Quickie position

Position 0630 9th 3953 04257 trip 96, DMG 86. Last night's little bit of drama slowed us down considerably. Sea now abating but still big. No longer pointed semi breaking but still very steep and close together. Heady unrolled, main still lashed to the boom, mess tidied up and just waiting till it seems ok to get some of it up again.

Rather tatty looking Southern Royal albatross pottering around, landed next to the end of our safety line. I could almost feel his disappointment when it discovered there was no fish on the end of it. Must be used to following long liners. Further report later.

A change of direction

Tooling along this afternoon watching the barometer fall and thinking 'odd, that's all a bit quick - grib says much less better watch it' Closed the stern tube valve as a precaution - a good move. Seemed we were much closer to the centre of the system than the grib predicts and so it turned out. Just finished dinner, Black clouds, menacing and grim, already 2 reefed, and wham - 35 - 40 Berri surfing downwind wildly, up to 50, far too much sail - no time to get into party gear, just a lifejacket and harness and out there. Roll in the headsail still on its pole, bring her up beam on and drop the main - thrashing around but controllable, just. Kevvo kept his head and looked after us, as usual. Spray blasting across Pete at the mast, me in the cockpit, all ghostly in the spreader lights, the spray cascading diamonds, Berri rolling wildly but now sorted, everything made fast and back inside - absobloodylutely soaked. the howl has subsided, Berri steady on her feet again, from tracking SE before, now barepoled on NE @ 4 kts wind 35 and dropping. A lot of effort but essential. We'll stay like this until daylight in about 8 hours then sort the rather messy deck we left behind. Barometer up 2hp already. Now to do the washing up.

An afternoon at the zoo.

Ferals - a whale! I saw what I thought might have been a spout about 500 metres away, 3-4 metre swell, 10 kts breeze. Waited and definitely saw the next one and the next with glimpses of body between swells. The spouts were flattish and seemed to be angled - could not establish direction of travel and so possible slant angle of spout. Then it sounded - away from us - spout angle could have been leftwards indicating sperm whale but flukes were rounded at the tips, unlike pictures in the handbook so some doubt.

And a big albatross soared serenely past - and they always seem just a bit scornful - one glimpse only and possibly one of the Royals. Waited for ever with the Nik at the high port but it didn't come back. Groups of Prions in the offing.

Little gaggles of dancing Storm Petrels (Wilson's again and probably Black Bellied) - so fragile yet so wonderfully adapted.

Scrofulous old farts smelling quietly amongst themselves as they await cleansing visit and Consultation with Dr G. Iodine, quinine and vitamin C plus psychological uplift all in the one - well, maybe 2 - medications. OF A has just put pole on - taken it off again - gybed and monitoring correct point for Kerguelen. Sweaty business. Grib has been remarkably accurate for last few days.

Water distinctly greenish. VoA noticeably increasing - water temperature now 17 deg.

Giant shoulders

Position 0630 8th. 3934 04106 trip 95, DMG 91, Day 17 from CT, about 1300 miles to Baie de L'Oiseau.
Pete has done some analysis of the wind data - we know average wind for Port au Francais is 35kph, which agrees with data we have received. Pattern seems to be 3 days around 50 - 60 kmh with two or three softer days in between. 50kmh = 27 knots. Manageable. The plan is to keep heading that way and park or bale out if it gets really pearshaped on the way. We'll get there if we can - too special to pass by from this close. Will need to clear the debris from the anchors and make sure all is accessible.

Baie de L'Oiseau was named by Kerguelen after his frigate Oiseau commanded by Lt. Charles de Rosnevet whose boat, under Lt. Rochegude first landed there on Jan 6th 1774 and took possession for France. This was in fact the second time it had been claimed as Kerguelen had already done so two years earlier on the southern coast of the island. They left a bottle suspended by wire with a latin message which Cook's men found in 1776 and Cook added to the message and returned the bottle. Cook named the place Christmas Harbour, not at the time knowing of the earlier name. It now appears on the chart as Baie de L'Oiseau.

Sue - hope you got to Gatwick. I'm old enough to remember 1947, when there was snow 4 ft deep on the sea front at Lee on Solent. No stress if updates difficult and expensive. We're now close enough to do it from the Gribs. Pinkaraj tenterhooky. Have a Piranha free ball, y'all and report on return.
Carol - missed your 75th - but a grand total. Belated happys.
Thanks to Heggie, Tom and Philip for funnies.

