All things fishy 16:57.50N 24:43.10W
Lady Corinne
iain and gaynor macalister
Sun 27 Dec 2009 03:28
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Saturday 26th December 2009, 18.33
Good afternoon and we hope you're having a lovely
Christmas and not suffering from the after effects of too much of
everything. We're on the road again as the place we chose to spend
Christmas day in didn't quite live up to expectations. Robin emailed
me with approach details, and congratulated me for choosing the most uninhabited
island of the whole group. We stood off 'till daylight and then
slowly entered and nosed our way in towards the beach. We were a little
concerned at the breaking surf either side of the entrance but made cautious
progress through a patch of quiet water in the middle. Once past the
entrance we continued towards where we could see a jetty in the distance but
stopped when shoaling meant we had almost no water under our keel. Turning
around and heading to a deeper part we dropped anchor about 1.5 miles off a
beautiful beach. A Spanish guy who was having an early morning Christmas
day surf came paddling over to us when we hailed him. He said it wasn't 't
possible to reach the jetty in the prevailing conditions and said that there was
a warning for big seas coming into the bay in the next couple of days and then
some bad weather. He suggested that if we were to stay there
it would be uncomfortable as they were expecting a 6 - 8 metre
swell. We decided to get some diesel and get out the way we'd
come. We spent an action packed 45 mins getting the new dingy
(which I have never seen before) out of its stowage and onto the coachouse
roof. After a short time we got it all sorted and into the water
alongside. Next the new outboard (which I have never seen before) fixed
onto the bracket. Filled with fuel and ready for off? Not likely, Max
pulled at the starter for what seemed like an eternity, at one point it
reluctantly fired up for a moment then died. This is a new engine
and I expected it to start OK, What do we need? fuel and spark, well fuel we had
so I backed the spark plug out and it was oiled up. It came with a
spare so I fitted that, still nothing, "Shall we row" asked Max - Interesting
concept as we were planning to pick up 75 ltrs of diesel. Then we
discovered that the fuel tap was marked in a totally non-sensible way and what
we had thought was on was actually off! Right we're all loaded with empty
cans, Passports, money, hand held VHF to be able to update Gaynor, who had
reluctantly agreed to stay behind and make sure that LadyC didn't drag her
anchor. We made it to the beach and there were a few slightly curious
locals checking us out but absolutely no signs of any Christmas activity.
Max hailed a passing pick-up and the driver very kindly agreed to take us, and
our cans to the petrol station where we started filling them up with diesel. On
filling the second 25Ltr I noticed that it had a very small puncture hole
in the bottom. The attendant was very helpful and took me into the workshop
where he offered me the only drum he had which was 50Ltr. This is going to
be a challenge to get this back in the dingy, but we had to have fuel. Our
newly acquired "Driver" then took us to the Hotel to see if we could get any
more info and the people there confirmed that we'd be better off clearing out
than staying.
I made a solo trip back to the boat with two full
cans and put 25ltrs into the tank and went back to the beach with the
recently emptied drum,where, with the unasked for help of a local guy who
didn't really seem to be with it and was definately under the influence of
something , managed to take 25 out of the
full 50 ltr drum so we could carry them both back. It actually
worked quite well as we now had 100 ltrs. Arriving on the beach I actually
felt sea-sick as soon as I stood on land and was very floaty for the duration of
the fuel procurement and transporting episode, which seemed to go on for
ever. Fuelled up and everthing stowed we upped anchor and set off
. It was our intention to go North of the island of Sau Nicolau, but it
would have been difficult and would have put us on a lee-shore (a
shore which the wind is pushing you straight onto) so we dived South
until reducing depths spooked us in the early hours of this morning and we
tacked out away from the island. We have spent the day coming back and
going around the East end of the island and we are now heading up to
Mindelo on the neighboring island of Sau Vicente where we are told that there is
a new marina. Robin, do you think I'll ever be as wise as you are?
We need to do some work to sort out the rope munching blocks at the mast head as
we can't set off with them having to be replaced every couple of days. I'll see
if I can find someone to splice wire onto the top section of the halyard where
they run through the blocks (encased pulley that a rope runs around). It may
mean getting new blocks but should sort the problem out. When Zara and
Simon came out to Mowgan to see us they left us a Christmas present with strict
instructions that it mustn't be opened 'till the 25th. When they heard
that we were likely to be ashore we got permission to open it.
Christmas eve saw us, very excitedly, opening a present about the size of a
shoe box containing everything you could possibly need for a party,
hats,crackers, party poppers, small bottles of vodka, whisky and Baileys a
CD of Toones with a lovely personal greeting from them and a miniature tree
bedecked with flashing lights. We're
enjoying the tree but still looking for somewhere we can start our party,
glancing at the screen beside me that will be in 3 hours and 57 minutes and is
at the top of our priority list. It's 19 miles to Mindello and I'm doing a
very comfortable 5 knots under main,inner and mizzen. There are a
couple of Dolphins beside me, I keep hearing them exhale as they break the
surface to come up for air. Today was a lovely day and the wind across the
water was creating a steady pattern of breaking white horses on the surface of
the fairly large swell we were heading into. This morning I went and
sat up on the pulpit (Tubular stainless steel frame that runs around the
front of the boat at about mid thigh height) and watched a mass of Dolphins all
around, including two babies who appeared top be out with their mothers for the
first time, they were being well chaperoned. As the swell was quite big,
occasional peaks saw the front of the bowsprit, 8ft ahead of me, rising to
around 20ft before coming back down so hard it momentarily went underwater,
giving me a dousing at the same time. I was only in board shorts but the water
is so warm here it makes me wonder if the volcanoes, that are all around, are
actually dormant. On the way back to the cockpit I found a flying
fish on the deck, (sorry Tristan, and we didn't even have a line out for
this one) rigormortise had set in so I didn't even attempt mouth-to-mouth in
spite of it having its lips all puckered-up as if it was expecting a kiss. We
named it Beefy as it looked a bit like a B52 and gave it to the
Dolphins. The Flying fish are pretty amazing things, seeing as they
are near the bottom of the marine food chain, they are pursued by, amongst
other things, Dolphin and Tuna, and when they see a predator they use a strong
tail fin wagging technique to exit the water and then, with their wings
outstretched, glide above the surface, When they can't fly any
further they touch the surface and use their tails to give them
another lift off, This can go on for some time and they can
cover quite a distance, that is until some idiot puts a 15 ton wooden boat in
their way, The _expression_ on his face was one of pure comedy. Not
for him but I don't think he would have suffered. Next on the list were
what appeared to be Dolphins who had either been working out at Cannons or
taking illegal steroids. It turned out we had sailed right through a vast
number of pilot whales and they were all around us for about twenty minutes,
surfacing and blowing, They were swimming under the boat and interfering
with the signal sent out by our depth sounder. Makes me wonder if those depth
readouts last night were shoals or Whales. Thanks to everyone who
sent us Christmas wishes it was great to receive your emails.
Hasta a Fiesta
Lady C and pre-party
crew
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