escapade sailing

February 16, 2016

Bonaire

ascend

Our first impressions of Bonaire were not great. We arrived on a rare grey day and were reluctant to re-enter the developed world after all our off-grid island hopping.

The south of Bonaire is low-lying so the trades blow out across the smooth water in the lee of the island. It was breezy as we reached up to the town of Kralendijk under full sail and arrived at the moorings at 12kts!

It is illegal to anchor anywhere in Bonaire. All visiting sailing boats live on the moorings provided just off the town.

This is part of the protection of the reefs and marine environment in which Bonaire has long been a world leader. The entire island was declared a Marine Park in the 1970s, way ahead of the rest of the region. The results are impressive, the marine life here is the most varied and abundant we have seen. The water is clean and transparent. This has become the main attraction to the island and it has developed in to a world class diving centre.

Dive schools, dive shops, dive resorts all around, it seems that most visitors here come to dive. We had decided it was high time we got PADI certified and we had heard that this is a great place to do it.

We settled on our mooring, a short dinghy ride from our dive school jetty on one side and the town dinghy dock on the other. All very convenient, but there is a road running along the coast, not far from the boat.

We hadn’t seen a car for weeks. Here they are hard to ignore, one popular Bonaire car modification is to replace the back seats with enormous speakers. These mobile bass bombs cruise the streets very slowly with hip hop playing at road-shaking volumes, rattling the windows of buildings as they pass. Then there are the stretched street bikes, unable to ride anywhere without revving their engines as though on a starting grid, but most amusing are the mopeds, for whom the wheelie is the standard way to travel down any straight piece of Bonaire road. These kids are so good at it, they can sustain mile-long moped wheelies on their way to school, with their girlfriends on the back. And at weekends they like to party here. So it’s not the most tranquil place to swing on a mooring, a bit of a culture shock but still wonderful most of the time, and we are sitting in an aquarium. It’s worth just snorkelling round the boat to see what swims by. Schools of big silver tarpon, hawksbill turtles, rays, jacks and just thousands of small fish jumping all around.

We rented a truck and toured the island. It’s not big, but quite fun. A national park in the north with craggy rock formations and cactus like a Mexican desert. Donkeys, goats, iguanas and flamingos in large numbers. We had a very good iguana stew one lunchtime. Salt ponds in the south, and a beautiful shallow lagoon at Lac Bay, this is on the West coast, so open to the trades but protected by a reef. The lagoon is huge, turquoise water over white sand and knee deep.I can’t think of a better place in the world to learn to windsurf. There are a couple of windsurf centres there and how’s this for serendipity? On the first island we come to after Los Roques, we find Tino and what must be the best windsurf board repair shop in the Caribbean! His work cannot be rushed, but thanks Tino for a beautiful job on my dinged-up Quatro. We spent a great Sunday afternoon at a West Coast cookout, fried mangrove snapper, lobster and cold beers under a tin roof with the locals dancing to a couple of rum-fuelled guitars.

But the real draw here is the diving. Bonaire is surrounded by a narrow fringe of reef, beyond which there are dramatic drop-offs to great depths. It is this ribbon of reef that offers exceptional scuba diving at hundreds of sites around the island, at most of these you can just park your car, put your tanks on and walk in to the sea.

Going Dutch

Last season we were in Sint Maarten, another Dutch island, but the culture there seemed more American. Bonaire is now a part of Holland, and it really feels like it. The local language is Papiamento, a patois of Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch, but if you are in town, in a restaurant or in a supermarket, it’s really like being in Holland.

We replenished our ship’s stores with cases of Heineken, jars of herrings, wedges of gouda and a pack of stroopwafels.

Think Good Thoughts

We first crossed paths with our friends from California, Josh and Suzee, in the BVIs last spring. They set sail around the same time as us, on ‘Think Good Thoughts’, an enormous Voyage 500 catamaran. We ran into them again in then in Antigua, Grenada, and now here we all are signed up for a scuba diving course together.

PADI school

So we finally got around to scuba diving! As a child I was fascinated by diving, Jacques Cousteau, Flipper and all things sub-aqua. As an adult I just never found time for it. I have always said that’s something to do when I’m old, I was too busy chasing waves, or working. Now we have time for this, so here we are in a classroom, doing all the theory exams and getting to grips with all the kit. Must be getting old.

We were at the Dive Friends school where the ‘pool’ training is the beach in front of the shop. So you go through all the exercises in 3m of clear water with all kinds of fish swimming by, amused by the antics of the latest batch of students. Then you are free to swim beyond the classroom area and out over the reef. After a lifetime of snorkelling, scuba diving is a treat. The luxury of neutral buoyancy and an air supply, just hovering above the reef and watching the world go by. Actually those first few dives we were all over the place, crashing in to each other as we learnt to fine tune our movements. We found all the gear very cumbersome, I suppose you need to spend more time down there to transcend all the man-made stuff. To us as beginners, the experience was dominated by equipment: bouyancy control, watch, dive computer, air pressure gauge, depth gauge, adjusting to breathing compressed air with all the bubbles and the Darth Vader sound effects, it’s noisy down there!

Great to do the course with lots of added fun and humour from Josh and Suzee, and our patient instructor Davy. We had a slight hold-up as Dawn had a problem with her ear which kept her out of the water for a few days. Now we are officially certified Open Water Divers! To celebrate Davy took us diving from our tender at his favourite spot. It’s interesting to see how creatures respond differently to you when scuba diving. I have always found turtles to be quite timid when I’m snorkelling around them. A large turtle appeared around the reef as the three of us were just hovering above the coral, he swam by unconcerned, very close to us. I suppose a turtle that size on Bonaire has seen a few divers in his time.

Freediving?

(Freediving is the sport of diving without air tanks.)

