Bridgetown shopping

One for Chris Grist… it does rain here!

Whizzzzzzz….

And relax and swim

Harriet’s Cabin for a Lamb Srew lunch

Being British is not always a good thing in my opinion. Independence came to Barbados in 1966 after three centuries of British influence. Some of this influence remains today, red post boxes for example but more irritatingly, the British love for bureaucracy still pervades officialdom.

On arrival we had to visit three separate offices to check in to the country. This necessitated filling in a different set of forms in each office, these being health, customs and immigration. We filled in pretty much the same information on each set of forms, name, passport number, last port of call etc as we moved between offices. Speedy it was not.

It’s been a while since either of us has used blue carbon paper which allowed copies to made in triplicate. The official who guided us through customs was hidden behind stacks of paperwork and the spare desk had several teetering piles. Bear in mind, in our two weeks in Barbados at least one cruise ship or occasionally four a day have been docked in Bridgetown, that’s an awful lot of paperwork.

Today we checked out in preparation for departing tomorrow. Once again we visited three offices. And once again we filled in at least two forms in each office with the same aforementioned blue carbon paper. Some of the forms were exactly the same as the ones we filled in when we arrived. I suggest somewhat hesitantly so I don’t appear to be a ‘shouty shouty know all’ that the system could possible be more streamlined.

Our other recent experience with officialdom was with the American Embassy. The form filling online was frustrating and long. (There were some shouty shouty moments during this experience). The actual interview and delivery of the passports was smooth and straightforward. Our passports now each sport a 10 year visitors visa. Our short to medium term plan (which was actually plan A when we left the UK) is to cruise the Caribbean for the rest of the winter and spring then head north to the States to avoid hurricane season.

Tomorrow we plan to pull up the anchor and head to Grenada. Should be about 24 hours to our planned destination. Barbados has been so so friendly, welcoming and relaxing. We’ve been blown away by the helpful gracious nature of the people. Unsurprisingly, we’ll miss seeing turtles swimming around the boat, the wreck to snorkel on in the bay just a few hundred metres away and the welcoming hospitality of the yacht club ashore.

The benchmark has been set for the rest of the Caribbean now.

Relaxing on the beach

West coast of Barbados

Harrison’s Cave

Harrison’s Cave

Palm tree

Wild East Coast with Atlantic Rollers

coffee stop

Beach comeing (not sure that’s spelt correctly)

Nice place to be a lifeguard

Yesterday we hooked up with another English Couple, Polly and Andrew who are anchored next to us and headed off around the Island.

My impression is Barbados is an island of three parts. The East Atlantic Coast is wild and undeveloped. The day was particularly windy and rollers crashed continuously onto the beach.  No need to pay any money for a facial sand scrub on the beach here.

The interior of the island is green and lush. Unlike the rest of the Caribbean, Barbados is not volcanic. It’s also young in geological terms. A limestone ridge runs in the interior and it was here we went to visit Harrison’s Caves. We both thought it had potential to be a bit naff, especially with Dave’s caving experience, but actually it was very impressive and the formations were amazingly unspoilt.

The West Coast is completely set up for tourists with villas, shopping and hotels, especially around Holetown. Not really our natural environment but the beaches are beautiful and the sea lacking in rollers like the east coast.

Today we’re in the Yacht club printing out documentation as we have an appointment tomorrow at the US Embassy to apply for a tourist visa. Arriving by plane or cruise ship doesn’t require the same visa as arriving on your own boat. So hopefully we have everything needed now and the process is straightforward.

View from the boat

Food stocks were pretty low on the boat. Not much fresh stuff left at all. And the excitement of getting here has meant we’ve eaten out quite a bit. As some point we needed to get back to cooking for ourselves…. Although the jerk chicken and flying fish sandwiches I can highly recommend.

After some research online (we’ve sneakily managed to log onto the Radisson hotel internet from the boat at anchor using our wifi booster) we found a supermarket about an hour’s walk away up the beach.

