Not having fun

Or enter the Examiner, stage left. We got ourselves down into the top of the low at about 35 south - nice easy 30 knots from the west and tracked south east - but down here at 3650 02047 it's a bit different. 40 - 45 knots, big breaking waves and we have decided that Berri's furler arrangement can't cope with these conditions. The poles are a bit too long and the small jib is too badly stretched to set properly as a de facto storm jib so we are bare poled and easing our way north east again. We've just had a 50 knot whiteout rainsquall with a front and a couple of cockpit fillers. We have a backup outer forestay on to which we can hank a storm jib or a small staysail but we'll try that in more benign conditions first.

I think it all means that we will have to stay up around 35 S all the way across and just work the systems. Which rather puts paid to Kerguelen at 49 S. We will have a better idea when we get clear of the Agulhas effect with wind against current and shelving ocean bottom but it doesn't look hopeful. Gloooom.

Wind now down to 35 again but there's more to come. Poor Berri in rather violent motion still. All has a deja vu feel to it - last time we were here, but further south we got savagely bashed too.

TPS suits work well.

Latest Position

Posted by I & G in the UK.

Crossover

0630 position 26th December 3646 02026 trip 105 DMG 84 and at almost exactly 0200 this morning, just as the Hobart race was starting, we crossed from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean.

We are tooling along at the southern end of the Agulhas tongue in a 30 kt westerly with wind waves over the predominant SW swell of the southern ocean so rolling uncomfortably but all seems ok so far, says he grabbing the nearest bit of wood. Single small headsail poled out to port and about half furled and doing 5-6 knots.

I have broken out my TPS dry suit and hope tyo dispense with all the other clobber necessary to keep warm and dry, but will try living in it for the next couple of days before I put the other stuff away. Reminds me of the immersion suits we used to wear flying over the sea - pee tube and all.

Lots of albatrosses and dark petrels - albatrosses I think grey headed or salvins again but really difficult to identify - there are hundreds of small variations in colour, shape, plumage etc - jizz - and each species has different variations as they mature.

I think - and hope - we are south of the ships.

Hope youse all had the best christmas - we had a fairly gentle one - and thanks to everyone who sent us messages. Too many to list.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Christmas Albatross : Thalassarche salvini

We'll be a bit short of images here for a while. So here's a Salvin's
Albatross or Mollymawk, possibly what Alex has just seen. The photo is
in the public domain courtesy of photographer Mark Jobling - to whom
thanks. More on the bird here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvin's_Albatross
Posted by Iz in the UK

Augea

Now there are about 20 albatrosses and a bunch of assorted dark petrels. The albatrosses are - I think - Grey headed and/or Salvins in various stages of maturity with perhaps a young yellow nosed or two. The petrels are very difficult to identify except for at least one Cape aka Pintado petrel, unmistakable because of the white flashes on top of its wings. Got heaps of photos but there's always a better one just after the camera gets put away. Easy to spend all day out there. I wonder whether one of them is Bartholomeu Dias, or even Speedy, making sure we behave. And Tommy Melville is out here somewhere too.

Back in warm waters of the Agulhas current. Temperature leaving CT was 17, now 24. Portuguese men of war everywhere.

Jeanne, thanks for photos! I'll tell the albatrosses to wait for you.

Time to ring K & E - I wonder what Cook and Dias and Anson and Magellan and Pinzon and Flinders and Drake and Henry Knight senior and all the others would have done with an Iridium phone. I guess the talking clock would have been somewhere in the phone book for those that lived before Harrison. Would Nelson have phoned Merton? It might have meant that many of the wonderful letters and diaries would not have been written - Nelson's last letters especially, perhaps.

Now midnight in Nome - con occurring to coincide with their day and we'll call Pat later. I think Berri's christmas will wrap around midnight tonight in Nome or Cape Prince of Wales so we have a few hours left if medicinal support is required after cleaning the Augean deck left by departing reindeer.

Carol - plastic bottle primed and ready for action later.

Fair winds and safe passage to everyone heading to Hobart in about 15 hours.

Christmas albatrosses

There was one in the gloom during the night and now two soaring around the stern. Identification to follow but lovely and way better than scrofulous reindeer that were faffing around during the night. Hoof marks and crud all over the deck. Santa couldn't find the chimney so consternation all round.

