Last chance

Amazing day today. Now blowing elephant seals off the rocks - poor Berri straining at her mooring, everything slatting.

Will do full blog later but if you want a commemorative envelope, this is your last chance. I think I can guarantee one for everyone who has replied so far - just a bit overwhelmed by the response - but from early AM tuesday UTC (so 1100 ish in Sydney, no guarantee but I'll do my best. Many of you have asked how you might contribute - a small donation to the iridium fund via my sister Isabella would be appreciated - if you email her at isabella.msw at homecall.co.uk (remove the spaces and substitute the @ where necessary...)she will tell you how to send it and she has access to my iridium account. If no can do, no problem!

H,K & E, have you on the list, also Fiona (massive thanks!)

SW, thanks also for forwarding.

Apologies Izz - hope it's ok! Tks for addresses yesterday.

Super quickie

Have we ever been lucky - so far - we got in at just the right time - glorious weather for three days including Baie de L'Oiseau and tomorrow it blows - 60 knots forecast. Poor Berri tied by long, heavy plaited lint to mooring buoy with the line looped round both foredeck cleats and on to itself, bridle strops back to main winches, eerything tied down, 2 lashings on the furled headsail and we cross the fingere it will be ok. Not a lot we can do if not, so we're going off around the Baie for the trip of a lifetime from 0600, returning about 11 hours later when the wind is forecast to come in.

A seal wobbled past my window today - 300 metres up the hill from the water. I have video to prove it. Smashing day all round.

Amazing place - I wish I could spend a year here with a laptop and a couple of cameras.

Doug, I've given all your papers and the Dagelet article to Renaud Huez - long story - who will understand them and make them available here. He will contact you but please send me your email address asap if you read this.

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Glimpse part 2

There's an easy discipline to this place which I recognise and love - I grew up with it in a different world. It's based on acceptance of a set of basic and common assumptions, a shared and universal trust in the competence and professionalism of others and an (always somewhat tentative) confidence in one's own ability to take part. It is easy to see these people as the same people who sailed with Diaz, with Kerguelen, DuFresne, de Rosnevet, Cook, Ross, Crozier and all the others. Kings Regulations and Admiralty Instructions or the Inquisition were always menacingly in the background - surfacing occasionally to create fear and consternation (Voltaire's acid remark that the English found it necessary on occasion to shoot an Admiral 'pour encourager les autres')- but mostly intrepid and courageous men, usually but not always volunteers, who were out here because it gave them a living. No more than that. There were, of course, the others, the leaders like Kerguelen perhaps, whose ambition drove them to excess. And the obsessives - Amundsen perhaps.

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Port aux Francais part 2 - a glimpse

What an interesting place - physically, environmentally, culturally, historically. Thanks to Doug's papers, I know about as much of the history as the locals. They spend one year here - two month handover overlap between 'missions' a bit like the ISS crews - research projects continue but personnel change. There is a tracking facility for satellites with a telemetry download process and a meteorological station with the usual internet access and an atmospheric balloon launch every day to monitor the upper atmosphere.

A tomb outside the non denominational church with the tombstone written in arabic. Also a plain wooden cross, weathered and grey - in memory of someone who died at sea - memorial plaques to people from many countries inside - poignant indicators of the international and cosmopolitan tide of the place.

Perhaps it's typically French and a spin off from the extreme professionalism and respect between the people here but you handshake when you meet someone anywhere for the first time during the day if he's male, double cheek kiss for female - it's expected and a sort of formal ritual. There's a lot of it going on at breakfast! And there's a genuine Boulanger - yay! Fresh bread, chocolate cake par excellence, croissants, palmiers, the lot. French wine if required.

Tomorrow, we hope to be allowed to sail on MV Aventure around the islands of the Baie du Morbihan doing the weekly delivery run to the many outposts and research sites. Requires permission from the Chef du Mission, who is in the field till tomorrow.

1800 or so sheep on the island left over from one of the farming projects - we had one for lunch yesterday! And there are rainbow trout in the rivers - wild after an aborted attempt to farm them in the 1920's - Anne-Claire, one of the Doctors, leaves on Wednesday for Reunion at the end of her year here and she has gone trout fishing up there in the hills with the scientist who runs the toothfish project - and who was at Macquarie University in Australia studying Lungfish. But he should know how to catch a trout!

