A sailors life for me

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You´ll see from the location of this blog entry that we made it to Honduras at long last. We got here two days ago after 10 days at sea. Apologies for the boating jargon in this blog I hope you get my drift as it were.
We managed almost a whole afternoon out of Cartagena before anything went wrong! The first thing to go was the auto pilot. We had all the sails up in beautiful sunshine and open sea ahead of us but something was bound to go wrong sooner or later. The failure of the auto pilot means that someone had to steer manually day and night and since there was only two of us it meant while one was asleep the other was stuck at the wheel for 3 hours without being able to leave it to check the maps, make a drink or even go to the toilet. The boat was a pig to sail too. It has a kind of cabin built over the steering area which is great for keeping out the sun or wave should it get rough but it means cant actually see the sails or what they are doing and for me it feels like sailing blind. The boat weighs 30 tonnes and has hydraulic steering because it is so heavy that the auto pilot wouldn't be able to turn the rudder without it, however this means that you cant feel the rudder and it is very heavy when steering manually. So I set myself up for my first night watch with my ipod, snacks and water and a torch by my side. Guy offered to do a double shift for me but I was too excited to sleep anyway, looking forward to my first watches and seeing the sun come up over the sea. We had a full moon and phosphoresence in the water and for the first night only saw one tanker so it was fairly enjoyable.
Even so after 3 hours of steering we were fairly exhausted, staring at the digital compass glowing in the dark with no other point of reference made me feel like I was spinning in circles and whenever I stopped concentrating on it to try and log our position in the log book we would go wildly off course. But each day as the sun came up the breeze built enough to sail by, it dropped during the day and then was sailable again in the evening, so we made fairly good progress.
I timed one of the tankers we saw later and to come from the horizon as a dot it only took about 30 mins before it passed safely behind us. As we were going to pass the Panama canal it was essential to keep a good eye out because they could run straight over you in a very short time.
The sea was not rough, just a few small rollers hitting us side on which make it interesting to move around but not too uncomfortable. You have to develop a two beat walk on a boat, as it rolls in the direction you want to move you take advantage of it and kind off stumble drunkenly along but then it rolls back the other way and you have to wait a few seconds for it to go back the other way before you continue on your way. I also started cursing anything at hip, shin or bicep level as I developed nice green and purple bruises there as I bashed into door handles and protruding objects.

I kept a running list of things as they broke down, so in addition to the auto pilot we also had problems with the generator, the communication radio in the cockpit didn't work and from the wheel you cant hear the one down below. Then later the button on the one below broke too, luckily we still had a little hand held one left.
The hydraulic steering system was also leaking but we knew about that, we just had to keep topping up the fluid regularly. Then the alternator belt went again because for some reason it was getting too hot and wearing out and so in the end we disconnected it........
We tested the water maker when we arrived in Honduras and the pump on that didn't work. The runners that hold the sail on the smaller mast ripped off and a runner also fell off the roller reefing genoa which is the sail at the front and so the rope wrapped itself around the rolling drum.
It is fairly amusing to watch Guy fixing these things as they go wrong and to be fair he is pretty good at it, but when ever something starts to fail he throws his hands in the air and says.... oh no, what now? And then follows a few hours of swearing, shouts of F*** you you motherf****er, and other exclamations as he drops important parts into the unreachable spaces in the bilges, burns himself on the hot engine and electrocutes himself regularly (luckily its only 12 volt battery shocks).
Despite the breakdowns the first 6 days were beautiful, nice sailing and sunshine. We sailed for 4 days straight and then sighted our first land which was a tiny island called Roncador. We were joined on our way there by our first dolphins playing at the bow.
I had been doing all the navigating using charts to find lat and long coordinates and putting them in to the GPS system which then gives us a track to sail along, so I was pretty pleased when this island popped up exactly where I had said it would. We sighted it through binoculars when we were about 5 miles off it and strangely from that distance it looked like it was covered in skyscrapers, this couldn't be as the chart told us it was a tiny rocky island and not much else so then we decided they must be strange block like rock formations. As we got closer these turned out to be palm trees, I guess we had been at sea too long!
We anchored up and got the binoculars out to find out who was living in the white building we could see on the island and found a whole bunch of Colombian army boys looking back at us through their binoculars. We thought we had better go and say hello so we motored over in the dingy but it was quite embarrassing for me being the centre of so much obvious attention. I didn't particularly want them to assume I was Guys wife (too much of a rich guy with yacht sugar daddy cliche) as I guess most people will, but it would have been convenient, however Guy was quick to tell them all about his Colombiana wife back in Cartagena which meant I was fair game. I wanted to go snorkelling around the turquoise reefs I could see surrounding the island and the comandante immediately offered to join me, which soon turned into a personal escort of 4 other lads, one of whom stuck so close to me that I kept bumping into him and more than once got a shock when I turned round to find his face a few inches from mine. I justified this thinking that maybe they were concerned for my safety... that is until I spotted the shark. I excitedly told my new friend there was a shark and he swam quickly over to me with what I though was enthusiasm, he quickly informed me that he was afraid of them and as this little one meter black tip swam closer to check us out he literally jumped on my back and pushed me between him and any potential attack, long live machismo hey. I asked him if he had never seen a shark here before and he said yes but not that big. Compared to the ones I had dived with in the Galapagos this was a tiddler. I dont think I have ever seen anything so funny.
