We departed Ascension Island in glorious sunshine, but a few days later there were some ominous clouds
Our first five days were marvelous. We left Clarence Bay at Ascension Island, going the long way around the fuel ship and the pipeline stretched between it and the pier at Georgetown. We then hoisted the spinnaker and left it there, with only occasional tweaking. As we approached four degrees south, a bank of clouds appeared on the horizon. We had reached the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), more commonly known as the doldrums. The party was about to be over.
The ITCZ is where the northwest trade winds meet the southeast trade winds near the equator. This leaves the humid air with nowhere to go but up, forming into convective storm cells. Generally speaking, these cells are milder than their high-latitude brethren, mostly due to the lack of a strong Coriolis force and milder temperature gradients. They can still be quite irritating, though, as the wind direction changes from horizontal to vertical happens erratically in a spiraling fashion. The thick clouds also cast a pall of general gloominess over everything.
When we reached the clouds, blue skies and sparkling seas turned to a world of gray above and below. The wind stopped, then started circling the compass. Then it started to rain. Then the wind came back, but it was from dead ahead. A few minutes later, the whole cycle repeated itself with the wind returning from some random direction.
The clouds form in thick bands that take between six and twelve hours to pass. Once they do, we have another six or so hours of ‘normal’ winds before the next band approaches and we have to start the whole cycle all over again. Each of us had watches that were mild and uneventful and we each had others where we didn’t get a moment’s rest because of the need for constant sail changing to keep moving. This always seemed to be necessary when it was pouring rain. Other times, we would hide from the deluge in the muggy cabin while the useless sails hung limp, clocking single-digit watches that were mostly drift.
On day 10 of our passage our Iridium Go! failed, this is a satellite communication device that we use for position reporting, emails and weather downloads and it works all over the planet (normally). It can be temperamental on a good day, but this time, after the third reboot, it wouldn’t start at all. I opened it up and found that the battery had burst, which fortunately was within a self-contained thick foil packet, so it didn’t ruin the unit. Groan. Our spare battery was pretty buried. I fished it out. It had only been removed from the original packaging for testing and a brief loan to a fellow sailor, but had always been stored in the box, in a cool, dry, dark place. Once we inspected the 'new' battery, we found it had done the exact same thing and was useless to us.
This was relatively serious. We were lucky to be in the tropics out of hurricane season, where the weather is pretty consistent and not have high-latitude worries about surprise developing storms to dodge. We could make it with one eye on the barometer and the other on the horizon, but we would of course have less time to react and less understanding of the big picture. We also knew people might worry, even though we tell them not to. Yes, we know that sailors of yore managed to do all this, but some of them never safely returned either... It is really nice to have regular weather reports at sea and we were uncomfortable that this option was now removed from us.
Well, lucky for us, we still have our old Iridium brick phone, a model 9505 from the ‘80s (well, 2004, but that is OLD for a phone now-a-days). Maryanne swapped over the sim card and was at least able to make a call to warn her sister not to worry. She then spent a couple of frustrating watches installing the drivers onto our PC using a punch card reader. This enabled us to use our sailmail app with the phone as a modem and we could now send and receive emails (and weather 'grib' files). This is progress!!! Eventually, after a few emails to our provider, PredictWind, she was able to get a near full working system. It is even slower than the IridiumGo! (omigod, I can’t even believe that is a sentence!) Data speeds are about the same on average (10-20 kilobytes per minute), but the old phone drops 95% of the calls, so getting through takes a lot of redialing. I’ve had to go on a weather data diet. Instead of doing a comprehensive weather analysis twice per day, I’m loading half a batch of much smaller files in the day and the other half at night. We can now only see three to four days ahead of any changes. We also no longer can post an hourly automated position report (so we decided to send a manual report twice a day to compensate).
A broken battery had us digging through cupboards until we could setup an alternative comms system - and on that same day we crossed the equator - now back into the Northern hemisphere.
We crossed the equator during Maryanne’s night watch late that same day (day 10), getting a burst of speed from our average of just two knots. The day had been so cloudy that our solar panels hadn’t even been able to break even with our 40-watt use. The two hours of running the engine earlier to recharge the batteries probably got us there four hours early.
Otherwise, the days ticked by with little much to report. On Day 11 we sailed close by the remote Brazilian owned St Peter and St Paul Archipelago (a small military base and out of bounds for visitors) which for some reason didn't appear on our downloaded Chartplotter charts (thankfully we had other charts that did show it!)
At the beginning of Day Twelve, just past one degree north, the wind finally began to fill in from the northeast and we started logging triple-digit days again. At four degrees north, we finally left the ITCZ behind. The wall-of-black-and-gray clouds gave way to fair weather cumulous and towering cumulous with increasingly large patches of actual blue sky. Unfortunately, there was a frontal system way to the north that was compressing the trade wind band, causing what meteorologists call ‘enhanced trades,’ with winds 60-100% more than usual.
