's calming, the wind's moderating and we've
seen the setting sun and the rising moon. Dave's abed, I've just put
some warm overnight togs on (thank goodness for fleece!), had a cup of
tea and will shortly make my way back up into the cockpit to settle down
and watch the sky go by. Somewhere due east is the coast of Portugal.
Progress is reasonably good. More
later, N41.43, W024.12; Friday 1011gmt Hello,
Friends: I
don't know where Coleridge got his inspiration, but this ancient
mariner's just been gazing at some of it. At this moment we're on a flat
ocean, oily smooth, everything moving visible for miles. At least, it
would be if anything was moving. It's endlessly fascinating,
inconceivably enormous space. No albatrosses, just the occasional lone
puffin and petrel, our daily ocean companions, effortlessly skimming the
water inches above it, looking for something to eat. And a distant whale
breaking the surface every few minutes. Then some dolphins rushing over
to see who we are. (Later today we ran past many a turtle. One obliged
with some good pictures when we turned round to get him alongside). Lydia
B's moving, but that's only because last night, after being buffeted all
afternoon and evening by a perversely north-east wind on the south side
of that warm front, the breezes abandoned us altogether and we turned
the key on the iron genny. We've got some spare fuel aboard, so now's
the time to use it and keep moving towards England, went the thinking.
At least we're no longer beating, reefed and close-hauled, climbing a
fresh sea and drowning the deck every few seconds as we were last night.
All Lydia's creaks have by now been revealed. Here's
today's stats: Lydia B's generally headed 043 degrees for a point
somewhere between Fastnet and Cork on the southern tip of Ireland. Right
now (2100gmt Friday) that's 833 nautical miles distant. In a straight
line, of course. We've covered 353 nautical miles in the three plus days
since we left Horta in the Azores, at present making four knots, easy on
the diesel fuel and not pressing the motor. The house batteries are
brim-full. Two
points there: winds have been no better than fair to middlin', and our
track has been severely bent on occasions while we tried to fill the
sails. We decided to push north, gambling that the winds on the north
side of the warm front, which has now given way to rising high pressure,
would back south-westerly. That's what the experts said. A French boat
that spent all the night before alongside us -- in Atlantic terms --
gambled the other way and headed off east, making for the Channel and
Normandy. We wished each other well. So
since sunrise, Dave off down to his bed, I've been peering up at the
wind arrow atop the mast (about every five seconds!) for signs of the
new wind. I think I see them -- or maybe I just think I do. In
the meantime life's sustained -- beautified! -- with coffee, toast and
marmalade. When Dave stirs, I'll get out the frying-pan for some fried
Spam, eggs and fried bread. I've
dug out the Autohelm, plugged it into the 12-volt system and let
technology steer us. These conditions are all too piffling for Lydia's
stalwart Monitor self-steering. I
wish I could say I clearly understood these vital but complex Atlantic
weather systems, but I'm afraid that would be an over-statement. I see
the clouds -- at this moment high cirrus says there are fine winds in
the right direction high above us, but down here there's barely enough
to ruffle a puffin's feather. Even NOAA gets it wrong sometimes. Their
weather-faxes from Boston yesterday showed ten knots of south-westerly
wind for us today until Sunday. All the way home, had we speed enough to
use it. What
we can be sure of is that before we know it, it'll all be different and
