Day 24 - Moving On

We ran downwind all night to a wonderful NW wind. When the wind finally settle down just after midnight we laid a dead straight track to 118T which would have taken us 1 mile to the east of the island. I had kept the boat speed down to about 5.5 kts in the 20 kt wind and Jeff did a flawless job of steering.

I slept in 2-hour segments and at 5 AM with dawn just breaking we were 11 miles NW of the island and we would likely reach it at 7 AM, which was about 2 hours earlier than I wished. I cross checked the relative position of the island with both of the laptop navigation programs and the radar unit, and they were all consistent. It was a cloudy and drizzly day and I could see no sign of the island. I tried to slow the boat down by reducing sail to perhaps 30 sq ft but that still left us 3 hours away from the island, so I rolled the sail in to 15 sq ft and turned the wheel hard to starboard to heave to with the sail back winded. We lay beam on to the sea as I had expected, but the small amount of sail did much to dampen the rolling. We were now drifting at 1.1 kt to 180T which would eventually pass us 7 miles to the west of the island. I would hold this posture until I established communication with Andy and hopefully the harbor master. The northern wind was to persist until noon then back to the west until the following day so I felt that the boat was in a commanding position. With several hours of leisure ahead of me I had a cup of hot tea then returned to bed.

I was up at 8 AM to find us 7 miles NW of the island. A cargo ship was passing 4 miles to my NE. I stuck my head out of the companionway but could not see the island through the drizzle and mist. I could understand why lookouts were such a big deal before the 20th century, given that one could miss a volcano so close in this not particularly bad weather. And I suppose that for small boats the same thing applied before the advent of GPS in the 80's. I was monitoring VHF 78 in case Andy called, and would wait until 9 PM before calling him.

I contacted Andy on VHF 78 just after 9 AM and gave him my position. He had Stanley the harbor master call me and we had a conversation about the prospects of anchoring. His opinion was that conditions were too rough to anchor near the village, which did not surprise me at all. I asked about the anchorage on the leeward side of the island and he did not know much about that side, in particular the holding ground. I thanked him for his advice and let him know that I would be moving on. Stanley expressed regret and said that if I had arrive yesterday I would have been able to anchor. I replied that we are all in the lap of the gods and must deal with things bigger than ourselves. I told him that it had not been a waste because through the Web I had become familiar with the island and so had many of the readers of this blog. We exchanged Christmas greetings and signed off.

I then hailed Andy. He remembered Jeanne Socrates and I relayed her regards to him. I explained that she was at about our latitude on the other side of S. America, expected to round the Horn in early January, and would contact him as she passed by Tristan.

With that I gave Andy my sincere thanks for all of the help and cooperation that he had given to Brenda and myself. We exchanged our farewells and Christmas wishes and signed off.

Francois will be departing from Bracui, Brazil in early January with the intent of visiting the island. He might get lucky and arrive on a clear day with a gentle southerly breeze. He has a large modern boat with no doubt better anchoring equipment than Pachuca's. He will also be accompanied by several crew. These factors will be in his favor. [Note to Francois: Notify Tristan of your plans to visit before departing from Brazil.]

I then gybed the boat and set the headsail for the ENE at 5 kts, taking us past the north side of the island. As though the weather gods were giving me a consolation gift the sky cleared enough so that I could see both sides of the island rising from the sea and the cloud-shrouded outline of the volcano. I took videos and still photographs.

At noon our position was 36S54, 012W15, giving us a n-n distance of 80 miles in the direction 121T. The n-n distance was meaningless because it represented a detour of 76 miles to the SE to reach the island, followed by several hours hove to, followed by 11 miles to the NE after the decision to abort the visit. The barometer had dropped 10 points to 1010 hPa.

My focus now would be, of course, the Cape area of S. Africa, 1575 miles to the east. I would try to center the passage along latitude 35S, 2 degrees higher that the recommendation. I was seeking to escape or at least minimize the strong winds because I did not want to face another ordeal like the previous week. The lighter winds would slow my passage, but so be it. I calculated the slowest passage time to be 23.6 days, putting me in S. Africa on 16 January. (Slowest time = (distance x 1.2)/80) I calculated the best time, assuming 100 miles per day, at 19 days.

Tasks for the next periods of calm weather included:
- Connecting the spare gas cylinder currently riding on the stern rail
- Storing the 50 lb Swarbrick anchor back under the port quarter berth to move its weight from the front of the boat
- Repair the spray dodger
- Treat the sliding hatch with silicone lubricant

I thought of putting the canvas spray dodgers back on the rails. I took them down in Hawaii after concluding that they were not doing much good. However, it occurred to me that they would provide good windage well aft of the mast while hove to, thereby encouraging the hull to point more into the wind. Then I thought that if one of those savage waves were to hit one of the dodgers the result would be either a torn dodger or bent stanchions. I would have to think about this a bit more.

At 12.30 the wind backed to the west as expected and I gybed the boat and we were now running due east. It was a very good wind and I expected to to ride it for 24 hours. I called Andy and asked him if his community has a fishing fleet that I should be watching out for. There is no Tristan fishing fleet in these waters and any fishing boats I see will be poachers. I agreed to report any fishing boats in the area. The day had cleared, the sun was out, and I was able to take a pretty good video of the island.

After lunch and a lie down I put in 1.5 hours to moving the heavy Swarbrick anchor back to the quarter berth storage. I took the opportunity to have another look at the engine instrumentation wiring (found no problem) and to liberally spray the throttle/gear shift mechanism with WD40.

At 3.30 PM I noticed that the wind must have veered 20 degrees because we were now headed 118T and I did not want to reach 37S, only 7 miles to the south. I gybed the boat which put us on 075T, not bad considering that Cape Town was at 084T.

I opened my first bottle of wine on this passage, a 2010 100% malbec. Bloody marvelous! My plan is to enjoy a half bottle of wine per day. Over a 22 day period that makes 11 bottles, leaving an excess of 11. If I show up in S Africa with too much wine and customs makes an issue of it I don't see why I just can't simply pay the duty on it. I can produce the invoice showing the retail cost of each bottle.

The wind died down much lower that predicted by the grib file, and a weak wind with a strong sea make for difficult sailing. I reduced sail and put the boat more into the wind and for now we were coping OK doing 3.3 kts to 055T.

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