Oldies On Tour

Position @ 1200 UTC

Lagos Marina

Arrived at last and all of us in tack. We docked at 0710 UTC 0810 local time.

The last 30 miles were very quiet and without incident, the sun was in the sky but it was still very cold as the winds were still northerly, but backed as we came around the Cape St Vincent.

We quickly did the paperwork and accocateda berth. Of the reception berth,under the lifting bridge and into the actual marina where the winf hollowed down through, Oh dear,I need to go in stern to, no problem other than I had to turn round and by this time we had the world and their wife waiting for my lines! AQnyway I am pleased to report everything went to plan and we slid gently onto the dock.

OK. All secured, a good old fashioned breakfast was called for, so off the the “Pickle & Pie” (The local Irish Pub),excellent! I had to rush back to the boat as we had the electriciasn visiting to try and get our electrics working again. The ring main was a different story, the whole system was washed out by the ingress of sea water and has to be dried out first,

Hapoy hour was at 1800 hrs at the same time England Played football in th World Cup, wartching this game did nothing to enhance my appreciation of the game, boring 0 – 0- 4 of us then wentup into the old town for some dinner an interesting place to be. So off to bed, cold and tired

Bye for now

Position @ 1200 UTC

37⁰ 06.52 N 19⁰ 52.44 W

Nautical Miles travelled in last 24 hrs:- 144

Guess what we woke up to, wrong! the wind had backed at long last. Yes we still had the high seas and gusting winds up to 35 knots and being showered with water anytime the high waves hit us, but never mind we have a north westerly wind and we are pointing exactly where we want to go; there’s a result.

Next the bildge, oh dear as full as ever but no change in the numlber of waves covering us on a regular basis and by now have made contact through Christine and the rest of the fleet to find the majority of boats are suffering the same fate, so that is kind of good news. We may have areaswhere water seeps in but hopefully nothing nasty.

It never rains but it pours. our aternator has decided to packup so when the engine is on, no battery charging! Must get that sorted before we leave for Spain, so on went thne generator. Talking generators, our 600€ from St Martins local “B&Q” store has done us proud.

Late breakfast made up of left overs including pancakes went down very well then we planned for tonight. We had to pass accross the 4 shipping and seperation lanes that go around the coast of Portugal at cape St Vincent . According to the pilot books they can get very busy and after these lanes we enter the inner shipping zoneand then there are all the fishing pots that are about in this area. We decided to double up all the watches but particular during the 4 hours estimated to cross the shipping lanes..

I joined Chris at 2000hrs just as we came into the first of the lanes in the seperation zones. Bang! the radar just lit up, they were queueing up to enter the southbound lanes. We tried to call a number up but were ignored so we put out a couple of “Security” ( thye french word) but no one answered that either so we were on our own. there must have been a dozen or so tankers and freighters etc waiting, none of wich wanted to speak to a “Sailing Vessel”so we had to dip and dive and get accross as quickly as we could. We arrived at the middle, (No Mans Land) phew! half way across when Chris stood down and Padddy took over with me, very closely followed by Vince.Looking at the radar screen we only had 2 vessels showing but as soon as we started accross boats appeared from nowhere, my god where did they all come from. ! was on the helm and Vince on radar , again ducking and diving to get across at record speed, ships all around us and again, no body acknowledged our calls. Another ARC boat near us has AIS and was calling individual ships and he didt get repllies so we now knolw th e answer, haved our own AIS

We were clear by Midnight so broke out the hooch to celebrat seeing “Land Ahoy” the coast of Portugal and more importantly coming around the Cape St Vincent on our way to Lagos about 30 more milesto go. Bye for now

Position @ 1200 UTC

37⁰ 05.04 N 13⁰ 22.98 W

Nautical Miles travelled in last 24 hrs:- 140

Up at 0500 hrs after a terrible night listenig to water sloshing around the bilges. Up as soon as light to see and yes my worst fears, the bilges were full and even splashing above thre floor plates in the galley. So get the pump going and after about an hour were down to acceptable levels. A bit of fun along the way as the outlet pipe outside the boat got blocked and we had to jerry rig an outlet into the cockpit and use the cockpit drains to clear the water. Now where is the water coming in from; all stop cock, skin fittings, propshaft gland and front bow lockers checked, all looked to be ok. That’s a worry, where else can it be cominhg from and don’t forget we had to drain out the bilges yesterday of the same amount of water. The only thing to say is nothing had changed in the previous 24hrs, the seas were still peaking at 4 meters and washing all over the hull, so is it just that being on this port tack for so long under these conditions has exposed weakness’ that hadn’t been apparant befolre or had we hit something as we were banging and crashing into these waves that has damaged the hull or somethinhg, we wontreally knowuntill we reach port where we k now wewill not have any waves washing over Anam Cara. Watch this space!

Next Vince and I were back up on deck to sort out the fuel drums, again. If we decid we need to keep them in future we will have to have a better arrangement to secure them. We had to jettison 2 as they had lost their tops and also the fuel as well as being under the bows caught upin their ropes.

Next,fire up the generator and at last back on nrmal watch.

The restof the day was normal, up and down the wavesa,fighting the wind from the North East and grabing cat naps as we went. I have a nasty coldso stgayedoutof everyons way duing the afternoon andtook to my bunk. a reasonable sleep under the circumstanses and intoevening mealandnight watches.