HTTG and other trash

Glassy calm - in the southern ocean yet! - Dagelet's 'luminous sea' and, as he wrote, it's not as bright as in the tropics but it is heartwrenchingly beautiful - we have the engine at idle to keep the old barge pointing SE and not flogging her guts out and she just folds the water around her stem enough to make little greeny blue ripples and there's a long glowing trail stretching out astern with diamond sparkles. The sky is clear, the stars so bright you could touch them, Higgs fields notwithstanding! I've been reading more of Brian Greene's Fabric of the Cosmos - wish I could write like he does - lovely taut use of metaphor and a smashingly gentle line in dry irony. I guess you all know from the HGTTG that the universe is really really big but did you know that scientists have now calculated on the basis of observed data that it is stretching so fast that light shining from an object at its outer edge (not a real place but conceptually useful) will never reach us? The outer edge is beyond our horizon for ever. His metaphor for size - if you reduce the universe to the size of the earth, the bit of it that we can see and observe would be smaller than a grain of sand. Really really small. Our little speck of dust will follow the second law of thermodynamics into a state of higher entropy real soon now in spacetime so eat yer porridge and enjoy it while you can!

There was a clever revisionist piece in, I think, the Guardian before we left the UK reviewing the 30 years since the first appearance of the HGTTG. Way oversimplified but as I remember, it seems that those of us who know, love and understand the jokes are just a bunch of smug yuppies. Ah well! I've been called names before. The sixth book in the trilogy, written by another smug yuppie, Eoin Colfer?, is on the stalls and my copy is now chasing me from Cape Town in the Heart of Gold. Infinitely improbable but it will one day overcome the stretching of spacetime and reach me. Perhaps it already has in another universe.

Dawn just breaking. Yesterday as the cold, drizzly grey front clammily wrapped us, there were Storm Petrels all around the boat. They aren't usually with us in groups and almost never when it's calm enough to look at them closely. Usually, just a spray wreathed glimpse of a tiny apparently fragile dancer in the storm. These were Wilson's Storm Petrels jittering and flopping and bumping the waves and running along the surface, wings stretched to provide just enough lift for a skyhook - and scooping for food. Tried to film them but the camera couldn't cope. Please, whoever designs these things, bring back the viewfinder! Screens are useless especially on video cameras.

Latest Position and An Overview

Poesy orf for ther mo.

Position 0630 7th 3913 03906 trip 115 DMG 116! YAY! Progress and maybe even a smidge of current. Cook arrived at Christmas Harbour, Kerguelen, 25 days out from Cape Town. He did not know until much later that the French had already named it Baie de L'Oiseau after Kerguelen's frigate which got there first. Would be interesting to look at his track - he would have had less difficulty with 50 knot squalls and following seas. The quickest we could do it would be around 29 days if we decide to go.

Queer goings on abroad - there were distinct thick muddy brown streaks in the green ocean at 3906S 03847E. Thought at first I was hallucinating. They were a couple of metres wide, maybe 20 - 30 metres long, parallel, in line with our course of roughly east (T) and several metres apart and seemed to be shallow. No oily spectrum but the water was smoother. No solid matter that I could see. Hard to tell how far they extended. Don't know where they started but I noticed them through the window and went up to have a look. From when I first saw them, perhaps 500 metres till they stopped. Faint smell of something but could not identify. No AIS contacts but could be fishing boat emptying bilge perhaps?

About to pull in the next grib when I send this. The first of the critical ones that will inform the decision about the dive south to Kerguelen.

Christmas Day in Addis. Happys up there!

Not in the brochure

It's bloody 'orrible. Big SW swell, N wind @ 25-30, blowing for several hours to build 3m wind waves against swell. Tiny bit of headsail unrolled, almost bare poled and wind on stbd. qtr to try to keep the boat from getting airborne. 5 knots. Bleeeah! I want my mummy. Sadly, out here in the southern ocean there's no Scotty to beam us up, no Marvin to take over the controls as the spacecraft dives into the sun. Not even a Tardis. It's lump it or lump it. Chocolate fix called for. Grib says another 12 hours or so. The systems seem to be more compacted and variable than last time and the whole lot further north. Not the gentle ride the brochures promised.