Chrissy 0630 position 3540 01923, trip 89 and we also cracked 8000 miles from Falmouth, DMG 58.

We had to change consultants in CT - Dr Murphy's supply ship was overdue and the man from Dublin had his in port so we've just had small Con with the Doc from Dublin along with bacon and tabasco sando. CT bacon is like bacon used to be before someone worked out how to sell water with it. Toasted all y'all and planning a few more toasts as the sun moves around.

Not much wind but at least it's now taking us south. Westerly at the top of low due tomorrow and we should be far enough down to jump into it.

Stockings and presents to follow.

Happys from 30 miles WSW of Cape Agulhas

Sparkling day - wind has come and gone and returned, lots of ships turning the corner, including an amazing contraption called Shen Hua 27. Never thought we'd be becalmed just here but we were for a bit. Big fire on the coast just west of the Cape.

Berri is decorated, stockings are hung and Lily the Pinkbok is pretending to be a fairy. Carol, your card just caught up with us and is part of the display, Hilary and Steve (and anyone else who might have sent us goodies) your parcels did not, unfortunately - really is snail mail into Cape Town - so will be waiting for us in Sydney as Felix has promised to forward them.

Wedecided that Christmas in New Zealand was the signal for a small Con - are you there, Brian and Jen? - and we will probably call it a day when the sun sets in Dutch Harbour and Nome. That way we can remember all our mates out there.

Happys to you all and all the very best for 2010.

And thanks for being there.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Latest Position

Posted by I & G in the UK.

Fixed and away again

0630 position 24thDec 3442 01848 trip 79nm Will start some DMG's tomorrow.

Yesterday, around 1500
So Far So Good. First blue screen of death. SPBF. We set off again 9 hours after our first try, autopilot re-engineered with new motor and operational and toy spare set up to work as emergency backup. Thanks Udo, for the fix and the sponsorship!

'orrible joggly sea, big SW swell, wind waves from everywhere and not enough wind to sail through it so engine idling to give us a bit of forward speed down as far as Duiker Point where Lion's Head finally tucked itself behind the softly reddish bulk of Duiker as the sun set. On past the Cape of Good Hope - the Cape of Storms - 'Can you tell me where the toilets are?' Car or walk sir? walk. Well, there's a path behind the Cape of Good Hope that will take you right there...And I know why the Portuguese sailors tried to avoid this bit of ocean and called it the graveyard of ships.

Lots of ships and a joy to have AIS working. As I write, Adriatica Graeca, cargo ship, and Rainbow, tanker, are crossing astern of us heading east, the former to Xinsha and the latter to Durban.

Alan, thanks for the chart and advice - doubly useful as it turned out!
Huge thanks to Manuel, Dicky and Laurens for putting up with us and for all the fixes and to Felix for his offer all that time ago in Hamble.

Now for some Christmas decorations...

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Murph - the other one - and the Examiner

Serves me right on 2 counts - one, for feeding the old bearded bastard with the trident a drink through the cockpit drain - no doubt he was miffed and two, for not following my own rule and testing everything before going to sea on one of these gigs.

Udo fixed the very nearly dead electric autopilot and gave it new innards but as he had already tested it, I assumed it would work when we plugged it into the boat. Murphy and the Examiner contrived to jam it and as we were still so close to CT it would have been very silly old fart behaviour to keep going without it. Kevvo does not work when we are motoring unless there is a significant apparent wind not created solely by our movement through the water so having no electric thingy would mean hours - maybe days of hand steering, especially if other things had already assumed pearshapedness.

Udo has now taken it away for surgery - I hope not autopsy - and he will do his best to get us away again tomorrow. We will also set up the toy version of the autopilot that I have as backup so that it will work rather more easily than it is set up to do now (now needs alligator clips on to the battery - instead of the much easier cigarette lighter plug).

All I can say is watch this space. I will try to get copies of pics of 0500 departure for later blog if we are still here tonight.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Seals and dolphins

Quickie to say that we left the Royal Cape YC at 0510 this morning and we're heading down towards the Cape of Good Hope. So far so good and if this goes too, then all systems including AIS seem to be working. Keep em crossed!