In Los Roques we met a young Aussie couple who had sailed their 45′ Beneteau ‘La Vagabonde’ from Italy, not unusual round here, except that they are at least a generation younger than most yachties, and when they left they didn’t know how to sail a boat! (That’s another story, have a look at their blog: www.sailinglavagabonde.com, all very entertaining). Anyway, these two, Riley and Elayna, are both accomplished free divers and we started to chat about it. They are diving to 20m to shoot fish with spearguns. I’m impressed. I always remember the deep-end of public swimming pools in the 1970’s was 12′ 6″. That’s still my benchmark for deep! I used to struggle to get down there. I’m not great at holding my breath but I’d like to be better. Sometimes I need to scrape barnacles off a prop, dive on an anchor, retrieve something I dropped over the side, get rinsed by a big wave, all good reasons to hold your breath. Riley explains that they have been trained to ignore the body’s physical signals to surface for air, knowing that they can stay submerged far beyond the normal ‘urge to breathe’. We are intrigued, they recommend that we go on a free diving course and we’ll be able to do the same. I started timing my duck-dive descents while snorkelling. 30 secs seems about right, 40 at a push.

Carlos Coste

Strolling through Kralendijk we see a sign for a Free Diving School, run by World Record holding free diver Carlos Coste. Carlos has been free-diving since the 90’s, when it was thought that humans without scuba gear could not survive deeper than 30m. He confirms everything that Riley has told me. Most of his students start by holding their breath for 30 seconds and diving to 4m. (12’6″!) With training their breath hold is 2 minutes and they easily dive to 10m. What’s going on here? We need to find out, so we sign up for the AIDA2 Free Diving course. For Carlos, Bonaire is a free diving paradise, constant temperatures, a whole coast of sheltered flat water, great visibility and easy access to 200m depths. (Yes, free divers go down there!)

We start with theory, physiology of the respiratory system, blood oxygen and CO2 levels, pressure equalisation. Then we move on to yoga, relaxation and ‘belly breathing’ exercises.

This is really the key to free diving, putting your mind and body into a very relaxed state enables you to surpass all the boundaries you thought you were limited by. Carlos soon has me lying face down in the sea and holding a single breath for 1m 30s. I’m impressed, the day before I was pretty sure that was not possible. We keep practising relaxation, belly breathing and breath holding, gradually becoming more comfortable with higher levels of CO2 in our bodies. We also study the theory and biology of free diving and ‘The Mammalian Dive Response’ which we share with seals, dolphins and whales. This stuff is fascinating, but we are really starting to understand that breath control is mind control, these techniques are closely linked with yoga and meditation, Carlos has been practising very advanced yoga and breathing exercises for decades, he is now able to enter a mind state which allows him to achieve extraordinary feats underwater. For me it is about learning about my own mind and body, and finding we are capable of much more than we realise.

26.01.16

Today we were practising the classic free dive discipline of ‘constant weight’ diving. It means that you swim down to a depth and back up with only your weight belt. (As opposed to ‘Variable Weight’ dives where you can descend using a heavy weight, or holding a big rock like the Pacific pearl divers used to.)

It is beautifully simple. Mask, fins, weight belt, a smooth duck dive, and then fin vertically down with a streamlined head and body position. To help our orientation, Carlos positions a buoy behind his boat, from the buoy a weighted rope hangs down like a plumb line. There is a tape mark at 5m, a tennis ball at 12m and a bunch of dive weights at 13m. It looks like a long way down. Carlos coaches us in the techniques we need, equalising the pressure as we descend, encouraging us to go deeper and deeper with each dive. First to the tape, turn and ascend. Then to the tennis ball, and finally all the way down to the weights, hang for 5 seconds, enjoy the view and the neutral buoyancy. It is a deep blue down there with fish swimming all around. The visibility here is beautiful, from down there I looked up at the surface, shimmering so far above. The tiny silhouetted figure of Dawn floating at the buoy, waiting for her turn. I have 40 feet of water above me but I am calm and relaxed. Carlos gives the signal and I start to ascend, slowly finning to the surface. Big smiles back at the top. Then it is Dawn’s turn. She surprises us – and herself – by duck-diving and swimming 10 metres down the rope, hanging there for 5 seconds to enjoy the view and then calmly rising back to the surface. My wife has become a mermaid.

In free diving this is nothing, part of a standard training warm-up session for deeper dives. For us today it felt like a huge accomplishment, something I just did not believe I would be able to do before we arrived in Bonaire. Hey Riley, you were right!

30.01.16

In today’s dreaded ‘Static apnea’ test I tried to stay relaxed and hold my breath whilst floating face down in a pool. I had been trying to do this sitting on Escapade this morning without much success, struggling to do one minute. Now at the pool Carlos was there with some gentle coaching, breathing exercises and then keeping me calm as I worked through the abdominal ‘contractions’ and all the other ‘urge to breath’ triggers in my mind and body. I kept my mind empty and floated in blackness with my eyes closed, time passes, I’m in the zone. I was there for two and a half minutes! I continue to surprise myself. Then it’s into the dive boat and out to sea for more practice finning down the rope to retrieve a clip. Carlos again asks me to ‘hang’ at depth for a few seconds before ascending. If I’m relaxed these moments down there are very cool. You can enjoy the depth. During one of these five second rests about 30 feet down, a 4 ft tarpon came lazily swimming by.

My deepest dive today was 14m.

Carlos Says “Relax”

02.02.16 Last day with Carlos.

To complete the AIDA2 course I need to dive to 16m.

The course is well structured, we passed the theory exams and we have now established:

I can now hold my breath for 2mins 30secs.

I can equalise pressure as I descend.

I can swim 40 metres horizontally under water, on one breath.

So why not just swim 20m vertically down and 20m vertically back up?

Why not?

And that is really the interesting part. However well you rationalise your ability to do it, your mind and body will scream at you to turn around as the pressure starts to build. So free diving is simply shutting out that mental noise and calmly swimming down. That’s it.

This time we attach the buoy to Carlos’s deep mooring and drop the rope in about 40m of deep blue water, you can’t see the bottom which is a bit spooky. He tells me there are some huge tuna down there. After some warm-ups and pull-downs Carlos notices some stress in my movement. He asks me to hang for 10 seconds at 10 metres. Easy. That seemed to put me in the zone and I go for my first ‘constant weight’ dive.

Here’s what it’s like in my head:

Relax on the surface, looking down, belly breathing through snorkel. Relax, breathe, relax.

One Deep Breath

Pre-equalise

Duckdive

Head down, strong fin kick, align to the rope.