We shopped, bizarrely the store had a fine range of pricy Waitrose products, then decided to get a taxi back.

We all meet people, sometimes fleetingly, who leave their gentle footprint and a part of their goodness with us. Victor, our the taxi driver, was such a man. A true smily open Barbadian, he talked about being proud of his country, its values of welcoming visitors from wherever in the world and the importance of education in broadening an individual’s view of the world. In practical terms he brought us back from the supermarket. But he gave us so much more.

In ten minutes he spoke more sense than a bunch of politicians can in a lifetime. The line that resonated most…”Even though we’re a slave nation, we have no animosity in our hearts.” Good on ya Victor. I shook his hand when we got out and told him he was the best ambassador his country could possibly have.

Not sure it’s appropriate to write anything else after those wise words. But I wanted to say a special Barbadian ‘hello’ to the folk at Penrith Grammar School who have followed our journey across the Atlantic. Thanks for watching! It’s appreciated. If you have any questions just shout and we’ll get back to you.

The weekend approaches. We will be heading down to a local fishing village tonight where you can get fish and chips, Barbadian style. Red snapper, tuna, sword fish, mahi mahi to name a few. Tomorrow afternoon there is a hash. It’s an organised run / walk so we’re going along to that to see a different part of the island and meet some locals.

No rush to move on from here. No rush at all.

We sailed an ocean to Barbados.

Here’s a few pics of the journey. And evidence of the fish!

Wahoo

Learning to fillet …bit tricky on a moving boat

Mindelo, Cape Verde, 30 mins before departure

Leaving Mindelo, Cape Verde

nice shape of twin headsails

Barbados….view from beach bar as a type this blog. We’re anchored out there.

Barbados….it’s nice here

On passage

Sunset mid Atlantic

Rounding the south of the island after 16.5 days at sea

The reeling in position

Our first fish – mahi mahi. It was big.

Our first fish – mahi mahi. It was big. And beautiful.

Glad we have a fridge

Fish….unknown variety but we ate it all the same

Another Fish….unknown variety….maybe a yellow snapper but not sure

Boys in Mindelo fixing the self steering

The forecast higher winds arrived yesterday evening (Saturday). As is usually the case with winds on the grib file forecasts of high teens we are getting low to mid 20s. Not in themselves dramatic winds but as they have been blowing for a few hours now a big sea has built up and the cockpit is regularly splashed.

Helen tidied all the lines in the cockpit as a final job yesterday evening so we haven’t lost anything overboard which is a possibility with Grace being rolled from one beam to the other in the waves.

We have just a scrap of the twin headsails out now and are still making 5 knots, fortunately in exactly the right direction.

Because of the conditions the routine on board is changed. There is no lounging in the cockpit this morning. No warming sun to enjoy. We have timers set on the iPhones. 20 minutes. H is in bed having done the 0300 to 0600 watch. Im lying on one of the saloon settees reading and listening to the sounds of the ship. All good thus far. When the timer sounds (constellation in my case) it’s time to haul upright, traverse to the companionway and climb the steps enough to get a head out for a scan of the horizon. It’s not raining so it’s ok to look out for a few minutes but not a place to stand for long so soon it’s back to the bunk and the timer is reset.

The generator is on so batteries are getting recharged and it’ll soon be time to try and coordinate some muesli and juice into a bowl. It’s a job that needs three hands so will be done over the sink in case of spillage.

There are some other yachts around but not in sight. We can hear them trying to contact each other over the vhf. I guess their routines today will be similar to ours.

No one will be fishing today.

Evening All (or morning, I didn’t post promptly….)

We are approaching the last few hundred miles now and have been looking at likely arrival times. We will not struggle to sail quickly for the next two days as we have strong winds forecast. Consistent 20+ knots. However, even sailing at full tilt we would be making landfall around sunset on Monday evening. And at sensible speeds more like midnight.