we'll be at 30 degrees on a wet side-deck, holding onto the mast and
hauling on the reefing lines again. 2100gmt:
At last the southwesterly's sneaking quietly up astern. We're now at
N42.25, W023.50. Love
and best wishes,
Hello,
Friends: Our
position at 2146gmt tonight is N43.36, W022.36. The winds failed
to appear as promised today, so we've drifted along with the spinnaker
up, adding colour to the flat, empty ocean, but miserly progress in the
log-book. We've just altered our heading to 070 degrees ENE, motoring in
total calm, to take advantage of a new low pressure system moving into
our path ahead. The job is to find a path between this and the big high
pressure now drifting east which is the cause of these windless
conditions. Love, N44.16, W020.07. 2020gmt Sun. Hello,
Friends: We
finally got the winds we were waiting for and took off up the narrow
corridor between our low and high pressure systems north of the Azores
and have moved along very nicely today. There's a 15-knot southerly
breeze aft of Lydia's starboard beam and she's settling down for a misty
night's travelling. No rain, but the air's damp with dew. Perhaps the
waxing moon will light our way later. All's well aboard. Love
and best wishes,
Hello,
Friends; We've
just run through an overnight gale, leaving behind a heavy but falling
swell, two tired crew and a very wet boat. It bent our track eastwards
while we avoided heading further into it. We're now off the Bay of
Biscay, contemplating a smoother day and about to dig out the Western
Approaches chart. Love
and best wishes, N45.59, W016.13 0718gmt Tues/09 Jul. Hello,
Friends: Doesn't
it always happen like this? Within an hour of receiving an e-mail from a
colleague on my first Atlantic crossing in 1986, hoping we would remain
gale-free as Lydia B nears the Little Sole light-buoy in the Western
Approaches, we ran into one. (A gale, that is). It's now the morning
after the night before, which is very much how things are aboard this
vessel today -- wet, tired (too tired to notice we're hungry) but
thankful it's over. It
wasn't a storm of the same proportions as the one that hit us at 70
degrees west -- just a regular old Atlantic gale which we could see in
the Boston weatherfaxes, heading down across our track in a low pressure
system from the west. You always hope, though, that it won't be quite so
bad as promised; then, as it builds, realise it probably will be. So
late yesterday afternoon we turned another 20 degrees east, further away
from the gale centre, and began clawing our way out on a broad reach
through the deepening swells. First with full working sail up, then down
to the last reef in the main, then with the storm jib in place of the
Yankee and staysail; then finally, when we began to get flattened to
port, down came the remains of the main and we went with the
handkerchief-sized storm jib alone. The
gale built until just before midnight; noise and patches of white
flashing from breaking waves atop big seas were all we could see and
hear, until water burst aboard; then it began to moderate. I'm
back at the helm and Dave's a-bed, having gallantly let me sleep till
five o'clock this morning, two hours after I should have been back in
the cockpit after coming below at midnight. Sleep's a precious commodity
aboard a 30-foot boat in the Atlantic. So
now we have a grey, grey scene. The ocean's grey from the cloud above
and fog has reduced visibility to a few hundred yards. There's thick,
blown drizzle. The radar's on, sweeping the path ahead and behind every
ten minutes. We're chastened by yesterday's experience, sitting
nattering in cockpit (life topics, mostly -- usual Atlantic sailors'
stuff), both backs to the bow, when Dave went silent, paled a bit, then
exclaimed -- well, I'd better not say precisely what he exclaimed.