Equalise

Straight down, kick steadily.

Equalise

Relax, down you go.

Here’s the 10m mark.

Relax.

Equalise

Finning vertically down, head first. Just watch the rope sliding by in front of my mask.

Equalise

Oh cool look at these fish!

Equalise

Starting to feel the pressure, exhale a little air into the mask

Its getting darker, relax..

Contraction in my chest, ignore it.

Equalise

Now I am negatively buoyant (around 15m) I am sinking head first.

Relax

You are supposed to enjoy this ‘free fall’ section, but maybe not the first time..

Equalise

Relax!

Equalising is getting a bit more difficult and squeaky down here.

Relax!!

Here’s the tennis ball. Made it! Grab the ball and turn.

Look up, the surface is a long, long way above, enjoy the moment.

Now the easy part, start finning up

Another contraction, but I’m fine, plenty of time and I’m ascending.

Up towards the light.

Steadily finning and now accelerating back to the top.

Sunshine

BREATHE.

I didn’t know at the time, but the tennis ball was at 19.7 metres, 65 feet!

3 x Atmospheric pressure.

So that’s the end of the course. Over these weeks we have had a glimpse of the world of free diving. Those few moments at the bottom of the rope still seem to defy everything I thought I knew about my own ability. Just being in the water with Carlos has been an extraordinary experience. The guy is part dolphin. If anyone is interested in trying free diving, consider a trip to Bonaire. See more at Carloscoste.com

Carlos & Israel

Time to leave Bonaire

Our usual timekeeping, we came for a week and stayed for a month. But we learned a few things on Bonaire. All that studying was stimulating, old dog new tricks etc, we have a new perspective on the water below us.

My new sail and boom arrived! Many thanks to the Global Logistics department at pritchardwindsurfing.com for sorting all that out.

Time to sail away again, next stop Curacao..

January 21, 2016

Los Roques – The Movie!

To warm up a January day.

This is our first attempt at a video for the blog. We hope you like it.

January 13, 2016

Los Roques

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Living on a sailing boat in the tropics is all pretty good, an endless trail of islands to visit, all different, and naturally we like some more than others. But even the ones we don’t like so much are still pretty good.

If we were to selfishly list our favourite characteristics in a sailing location it could look like this:

Uncrowded anchorages
Uncommercialised islands
Clear clean water
Being able to see your anchor dig in to the white sand below.
Good fishing
Living reefs to snorkel (sadly getting very rare these days)
Steady breeze to blow away the mosquitos
No cruise ships
No charter boats
No light pollution
Head-high waves on a reef-break within easy reach of the boat
(ideally with a reliable side-off wind direction)
No kiters

This is the type of sailing that we dream about if we stay on a ‘developed’ island too long. Somewhere remote, off the beaten track. We love that self-sufficient feeling of a boat loaded with supplies and equipped for weeks of exploration. Welcome to Los Roques..

El Gran Roque

The only real settlement in Los Roques is on the island of El Gran Roque. We arrived at first light. After breakfast and a sleep, we sit anchored off the beach and take in our new surroundings, enjoying the peace of a stationary boat after 400 or so miles at sea. Squawking seabirds and pelicans dive-bombing for fish all around us. No other foreign yachts, lots of skiffs and fishing boats all along the beach, and a small village. These islands are about 80 miles north of mainland Venezuela.

The village on El Gran Roque is a few ‘streets’ of sand and simple painted buildings, the homes of fishing families, posadas and some holiday houses, a little Church on the beach, a school and a few stores.

Formalities

We started with a tour of the official offices. The first stop was the Guarda Costa who informed us that as we were a foreign registered boat in transit and had not cleared in at any of the official ports of entry to Venezuela, we could only shelter here for three days and not go ashore! A further conversation in broken Spanish and an exchange of some US dollars seemed to improve the mood, we were then led to Immigracion, Parques Nacional, Guarda Nacional, all of whom welcomed us with old fashioned uniformed bureaucracy and painstakingly wrote all of our ship’s details in their ledgers. Plenty of carbon paper and rubber stamps until finally we were issued with a 15 day cruising permit and a flag to hoist up our mast to prove it. During this process we needed to acquire some Venezuelan currency…

Bolivares

A local exchange transaction was arranged for us in a tiny grocery store where we converted 200 US Dollars to 140,000 Venezuelan Bolivares. So far so good, but inflation has been pretty fierce over the last few years and the Bolivar has really not kept pace. The largest denomination note is 100 Bolivares, with 20’s and 50’s in common circulation and clearly no longer worth the paper they were printed on. In the grocery store the money was being counted into 10,000 Bolivar wads, our bag was filling up and getting very heavy. Our two US $100 bills were turning into a suitcase full of cash. You can’t use a foreign credit card here, so all the money we spent had to be counted out from these wads of notes. Everything is very reasonably priced. A good caiphirina is about $1.50, a great meal in a restaurant for $10, diesel and gasoline are practically free at few cents per litre. Even so, it is normal for a customer to spend a good few minutes counting out the cash to pay for 4 beers. The cash is received with a weary smile by the bartender who then also has to spend his time counting the notes. One night we tried to buy a few fish from a fisherman cleaning his catch. He gave us a big bag full of silver fishes and would not take any payment (probably not worth his time to count the notes!) we thanked him profusely and bought cold drinks for his children.

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Village Life

Electricity is now reliable since a new solar array was installed, water is desalinated on the island. There are no cars, no tarmac, and a very pleasant, relaxed pace. Fresh supplies arrive on the weekly ship from the mainland and are transported by hand carts around the village. When not in use these carts were being dragged around as make-believe carnival floats by the children. There are now two motorised trucks on the island, one for water and one for gas. We heard these had managed to have a collision! There are three lighthouses, none of which were working when we arrived. We wandered the sandy lanes, dogs everywhere sleeping in the sun, children playing and making Christmas decorations from plastic bottles and cups. By night the posadas look very inviting as the guests sit down to dinner, but they are for residents only, we find there are just three ‘restaurants’ that would feed us. They are all good, visiting yachts are something of a rarity and we are welcomed with great hospitality and home cooking. Fresh fish and octopus served at simple tables on the sand, and all for just a bag full of Bolivares.