Neurons battered and recalcitrant. Poesy unforthcoming - perhaps with position report later. Boot ferals excited.

Sue, thanks in advance for data. Y'all enjoy the Amazon!
Deborah, thanks for John Grunsfeld news. I was wondering what he was going to do for an encore.
Chris H in Eden, thanks for kind words. I think the loo is an entirely appropriate place for this stuff! And yes, I do know your boat - watched her being built over the years...You got a good one, I think. And thanks for kind offer - there is a digit missing from the mobile number you sent us but we will certainly be in touch next time we are in town.

Happy Christmas Hilary 3000 miles to the north. We're waving and we shall breakfast in your direction.

Talking of breakfast - Marcus, are you still out there in the restaurant? I had hoped to visit and have a Berri breakfast with you but never quite happened. Sorry!

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Slowly slowly...

Position 0700 6th 3845 03638 trip 93 DMG 77. Disappointingly slow progress but we're moving in the right direction. Another front behind us - they all seem to be further north than last time and rather more vicious. The Examiner won't let us off the hook if that's not a mixed metaphor.

Talking of which, I'm told Sailing Anarchy has done us proud but do I sense a touch of the oxymoronic? The Anarchists have an Editor - indeed, more than one, as there is an Exalted Person called a Senior Editor. Snake oil in the sky with diamonds!Anyway, thanks Al and we'll try to keep all y'all amused for the next 50 days or so.

Ferals: Yellow Nosed albatrosses arrive alone or in groups - they are not solitary - whereas the bigger ones seem to be solitary or paired only. The Yellow Noses often fly in close formation with another YN and often also with a White Chinned Petrel. I've just seen 3 YNs parked on the water with two more circling - soaring - around them. On the water they are often joined by petrels. Two White Chins together keep up a continuous chirruping amongst themselves. Roughly the equivalent, perhaps of the old formation flying patter.

H - we should be about 3000 miles due south of you some time on Thursday We'll wave!

And today the decorations come down.

Latest Position

Posted by I & G in the UK.

Of pointy bits and whoopee cushions

Position 0700 5th 3853 03442 trip 126 DMG 97 so still zigging and zagging but improving.

Dawn this morning - 0230 ish UTC, two big albatrosses and the usual gaggle of Yellow Noses. The big ones were probably New Zealand but possibly Snowy - the plumage is very similar and proper identification requires a good look at the bill. Breathtakingly gorgeous - and in the golden dawn as they banked away, their white underparts had a golden sheen for the few seconds they reflected the sun directly. If they hang around till the evening, they will be pink in the dying sunset. Drool all y'all at your desks in the big smoke!

In the interests of science and education - ain't we always striving to add to the great store of knowledge? - an experiment that seems to be working. As some of you will know, the best part of a cornflakes packet and of some production boats that arrive by ship in plastic cocoons is the packaging. I have the bits of the soft plastic strip that once wrapped a Beneteau mast doing good things all over the boat. Those of you who have followed this saga from its early days will also know of the awful problem of lacerated bum caused by the pointy bits of your pelvis trying to bore their way out through the glutes as you sit on the hard surfaces and Berri pirouettes and corkscrews around you. Inescapable and Awful! But in a moment of inspiration yesterday, I cut a piece of the plastic strip about 40cm by 20 and then cut two 120mm holes in it at the correct distance to accommodate the arse bones and behold - it seems to work. A two holer version of a piles pad, I think!

So have a noice day. We are about to crack 9000 miles by GPS from Falmouth.

Freaks in the frame?

First Macca, now perhaps Sailing Anarchy. Can this be fame? Notoriety? Just the result of being seen as freaks? Ho hum. Happy New Year to all you anarchists out there if you do get to read this nonsense.

This is a savage bit of ocean, even in summer. The early Portuguese explorers called it the graveyard of ships and no bloody wonder. There's a lot of them still here including Bartholomeu Diaz, one of my heroes. It seems to have even more bite that last time we were here. Hoping that once we get clear of the influence of the african continent, it will come to its senses.