Heaving into view, 400 yards off our starboard beam, was the enormous
red bow of a Liverpool UBC bulk carrier, heading in the opposite
direction in a cloud of blue engine smoke. We're assuming, thankfully,
they weren't sitting nattering in their cockpit. Small odds in this vast
ocean -- but odds nonetheless. The radar's automatic watchman has just
picked up another northbound freighter creeping up in the fog three
miles off our port quarter. We couldn't see him in the murk but heard
the steady thump of his engines. A mild Indian voice responded to our
channel 16 VHF call with an assurance that he'd also picked us up on
radar. We thanked him and bade him good morning, and he wished us good
sailing. Whatever happens ashore, these charming old mariner manners
persist at sea. We'll be threading our way through much more traffic
nearer the Channel shortly. (Radar, Bruce!!) more page
two last. So
now the main's back up, flopping in the dying swell and clattering
snatch-blocks on the port deck as Dave tries to sleep. At present we're
happy to amble with the flow towards our immediate target of Crosshaven,
Cork, Ireland, 460 nautical miles northeast of this distant, foggy
little patch of early-morning ocean. We've altered course back to 045
degrees and the wind's obliged by backing a little further south onto
Lydia's stern. The storm jib's still up, flown goose-winged to
starboard; I'll get more headsail up when the flopping diminishes. Right
now it'll only add extra noise for little extra pace. We're still in
business. Later
today: it looks as though folks in Britain are having, or are
shortly to have, some strong weather. We got something of a start when
we saw tonight's weatherfaxes, and the hurricane centred out in the
Atlantic west of Ireland. We may get some marginal spin-off here
tomorrow, though local high pressure's fending off anything serious. We're
now at N46.11, W015.45, heading 060 degrees at five knots. Love
and best wishes, N47,21, W013.58. 2025gmt Wedy July 9. Hello,
Friends: Now
it's the famine. We've been motoring all day, eking out the last of our
diesel. We're stuck in the high that now covers most of the area between
the Azores and the UK, bringing well-nigh windless conditions. We've
tried everything today -- spinnaker, poled out headsail, main and no
main, all supplemented by the engine, and still struggled to reach five
knots in desultory, fickle breezes. The wind generator has scarcely
turned a blade in two days. The last straw is tide and a counter-current
at times up to one-and-a-half knots. Life
just ain't fair. We've done little better than the thousands of tiny
sail-fish sailing upwind past us in the opposite direction. These
inch-high creatures, like little soap-bubbles with a transparent sail
above the water that's shaped to perform like a Bermudan rig, travel for
hundreds of miles, bobbing along in the waves, getting knocked down by
Lydia's bow wave and instantly popping back up again. We saw them, much
larger by that time, on the other side of the Atlantic. At first we
thought we were looking at cheap poly toys dropped from a Chinese
freighter. We're
now less than 350 miles from our first European landfall at Crosshaven,
near Cork in southeast Ireland, and reckon we have enough diesel to get
us another 150 miles or so to the Channel approaches, where we should
pick up westerlies spinning off the bottom of a big low pressure system
west of Ireland. Dave's departing Lydia B at Crosshaven to fly from Cork
to meet his wife in London. So with another 300 miles to go up the Irish
Sea -- perhaps with another stop on the Irish coast for a
wash-and-brush-up -- Lydia's long journey from the Pacific Northwest
should finally end at Maryport towards the end of next week. Love
and best wishes, N48.41, W012.25. Thurs July 10, 2025gmt. Hello,
Friends: We're
just about in the Channel approaches, 236nm from Crosshaven. As usual,
the wind's hard on the nose. All's well. Love
and best wishes, N50.00, W010.43. Friday July 11. 2020gmt. Hello,
Friends: The
last mile's always the longest. Lydia B's now about 140 nautical miles
from Crosshaven, Ireland. Again we're beset by little or no wind. All
day it's come and gone and we're again motoring, flying a full suit of
sails that much of the day have done little except look the part and
slat as we fell down each swell. If we make it ashore it'll be on the
last fumes in the diesel tank. We've
been bobbing around in sunshine on a glassy ocean that's still heaving
from that hurricane-strength low pressure system out west two days ago.
The swells have still been up to fifteen feet high, rolling eastwards
towards the Channel. But they've lost their fire, are smooth hillocks
now, and Lydia rides comfortably up and down as we pass beam on to them
towards our landfall. (And
as I'm writing this, the new west wind we've been waiting for all day
has just turned up on our port beam. Or has it? I've eased the sheets --
maybe too soon, because it's already fading. New winds often behave like
this, tip-toeing in and out before making up their mind to stay). We
have different companions now. Since yesterday we've been seeing fulmars
and gannets, ocean-going cliff dwellers of northern Europe. We're on the
continental shelf, so have probably said goodbye to our whale friends.