Francisqui

After a day and night in the busy metropolis of El Gran Roque, we sail around the corner to the Francisqui islands and anchor in a breezy lagoon with a mind blowing variety of blue water colours. To windward surf is breaking on a reef. This is starting to look like my windsurfer’s paradise.

Charlie and Alessandra

We had arranged to meet Charlie and Alessandra in Los Roques, not an easy place to get to, but they travelled from Ibiza via Madrid, Caracas, a 6 seater plane to LR and a local skiff which found us anchored in Francisqui. What a nice surprise! We weren’t expecting them until the next day!

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The Sailing

We lined up outside the carniceria which we heard would have the last shipment of fresh produce before Christmas. We loaded up with fruit and vegetables and sailed away to discover the islands.

Over the next couple of weeks we explored the archipelago under sail. Dozens of low-lying islands, cays, or ‘quis’ around a huge shallow plateau of white sand, mainly uninhabited. The whole plateau covers hundreds of square miles and large areas are designated national parks. We tacked Escapade to windward up narrow blue corridors with live reefs glowing both sides, reached across blues of every shade with someone high up on the cabin roof scanning for coral heads as we slalomed through under sail. Anchored in clear water behind remote cays between reefs, sandbars, and mangroves. We sailed past entrances to deserted lagoons where we imagined dinosaurs could still exist unnoticed.

We sailed over to Crasqui where Juanita and her family cooked a lobster lunch for us on the beach, while we chatted with her talking parrots. Every day and night the trades blew 20kts, we rarely saw another yacht. Just an amazing place to take your boat for a sail.

The Fishing

This place is fishy. Fish jumping all around the boat, fish bouncing off your back as you dinghy ashore at night.

We trolled lures most days and ate so much fresh fish. Bonito, spanish mackerel, snapper, grunts and a few unidentified species.

We also dropped a baited hook off the back of the boat around sundown and even developed a new ‘snorkel assisted’ fishing method. I happened to be snorkelling past Aless’s line on my way back from my nightly anchor check when I noticed several fish taking an interest in the bait, down in the depths of clear water below. I swam over and dangled the hook in front of the largest snapper and he was soon chomping away on the scrap of fresh tuna I had presented to him. Surprised that this had not done the trick, after a while I gave a sharp tug on the line to firmly pull the little hook into the fish, which immediately went wild, swimming off in all directions as Aless wound him in. The whole crew was kept busy scaling, gutting and filleting multiple species.

The galley was turning out sashimi, tartare, ceviche, fried fillets, gougons fried in spiced flour, fish curries, fish spaghettis, fish salads and fish tagines.

We snorkelled reefs teeming with fish and inquisitive barracudas cruising just below the surface. Spearfishing is forbidden.

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The Windsurfing (and Kiting)

Non-Windsurfers – Please feel free to skip to the next section…

When my nephew Charlie was a young lad, I taught him and his sister to windsurf. I delivered windsurf gear out to Ibiza, spent happy summers windsurfing with them at our beach house in England.

They loved it and Charlie showed great promise with a natural talent for windsurfing. We have sailed boards together in Ibiza, Egypt, Morocco, England and the Caribbean, while I nurtured his interest in the sport.

Imagine then the shame, frustration and gut-wrenching despair, when he took up kiting.

Of course he is now a very accomplished kiter and still pretty useful on a windsurfer.

Our stay in Los Roques was to be a pretty special opportunity for us both.

Firstly it was windy. Just enough variation to have a chat about sail size everyday, but generally 20kts. Then there is the water. Sorry to bang on about this but I have never sailed a board over such beautiful colours. The channels are dark blue, sloping sandbanks form a gradient of shades of turquoise, then onto white sandy plateaus covered by barely a fin-depth of clear water, coral that can be sailed over in places, judging depths from shades of orange, brown and yellow. Turtles and stingrays surprised by a speeding board, big fish jumping waist-high next to you, and outside the barrier reefs, big blue breaking waves.

That first day at Francisqui I was exploring a narrow pass in the reef which was tricky but sailable, giving access to some fun jumping and onshore riding. I was soon joined by sail number V111 throwing enormous push loops in front of me. Venezuelan windsurf legend Ricardo Campello had been sailing in the lagoon when he saw me find a way through the reef and followed. He had never sailed that spot before and got a bit carried away with his jumps, snapping his board in half before he remembered he was on his freestyle gear. Ricardo told me the best wave riding was on the leeward side of the island. The next day Charlie and I set out to sail around the island. Out to sea through the keyhole in the reef with a set of transits in case we had to find our way back. Then downwind to the end of the reef where the swells were wrapping round the tip of the island and in to a gusty, offshore point. Could be good for surfing. Further down the leeward coast the swell starts to wall up over a shelf of reef with a solid side-off breeze, the wave wraps in with a couple of peaks and occasionally re-forms all the way to a sandbar on the inside. We had found it, this was to be our playground.

We sailed so many sessions on that reef, Charlie kiting with a surfboard, me on windsurf gear, different generations, different tools for the same job. Generally we were alone, the first couple of days Ricardo was putting on a show, he was living on board his boat and is a regular visitor here, great to sail with him and benefit from his local knowledge before he had to return to Margarita. After that it was just us, sometimes a few surfers, sometimes a couple of windsurfers and kites, Elias and his friends, but mainly we had it to ourselves. Every day we felt a little more dialled-in to the place, dropping in deeper, understanding the reef and the sections, getting better turns. Wave after wave, we had a ball, sailing back round the island to the boat at sunset, exhausted.

The wave is pretty safe once you know where you are, avoid the shallow spots and don’t get caught on the inside. The only real hazard is the long island of razor sharp dry coral right in front of the take off. You wouldn’t want to end up there..

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Christmas Day Chaos

On Christmas morning I found 3 limes in the sock I had hung up in the cockpit the night before.

The wind was up as usual and we could see spray above the mangroves indicating that our wave was working again.

Charlie decided to take a windsurf board instead of a kite, for a change.

We set off on a pair of boards and rigs from Escapade’s Quatro/Ezzy/Streamlined quiver and arrived to find we had the reef to ourselves.