We have taken the decision to have another night at sea and approach Barbados with the morning light on Tuesday. In effect this means we have 12 hours to use up between now and 0600 Tuesday.

So, if you’re looking at the tracker and wondering why we have suddenly slowed right down, there’s your answer. Rather than get close and mooch about we will ease off and sail slowly for the last 48 hours or so.

We’ll keep you posted.

May 2010. The adventure starts
A goodly while before we can depart
The good ship Grace is now a Savage
That year too we squeezed in marriage

Summer trips to Scilly, Jersey and France
So we started the experience and upgrade dance
Weekends in Goole with tools and spanners
Grovelling in small spaces, thinking of fresh fish and sundowners

Years roll on, new sails, rig and generator
H gets a new hip, the NHS a speedy efficient saviour
Next year is the year, 2016, we plan to depart
Are they REALLY going, friends and family inquisitively ask?

It took us a while to sort house, health and business
Goodbye Hull, can’t say we’ll miss ya,
Away to the south to follow the sun,
France, Spain Portugal, here we come

Summer was amazing, an array of new places
Iles Cies off Vigo the dream like creation
But it wasn’t a dream, it was all beautifully real
Just me, Dave and Grace, a stunning idyl

To the Canaries, then gloom and engine woes abounded
We thought sea water had curtailed our future planned travels
But optimism reigned thanks to the genius man from Spar
He’s a new superhero, forget batman and his bat mobile car

New year in Mindelo, fireworks, parties and music
Spent with good friends, a special treasure to hold onto
The Atlantic then beckons, that big stretch of water
An ocean crossing, a journey, the challenge we’re after

The miles drop off as we sail to Barbados
Sun, sleeping, fishing, books, bread and emailing
The days roll by with a true sense of order
Closer each moment to that reputed blue sparking water

Land is still a few days away
Maybe 600 miles at lunchtime today
There’s still some sailing to be done
And looking after Grace, making sure she’s still number one
But here we are now seven months in
Having made it all happen and that makes me grin.

Eagle eyes will have spied our change in direction. We were running out of wind on our previous heading and also pottering towards a windless hole. So we turned a lot more south on the advice of our weather router, his professional persona is Mr B Dandridge but we know him as Ben. Thanks again for spending your evenings looking at synoptic charts, grib files and different computer models. (I hope we aren’t providing you with an excuse to get out of kiddies bedtime or washing up duties!)

Another friend Mark, who Dave happened to be emailing last night offered the same picture. This sailing lark is not just about where you are now. It’s about where you’re going to be and what the weather will be there.

We had a couple of small squalls come through last night. Dave timed his watches brilliantly and didn’t get wet. He was up though, give him his credit, supporting me from the dryness of the companion way steps as I winched away some sail. The radar is a great addition to have as it picks up areas of dense rain and we can track direction and estimate speed too.

20 odd hours later, we are now at a more southerly latitude. Sail plan has changed from Main and Yankee to our faithful twin headsails again. We have bright sunshine, 12 knots of breeze, a reasonably forgiving sea state and we’re doing over 5 knots in almost the right direction.

In the ‘to be rectified’ column, we are currently devoid of fish in our refrigerator. Wahoo in a garlic and herb cream sauce last night with green beans and sweet corn. Okay, the veg came out of a couple of cans but still good eating. The line is currently out so in the words of Delia Smith…. let’s be ‘aging you. (Sorry, another football reference. And you thought I’d got that out of my system)

Food is quite a big thing on the boat as you can imagine. Fresh wise, we still have sweet potatoes, new potatoes, garlic, ginger, squash, onions, a leek, a red pepper and an assortment of oranges, lemons and apples. We shopped on 13th Jan in Mindelo and set off the following day. Today is 24th. How many days to go? Well with that old caveat, weather depending, perhaps another 7.