SteveJ asked what happens after a big knockdown - does Berri just spring back as if it was always intended to have a bit of fun. Yep - that's what happens - well, it is what has always happened so far! - her angle of vanishing stability is 146 degrees - she will roll to 146 degrees and still have righting moment so is immensely stiff by modern standards and she just flips back once the wave has past. Different story if the mast goes into the water though as we found when we were rolled right over and dismasted off Gabo Island 3 years ago this week. There's a 2mb pdf of that story here: Dismasted pdf (SJ, if it's gone, could you pse add one to the blog? Ta! ed: link to pdf added

Udo - my apologies - I made a mistake with one of the posts and left the footer on the message, dozy old fart that I am. I don't actually send these from the berrimilla2 address but from our sailmail address. The B2 address is put on the post to stop people just hitting the reply button and sending 10 pages of message strings, caveats and other garbage with their 3 line note and also, the idea is to keep the spammers at arms length and to keep their crap out of our inbox. We're off the air immediately if that happens - this is a radio link and very tenuous. Thanks for your NY message!

Malcom, thanks for advice - if we do make the dive, we will head for Christmas Harbour (Baie de L'Oiseau, NE corner) first and then go the northern route to Port au Francais. However, given yesterday's little drama, the dive is looking iffy. We'll monitor the conditions but no point in risking the boat and ourselves if it stays savage.

Trivia

Variations on a theme of Prufrock. When I was camping out in the bloodhouse on the corner of the main drag in Nome in July 2008, in those uncertain days while we waited for Point Barrow ice to break and melt, I needed to make coffee and I bought a small electric water boiler which came with a little blue plastic funnel and a pack of 100 one cup filter papers. I left the heater with Pat when we departed, but I still have the funnel and 15 of those 100 filters left - that's 85 cups of coffee for the NW passage, the Atlantic across the top and then down to Agulhas and the Indian to here. A silly statistic - rough guess 13000 miles, so a cup every 150 miles or so. Must have drunk a lot in the NWP because almost none from Falmouth to here.

And the not so trivial - as you read this you are probably sitting at your computer, surrounded by all the usual paraphernalia - books, papers, pencils, coffee cups, photos of the cat, the cat itself and all the rest. Imagine if you will what would happen if your house was turned on its side and a bit past the horizontal. All sorts of chaos...That's what has just happened to us - quite a severe knockdown, as usual after the wind had abated considerably and we'd thought it safe to set some sail and get going again. I was perhaps too ambitious with the wind angle, putting it more on the beam than the quarter. Pete was here behind the cone of silence and I'd just got up for a pee and was looking directly through the big starboard galley window and saw it coming. The boat rose and rolled to port and everything not properly stowed in the galley and quarter berth shelves launched itself across the boat and into the cone - tubs of margerine, apples, some kilkenny - chaos. We must have rolled through about 110 degrees - a tub of margerine that started below the waterline in a quarterberth bin made a big splat of yellow goo right at the top of the cone (heavy plastic curtain protecting the nav table and the electronics - it has saved our bacon countless times) and was still going up. Then it and several others fell to the floor and - of course - ended upside down on our bit of hairy matting. Careful stowage looked after the rest of the (heavy) gear around the boat but a timely reminder of our vulnerability. Cockpit a disaster zone but no apparent damage and now all sorted and cleaned up. Pete asleep, I'm on watch and the big waves are still out there. Poo! Makes Kerguelen look very iffy indeed.

Early position

Position 0600 4th 3849 03225 trip 96 DMG 77. Looks as if we will have to zigzag our way along the 39th parallel and suss out the dive to Kerguelen when we get a bit further across. Tedious. We really need a 5 day gap between lows when they are this nasty to get down there safely and it's not looking too good.

Been bare poling all night and I've just climbed out of zoot suit after unrolling a bit of headsail and bringing Berri around from tracking NE to roughly E. The great circle to Hobart via Kerguelen would be about 150 deg T. Thr rhumb line with zigzags will be about 600 miles further. SPBF.

3 neurons too tired to indulge in fancy stuff - but bottle green sea, bright and luminous in the patches of sunlight, several Yellow Noses soaring around the boat - wonderful to watch the aerodynamics of those wings and the use of the body as a counterweight - sometimes the feet extend as airbrakes. And a couple or four smaller Prions, I think. Fione, yep, I know about the other sort.

Bloody hell - still some big waves - often happens as a storm is abating.