Charlie sailed a few waves realising how much more satisfying a real top-turn is, before depositing his gear on the aforementioned reef to be pounded by a set or two.

What was salvaged was a mast, an extension and some harness lines. But hey, nobody got hurt!

Time to Move on

We had one last night ashore in the village and sailed again to explore the Western islands of Los Roques, arriving in Cayo de Agua on the last day of 2015. No other boats in sight, we found our way through the reefs to another turquiose pool to anchor in. It was so beautiful we stayed another day, exploring ashore, scrumping coconuts and windsurfing between islands. We welcomed 2016 from the middle of nowhere, then sailed west again.

Las Aves

30 miles or so to the West are two tiny archipelagos of Las Aves.

Even more remote, and even more fishy!

A world of diving birds, jumping fish, reefs, dunes and mangroves.

As we finally sailed away across the Sotovento lagoon we had multiple strikes on the lures and landed a couple of fish we have yet to identify. Each lure was in the water for seconds before getting a bite. At one memorable moment Aless was filleting her catch, Charlie was fighting a big fish on one stern while Dawn was hauling in catch of the day on the other.

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Return to Civilisation

We sailed for 6 hours to reach the Dutch island of Bonaire, where Charlie and Aless could get a flight to the next part of their trip. I think we were all a bit reluctant to change gear from our wild world of birds and fish to this other world of cars, bright lights, internet, air-con and international flights. So it was farewell to Charlie and Alessandra, thanks for coming all that way, it was worth it!

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January 7, 2016

Sailing to Los Roques

Bit of a delayed post, again. We have been offline for weeks.

So after all that provisioning and preparation, we did not in fact set sail on 13th December, well we did, but not far. As we left the bay that afternoon I engaged the autopilot and found it was not working, with a message I had not seen on the screen before: ‘FAIL’, that doesn’t look good. Not keen on hand-steering 400 miles downwind, we dropped sails and motored into Prickly Bay. Fearing the worst, Dawn performed the Furuno analytical tests which concluded again with the rather terminal sounding: ‘FAIL’. Hmm, If something is seriously wrong we may need a Furuno technician! Spare parts shipped in! At Christmas time! We could be stuck here for weeks! The next morning we were very happy to find a blown 10A fuse. Simple to replace as long as you’re carrying a spare, which we weren’t. But of course our friends on Mr Curly were, thanks for the spare part delivery Richard! That was it, pilot fixed, ready to go again. (After a quick trip to Ace Hardware to stock up on spare fuses of all sizes.)

Go West

So we sailed away from Grenada on the afternoon of the 14th December with the autopilot purring quietly to keep us on course. There is often a moment of joy on board Escapade as we sail over the horizon again, out of sight of land and ships. The speed of the boat and the sheer freedom of being out there can lead to spontaneous singing. And dancing. Our lure soon attracted a beautiful yellowfin tuna which was fishmongered into fillets for the fridge and ceviche for supper. We sailed SW at first to avoid the wind shadow in the lee of Grenada, then Northwest again to sail far off the Venezuelan shore. Yachts are very concerned about sailing close to this coast with several recent reports of armed boardings of sailing boats by Venezuelan pirates. As the sun set, the mood on board changed. We have been sailing on night watches together for many years now, but the first night still takes a bit of getting used to. After dinner we went up to the trampoline and lay face down watching the green sparks of phosphorescence flash by. As I stood up I saw a flash and found a couple of stranded flying fish which would be appearing on the breakfast menu in a few hours.

Notes from a night watch

I take the first watch and settle in to the warm tropical night, alone on deck. At 20.30 the sliver of new moon sets in the West and the starry dome is just mesmerising. A perfect dark sky with no moon or cloud, I turn off the nav lights for a while, to enjoy it all. The only light pollution is the phosphorescence which is now ridiculously bright with fiery light streaming out behind in our wakes. I imagine a whale’s eye view of Escapade from below, two green comets streaking across the black surface. This time last year we had a similar experience on passage from the Canaries to Cape Verde, now we are in new waters, away from the Eastern Caribbean Islands that have become familiar, this is the furthest West we have sailed so far. I wish on a shooting star which is going our way. For me this is still strong magic, it feels like a view of the world that few people ever experience. The boat is perfectly trimmed and just eating up the miles, requiring nothing from me. Dawn is asleep and I’m free to enjoy the night and this view of the universe.

There is a simple, elemental joy out here, sometimes when I go up on deck it feels like we are sailing through space, floating in the blackness. Actually I am moving across the Earth in my own personal disc of wilderness. The horizon is maybe 20 miles away so Pi-R-Squared makes that disc about 1200 sq miles of Caribbean Sea with nobody in it except us and a few billion sea creatures. Some of those want to join me, I am hit in the chest by a flying fish while sitting at the helm, he seems unharmed so I scoop him up and re-launch him. Below our hulls the sea bed is 2km down and above the sails the galaxies slowly rotate. The occasional shooting star has now upgraded to a full-scale meteor shower and I have run out of things to wish for. They are raining down, everything from multiple short white scratches on the dark sky, to great balls of fire leaving long trails. By now I’m wondering what might have been in my Grenadian coffee. I have since found out that this was the ‘Geminids’ putting on a show. (A well known annual astronomical event, with meteorites arriving from the direction of the Gemini constellation.) There can be no better place to see it. I think of all the sailors on ships through the ages who must have experienced nights at sea like this, but tonight it’s all mine. Escapade is flying through the darkness at 10kts, sailing towards the tiny islands of Los Roques, with the constellations turning above me like the hands of a clock.

Daybreak arrival

That was a pretty special night watch for me, but they are not all like that. Dawn took over at 02.00 and had cloud, rain squalls and container ships to dodge.

