This is an account of our circumnavigation on Moondust, a 40ft catamaran.
At 4 a.m. we sailed north from delightful Bequia, choosing to pass St. Vincent on the windward Atlantic side to minimise the use of our engines.
Once around the point a delightful breeze scooted us along at 6-7 knots and later that afternoon blew us into the bay at Anse des Piton at the south end of St. Lucia.
Our haul out in Trinidad completed, we headed for Carriacou, 25km north of Grenada. The north west flowing Equatorial Current pushed us in the right direction, which was just as well as the predicted wind only appeared later in the afternoon, when on one of our fishing lines we caught a beautiful Black Hind; a mature fish which was a challenge to scale and fillet, but a delight to eat in a soft, fragrant curry.
Once in the full Atlantic swell Karin began to feel sea sick and turned her attention to one of the buckets, shortly afterwards retiring for an early night. She didn’t get much sleep, but always the stalwart crew member, she refused to rest longer and took her four hour watch between midnight and 04:00. Shortly after dawn we passed the northern end of Grenada and made landfall at Tyrell Bay, Carriacou at around 09:00.
Carriacou is known as the ‘Isle of Reefs’ evidenced by the many shipwrecks we saw. Its people originate both from Africa and Scotland, the latter group settling in the village of Windward and starting the local boat building industry, which persists to this day. Both the appearance and speech of the people in that area still reflect their lineage.
Sailing is not all about exotic islands, beautiful sunsets and enjoying G&T’s. On top of doing at least one maintenance job daily, there comes a time when a boat owner really has to do the hard yards.
It was time for Moondust’s maintenance haul-out and, since we could not sail much further north in the Caribbean until the end of the hurricane season in November, being impressed with Power Boat’s prompt e-mail responses and general interest shown, we decided to follow the good references that we got from fellow cruisers and have the work done in Trinidad. We could not have made a better choice!
At last, we have made a short video clip of our ocean crossing! If you wonder what it is like to be out on the ocean for 51 days, watch this short clip…
Ilha dos Lencois is on the seaward side of an archipelago (about 18 x 10km across) on the north coast of Brazil, consisting of 13 islands which nestle together closely. They are mostly mangrove covered and separated by narrow creeks that fill and empty twice daily with the 4m tidal range.
After exploring on our own for a few weeks we had some appreciation of the unique and beautiful area around Ilha Grande and were looking forward to the arrival of young family members with whom to share our experiences.
Pete had earlier sent them a shopping list and when we collected them at Marina Piratas in Angra dos Reis, he was embarrassed to discover that one full check-in bag had been dedicated to his boating needs.
We found what appeared to be the perfect anchorage; the shore of steeply rising Ilha da Gipoia a few metres away, covered with every shade and texture of verdant forest. Trees soar upwards, supported on tall, narrow, grey trunks, their foliage finally bursting outwards, finding light, and every nook beneath crammed with prolific, lush growth. Typically the land, clothed in profusion of green dotted with mauve, drops abruptly to a round bouldered shore lapped by the sea.
To me St Helena was just a dot in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, a stop-over for westward bound sailors. However, since we spent ten glorious days there, it is engraved in my mind as a beautiful, diverse and interesting island, well worth a visit.
I will remember it for the warm and welcoming Saints, as the locals are called, the place where I swam with Whale sharks, set foot on the same soil as greats like James Cook, Charles Darwin, Napoleon Bonaparte, Edmund Halley, Captain Bligh as well as the Duke of Wellington… and hitch-hiked for the first time in my life. Sadly, it is also the place where I lost my precious drone with its GoPro camera before I could publish even a single drone video clip on this blog.
Cape Town to St Helena
We had a very calm, peaceful and wonderful first day to our voyage, departing Cape Town on Monday, 29th January 2018. After the bustle of the past two years it was difficult to believe that we were actually on our way.
I’m sitting in Moondust’s cabin with the south easter blowing hard and rain pattering on the windows, which is very welcome in the current drought. Looking back on the past year of frantic activity it is hard to believe that we are now counting the days before our departure! We hope to set sail early January, but the nature of sailing is such that it is impossible to set a fixed date and time.
In the year since we took ownership of Moondust we have worked far harder than we have played. In fact, technical matters kept us off the water long enough for a mother rock pigeon to find her way into our mainsail stack pack, lay her eggs and hatch the chicks, only to have me haul them out by the handful whilst searching for the reefing lines when we finally went out again. On our return to the dock, both parents were clearly distraught at the loss of their chicks, which put us in a quandary – take them to World of Birds… or what? This was resolved the next day when Hendrik at the sanctuary informed me that they couldn’t accept birds due to bird flu. So, a carved-up wine box on our foredeck supplanted their home in the mainsail and their parents returned to feed them until they flew the nest a few weeks later. In the meanwhile we kept a low profile with the other yachties, as none of them would have welcomed two more pigeons messing on their boats!
