Position: 14:39.93N
017:25.68W
Date:
5 November 2009
The forecasts were right, On Tuesday afternoon the wind
died. We were trickling along. But we were still keen to maintain our record of
sailing all the passages without the “benefit” of the motor so we persisted,
constantly trimming the slatting sails to maintain some headway. During the
evening VHF radio net all the boats were reporting that they had resorted to
being “en moteur”. When it came to our turn I announced “vitesse: deux neud : a
la voile” (“speed: two knots: under sail”). “Ah” said Jean the net controller
and hardy veteran of two MiniTransats “un puriste!”
We had a crew discussion. It appeared that there were
only two boats ahead of us: “Tog Gwen” a 54 ft Super Marimu which had started
five hours before us and had motored most of the way in order to meet up early
with some technicians in Dakar, and “Flying Kefi”, Dieter’s super-fast trimaran
which we were never going to be able to beat (at one point he was surfing down
the waves at 15 knots!). All the boats were motoring. The “race”, to the extent
that there was one, was over, and we were the leading monohull. Meanwhile the
constant slatting of my sails was not doing them any good, so after more than a
thousand miles of sailing we too turned on the motor. After 2 ½ hours the wind
came round to the south rather stronger than forecast and we were able to beat
into Dakar through Tuesday night (which the rest of the fleet, much further
east, were unable to do, so the strategy of going a long way west had paid off
after all).
Sailing along the coast on the approach to
Dakar we had to dodge numerous
pirogues, long narrow highly coloured Senegalese fishing boats which were
bucketing around in the choppy seas. Cheery waves all round. At 0915 on
Wednesday morning we rounded the
point and joined “TogGwen” and “ Flying Kefi” in the anchorage.
I had been in contact with Nicolas by email en route
(there I go again) about the spinnaker and he had a (the only?) sailmaker
standing by to receive our blown out spinnaker. We pulled an assortment of torn
rags of sailcloth and luff tapes out of the sail locker and stuffed them into a
sail bag. Later in the day the sailmaker reported back that it would be three
days work to repair the sail (I’m surprised it wasn’t more) but he could
complete it before we left for Sine Saloum. We agreed a price and off he went to
start the work.
I spent the whole afternoon with my head in the
murderously hot engine room trying to sort out the problems with the water maker
and the generator. I identified that it was the electric motor of the water
maker that was not working, so Nicolas helped again by sending over to the boat
an absolute mountain of a Senegalese electrician (“He used to be karati champion
of Senegal” said Nicolas. “Well, I won’t be quibbling about his bill then!” I
replied). He took the motor ashore and later came back to show me that the work
carried out in
Portugal had
been bad: half the brushes had become detached and one had fallen into the
middle of the motor. There was no replacement motor available in
Senegal so he
would have to dismantle the whole thing, manufacture various of the parts and
springs and then reassemble it. It would be ready in two days. One doesn’t need
the water maker but it would be great inconvenience without it so I am
considering ordering a replacement and having it brought out to
Cape Verde as a
spare for the Atlantic crossing.
As for the generator, I had been in email contact with
the manufacturers in New
Zealand and we had identified that the problem
was one of fuel starvation. I dismantled and tested all the piping, pumps and
filters from the fuel tank through to the generator and eventually discovered
that the blockage was in the evaporator at the top of the generator. Replace the
evaporator and bingo, the Whispergen has been purring away ever since.
So, subject to the water maker motor working properly
after its repair, all the significant problems have been resolved. Hallelujah!
It is in the nature of sailing boats for all the component parts to break down,
at best in sequence but sometimes in batches and I am by no means alone in
having to sort problems out here. For example, on “Flying Kefi” the autopilot
packed up half way here and they had to hand steer solidly for two days.