There's a wonderful documentary lurking out here - the place, the history, the wildlife, the people, the projects - I'd love to do it! There is a lovely uncluttered thread from the past that lives and breathes and evolves here - just like the settlements in the North West Passage, particularly Cambridge Bay which is strikingly similar.

More if I can - these posts depend on my sitting outside with the laptop and the satphone - local internet is way too clunky and we don't get much chance to use it anyway.

Must have all snailmail addresses in by Monday evening local so that I have time to catch the outgoing ship on Wednesday with the letters. Again, no promises but I'll do my best.

Ivan, lots of photos of Baie de L-Oiseau. We did not land - decided to leave in the weather window. There's still a scattered pile of stones on the little headland where the bottle was left - the remains of Cook' cairn perhaps? And I bet de Rochegude's buried bottle is still there somewhere. I know how it might be possible to find it too.

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Port Aux Francais (population 60 + 2)

Somewhere south of the middle of nowhere! Cool. Click to enlarge, not that there is much more to see!

Port aux Francais

Arrived around 0800 UTC - Berri on a mooring 50 metres from the jetty and we are up in the settlement being rather well lokked after. Settlement just like an Austalian mining camp - demountable buildings for acommodation, communal eating, movies - the works. The Postmaster - selected for his knowledge of philately as well as general soundness of mind - is going to do a special edition envelope commemorating our visit - if you want one posted to you with Kerguelen TAAF stamp, I need snail mail addresses urgently. No promises but I'll do my best.
Norml internet access almost impossible so will go outside into the cold cold wind with the laptop and the satphone and try to send this.
After whch, totally knackered and gong to bed. Saha! Seals and penguins not far from window.

Tentative yeeehaaa and wooohooo.

More or less parked off the NE corner of the island - to get into Baie du Morbihan and Port aux Francais, we have to sail a big circle - radius about 25 miles - from the NW to the SE and then NW into the Baie. Another series of waypoints transferred from paper to digital. We have almost no wind after copping 30 kts for a lot of the day and making huge progress. The Examiner is back from her holiday. We left L'Oiseau to try to get to P a F in the short window between fronts. The one behind us has speeded up and will arrive around 0900 utc so we have about 12 hours to sail about 40 miles - too risky to use the engine at night with all the kelp around but should be ok after first light when we have some chance of seeing the stuff. The next one after that, in about 48 hours, has 50 knots in it.

The silence of another lovely, hazy starry night cut by Berri's thumping and banging in the gentle swell and the sounds of the birds around us. There's one that makes a noise like a road rage car horn, then the usual grrooaaks and phnaaarks (albatrosses, I think) and squeaks. I see them occasionally in the dim reflected light from Berri's masthead light - fleeting wraiths in the gloom.

Several hours later - I think we cracked it. Ain't we been lucky?? We have just entered Baie du Morbihan with about 12 miles to P a F. Misty sunshine, Kelp! You think you've seen seaweed? We snuck in through a narrow channel on the chart, saving about an hour, between huge forests of the stuff covering perhaps 500 metres square - and then there's all the loose mats that must be spotted and avoided. Berri's well travelled Q flag flying but haven't got a French Southern Territories courtesy flag. That would be one for the collection! If, of course, they let us land. Watch this space.

old style navigation

click on graphic to enlarge....

Passe de la Resolution

Position 0630 22nd. 4848 06923 trip 18. In the Passe de la Resolution with plotter and pencil. I'm at the nav table, Pete on deck and it's watch on, stop on. Nice breeze, 18 - 20 up the chuff so lovely sailing - just have to keep serious loookout for kelp - at least twice the boat length, several times as wide and densely tangled. We are trying to follow the deepest part of the Passe but the chart is very vague - not a lot of survey work along here so interesting. Hoping to be off Cape Digby by nightfall then depending on wx, perhaps another heave to in preparation for the last 40 miles or so into Baie du Morbihan. Hope they let us stop alongside and land. Cross em please.

Very quick update

Departed Baie de L'Oiseau 0215 utc heading for Port aux Francais. Alternative was to wait for the next big blow with 40 kts in it and perhaps stuck there indefinitely.

