Carib baby!!

After 6,000nm from St Francis South Africa we’ve made the Caribbean. We’re having too much fun so we won’t stop right away and heading directly to the BVIs.

Nothing

There’s always something. It keeps you on your toes and passes the time. But once and a while it’s time for the « nothing » to visit. Nothing broke, nothing weather, and nothing drama. That’s where we are. After going thru the very much full of drama dull-drums it’d been simple. We’re on the same sail plan, same wind, and same direction. We’re going to hit landfall between St Lucia and Martinique Sunday morning. 28 days at sea from Cape Town to Caribbean. Pretty good pace. We decided not to stop and keep going to the BVIs. Hoping that nothing stays with us until then.

Trades

Yesterday morning we poked out of the dull-drums into the south end of the Caribbean trades. It was like getting a big old hug from a good friend. We felt back at home. Sails up and b-line for St Lucia. We sometimes setup our “imoca” headsails which is just a fancy “race” setup with two headsails flying at once. The small inside sail provides airflow in the “slot” for the main and we’ve noticed a 1kt boast. Yesterday we stopped, had a swim, inspected the hull, rudders, and props to be on the safe side. It was neat swimming with 4K of water below.

Sargassum and rain

When I mentioned that crossing the thermal equator was a pain, that was an understatement. We’ve had 24h of torrential rain, no wind, and endless sargassum patches. We’ve been motoring for the last 12 hours hoping to pop out into the trades by tomorrow morning. Good news is we filled up our water tanks with rain as we’d lost all our fresh water last night thru a leaking shower pipe.

Thermal equator

We crossed the geographic equator 36hours ago, and now where trying to cross the thermal equator. One is a lot harder to cross than the other. One more bucket list item ✅ for Ray and I. Ray woke me up at 4:20am so that we could countdown the 0s together, it was fun. That’s when we crossed the geographic equator. That imaginary line we draw at 0d latitude. But interestingly, there’s another equator which isn’t invented by humans but is dictated by weather patterns. The thermal equator is the latitude where the water / air is the hottest. It’s also called the ITCZ for inter tropical convergence zone. Basically ITCZ is a fancy word for hot as f@&$ and no wind. I haven’t put a t-shirt on for a week. It’s clammy. The ITCZ is always north of the thermal equator and scientists believe it’s because there’s more landmass in the northern hemisphere near the equator (Africa / South America) and that creates a slightly hotter area than at the geographic equator. Anyhow, the ITCZ is full of thunderstorms and we’ve been dodging them for over a day. Ive attached a picture of our radar last night where you can see that I was trying to pass between two of them to avoid the bigger winds. We have a day more and we should be out of the itcz and into the northern trades and get our speed back. There’s also a nice westerly current that we want to jump into. We were supposed to stop in St Lucia, but it’s nice out here and our team rhythm is good so we may just straight shot to the BVIs.

CSI stanchion

At 1am yesterday our code sheet ripped our aft port stanchion in two. We tied it down and furled and took today to try and understand what happened. The crime scene gave us some clues and after a few recreations we found the cause. A very unlikely turn of events, but we will have to protect against this with warranty work this summer. We’re in the NBC (North Brazil Current) and it’s like a conveyor belt of speed. We had our best 24h distance day and just shy of 260nm. And the fish 🎣 jumped on the boat today. Our freezers are full and we will pause the lines for a bit. Another day on the ocean, you’d think we would get bored, but days fly by. I haven’t even finished my first book!

Drugs

Being self sufficient onboard doesn’t just mean enough food, water, and beer for 40 days. We also need to be prepared for medical emergencies. After a lot of research I found a great company in the UK called Medical Support Offshore (msos). They provide medical kits and telehealth services. The hard part with gathering medical supplies is that you need prescription medication onboard and that can be hard to get from you local doctor. Msos shipped us many types of antibiotics, prescription pain killers and calmants. In addition to all the apparatus needed for minor operations, sutures, etc. It’s a good thing. I developed a nasty case of swimmers ear and after a quick email to the msos doctor he replied with a drug number and instructions on use. My ear was unbearably painful, without ear antibiotics we likely would have e had to make a detour. We hope this is the worst of what happens on this last leg, but it’s comforting knowing that we have drugs and a doctor a phone call away.

Tchau Fernando

We’re here for a good time, not a long time. Today we said bye to Nadine and Alizé and set sail for the Caribbean. We absolutely adored Fernando, a volcanic island created 1.5-2m years ago and is now a protected national park. The scenery is plucked from an Avatar movie, or likely the inverse. I’m sure an Avatar director visited Fernando and stole her geology as inspiration for Pandora. Our stop started with some high visa drama, and there was talk of Ray and I not being able to set foot on land. Brazil has a new visa requirement for Canadians, Americans, and Australians. Brand new, it started a month ago. The online application tool is terrible and both our applications seemed stuck in the “system”. The local police would not let us in. Nadine did some digging and we found a phone number to call, a few minutes later we’re on the phone from an Indian call centre and they let us know that our passport photos were not good. I kept her on the phone… we snapped new pics, uploaded and she pushed our applications thru to the Brazil immigration. By now it’s 430 on Friday and she said it could take 10 days… we were sad. But by miracle, at around 6 we got an email confirmation that our visa was approved and ran to meet Douglas the police 👮 friend who we got to know very well. And we’re in the country!!! The rest of the few days was hikes, buggy rides, and tons of swimming. It was so nice to hang out with Nadine and Alizé, I needed the morale boast given the news of my friends passing. Now we’re off “somewhere” in the Caribbean. The plan is that we get to the BVIs and I’ll be able to fly to my friends funeral for a few days, then continue the last leg to the Chesapeake. This leg is the most tricky, we’re crossing the equator in a few days and that’s part of the ITCZ (intercontinental convergence zone). This convergence leads to rising air, frequent thunderstorms, and heavy rain. The ITCZ is responsible for the wet and dry seasons in the tropics and shifts seasonally, following the sun's overhead position. There’s a serenity about being out sailing again. The rhythm of being in the hands of Mother Nature is calming. The shifts provide a backdrop of cadence. This leg is approximately 2100nm. Off we go!