We sailed all through the next day and night, now steering SW again on Port tack and heading straight for Los Roques. We measure the distance left and try to plan our boat speed for an 8am arrival. Escapade is cruising at 10-12 kts on a broad reach and surfing at 15+. Too quick, we don’t want to arrive in the dark. We pull down the second reef and try to calm her down. We had a worrying hour or so around suppertime when we were buzzed by an unidentified vessel shining very bright searchlights and seeming to be interested in us. We have since seen a Venezuelan Guarda Costa ship and think it may have been them, but it’s easy to get a bit jumpy in these waters at night. After a fresh tuna supper I have a snooze and we settle in to our second night at sea. I wake up to find we are surfing at 15kts again, too fast for a daylight landfall. I spent the rest of the night trying to slow the boat down. Dawn had assured me that first light was at 05.15 so anytime after that would be fine to approach the islands. By 0400 we have 2 reefs, I have rolled up the jib and the boat is still sailing at 10kts+! I have also decorated the cabin with our Spanish paper garlands from last year as today is Dawn’s birthday. At 05.15 we are both on deck and bearing down on Los Roques fast. It is still very dark. Then we realise there is a time difference. We have sailed so far West we have changed time zones! (This is also the first half-hour time zone I can remember adjusting my watch to, a bit strange, but the first of many strange new experiences in Venezuela) It is just light enough to see as the loom of the village lights silhouette the hilly little island of El Gran Roque, we round up off the beach and drop the hook in a different world.

Stay tuned for the full Los Roques story coming soon while we still have wifi!!

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December 13, 2015

Grenada Shakedown

As you sail away from the Bocas Del Dragon,the Northern part of Trinidad causes a huge wind shadow. we motored until we found a few knots of breeze as the sun came up. Jib out, motors off and Escapade was sailing at 8 kts on a smooth sea. As the wind and seas built we were cruising at 10 knots and finding our sea legs again. We were both a bit wobbly that first day, it took a few hours to re-adjust to the motion and remember all the things that soon become second nature again, like the finer points of our reefing procedure.

By mid morning we were passing the huge natural gas drilling platforms and speeding over the sea as it turned from the gravy-dark waters of Trinidad to the true blue of the Caribbean. The final approach to Grenada is interesting as the sea bed rises from a depth of 900m to 30m. The swells pile up over this shelf and the last few miles were a bit of a sleigh ride as we bore away and surfed in to our destination at 15 knots, rolling up the jib and rounding up behind Calvigny Island to drop the main and motor over to our favourite anchorage in the Calvigny Cut. The anchor went down in to white sand at 2pm on the 23rd November and it’s still there as I write this, 2 weeks later.

Escapade pulling gently at her bridle in flat water with a constant breeze, that feels so good after the heat of the yard in Trinidad.

Our view is the coconut fringed beach of Calvigny, we can pick up wifi from the nearby Le Phare Bleu marina.

From here I can tack upwind on my windsurf board and play on the reef-breaks by Adam Island. In my shorts. In December.

We also have easy access to all the fun and facilities of Grenada. Provisioning in the markets, eating and drinking in the local rum shops and restaurants, plus some good live music, liming at the legendary Hog Island Sunday bbq, the finish of the RORC Transatlantic Race, and lots of socialising with friends old and new. Two weeks have passed very agreeably, we have adjusted back to boat-life and now it’s time to move on. We have cleared customs and this afternoon we will set sail for Los Roques, 300nm to our West.

Several people I have spoken to here are not sure where Los Roques is, so in a bid to add some cutting-edge navigational technology to this blog, I have embedded an interactive map which should help:

December 13, 2015

Trinidad Splashdown

Time for an Escapade update!

By end of November the Atlantic hurricane season is over and a new Caribbean sailing season has begun.

We left the cool wind and waves of Guernsey and travelled via London and New York to Trinidad.

Escapade was waiting for us at Peakes Yard in Chaguaramas, just as we had left her. We spent 5 days getting ready for sea again.

It took that long to acclimatise to the steamy heat and recover from a few hectic days and nights in NYC.

Sails on, hulls anti-fouled, all the rigging and deck gear back in place, engines prepared, outboard serviced and back on the dinghy.

We had carefully removed everything possible from summer UV damage, pulled halyards and reefing lines, fitted hatch covers and a huge plastic canopy aft of the mast. Her first lay-up was a great success and she emerged from hibernation good as new. Thanks to Peakes, Dynamite Marine and all the guys who helped to look after us.

We splashed on 22nd November and motored around to the picturesque Scotland Cove. (Looks like Scotland). So good to be afloat again, all the systems came back to life and we spent a quiet evening making sure everything was ready to sail. Next morning we motored out of the cove under the stars, hoisted the main and set a course for Grenada.

September 23, 2015

Sailing Spindrift 2

Last week I found myself at the helm of a multihull sailing yacht off the South coast of Brittany.

The sun was shining and the instruments told me breeze was blowing at about 14kts.

Our boat speed was 26kts across flat water.

I felt the gust hit the main and the boat started to heel. The gentle hum in the rig became slightly louder and higher in pitch as the breeze hit 17kts and boat speed climbed through 30kts. We hit 33kts with the rig whistling and the spray flying, my hands gripping the rubber covered wheel and my body adjusting to the angle of heel as the windward hull rose high above the sea. The skipper was at my shoulder, speaking with his crew. He leaned towards me and calmly suggested I should bear away a few degrees. There was a loud groaning of the traveller easing under the immense load of the 500 sqm mainsail.

The skipper was Yann Guichard and the yacht was Spindrift 2.

She is the largest, fastest racing trimaran in the world. (Previously Banque Populaire V)

With team Spindrift she is now in an all-out assault on all the major ocean speed records.

They already hold the West-East Atlantic crossing record from New York to Lizard Point in 3 days 15hrs, averaging 33 kts all the way!

Yann and the crew are about to go into a holding period for an attempt at the Jules Verne Trophy for fastest crewed circumnavigation.

Yann was telling me about his recent trip on Spindrift 2 in the Route du Rhum.

Spindrift 2 usually sails ocean races with a crew of 12-14. The boat is so gigantic and the sheet loads so great, there are miles of spectra lines and huge carbon winch drums. We watched the entire crew grinding at the carbon pedestals for each tack, gybe and sail-change. For the RdR Yann made a few modifications, installed a carbon bicycle behind the main pedestals so that he could grind winches with his leg muscles. He then raced the boat from St Malo to Guadeloupe single-handed!