Major problem with kelp everywhere - trying to stay in deep water. Half an hour of furious work with chart, plotter and pencil transferring a string of waypoints to the computer - Cook had the same problem but he did not have a chart and sent Discovery ahead to find a way through.

Bright sunlight again - snow on Presqu'ile de la Societe de Geographie and Cook Glacier just visible behind it. We could not have picked a better day - so far!

Could be a long day - we both have to stay awake but opportunities between waypoints for one or other to grab half an hour if we get lucky.

Something very special.

What a day. Pure, gold plated magic. It's about midnight local time and I've been sitting out in the cockpit on anchor watch wearing my Dutch Harbour Mustang Flote Coat - padded for buoyancy and warm - lined industrial gloves, also from Dutch, fleecy salopettes and brown fisherman's boots - Dutch again and Dutch fleece balaclava. A still, cold, brilliant starry night in this huge rather menacing amphitheatre dominated by the great black lava face to the south and what looks like a classic volcanic plug to the north. Orion to the north west, the Cross to the south and the cascading slash of the Milky Way a luminous bridge between them across my bit of sky. The smell - penguin rookery and seals upwind, earthy and pungent - the snorting roars of elephant seals echoing around the auditorium, sharper barks of something much smaller and the arky squeaky of the King Penguins in cacophony in the background. The calls of other birds - cormorants, petrels and big brown seabirds that I could not identify. A watch with a difference - one I will remember when things get pearshaped.

Earlier, I saw a mother seal up on the mossy slope above the promontory where de Rochegude left his bottle. She had two biggish pups and was chasing them around. Penguins swimming around the boat and what sounded like fish sucking the growth from Berri's bottom. A seal somewhere close.

I guess it can't last - we have been so lucky to arrive on one of what must be very few cloudless days - weirdly unbelievable that we are here at all. The reports I have read talk of the bleak, desolate dreariness of the place but I don't think I will ever be able to think of it that way. Soft northerly at the moment, due to turn westerly and the usual blast later tonight or tomorrow morning with another bigger one to follow. But we cracked today. Yeeehaaa!

Next morning - while I was writing all that, the cloud rolled in, the stars disappeared and the wind came up. Three hours in a loverly warm sleeping bag later and I'm up again and shivering. But it's still bleakly beautiful! The sun has risen directly behind the two huge pillars of the collapsed arch at the entrance to the harbour putting them in silhouette - filtered light through the low overcast. We are hoping our single anchor will hold in the 35 knots forecast for the next 24-36 hours - will have to lay the second one if it looks iffy. The NW winds blow directly over the saddle at the western end of the harbour and funnel down between the high sides.

Eerie echoes

Other uncanny reflections of the past - Doug Morrison sent me a sheaf of papers from his research into the French and other explorers, amongst which were James Clark Ross' chart and soundings for the Baie, possibly compiled by Francis Crozier. I used this to find the spot to anchor. There were also detailed drawings from out to sea of the entrance and the arch, now collapsed, by R Benard (I think - can't read Doug's writing) published in 1784. Benard was with Cook. I used them to identify the entrance from 5 miles out. I could not read the photocopy of his soundings chart so I used Ross'.

There was also an engraving of the harbour in Ross' account, showing Erebus and Terror at anchor, one of them almost in the same position as we are now. They too went to the NW passage with Franklin ten years or so later and they are still there, somewhere off King William Island with the bones of their crews. We felt the presence of their ghosts up there, particularly in Simpson Strait. I never imagined we'd meet them again, let alone here, almost at the opposite end of the planet.

Wonderful to have it all with us, Doug. Thanks!

When we set off from Cape Town, I thought that Kerguelen might be a bridge too far. Boneheadedness sometimes wins out. So, a Talisker this evening, courtesy of Pete Goss.

More tomorrow.