Another, as yet unidentified and awesomely as big as Lydia B, visited us
two days ago, swimming alongside and spouting no more than ten yards off
to starboard for several minutes, then changing to the port side, first
above water so we could see its beady little eye, then eerily just below
the surface. The sound of a whale spouting on your stern, so close you
could almost smell its breath, is a rivetting awakening from cockpit
boredom. We wondered for a moment if it had passed beneath us, and what
its intentions were. Like those of the dolphins, we have to believe they
were friendly. Night-watch
time. The sun's down and there's already a nearly full moon to light the
early part of the night. Love
and best wishes,
Hello,
Friends: We
made it to the other shore. Lydia B anchored ten minutes ago in Sandy
Cove, Kinsale, Cork, SE Ireland. Celebratory W & G's are already
down the hatch. Dave will be off to Cork tomorrow to catch his plane and
I'll head on up the Irish Sea on the last 300-mile leg to Maryport,
Cumbria. A
thousand thanks for all your support. Your messages have been very
greatly appreciated as we plodded our way across the big pond. And
thanks to Lydia. She's been magnificent. Right now we're heading for our
bunks. More very shortly. Love
and best wishes,
Hello, Friends: Well, little Lydia did it. She sailed across the Atlantic Ocean. I should say the mighty ocean, for it seemed mighty to us in the cockpit of a 30-foot boat. At present she’s resting, rafted to a bigger boat at Kinsale Yacht Club not too far from Cork in the south-east of Ireland. It’s an attractive little harbour, surrounded by little old houses painted in a variety of bright colours and whole streets hung with flower-baskets. Some of the streets are quite dazzling. There’s a fairground going, just off the main street overlooking the old, mud-clogged harbour, giving candy floss afternoons to the hundreds of holidaymakers crowding the centre of Kinsale at weekends. For the rest, it’s a boating center, for Irish sailors and for Brits and French for whom it’s no more than one or a couple of days’ sail away on the other side of the Irish Sea. We made our landfall three-quarters of an hour after midnight on Saturday night, creeping in darkness into Sandy Cove, a sheltered bay surrounded by black rock and green pastures, a few miles short of Kinsale, using the radar as our eyes. With the hook safely down, a celebratory whisky for me and beer for Dave were swiftly followed by sleep. For days before, since crossing the outer reaches of the Bay of Biscay, we were beset by windlessness in the middle of a high pressure system. We saw it developing on the weatherfaxes but were unable to keep to its western side for more westerly or southerly winds. So we motored, and kept the sails up to pinch whatever fickle breezes came along, stretching our remaining diesel fuel. We arrived with six or so gallons left in the tank. Dave’s now in England. He left Kinsale yesterday, packing his two back-packs and his guitar onto a Bus Eirann for Corcaigh (Cork in the Irish language), heading for the airport. If the Atlantic has done its stuff, I’ve no doubt the crew who stepped off Lydia B at Kinsale Yacht Club will be different from the crew who stepped on at Deltaville, Virginia, US in May. The effects of an Atlantic passage are inescapable, especially the first time. The whole gamut, from fear to elation. It’s been truly magnificent, from storm to calm, with wonderful, sustained sailing in between, Lydia B leaping eagerly through the waves. But it’s a participatory sport, so different and so difficult to describe in words. We feel a bit like soldiers coming home from war, except nobody was shooting at us. We can’t begin to convey the size and sounds of the seas in the storm at 070 west, and marvel that Lydia B came through it. Even the calms were awe-inspiring, stretching beyond the limit any existing conception of how big emptiness can be. And that visiting whale, chipping at our scepticism of things extra-sensory. Sailors, after all, invented mermaids. We’re not quite home yet, though. I’ll be slipping Lydia’s lines soon and heading up the Irish sea for the last, contemplative 300 miles to my native Solway. There’s always something special about the journey to your roots. I thought this would be happening three years ago. It’s been a long year away from England. I aim to be rounding Maryport’s stone harbour walls on the dot of high slack about 1600 British Summer Time on Saturday. It’s nearly all over bar the shouting. 13,000 miles since Anglers Anchorage, Brentwood Bay, Vancouver Island, BC, Canada. Many friends and a million images from North America, the Pacific, Central America and the Caribbean, from the Inside Passage and the Alaska border to the Panama Canal and back to Europe. What next, eh?
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