Ah, be careful what you wish for. Now we had too much wind. We reefed and reefed until we were in proper storm configuration. The building swell was from ahead of the wind, which made for very uncomfortable beam seas. Since we were on starboard tack, the helm seat was more exposed to the wind and spray. Two or three times an hour, an errant wave would throw half a bathtub full of water on it. We quickly learned to sit our watches in the cabin using the autopilot remote and repeater instruments. Neither one of us likes to do that, though, as it feels too removed from the sail controls, making us both feel cooped up. Occasionally, when we would go out to adjust something, we’d get doused by a wave while doing it. This always seemed to be timed for when we were either just starting to feel dry again after the last one or just after we had given up and changed into a nice, dry set of clothes.
There was regularly something to appreciate (even dolphins), and when were arrived at the limits of the Sargasso sea and met our first patches of sargassum (on day 13) that felt like a major transition. Now we are catching sargassum AND flying fish in our trampoline net
As we romped along, wishing we were somewhere just a little bit calmer, we entered the Sargasso Sea, with its huge mats of floating yellow weed. It was impossible to avoid, so we just carried on through it. Every time we would encounter a thick patch, it would slow us down a couple of knots. Then, as we broke free, the little pieces would break or get washed off and we would gradually speed up again. It’s possible to occasionally get a glimpse the bottom of the boat from the escape hatches when a wave submerges them. After passing through a patch of weed, the rudders, sail drives and propellers were just big tangles of the stuff. Each of us got unlucky enough to get a lapful of it during helm seat dousings. Our trampoline scooped it up big masses of it, sometimes with some very distressed fish and it blew over the deck like so many soggy tumbleweeds.
Nothing much to do but keep on sailing
It wasn’t until we reached eleven degrees north that the wind had finally relented to the point where we were able to fly full sail again for the first time in six days. Begonia’s noise and motion softened to ‘normal’ levels that we can tune out, which reduces the stress level tremendously. Then, three-and-a-half days after that, the wind finally went far enough astern that we were able to bring the working sails down and deploy the spinnaker for its first time in the Northern Hemisphere. The motion eased to a gentle rocking back and forth and the skies cleared. I was finally able to get a good look at Polaris, the North Star. Hello, old friend. We also started getting daily visits from one or two pairs of Tropicbirds, who always spend an hour trying, but never manage to land on the masthead at sunset. We usually can hear them before we see them. Maryanne says they sound like squeaky bathtub toys.
Ah, yes. Two more weeks of this, please!
It didn’t last. The wind swung more north than usual, turning what should have been a mild downwind run into a beating from slightly ahead.
Just before this happened, we heard one side of a radio call between a ship and a sailboat that seemed to be about thirty miles ahead of us. The sailboat seemed to be asking for fuel. The ship kept asking the sailboat if they were in distress. They apparently said no. The ship then offered all kinds of assistance, but explained that he would not be allowed to give it unless they were in distress, so he asked again. When they said no a second time, he basically said, “Are you sure?” about fifteen times before giving up and passing by, reminding them again that he could offer all manner of assistance, so long as they were in distress. After one final, “No”, the ship wished them a safe voyage and continued on. We were unable to raise the sailboat on the radio to see if we could assist.
About nine hours later, on my night watch, an AIS target,” Joshua”, came up five miles out that was only going two knots or so. Usually, boats that speed would be fishing boats, but they light up the horizon like a small city and would be easily visible. The masthead light on a boat like ours would be as well. I thought it may have been the boat ‘not in distress’ motoring slowly to save fuel. That seems like a weird thing for a sailboat in the trades to be doing. Perhaps they had been dismasted. That would explain both needing fuel and not having lights.
I decided to call them on the radio to see if that was indeed them and ask if their situation had not worsened. I got no answer. It would have been really good to hear something like, “Yeah, we’re hove to. Everything’s fine.”
Silence could mean anything, though. The target was now eight miles to windward, right in the middle of a pretty ugly-looking black squall. I let out a sigh, spent a few minutes reducing to storm sail, and then turned to beat into it. Damn! We were going to outrun that thing, too.
When I woke Maryanne a few hours later, I was surprised to find that she had slept through it. I gave her the news and told her we were about twenty minutes out. When we got closer, she went on deck and spotted a really small boat that definitely did not have a mast, although it looked like it may have one lashed alongside.
When we were within a mile or so, they called us on the radio. They were two guys, Adrian and Dan, on a seven-meter rowboat going between Lanzarote, in the Canaries (they really need to beef up security at the mental facility there), to Antigua. They were just fine, thanks. In fact, they were doing quite well. They thanked us for our concern and for going out of our way to check on them and insisted they had more than enough food and chocolate aboard to get them there and no space to put it. They were expecting to be in Antigua in nine days at their average of fifty miles a day. They did have lights, but we hadn't seen them from afar as they were so much lower in the water.