Seals and dolphins in cavort mode as we left the harbour. Noice. And I spilt half my first Consultative medicament on to the cockpit floor - unintentionally - so I'm living with the consequences of that woolly sock moment and I hope the Bearded One with trident is feeling libated even though it was processed via the cockpit drain.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Quick, mini update -

Massive couple of days packing the boat and absolutely knackered! Silly old fart. We are planning to leave tomorrow at 0500ish UTC. Wish us luck and happy christmas to all y'all out there. We will hang out the decorations and Consult briefly - of course - with the reindeer and the other old fart.

I hope the next one will be from the boat.

Love yez all!

View from the top

Macca late last night - I had difficulty saying anything interesting. Hope we weren't too boring. Then we climbed Table Mountain this morning, early before the crowds, on the first really sparkling day since we arrived here. It's a steep, rocky climb from about 300 metres at the start up to about 1100 at the top. I was reminded forcefully of how the old corpse has atrophied since I last tried any serious running - a climb that would once have been a breeze was not easy. Pete carried the backpack most of the way. Wonderful view all the way to the Cape of Good Hope from the top, and around to Cape Town and Table Bay.  At the top there's a very swish restaurant and fast food and trinket establishment - odd really - just like being in any airport terminal rather than the top of such a spectacular mountain. We required rehydration - of course - and worked our way through a couple of doses of Grolsch - third best eer in the world after Coopers and Carlsberg Elephant. Then down by the cable car - fast and disconcerting as the interior rotates and if you are leaning aginst the side trying to take photos, your feet go one way and the camera the other.

The photos are here - 100 downloads or 7 days, as usual. I used two cameras but try as I might I could not get the folder to zip them in the correct order - all the ones beginning with PC21...should be first. K, the view when your call came through was PC210001 - noice, and even noicer to talk to you. Photos 2362 & 3 have the COGH almost dead centre though it is really hard to see.
http://www.yousendit.com/download/MVNma3NaTlFveE9Ga1E9PQ

Then we refuelled the boat and started to try to get the insides in order to start packing it...now it's time for Dr Gordon in stiffish mood for two thoroughly knackered old farts.

AIS rocks!

AIS - Automatic Identification of Ships - gizmology with attitude and relevance. Big ships (>300 DWT for the techies) are required to transmit AIS data on VHF radio (Ship's GPS position, likelihood of collision, name, MMSI, course, speed, destination.....lots more) and carry expensive equipment that reads, integrates and plots the data from other ships using GPS so everyone has a position for everyone else, plus a lot of other information. Us little boats can clock in with the right gizmological goodies and use the data and it's brilliant. If it's working! Berri's AIS black box died somewhere between Lisbon and here but we now have a better and, I hope, more durable one courtesy of Udo. Pics are of Udo installing the box and two screen dumps of the data - first one shows the list of ships whose data we were receiving plus the specific data from one ship, in the right hand column. Second one has the plot of the Cape Town harbour with the ships we were receiving in their correct positions.

And Pete, fixing the leak over my feet at the same time.

Happening part 2

A day of things happening - rain early calling for classic Eeyore, but cleared just as we were called in to the crane. Berri strapped, hoisted, dangled and turned while the old farts and Manuel did the paperhanger trick with pressure spray, scrapers and allen key - all the while being urged to get a move on because there was a queue for the crane. All done in about 40 minutes. Ferals galore - goose barnacles? - all happily living on the antifouling. Not any more. And I made a truly agricultural adjustment of the pitch on all three prop blades, made harder because I forgot to leave the engine in gear but a good approximation of fully available pitch tweaked into the old Kiwi and did it ever make a difference!  First thing I noticed when we were backing out of the crane berth was the prop walk in forward gear, then the speed with the engine idling. Noice!

Back on the berth and into the other stuff - Pete making a folding seat to go in front of the galley, me setting up the gizmology for Udo, packing the forepeak and trying to get my head around where we will put everything for the southern ocean. I had intended to ship all the arctic gear back to Oz but turned out to be too difficult so it's coming with us.

Then Udo arrived and we have AIS! - see next post. And more wind and grit. And the sailmaker arrived with re-inforced mainsail and little red sail with hanks - I fitted the old outer forestay a couple of days ago and we'll go with the hybrid Berri - hanks on the outer, furler on the main forestay set for twin poling all the way home...

Time for a cold Con in the bar with Pete and I'll do the AIS post later.

