Capetown South Africa   Jan 2015

Been quite a spell since my last posting. We were home for a couple of months regrouping. Holidays and all. So were off again.

Long trip to Capetown. Two nights in the air. Not to impressed with Dubai airport where we spent a nice long 8-hour layover.

Small glitch at the airport coming into South Africa. They were going to refuse Dawn entry. She didn’t have enough empty pages in her passport for their liking. Very tense time there while we successfully talked their rather crabby customs and immigration officer into using a half page rather that the two unused pages they require. Thanks for that. They could have tossed us out. The thought of getting back on a plane for another 36 hour travel run back home was not to enticing. Had to go to the American embassy to get more pages sown into her passport. That was fun as well.

Only had a couple of days in Capetown before we left on passage so really didn’t get to see to much of the place. Next time. Later this year maybe. This time we are joining our friends Russ and Laurie on their cat Nexus as crew. The Atlantic awaits.

1700 miles, 10 days to St Helena. A rock in the Atlantic. Very smooth passage. If only they were all like that. Motored for a couple of days in very light air but for a change……   it wasn’t my fuel. I am enjoying being crew and not captain.

Our send off committee. They came and played for a while.

Didn’t really know what to expect of St Helena. Its 28 sq miles of volcanic rock and a territory of Great Britain. Probably most well known for being the place where they exiled Napoleon after his defeat at Waterloo. They stuck him here because no one could think of a more remote place to stick him. And remote is certainly is. Only access is by boat. They have no airport. But a very interesting vibe here. People are very friendly and seem genuinely pleased to have you visit. 5,000 permanent inhabitants. Plus about 75 ARC sailors to liven it up a bit.

First night in had dinner at a Chinese place owned by a Pilipino gal. Chinese food

and Karaoke. Normally not a big Karaoke person but after a few glasses of wine we were all belting it out at the top of our lungs. The owners son, the cook, was a very good singer. We did a duet of something or another that I cant remember. We were joined by a French couple so it was 4 Americans, 3 French and one Kiwi and we had quite a good time. And after a ten-day dry passage (no alcohol) we all got pretty loopy on the very nice wine they were pouring. Or maybe it was lousy wine but after ten days it didn’t really matter.

From Left, Finnbar (New Zealand), Dawn, Me, Eric (France), Laurie and Russ. The Nexus crew for the next month or so. Through Brazil.

This is the owner and her son. Very nice folks. What a meal they put on. Provisioning there is a little spotty so our order for dinner was……   whatever you want to cook , whatever is the freshest, and however you want to prepare it. It was excellent.

Took a guided tour of the island. 9am-5pm. Rather long. There really isn’t all that much to see there. This is Colon, our guide. The “bus” is a 1929 Chevy with 28 screaming horse power. There were ten of us on the bus. But it has “been in the family, and making it up and down the hills for 60 years”. Then it rained. And O’l Chevy is not particularly waterproof.

Didn’t really know what to expect of St Helena. Its 28 sq miles of volcanic rock and a territory of Great Britain. Probably most well known for being the place where they exiled Napoleon after his defeat at Waterloo. They stuck him here because no one could think of a more remote place to stick him. And remote is certainly is. Only access is by boat. They have no airport. But a very interesting vibe here. People are very friendly and seem genuinely pleased to have you visit. 5,000 permanent inhabitants. Plus about 75 ARC sailors to liven it up a bit.

Our NZ fellow crewmember Finnbar got an email from his “grannie” informing him that he has relations on St Helena. He had three names on a piece of paper and went off to find his kin. Turns out he is related to about ½ the island. They gave him a large printout of a family tree that goes back to the 1600s. Got a big mention in the local newspaper (circulation 100 copies or so). Met a couple of his family. Very nice folks. I will look them up next time through.

A “small portion” of the family tree that they gave Finnbar. Whoa!

Side bar story: An ARC cat that was anchored behind us was slowly dragging anchor. Heading for the very rugged unfriendly shore line. I hopped a ferry to shore to try to find the owner who was not carrying a VHF radio. On the way in I asked the ferry driver to do a circle around the cat and give an opinion as to whether or not is was an issue. They know the bottom topography and holding. He was concerned enough to call it in to Harbor Control who sent out a good sized boat to help keep it off the rocks. Took me ½ hour to find the captain and another 20 minutes to ferry back out. By then the boat they sent out had it under control. The local guy who was on the cat securing lines was a relative of Finnbars. He is on that chart somewhere. Brian is his name.

Another attraction here is a stairway they call Jacobs Ladder. 699 steps up to the top where there is an old fort. Or, “another crumbling wall”, as Paige would say. Friggin heart attack is what I call it. The record for climbing it is held by a local fellow. Just over 5 minutes. We took 22. Which they said was actually not bad for first timers. Got a certificate and everything. The rest of the crew went snorkeling with whale sharks. Next time through I’m going to fit that one in. The pix were something.

Then on our way to Salvador Brazil. 2000 miles. Wind forecast did not look to good and unfortunately it was correct. Lots of very slow days and lots of motoring. I could blog it day by day as a cure for insomnia. It was Ground Hogs day over and over and over. And over. Fishing was lousy. Hooked a couple but landed zero. A couple of the boats did land fish but over all it was pretty barren. We fished at night with glow sticks. We towed bubblers to make fish noises. We threw out the entire tackle box to no avail.

Moving back up toward the equator and the sun is growing in intensity. You could fry an egg on deck. Or your feet if you would rather. My dogs are barkin! And yes, I know them is some ugly feets.

So we arrive in Salvador Brazil. 13 day, very long passage. Out of the last 27 days we have been at sea for 23 of them And Brazil is not going to go down as one of my favorites. I think I will be heading home from here for a while. Nexus has solid crew to get back to the Caribbean. They don’t need me. I will possibly join them again in the West Indies and crew for them back up to the States. But for now…..   escape from Brazil and back to the cold and snow. I’m sure I will regret this.

All for now.

M