I had two tankers on a collision course for session. The trouble is calling them, upto ask their intentions. The first didnt respond for about half an hour and though I started to call him up 12 miles away he was 6 miles away when he eventually responded. After exchanging positions he still couldn’t see us but agreed to alter course and run astern of us. It took him all that 6 miles just to manover behind us. If we continue to sail in shiping lanes I think I will have to have AIS, all the ARC boats that have it are able to make contact with the big ships as far as 24 miles away, but more importantly the big boats can see the small ones also 24 miles away. Takes out the “hope” and “guessing” from these close situations.Tomorrow night will be the tough one, we will have 2 on watch as we negotiate the shipping seperation lanes. Anyway baqck to to night, the second ga nker was not so accomodating,; he asked me what I wanted him to do to which I told him and he completly ignorded me saying he couldn’tg see me. I awitched on decklights, shined a torch into the rigging and considered sending up a white flare. Anyway after studying the chartplotter, radar, knowing our speed and guessing his we crossed our fingers as he passed accross our bows. The other two shifts didn’t have any traffic to worry about, would you believe that!

First thing tomorrow will be to look into the bilges. we have been looking during the day but as yet not sufficient as to get the pumps going.Watch this space

Position @ 1200 UTC

37⁰ 08.73 N 15⁰ 33.76 W

Nautical Miles travelled in last 24 hrs:- 156

Well here we go again, after another rough night of discomfort for all, morning shifts arrived with strillgrey clouds,high seas and yes, wind from the North East. Today we should pass the first of the 3 sea mountains known as “Banco de Josine!eph.The next 2 are dabout 150 miles furtrher on. Though they are nowhere near the surface, all ships are advised togive thme awide berthas they can cause turbuliance under water. Also, between these two mountains is the shipping lane, 1 lane 2 directions;North & so they will be busy..

We had to pump out the bilge; rather strange as we did it before we left Sau Miguell, mind you we have had horrendus waves over the bowes and on the Port side, both swamping the boat. The fuel drums also had moved again; yesterday Vince and Chris secured them so today it was Vince and me: It was also my turn to switch on the generator, unfortunatly I also had to re-fill the derv tank!

Much of the day as all others with Bond and popcorn at1600hr ,dinner and night watches. Extra vigilance tonight as we will surely met other ships.

Sure enough, 1/2an hour before my watch ended and I caught site of some big carrier. Unfortunatly we were heading for a collision andI I don’t think there was anybody on the bridge.Any way after seeing the red light for so long. I suddenly noticed the green;hed had changed course,wow that was close,he passed asternoofusabout 1/2 a mile. What will tomorrow bring to us, respite from this weather? I wonder

Position @ 1200 UTC

37⁰ 23.10 N 18⁰ 06.20 W

Nautical Miles travelled inl ast 24 hrs:- 163

Woke up after a terrible night, rocking and rolling and having put in another reef. Iwas thrown outof bed several times.Themainproblem wth this boat on long journies especially when on prelongved Port tacksisallsafe sleping accomodation is made for Starbord tacks and because I have a gap betw M KNPen the bed and the cupboards I end up bouncoinjg on them with feet and legs dangeling off the end. There is a leecloth but it is such a long way from the head of the bed to the clip on the oppocsite wall that we can’t get sufficient torsion on the rope to hold me in. As I said a very
uncomfortable night, I will have to re engineer arrangement

Also woke up to 3spare diesel conainers hanging over theside. he aves are so styrong itis no wonder they went over. So Chris and Vince went up front to tie then back down. This was folllowed by home made Purple soup, very nice, maybe Pqaddy will publish the receipy

Bond “Tomorrow Never Dies” followed and he was accompanied by Popcon, “BP”

Night watcheds kicked in and we headed for another very nasty, wet, un-comfortgable miseableb b….y night, still I made some brownee’s y7esterday and sprits are still high. We will see what tomorrow brings forth !

Position @ 1200 UTC

37⁰ 37.09 N 21⁰ 00.14 W

Nautical Miles travelled inl ast 24 hrs:-170

Sunday morning, wind still coming in from North East around 15 to 20 knots and gusting making it difficult to hold just above the rhum line; we have to drop below quite often as we can’t point the way we want. It is not helped having a current running South West. Sky is very grey and there are squalls all around, never mind we are knocking the miles off.

Vince appeared around 0800hrs stil looking groggey, the sea sickness has really takken to him this time and not being helped by being cold. I have given him another fleece so hope that helps.

Unfortunatly we weren’t in a position to have our normal Sunday ritual, ie, Sherry, cos I couldn’t get any in the Azores! So Christ and I made do with a G & T, Vince was so poorly he didn’t take anything and because Paddy helped with getting Sunday lunch, she was feeling a little queer so stuck to water! So Sunday lunch today was a little quiet still we had it. I tried to make Yorkshire puddings but they were a failure, so will have to try again. Unfortunatly our oven doesn’t get very hot and I suspect that conntributed to the problem, but I do have to say though, they all got eaten!

Bond followed Lunch,”Goldeneye” today, the first with Pieers Brossnan as 007 and Judy Dench as “M”.This was a little spoilt as we had the generator running throughout.

Evening approaching and night watches starting. We are still running under full Jib and furled main and having tocontinually adjudt theheading as thewindkeeps veeriung and backing between NE& N; Dont get us wrong, North is good it is just that the4re is too much NE and not enough N! Still nothing else about to get in our way!