After the maintenance work we all went ashore in the
evening in the water taxi which had been laid on by the rally organisers to
ferry us to and from the luxury hotel which was hosting our stay here. On our
way in the little open ferry stopped off at “Minnie B” to collect Phil and
Norma. We were surprised when Phil boarded the ferry wearing only a pair of
boxer shorts and clutching a bag. “Remarkably informal wear for an evening out
on the town” I commented. “Ah” said Phil, “so you haven’t heard then”. The wind
had been coming from the south with waves coming into the anchorage. The surge
at the hotel pontoon made it unsafe to disembark there so the ferry was backing
into a beach, timing the swell, surfing down a breaker and whilst the two crew
leapt out and held the boat, the passengers stormed off the back and rushed up
the beach before the next breaking wave came crashing in, surging waist high up
the beach in wet pursuit of the spruced up sailors. Sometimes they made it but
often they didn’t. Apparently David from “Suzie Too”, dressed in all his finery
for the evening found himself literally up to his neck in a foaming wave. As we
approached the beach, the truth of Phil’s description became blindingly obvious.
Lawrence, Tom and I got our trousers and shoes off in about five seconds flat as
the ferry hurtled backwards down a crashing wave onto the beach.
We went out to dinner to a typical Senegalese restaurant
recommended by Nicolas.
Senegal is
renowned for its unique and delicious cuisine. Enormous plates of fish, sea food
and chicken arrived at the table, accompanied by cous cous and rice, all washed
down with local beer and a very drinkable carafe of red wine. The bill came to
about £6 per head. Senegal
is a country with a stable government and a peaceful and, by African standards,
prosperous population. But nevertheless, walking back to the hotel, we had
not been prepared to find the pavements at night littered with people sleeping
rough, many of them missing a limb or four. I am sure it is something one would
get used to but having come from our cosy sanitised western culture, it came as
a shock.
The locals, tall, elegant, good-looking, ebony black and
brightly dressed are all very friendly to the point of persistent annoyance.
They wait like vultures at the hotel entrance and then latch themselves on to
you trying to persuade you to buy some shoddy souvenir or whatever and, when
that fails, they offer to show you round the town. And by the time you have
walked the length of the main square there are a gaggle of them surrounding you
like a swarm of mosquitos.
When Lawrence and Tom went ashore yesterday afternoon,
they befriended Mamabu, a young musician who showed Tom & Lawrence round,
taking them to a clothes factory and a friendly bar. He then sold
Lawrence a number of priceless
Senegalese artefacts, probably the only examples left in the whole of
Africa (apart from those identical examples subsequently
seen on all the other stalls of course). Mamabu did have one great advantage
being that he kept away all the other persistent vultures.
Tom arranged for Mamabu to come out with us yesterday
evening and take us to a restaurant and to somewhere where we could hear some
Senegalese music which is world-renowned. Things didn’t pan out quite as
planned. We ended up in an extremely basic restaurant and had one plate of
extremely basic chicken in an (admittedly very tasty) onion sauce with rice. No
alcohol so we drank Coca-Cola and bottled water. We had asked what the cost
would be in advance and had been told by Mamabu that for the eight of us it
would be about 45,000 Senegalese Francs (about £8 per head) Compared with the
evening before this seemed distinctly pricey, but we were there and we were
running out of time before the last ferry to get back to the boat. Having
finished our meal we were then presented with a one line bill for 85,000 – more
expensive than your average London
restaurant! No way! We sent Mamabu off to renegotiate and he came back with a
revised bill for 55,000. Not good enough. We eventually paid the 45,000 that had
first been indicated. But Mamabu had sadly shown his true colours, not as a
reliable trustworthy guide who we would have been happy to use in the future but
as an opportunistic rascal trying to fleece us for as much as he thought he get
away with. Shame.
Tomorrow we are planning to take a ferry over to the
island about a mile away which was used as a holding camp for the tens of
thousands of slaves who were shipped from here over to the
Caribbean and
America. Still
with the old colonial buildings it is retained as a sobering reminder of a
shameful past. A day for reflection perhaps.
But meanwhile there remains a long list of routine
maintenance work and re-provisioning to be done. The blog is likely to resume on
Sunday when we will have arrived in the Sine Saloum delta 60 miles south of
Dakar. Until then, here are some
photos - and Happy Guy Fawkes Day!!!:
Big Seas
Kamikaze flying fish….
… gets its come uppance –
yummy!
Tom keeps a tidy cockpit – but we weren’t allowed to sit
anywhere or adjust any of the sails!
Thar she blows!
Humpback whale as long as
Mina2
Cheery welcome from the local fishermen on an overcast
morning
Shredded cruising chute goes off for
repair
The fleet at anchor at dawn in
Dakar