The boat is enormous and the sensation of sailing at that speed is hard to describe. As she accelerates on a reach it feels like riding a 747 down a runway, a huge, unstoppable force. The hulls are so long that the chop is smoothed and she seems to be cutting through the water driven by some unseen power. Her speed is out of all proportion to the true wind. Sitting down on the leeward (downhill) hull, it feels like a very wet and windy ride. She can create a gale of apparent wind behind the main sail as the windward hull rises above you and the central hull starts to lift above the surface. All this in 16kts of true wind speed. You look around and see cruising yachts going past as though they are sailing on a different day, almost stationary in comparison.

There are so many mind blowing statistics for this boat, here’s just a few.

For comparison the numbers are shown alongside another high performance multihull:

Compare	Escapade	Spindrift 2
Length	15m	40m
Beam	7.25m	23m
Hulls	2	3
Weight	10,000kgs	21,500kgs
Max. Sail Area	180 sq.m.	965 sq.m
Cruising Speed	10 knots	30 knots
Maximum Recorded Speed	23.8 knots	49 knots
Max. Recorded Distance in 24 Hours	242 miles	907 miles. Average speed 37.8 knots…. AVERAGE!!
Optimum Crew for Ocean Sailing	2	14 Pros

Very few ‘civilians’ get to ride on this machine and we considered it a great privilege. We were in Trinité as guests of Zenith Watches and Team Spindrift. They looked after us very well indeed. The gastronomic experience was a far cry from the dehydrated spacefood the crew usually eat.

Four of us from Guernsey were lucky enough to be invited and even more lucky to have a private aircraft to get us there and back.

Many thanks to Dave for putting it all together and making it happen. And also to and Andy for providing the plane. And flying it.

An extraordinary yacht, a very cool plane, an unforgettable trip.

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August 28, 2015

Mexican Wave

A quick update for our sailing friends. No we’re not off course. Escapade is still in Trinidad while Dawn and I have some time ashore.

So far that has been in Miami, Ibiza, Guernsey, London, California, and this trip to San Carlos in Mexico..

Everything you need and nothing you don’t

Punta San Carlos is a remote point break around 300 miles South of Tijuana on the Pacific coast of Baja, Mexico.

The landscape is rugged desert between mountains and ocean. The nearest tarmac road is 50 miles away.

In this unlikely spot Kevin Trejo has established a remarkable surf camp in the wilderness.

This was our second trip down there and I’m sure we will be back.

I like to ride waves on a windsurf board and this place offers some of the best and most consistent conditions for this that I have found anywhere. (And I have searched.)

We have spent a total of 3 weeks there and I could have surfed and windsurfed every day. (I did need to rest my shoulder for a day!)

There are several surf spots and a local thermally enhanced wind effect which is perfectly angled for wave sailing.

The place is magic. There are no crowds (of humans) but the ocean is popping with life: seals, sea lions, dolphins, whales. And the squadrons of majestic pelicans flying in formation with wingtips on the wave-face.

Life is simple at the Solosports camp: glassy surf in the mornings, windsurf in the afternoons, eat great homemade food from Emerita’s camp kitchen, drink a few Baja Fogs* and sleep soundly in a tent by the ocean.

There are racks of surfboards, paddleboards, kite and windsurf gear, (including exactly the same boards and rigs I have on Escapade) as well as great mountain bikes and miles of trails through spectacular terrain. Dawn and I enjoyed hiking and biking the surrounding area.

The desert is rough and rocky, but the whole camp area is carpeted! Barefoot ‘luxury’ to your tent and ideal for oceanfront yoga and stretching sessions after all that exercise.

I also came to appreciate all the things the camp does not have. No phone connection, no wifi, no light pollution.

In the same way that our most memorable sailing trips are to wild and remote places, San Carlos is a detox from civilisation. The joy of simplicity.

Returning to the crowds and commerce of a US city after 2 weeks in the desert was a shock.

Pritchard Windsurfing Clinic

I have made a couple of discoveries rather late in my windsurfing career, the first was how my sailing could be improved with some coaching.

Last August we had a great week in camp sailing with pro coaches Matt Pritchard and Kevin McGillivray. My first ‘lesson’ after 35 years of self-taught windsurfing!

These guys watch you, record your riding on video, analyse the playback and explain the fine details of how to do it better.

I was so impressed we returned for more this year. Matt couldn’t make it, so we had to make do with his brother Kevin Pritchard instead. (Matt and Kevin are both multiple world champions.)

We were blessed with a solid swell and wind every day for the training week. Windsurfers from US, Hawaii, Canada, Europe, Australia and Scandinavia had made the trip. A great group to sail and camp with and all the water time we could handle.

Our patient coaches KMac and KP pushed me to improve my riding, turn tighter and hit the lip of a wave in the right spot to land an aerial back on the wave face, rather than crashing behind it.

After a full day on the water, the group would gather in comfy chairs on the cliff to drink a cold beer and watch the ‘Golden Hour’. The last hour of sunlight with wind and waves still firing. The last guys out were generally KP, KMac and local prodigy Joey Sanchez. Throwing themselves in to huge turns and aerials on the biggest set waves right in front of the camp, all to loud cheering from the assembled audience. What a show.

The following week was when the American Windsurf Tour were holding their annual contest in San Carlos so we stayed on for that.

Second discovery: I enjoyed competing in my first ever wave contest! New kid on the block, aged 50.

AWT Desert Showdown

The contest week was a whole new game, with more riders arriving from around the world and plenty of talent on the water.

The AWT team arrived and the point became a competition site with a judging panel stationed on the cliff above the waves.

Riders are judged on their wave-riding skills, like a surfing contest. Typically a heat will see 4 riders sail for 20 minutes. The judges will score every wave, with each rider’s two best scores to count.

So great to see the pros sailing their heats with such style and power. I could watch them all day. The standout performances were from Boujmaa Guilloul (Morocco) and eventual winner of the Pro division Kevin Pritchard from Maui.

Another sailer from Maui made a big impression. Jake Schettewi won both the youth and amateur divisions, winning a place in the pro division.

He is 14 years old and already sailing with plenty of style.

Full results are here:

http://americanwindsurfingtour.com/solosports-baja-desert-showdown-results-and-videos/

Now I have said before on this blog that I’m really not a competitive person. I’m generally happy just to be sailing in good conditions.