A day of things happening

More pics to follow

Romance behind the bog

Imagine!  you spend a good chunk of your life conscious of the history and the romance and the sheer emotional grip of the Great Capes and one day you drive to the Cape of Good Hope - second only to the Horn as a place of fear and pilgrimage and you see it out there off the road and you ask where the path is to get to it - 'Walk or car, sir? Walk. OK sir -there's a path over there behind the toilets...
So you set off from behind the toilets to walk to one of the great corners of the world...

The COGH is almost at  the southern end of the peninsula but but quite - Cape Point, .much bigger. higher and more impressive. is the real southernmost point  before Caper Agulhas, the real corner and the divide between the two oceans, 100 miles or so further east.

There's a zipped folder of photos from the day here
https://download.yousendit.com/Z01NeFlUMGM4Q1RIRGc9PQ
It will last for seven days and/or 100 downloads - I don't have time to do the picasa thing. 

True grit

What a place - of confronting contrasts, of fierce winds, of the Mountain dominating everything, of friendly people, of security everywhere.

We've been full time busy fixing Berri in the gaps between the easterlies - the top gust a couple of days ago here in the marina was 79 knots and mostly over 60 - worse in Hout Bay further south where 3 boats sank. The wind carries with it tons of 200 grit sand - black dusty sharp sand that blasts away gel coat, anodising, paintwork - everything. It gets into mast tracks, bearings, lines and sheets. Don't none of you Sydneysiders ever complain about the wind and weather - you ain't seen nothing!

Progress - the HF radio is back and working - was a faulty relay in the on/off switch but the relay is on a PCB inside the transceiver...Oh for the days of simple lever switches! Thanks to Udo - contact details available if anyone is coming this way.
The laptop also had problems, as I knew, and Raashid is coming down this morning to re-install it and test everything - Raashid details also available  for anyone needing a nerd in CT. A couple of great guys who really know their stuff.

Apart from that, we have had a mini glimpse of the place but hope to get the boat sorted and spend a couple of days driving around before we leave. Complicated by Christmas and the usual pressures on tradies to get stuff done. Berri gets lifted and hung in the straps on Friday fr barnacle scrape, prop pitch adjust, anode check and quick inspection of rudder bearing and general bottomy things.

Raashid arriving - must go. Will post more photos later. I understand there may be another Macca session this sunday, if they can reach us.

A bit further from the bar

Manuel Mendes - the bearded one - boatbuilder, fixer, sailor extraordinaire - is looking after us in royal fashion. He was up at 0330 this morning sending Groupama off into the 25 's knot SEasterly that is blowing now and funnelling down the mountain past Manuel's house at 50 - 60 knots. The cloud rolls down the side of the mountain in huge swathes and as it cools here, it will start to drizzle.
Fixes all under way but nothing resolved yet.
We had a supporting breakfast Con on Friday as the sun went down at RANSA and Bill W did his thing for us. Thanks everyone!
And thanks too for all your messages - rather too long a list for this note.

Doug - fascinating stuff - and there's a book, now out of print by Raymond Rallier du Baty called Aventure aux Kerguelens which you might enjoy. He has the SWestern peninsula named after him. Malcom, thanks for red circles around the mines. I'll bear them in mind!

More birds

I've been playing inexpertly with the images - might not work but don't know how to check until I see them on the blog. El PinkbokkerZeb having a ride in the sun.

Radio has gone off to Icom looking very much the worse for wear - rusty, corroded case, even though it lives in the driest part of the boat. Udo has condemned the AIS gizmo - a dead parrot - so have to decide whether to buy a new one - slightly better but seems much more expensive that the original. Pete off saying goodbye to old friend who is off to UK tomorrow and I'm contemplating the prospect of a cold beer after I have been out to Berri to bring in the washing.

When the south easter blows here it has attitude - nearly 50 knots around the mountain yesterday. We visited Groupama - amazing machine! 30 metres by about 23, weighs 18 tons fully crewed, one winch of the many worth more than Berri - pete has photos and I'll post some when he gets back. The crew anxious to get away - Manuel, our host here responsible for getting the new generator shipped out to them and it arrived as we were there and the crew were all over it in an instant, unpacking, adjusting - they plan to leave tomorrow if all goes well. Nice, laid back guys, despite their awesome toy and happy to talk to the dinosaurs.

Packages received from Malcom, IGgle, Sue and Doug M - thanks everyone - will try to write separately soonish.