I calmly suggested we swam in the opposite direction back to the others although the shark had already figured we weren't dinner and was swimming off. Incredibly, 10 minutes after trying to make me shark fodder in his place, he stopped me and told be he thought I was very pretty and was there any way I could come back to the beach in the madrugada (early hours)!!?? I think you can guess my answer, I guess they were all a little sex starved and for him it was worth a shot, and maybe the only shot he would get in 3 months stationed there.
We stayed another day there while Guy tried unsuccessfully to fix the auto pilot and then had another great days sail to Serrana bank, another small island with another army outpost. From the boat I could see a beautiful beach off to one side and a whole load of fishermen anchored around us going back and forth to dive for conch in the bay, as we were short on petrol for the dingy and getting short on food I swam into the beach passing the fishermen to ask if we could buy some food. I took a short walk on the most beautiful beach with white sand and turquoise water, accompanied by two dogs from the army camp and birds flying all around me who were returning to their nest sites in the low bushes covering the island. The fishermen then gave me a lift back to our boat and shortly after came back with a huge fish which they filleted in front of us and charged us a fortune for (about 12 quid), people seem to see Guy coming and the worst thing is he doesn't realise and just pays. Still it was enough to feed us for about 5 meals and meant that we wouldn't have to eat these disgusting packaged meals we had bought 6 of in Cartagena, thinking they would be great and save us cooking while sailing, but after the first one we vowed to only eat them as a last resort. We had both planned to take turns cooking but it turned out that Guy didn't enjoy cooking at sea much and when his turn came mostly suggested cheese and ham toasties for dinner (which I have to say were incredibly tasty)..... most people don't like cooking on boats as it is hot and stuffy down below in the kitchen not to mention hard to keep your balance and pour anything, whilst stopping the pans from falling off the stove, you have to keep cupboard open with your head in order not to drop the plates you are trying to get out and makes most people feel horribly sea sick. Preparing food and drink has always been my job when sailing with my family though as I have an iron stomach and don't seem to be affected by it. And so I naturally fell into this again here and really enjoyed trying out some new recipes which were always appreciated by Guy who has lived with Colombian food and cooking too long and was sent in to raptures by simple things like fajitas or spaghetti and meatballs.
We had bought enough food for 6 meals and then extra stuff which meant we could stretch it to about 10 days with the fish before we would be on toasted ham and cheese sandwiches. So instead of making the journey to Honduras in 6 days we had planned to take it easy and explore a few more of these little islands and cays on the way.
So we sailed off from Serrana the next day, with grand plans, and straight into tropical storm Alma. Guy doesn't seem to go much for weather reports, in fact the only one we saw was when we left Cartagena and that was because I printed it from the internet, and so we were unaware of what was coming! The waves and wind started that afternoon and were soon joined by the rain, just before it got dark we decided to put in the third reef to make the sail smaller and already had the genoa rolled half in. We were lucky to have done it at that moment because shortly after we got a huge squall and had to hove to which is designed to stop you moving far and make the boat stable enough to just sit tight for a while. We both sat there watching the storm around us and then decided to wait there for a few hours till it passed hopefully and so that we wouldn't arrive at the next reef and anchorage until day light as in the dark it is just too dangerous.
We didn't get much sleep, me because I was too excited (for some reason I like bad weather on boats, I had even been a little disappointed earlier with the calm winds and easy sailing....I guess be careful what you wish for) and Guy because he seems to be the worlds worst sleeper and has been surviving on very little and looking like a zombie for most of the trip, I guess he was also a little concerned about his boat (and his house that he is planning to sell the boat to buy).
The storm had calmed a little by 4 am and so we set off again having only drifted 4 miles in the last 4 hours compared to the 8 miles an hour we had been doing previously with hardly any sail out!
We still had a lot of wind but at least we could see where we were going and when the waves were coming and the sun was shinning. We had been pushed off course in the night by a change in wind direction and struggled all day to get to this reef called Media Luna where we thought we would find a sheltered spot to anchor but when we were within a few miles we had to admit that we weren't going to make it by sunset as we were fighting into the wind and hardly making any headway, So disappointedly we turned back round and headed to the next collection of protective reefs called Vivorillo, another nights sail away. That night also turned out to be just as stormy, at one point Guy went down to sleep and we were hit by a rain squall, we both always stress to each other when we go off watch that if the other needs anything they are to wake us up straight away, but at this point I was too busy fighting to zip down the side windows whilst getting drenched and trying to steer with my foot to call him. He heard the rain and sails flapping anyway and popped his head up to see if I was OK, so I said I was fine, just a bit of rain and he went back down. A few minutes later though the wind really picked up again and he asked if I wanted to bring the genoa in, at this point with me grimly hanging on to the wheel he didn't need an answer. I was very lucky that Guy was doing all the dodgy heavy work with the sails, I don't know the boat well enough to have learned all the ropes yet and would really have struggled to handle the sails in the winds we were getting. So I got to sit safely in the cockpit while Guy clipped his harness on to wires running along the decks designed to stop him falling over. However this was the only time I felt that it was necessary for me to put on my life jacket too even though we were both staying in the cockpit.