First half is complete. It was a slow start. Not much early action as we eased ourselves into the game. Didn’t want to use up all our energy early on. A solid defensive start was what we needed. After the battering we took in the first couple of days out of Tenerife, a mid table Tuesday night *away fixture at Walsall in November would suit us fine. (*if you don’t get the analogy here, ask someone who knows about football)

After a couple of days though, the game got more interesting and started to stretch as Grace pushed on and just before half time did a run of 138 miles in a day. We were happily impressed by that. We have a little game every day… guess that day’s mileage from noon to noon. The current scores show me in front but all still to play for. Loser buys the rum punches in Barbados.

A bit of housekeeping during today’s half time milestone – put the ships clock back one hour as we ease ourselves towards the time difference in Barbados. That’s an hour extra today for fishing. Caught another last night just as we were about to give up and have veggie stir fry for tea. Landed, dispatched, filleted, in pan with lemon and butter within the hour. Our friends the ‘Coconuts’ who are about 250 miles ahead of us caught a tuna yesterday. That’s our game plan for today.

What will the second half bring? Well I hope our crowd returns to watch from sofas, arm chairs, desks, kitchens etc and see that small red dot advancing steadily west. I guess a tuna would be the equivalent of an Alan Shearer hat-trick. Continuing to average over 5.5 knots would be a happy crowd at St James Park and no substitutions please as Dave and I crack on with the second half in fine fettle, well rested and content. And we need to mention a big thanks to our strategist and meteorologist in Jersey, Ben, who is providing data. I think outside coaching is allowed and we will pass the drug / alcohol testing as this is a dry boat.

I still have a hotline to football in the uk. The draw is a strong umbilical cord that will never be severed. I can’t reveal my source but I hear Newcastle beat the mighty Rotherham 4-0 yesterday. Good luck for the rest of the season toon army and a safe and enjoyable passage for us.

Sporting PS.
1. Can someone let me know how Murray gets on the Australian Open?
2. Did Armel win the Vendee Globe? Was Alex Thompson second? How close was the finish?

Sailing PS
989 miles covered. 1025 miles to go. Yes, I know it’s not exactly half way, but you have to allow for Fergie Time* (sorry another football reference)

Practical things first today.
We’re a third of the way across. Have covered over 700 miles. About 1400 to go.
We have eaten all the lovely fillets from the fish we caught so will be putting a line out again. Probably with a smaller lure as we don’t need such a big fish again.( I know this approach is completely the right way to go. But part of the competitive me is secretly thinking let’s try for a bigger one).
We’re glad we don’t have access to the internet or tv today as neither of us particularly want to see the inauguration coverage.

Our little tracker seems to doing its thing. It’s not the most advanced, fast moving or interactive computer game on the market but does have a reality to it rather than, well I don’t really know what, as I don’t play computer games, super mario, grand theft auto??? Every hour we hear a small beep from the iridium phone as it sends a text with our location to somewhere and something happens so you get a red dot on a screen thousands of miles away. That’s the technical analysis of the IT hardware and software we currently have available.

We’re getting through reading material too quickly. A book each every day / day and a half. Mostly books we’ve acquired on the trip through exchanges. But a few downloads and books from home. Dave has enjoyed and whipped through Danny Bakers autobiography, re-read Treasure Island (it’s a free download) and persevered through a little self published book written by a bloke about his experiences on a coach tour holiday around Australia. I read it too. God knows why we both persisted, it was utter boring dross. The Australian tourist board ought to buy up all the copies and shred them for hamster bedding. It’s not doing the country any favours.

Each morning we take a walk round the deck to check the rig, look for chaffage (I like that word) and remove the kamikaze flying fish for a burial at sea. I was chatting to Miv by email earlier today about flying fish and his thoughts amused me.

“And what goes through the mind of a Flying Fish as it takes its last gasps on the deck of a small boat in the middle of a massive ocean?
‘Oh, that’s just bloody typical that is. All this sodding water and you go and choose this bit, “come this way” you said, “it’ll be nice over here”. Idiot!”