Ken's blog. Maymio Maymio wherefore art thou Maymio ? (with apologies to the immortal bard)
Mandalay
Robin & Jenny Martin
Mon 4 Jun 2012 17:01
Come for a sail Robbie and Jenny said, we are just cruising home just a bit of island hopping. How could I resist such an offer?
Having said a fond farewell to my wife Sally at Bermuda's airport I joined Robbie and Jenny on Maymio for the trip to the Azores from Bermuda.
We navigated our way through the cut out of St. Georges harbour into the open sea and a familiar scene began to replace the eagerly anticipated prospect of blue skies and sunshine. The sky and sea were grey, the rain was falling, the wind was well forward of the beam, and the motion was lively. Whilst putting in another reef I thought it could have been a summer cruise in the English channel or Irish sea.
But we were making good progress in the right direction. The highlights
of day one were a flying fish landing beside me on the cockpit bench in the middle of the night and a 180 plus mile 24hour run.
The next day we heard that a yacht a few days ahead of us had been abandoned after hitting a whale, so we kept a sharp eye out for a drifting yacht and a whale with a sore head. All we saw was a weather bouy and a large pod of Atlantic spotted dolphins.
The good news was that the rain had stopped and the sun was shining. Also Jenny the ship's chef and crew welfare officer was getting into her stride and feeding us at every opportunity. Happy hour was quickly established by the ship's entertainment committee along with the daily quiz.
Such was the quality of the cuisine that it will probably take the rest of the season to get rid of the stretch marks. The smell of fresh made bread accompanied by the tang of Bermudian Rum Cake helped maintain our appetites.
On the fourth night out we had our very own Bermuda Triangle Mystery experience. We spotted a single white light in the distance which for a couple of hours or more seemed on a similar course and speed to us but slowly converging. When it was a few hundred yards off our starboard quarter we flashed a torch towards it a couple of times and after a few seconds delay a lower White light flashed back. The original light was slightly below the height of our masthead and there was neither radio contact or a radar image from the UFO (unidentified floating object).
It then moved across our stern and we left it behind, losing sight of it when dawn broke. Was it a close encounter of the third kind with Aliens or a submarine tracking us. We still have no idea, so the mystery remains.
Day six saw the spinnaker up briefly for the first time, with a long spinnaker run the following day.
As I had followed Maymio's blog since the great adventure started I assumed that the crew lived off a constant supply of fresh fish. Our tally of tuna should cause no lasting damage to the north Atlantic stocks of these tasty fish, as we only landed one! As hunter gatherers of the sea we put a lot of effort into fishing but the success rate was the same as back home.
At least the tuna helped with the birthday festivities on day nine as Robbie and I share the same birthday on May 27th. We had bacon and eggs for breakfast and tuna for supper plus various other goodies that chef had sneaked onboard. What more could we have wanted apart from the return of westerly winds.
After having used the engine quite a lot for a few days the SW wind kicked in on day ten with strong winds forecast. We just had time to haul the captain up the mast to repair the lazy jack that had parted before the 20/25 knot breeze pushed us along at good speed.
Meanwhile our communications officer was communicating with the wide and varied community of yachts in the north Atlantic, especially the ones with female Scandinavian crew members on board.
Our amazing weather and routing guru Herb gave us an eagerly awaited daily radio update. We relied on his expertise to keep us out of harms way, but his forecast on day eleven was as accurate as it was unwelcome.
We had a lively sail that night with 30/40 knot winds, fortunately behind us. The sea was so confused that it forgot that it was meant to be outside the boat. This was the same time that I discovered the sea water shower above my berth in my en-suite cabin. Jenny held the speed record of 9.4 knots with just a small staysail set, although she had a temporary sense of humour failure when a large wave landed on her dampening her spirits and a lot more. But we lived to tell the tale and set to drying out everything when the sun eventually came out.
Day 13 saw the two headsail trade wind rig make it's debut. This gave good progress and easier steering, as we commenced our downwind approach to Horta.
The next day the wind was lighter and motoring/motor sailing became the best option. As we were running low on food etc we could not afford to slow down at this stage. No more serious sailing as the Wind Gods had finished playing with us by now.
Our sweepstake at the start of the voyage as to the arrival time in Faial was won by the newest crew member who was only 1.5 hrs out. The port of Horta on the island of Faial was a welcome sight after 14 days at sea, but it was incredibly crowded with literally hundreds of yachts seeking berths. Far more so than when I was last here in 1975.
My trip on Maymio was a great experience on a happy ship with plenty of laughs plus some real deep water cruising.
So thanks again to Robbie and Jenny for letting me share a part of your Atlantic Adventure.