The price I paid for my comfort in the cockpit though was a fair amount of stress trying to keep the nose of the boat pointed into the wind while Guy climbs about on a slidey, rolling roof trying to tie the sails down, with the sail trying to push him off if the wind comes round to one side or I cant hold the boat straight with the waves and little steerage due to our speed. Neither job is easy and I could only guess what Guy was shouting at me as I couldn't hear him over the wind and flapping. Most Captains get shouty at stressful moments and the crew always bear the brunt of it, some are a lot worse than others though and at least Guy would apologise each time after we had successfully done the job and got back on course. I have only met a few captains in my time who don't shout at their crew (luckily my Dad is one of the few) and if you ever have a choice those are the ones you want to sail with.
I have also met a lot of couples where the wife refuses to sail having tried it a few times and I suspect that it is in order to save the marriage on the discovery that the husband is a shouty captain rather than an actual dislike of sailing!
On waking up for my watch in the early hours of that morning (something which was getting harder to do each time) I found Guy sitting in the cockpit hove to again with no wind but sheets of rain lashing down all around. He informed me that I had just slept through the strongest winds he every seen and swore that they were 50mph at least.
We again decided that we would not be able to make it to the anchorage and so sailed on past praying that after tonight at least we would be able to get in to one of the Bay Islands and sleep. By this point we were both so tired it was taking all our concentration at the wheel to decide if the numbers on the compass were going up or down, and quite often getting it wrong, if we talked to each other we would loose concentration and soon the sails would be flapping and Guy was starting to hallucinate, shopping trolleys and houses.
Having run out of prepared meals I braved the kitchen to cook up some the of the mountain of fish in a hilarious and frustrating juggling act which saw the fish slide off the chopping board and right across the galley floor twice before I got it in to the pan of boiling water which threatened to scold me at any moment. I cursed the guy who designed that kitchen a number of times and even asked Guy if he happened to have his name so I could hire some Colombians to take him out. It is essential in a boat kitchen to be able to wedge yourself in whilst cooking but the idiot first owner decided to turn the kitchen sideways so that the stove cant be put on a gimble (a thing which lets it stay horizontal when the boat is at an angle) and means that there is a empty space of the corridor behind you to fall down when standing at the cooker and no way to keep your balance. So you end up sliding back and forth trying to grip the sink with one hand whilst catching the stuff sliding about with the other. And that is how the fish managed to escape...it was either catch the boiling water or the fish, so I sacrificed the least painful of the two!
And so after 4 very tiring days of sailing in contrast to the first 4, we finally made it to Isla de Guanaja, one of the three Bay Islands of Honduras. In our tired state we almost made a terrible mistake when at dawn we spotted a mountainous island in the distance, I went to check the map of the island we were heading for and Guy asked if the mountain had a peak with two bumps on it, when I said that there were two bumps on the map Guy pronounced, thats our island! However when we started pointing towards it the GPS was telling us that we should have been heading in a different direction off to the right. Guy went off to bed and left me sitting there puzzling why the GPS was pointing us away from the island we could see, until it finally dawned on me that we were in fact sailing for the mainland instead and so had to get Guy back up on deck so we could gybe on to the correct course!
Guy had been letting me do all the navigation so far and only admitted lated that he never lets anyone else do 100% of the chart work, but he thought my maths was much better than his and his lack of sleep meant that I was probably much more able to make those decisions at that point than him. Unfortunately if you are not constantly looking at the charts and involved in the choice making it can get very confusing, you have to trust your navigator totally. After only a little more than a weeks sailing together it was a tough thing for Guy to do and I had to tell him about 6 times to just follow the track on the GPS as we came into the outer reef of the island. I had set two points on a line which would take us safely through a gap in the reef. We could see lots of small cays dotted along the reef and wave breaking over sandbars in between them and Guy was very nervous. He kept saying... I think we should be closer to that island over there and I'd have to say, no... there is a submerged rock over that side just stick to the track that I have set.
Once we finally got the anchor down without hitting anything it was quite a relief. It is great experience for me but to be honest I think Guy thinks I have more hands on experience in this than I do, I am scared of making a mistake and kept checking my coordinates over and over, its pretty nerve wracking having someone elses boat in your hands I can tell you.
So after all that we drank our way straight through a whole bottle of Whisky and passed out for a well deserved and long nights sleep.

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