Baie de L'Oiseau

Impossible to convey the thrill, the absolute delight, the quiet satisfaction - here we are, anchored in Baie de L'Oiseau, 236 years after Ensign de Rochegude landed here from L'Oiseau and claimed the place for the French and left his message sealed in a quart bottle which Cook's men found 3 years later and Cook replaced with his own added message. We are anchored opposite the little headland where that bottle was found and replaced. Brilliant sunshine, powder blue water, kelp patches, king penguins and seals on the beach about 500 metres away and the sounds of the penguins at least just like the Falklands. Seabirds - cormorants and other divers, Lovely Cape Petrels escorting us in. Last 15 miles on the wind in 25 knots and rising sea - interesting! Cape Petrels all the way! Worth every little thump of the headbang getting here from Cape Town. We have been lucky, once again but the plan worked perfectly and, for once, the Examiner was looking the other way. Spellbinding! Once in a lifetime exhilaration - more immediate than sailing out of the NW passage but comparable to Cape Horn.

I wonder how many other vessels have anchored here since de Rochegude. Far more than made the NW Passage although up there, the whaling ships in the Bering Strait, Chukchi and Beaufort seas must have numbered in the thousands on the western approach to Amundsen Gulf. And on the subject of Amundsen: From Malcom again:

AW, You are in good company. On 28 Nov 1910 Roald Amundsen in the Fram hove
to in sight of what he took to be Bligh's Cap while he waited until he
good get a clear fix on his position before sailing to Baie Morbihan. This
was while en route to his 1910 -1912 Antarctic expedition. Malcom

Roald Amundsen - someone else we have been following around. He was the first to sail the NW Passage, (we were the 77th vessel, the 114th transit) and here he is again. He completed the NW Passage at Nome in 1906 and was down here in Fram 4 years later. We visited Teller from Nome, where many years later he and Nobile ended their airship crossing of the north pole.

We intend to wait here until the next big front has blown through - perhaps 48 hours - then sail for Port aux Francais. Unimaginably bleakly beautiful here - classic igneous landscape, thick moss, no other obvious vegetation except the Kerguelen Cabbage which I think we can see in little clumps. Binoculars only - we might try to land tomorrow if the wind dies but on the assumption that it is a national park, we will leave nothing but footsteps and take nothing away except photos. A massive igneous extrusion just to the south of us which looks for all the world like one of the President's faces on Mt. Rushmore - but transmogrified as a lizard.

Malcom, tks for advice - will try on departure.

Christmas Harbour

Sadly, I think the man is just about to thump penguins. I don't think the ones to his right are simply asleep.

Some other links:

http://www.captcook-ne.co.uk/ccne/exhibits/008350/index.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerguelen_Islands

On the Wikipedia page there is a map. Christmas Harbour is also known as Baie de l'Oiseau and is on the north eastern tip.

Posed by I in the UK

Penguins Ahoy

I just received an iridium call from Alex and Pete who are parked in
Christmas Harbour, Kerguelens. Alex was exultant, describing brilliant
sunshine, penguins, seals, amazing rocks, kelp. He said "Couldn't
have asked for anything better." They are not planning to land now as
it is a bit dangerous (I think wind / weather wise) but will be there
overnight and may land tomorrow. A lot depends on the next GRIB. They
may stay put until the next nasty has been and gone.
Alex says he hopes to upload a report in the next hour or so but it
depends on reception etc. He tried to call several times and it rang
here but with no sound from the other end. We're not sure if this is a
reception problem or penguin poo in the satphone.
I apologise if this upload appears twice. The previous one did not
appear on the blog at once as it usually does; as I have experienced
a similar problem before I have now transferred the message to upload
from the other computer.
I in the UK

Landfall!

position 0630 21st 4832 06907 trip 57 DMG 35 after heave to and bare poling. Cap D'E visible 9 miles ahead - too busy for description - North Head with muscle for the Sydneysiders. 3rd reerf, tiny heady, trying to work to windward in 25 kts. Bumpy, wet orrible. Fogbanks all around hope it stays clear for us - 2 hours or so to go. Likely to be a bit tricky getting in but if Cook and the rest could do it in square riggers even tiny Berri should manage. Will try to report later from inside DV & WP.

earlier
0315 21st sighted Blighs Cap - rolling fog, 25 knots and it was there - a solid wraith if such can be rearing vertically out of the ocean.