Middle of the night

Actually about 2 hours to sunrise here. I think the main front has gone through - max gust Pete saw was 47 kts and now steady 35 - 40. Bare poled, heading NE at 5+, Berri all snugged down, stern tube closed and I'm monitoring the sitch from inside, dry suit at the ready to wriggle into if there seems to be a bit of the embryonic pearshaped out there. Uncomfortable roll, knees once again pressed up under the nav table, wrists locked against the near edge as I prod the keyboard. Wind has varying and varied conversations - not really slanging matches - with the rig and it does seem to be abating just a poopytill. Nice and dry inside, relatively speaking, after Pete's excellent work in Cape Town bogging the chainplates. Berri being Tarago sized, it's impossible not to bring a bucket or so of water down into the boat on the wet weather gear every time we venture outside and return so everything damp.

Sea building - just been visited by a big one from out of left field. Like being caressed by a steam hammer. It will continue to build all day or at least until the wind abates significantly - TGS about another 5 hours or so. There goes another of the bastards Keep em crossed. Little storm petrel in the black gloom earlier, before the blast - sensed, not seen, as a fluttering shadow.

Carla, will send separate note later but use the sailmail address if you still have it.

Gentle menace.

Hot, grey-blue hazy day. The sea has changed colour from deep iridescent blue to glassy jade green - not the deep bottle green of the Bering sea but almost milky as the light reflects off the tiny organisms that live here. I wonder whether cold water, generally, is greener than warm. The temperature is now 21 deg, way down from not too long ago.

Soft line of cloud low all along the western horizon - puffy and gentle, still reflecting sunlight. When the sun gets behind it, it will have real menace - black lowering and almost solid. It's the beginning of the frontal system - perhaps 8 hours away, so when most of you in Australia read this, it will be with us and past. But for us, it's always the waiting that gets under the skin and corrodes the shiny bits (three highly polished and overused neurons...).

As it approaches, we will put in the second and third reefs (I've just done the first, to balance the boat and help Kevvo keep her straight) and eventually drop the main, lash it to the boom, preventers either side to lock it all in place, slightly to leeward and sloping downwards towards the stern to let the water run off and out of it. Then we'll roll in the headsail progressively and maybe even end up bare poled. Experience says double the forecast GRIB wind speed to get an accurate fix on the likely maximum gust speeds. We're looking at 60+.

So there ya go.

Here comes the Examiner

Progress again, 5+kts SE, now at 3855 03103. There's a big front with attitude due late this evening and we're putting stuff away and tying things down. Looks like more 50+ knot squalls and will be an interesting test of how it might feel further south towards Kerguelen. The water here is deeper and the current more favourable so, fingers and all appendages crossed, it ought to be a bit less savage that the last big one.
We'll keep you posted.

Latest Position

Posted by I & G in the UK.

Backwards to christmas

Position 0630 3rd 3843 03037 trip 52 DMG 45 - another day of going sideways. We shall overcome!

I spent an hour hand steering under wonderful clear moonlit sky last night - boat heading 210, speed 1.5ish kts through the water, course over the ground 010 @ 1.1 kts. Better to be going backwards at 1 knot that 2! Us daggy old australians from Sydney don't expect that sort of thing. No surprise to a Pom or anyone from a tidal area. Or, I suppose, those of us who sail boats back from Hobart after the race.

Much fixing of fiddly stuff in the calms - frinstance Pete has dismantled the sink, swapped taps, waterproofed joints and will resika the sink shortly. We've always had wet feet when standing next to it - salt water pump has always leaked. Cheap and nasty temporary fix from Dunedin after roll that became semi permanent because too low on the list.

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Still stuck in Africa

More ferals - there are a couple of Prions displaying around us - small shining white greyish speckled and gracefully acrobatic. And a glimpse of a Storm Petrel, small one. In case anyone is interested in seeing what I'm seeing, the book I'm using to try to put names on them all is Onley, Derek and Paul Scofield, Albatrosses, Petrels and Shearwaters of the World, Princeton Field Guides, Princeton U.P., Princeton, N.J., 2007 sent to me by Carla via Amazon - thanks C! Wonderful book.

Sue - just checking that all those wind speeds are kmh not knots. If so, manageable. Have chart will travel. If we can anchor in Baie de l'Oiseau, which Cook named Christmas Harbour, and follow in the wake of Ross and Crozier and all the the rest, my year will be made. They all had to warp up the bay - square riggers don't point - but we might even sail in. Does ambition have no fetters?

Becalmed at nearly 40 S - not expected! Still in the clutches of the current and going north at 2.5 knots. Frustratious but a glorious night.
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