But.. when you’re out there in a heat, gybing on to a set wave and riding it in front of the judges and the crowd on the cliff, it is all rather exciting!

I progressed through the heats in two divisions, Amateurs and Masters.

I made it as far as the Amateur semi-finals and was defeated by much better (and younger) sailers. Very pleased with a 5th place.

In the Masters division I had great fun sailing with my own generation and came second! Those aerials came in handy.

The heats were run over a few days and I was also invited to sit with the judging panel and score a few heats. Not an easy task and requiring intense concentration, especially when three riders take off on waves simultaneously!

Throughout all of this Dawn was very busy with photography and physical therapy to keep us injured competitors on the water.

Many thanks to all at Solosports for looking after us, PritchardWindsurfing.com for the great coaching, all our new friends from the clinic and the contest.

Thanks to all at AWT for producing a great event. What a trip. We had a great time and we hope to see you all again soon.

Many thanks also to the photographers who shot the following images:

Clark Merritt at www.Solosports.net

Mark Harpur at www.Luckybeanz.com

Dawn at www.Escapadesailing.com

*Baja Fog is a bottle of cerveza topped up with tequila and ‘fogged’ with lime juice.

Fog You

Joey Sanchez

Boujmaa

June 19, 2015

High & Dry

The last few days in Grenada were busy socialising with our new sailing neighbours from Switzerland and Guernsey, windsurfing at Adam Island and running with the local Hash House Harriers.
This was our first HHH experience. They run at ankle-breaking speed across rocks and tree roots, through jungles, rivers and mountains, following a trail of paper route markers along the way, there are several ‘false trails’ which lead you up dead ends so you have to retrace your steps to the real track, adding considerable mileage! A wild, semi-organised mass run followed by cold beer, various HHH rituals, local street food, loud music and dancing. Seems to be more about partying than running (their T-shirts say ‘Drinkers with a running problem’) but what a great way to experience the rural interior of the island and see the locals having lots of fun.

We enjoyed Grenada, but it was time to get that hook up again. We snuck out of Prickly Bay in the moonlight at 3am and sailed South with 2 reefs in the main on a fast reach for Trinidad.
We passed between oil and gas platforms and the spectacular mountains of Trinidad appeared on the horizon. A large pod of dolphins arrived to welcome us as we approached the islands of the Bocas De Dragon which separate Trinidad from Venezuela. We pass through the Boca in to the Gulf of Paria. Just around the corner is the harbour of Chaguaramas, Escapade’s home for the summer.

Chaguaramas is a busy commercial port, we anchored amongst cargo ships and support vessels for the oil fields. It is also a favourite spot for weekend party boats loaded with amazing sound systems. Trinidad is loud! It is also hot. But we are here because it is a great place to leave the boat for the hurricane season. The shore is lined with yards full of yachts doing the same thing.
Escapade was hauled out for the first time since we launched her last July. Then began a long, hot week working on the boat. A few running repairs, preparing her for storage, maintaining engines, watermaker, outboard, removing sails and anything else that can be stowed out of the sun. Did I mention that it was hot? After 6 months in the tropics we thought we were acclimatised, but this is no breezy anchorage! When the sun beats down on the boatyard the temperatures soar. Hot work. I’m sure many readers of this blog will be very happy to hear that we sweated through a long week of hard graft! We drank gallons of coconut water trying to stay hydrated. Finally we reached the end of the list of chores. Escapade is cleaned from stem to stern and is sitting safely ashore until we return in November.
We even washed the salty bag of courtesy flags hoisted in all the countries visited so far.

As we cleared out Dawn was asked to leave the customs office and return only when ‘appropriately attired’.

We were keen to see beyond the boat-town of Chaguaramas and we have time to explore a little in Port of Spain (loud!), eating amazing food from the melting pot of Trinidad cuisine. Caribbean, Indian and Chinese flavours, great street food and a big city feel we haven’t had for a while. Trinidad is much bigger than the other Caribbean islands we’ve seen lately, with a more diverse racial mix, more industry, commerce and louder music!

So that’s the end of Escapade’s first sailing season. Thousands of miles, dozens of islands, so many good times and lots of new friends.
We are on our way back to Guernsey (scenic route via Miami and Ibiza).

We have already booked the travel-hoist to re launch 27th November. That gives us a few months to make our sailing plans for next winter.
But you know how we are with plans.

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June 5, 2015

Precious Time

The Grenadines

This winter has been our first extended sailing trip. Our free time used to be measured in days, weekends and occasional holidays, but always with a fixed return date to get back to work. Nine months on board seems to be long enough to get over all that! Time changes in the islands. It’s too hot to rush. People live slowly and everything runs on Caribbean Flexitime. (Similar to the Mañana arrangement, but with more rum.) Time becomes liquid and flows past the boat. The sun sets, the moon rises, the days pass and we swing at anchor, watching the world turn.

Our plans go with the flow. We sailed from Martinique to the Grenadines, arrived in Bequia for a day, but stayed for a week.

Next stop was Mustique for a night, but we stayed for three. Down through Canouan for their regatta, Mayreau for a couple of days, over to the Tobago Cays to swim with the Turtles and windsurf the beautiful Horseshoe reef. Days slip by. South to Union Island and Carriacou, then a fast sail down to Grenada.

Grenada

We explored some of the bays in the South of the island, then found a nice anchorage with everything we like: a constant cool breeze, great views, flat water, wifi from a nearby marina and good surf on the reef just upwind. We dropped the anchor here for a night. I think that was a week ago, still here. We have been exploring inland, hiking in the jungle, swimming in waterfalls, eating our way through our tuna catch, falling off the back of the boat to cool off, eating our way through the endless ripe mango season, windsurfing fun waves on the reef, and touring the surrounding bays and islands by dinghy. But now time is finally catching up with us on this trip and we can hear the clock ticking again.

For the first time in months we have a deadline. Hurricane season is here and we have arranged for Escapade to be hauled out in Trinidad 11th July. She will be stored there for the summer while we return to Guernsey. Our last passage for this season will be about 90 miles down to Chaguaramas in Trinidad next week. We will pack up the toys, leave the boat and try to be rehabilitated back in to the real world.

For a while..