Daylight

0045 UTC 21st
The front is through - softly - and we are 9 miles from Bligh's Cap. Vis about a mile in typical clag so we're aiming to miss it by about 2 miles to the north. Tiny patch of headsail, making about 4 knots in about 18kts breeze. Once safely past, we will gybe towards Cap D'Estaing and creep forwards until we can see it or the fog becomes too thick for safety. With a bit of luck, it will clear later as the sun comes up. I have checked our rudimentary digital chart against the paper one and it seems ok so we will ust it to get in close then transfer - the digital one doesn't have small detail like rocks. Pencil and plotter again - first time for years.

During the night - claggy, clammy black - but almost free of boat noises as we were hove to or bare poling - I could hear the birds - Grooarrrk from just beside the boat, answered Grooaarrk from a bit further away - deep, expressively modulated raspy squawks, easily audible from here at the nav table and clear and crisp outside. They were probably the White Chins which are black all over except for a tiny white patch so I couldn't see them even with a fairly powerful light. From the many conversations, I reckon there must have been 20 - 30 of them. So, Jill, that may be where they go at night! Nowhere.

Bligh's Cap is 83 metres high, now at 7.4 miles so just teasing our non-horizon. Too early to start peering for it out there in the clag. As long, that is, as it is where the paper chart says it is! There's a warning on the chart that says quite clearly that positions on the paper chart may not agree with WGS84, the GPS datum - so we can't relax too much.

The plan - we have set this up so that if all goes well we will be close to Baie de l'Oiseau at about 1300 local time, giving us the afternoon and evening in daylight to get in, have a look, pull in another grib and decide whether to shelter till the next one goes through or keep going to Port aux Francais. Cross 'em please and watch this space - don't stress if no update for a day or so - we will be busy! If we have iridium contact, I will try to ring someone somewhere who is in an appropriate timezone with a report.

location location location

Click on piccie to enlarge....

From the good ship Juniper

It's the waiting! We are now 32 miles WNW of Bligh's Cap, cold clammy fog, 15 kts breeze, bare poled waiting for midnight. 11 hours to go - if the grib is accurate we should then have been in the 20 kt NW front for a few hours and have a few hours to go, but we will have daylight for 18 hours or so and we'll go and have a look at the Baie. We may have to shelter there for a day or two if we can get in, if, once again,the grib is accurate - there's a very nasty looking front due at 50E on the 23rd.
From Malcom:
AW, Baie de L'Oiseau, a place where James Cook anchored in 1776 is at 48 40'
S, 60 02' E. In 1759 James Cook was at 48 40' N, 60 02' W, part of the St
Lawrence River, which he charted, ahead of the capture of Quebec, at the
time French territory. Malcom's Believe it or Not irrelevant facts.

Alex's Believe it or not irrelevant facts - Baie de L'O. is actually at 69 02 E - and it was partly because of the cartographic skill Cook showed in the St Laurence that Their Lordships fingered him for the first voyage. And the rest is history...

Later: 1830 20th now hove to, 24 miles from Bligh's Cap, 15 kts breeze, 1.8 over the ground. Still cold and clammy, black dark, no visible moonlight. About 5 hours till we can see where we are going, if the fog allows.

Birds and all that jazz

Time for a bit of description. 2 magnificent albatrosses - Snowy, NZ or Tristan - huge, and as they scythe towards you all you see is the razor slash of the dihedral curve of their wings, speckled leading edges, yellow dot of a beak, two tiny eyes all set in a circle of white in the middle of that huge curve. They rock slightly when it it really windy, then bank away - white underparts, fine black edges. Sometimes they bank the other way - black wings, white splashes on the inners, white, mottled shoulders and back, black tail - exhilarating.

Plus a couple of much smaller black browed and another slightly bigger, very similar but with a grey head. White chins and prions in crowds.

And diving petrels - lovely - little heads bobbing around ahead of the boat, they peer at us and there's a blur, instant glimpse of upended rump, widening circle of ripples and they surface 20 metres away and look at us again. Fun.

The sun a pale glow through the fogbanks - occasional patches of blue, rolling fog all around, filtered light. Deep greenish blue icy sea. Berri placid, gentle rolling, whizzer moaning at the back as it harnesses the gentle breeze and fires wiggly amps at the batteries.

Wouldn't be in the big smoke for quids...

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