Wow, I feel so lazy letting the sails do all the work.
The amazing Adrian Tyrrell and Dan Bohin aboard Joshua were ROWING across the Atlantic! It was a highlight of the trip for us that our paths crossed
I was hoping to round up just to the lee of them for photos and a chat but just before we got there, another squall arrived, pelting us all with rain and pushing us so fast that we ended up just bombing right by them while I struggled to steer a straight line. Maryanne did go out in it, though, to snap a few pictures of them, give them a big wave and shout, “Well done!” Between the rain, our speed and their diminutive size, we lost sight of them within minutes.
{Maryanne: We were really amazed to cross paths with such a little boat in such a big ocean, and even more so to hear they were rowing across. They did it all for charity: The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) - a volunteer organization that helps those in trouble at sea all around the UK. If you wish, you can donate here. You can read more on their Facebook page or web pages. We were surprised and touched with how emotional our visit made the guys, they gave us a lot of thanks (for what was very little on our part), their family members also got in touch to thank us for our sail-by, calling our visit a huge psychological boost to the guys. That made us feel so warm, and realize just a little bit more of what a great physical AND emotional challenge Adrian and Dan had set themselves. They arrived safely in Antigua on 4th March 2023; that's 61 days at sea!}
Squalls continued to torment us for the next three days. Both wind direction and speed varied wildly, all accompanied by the same annoying cross-swell. I kept trying to tell myself that all of the sail handling was at least giving me something to do, but by the end of the watch, I was exhausted and really just wanted a chance to sit down for five minutes. On the third of these days, we were surrounded on all sides by dark gray clouds, not sure if the wind was finally going to go behind us as forecast or if we were going to get slammed from ahead by more gusts. Neither happened. It turned out we could have been flying full sail all day, but in reality, ended up way under-canvassed and going frustratingly slow. I remember telling people, after our stormy North Atlantic crossing in 2009, that I was looking forward to the nice trade wind passage back. Well, so far, the North Atlantic trades are the worst ever.
Whales visit, and there is regularly something beautiful to enjoy
It wasn’t until we had less than a thousand miles to go (of four) that I finally woke to clear skies and what looked like normal trade winds. Finally! I hoisted the spinnaker and at last got to sit and enjoy the stars as the breeze cooled me from my effort. It was now Day 27. Later, just eighteen minutes before it was time for Maryanne’s watch, we crossed the line we had sailed on Footprint between Beaufort, North Carolina and Antigua. This meant that, between the two boats, Maryanne and I have now circumnavigated. I’m glad it happened on a nice night, when I could sit and appreciate the moment rather than during some horrible squall.
It’s a bit of a technicality, since we sailed to the crossing point, seventy miles northeast of Barbuda, on Footprint from Beaufort and then, five years later, left Beaufort in the other direction on Begonia to eventually get to the same spot. Since that outbound track on Begonia is only another seven hundred miles further on, I’ve decided for conciseness to consider crossing that line as the completion of our (first) circumnavigation, since it will be the two of us on the same boat in one continuous, if very long, line. I’ll write a separate wrap-up post about it, which you can be sure will be long as hell and filled with boring data, so make sure you pack a lunch.
Incidentally, also on this voyage, Begonia has also completed her first circumnavigation. She was delivered on her own bottom from the factory in France to Martinique. The previous owners to us, the Koziuras, then sailed her across the North Atlantic again and back from Florida, making the last crossing between the Cape Verde islands and Barbados. By now, Maryanne and I will have crossed both westbound lines.
Our ‘Tradewind’ experience only lasted a day or so. I’m really beginning to think the whole thing was a marketing ploy by medieval shipbuilders to sell more square-riggers. We soon had winds everywhere from northwest right around through north and east to southwest, mostly at about two knots. That is coincidentally the wind speed that will hold the spinnaker up against its own weight. That is unless, of course, an annoying swell is swinging the mast around faster than that. Then you get the sail filling and collapsing and rubbing against everything it can find in a bid to chafe itself to death.
Our paddlewheel boat speed transducer had been playing up, gradually showing a lower and lower proportion of our GPS speed, occasionally even stopping for short periods. This could be because of a favorable current, but I knew we didn’t have that much current.
From inside the boat, I pulled the transducer out and found three gooseneck barnacles growing inside, interfering with the little wheel. I cleaned them out, replaced the transducer and we had normal-ish speeds for a while, then it started doing it again. Grrrr! I took it out again a day later and it was still clean. There must be some on the outer housing blocking the inbound water flow. After a night watch with a string of zeros in the log and practically no wind, I decided to go for a snorkel and see what’s going on down there. The water was 6km deep (20,000ft), a new record for me.
Oh, there were barnacles alright. We started noticing them on the stern steps and above the waterline after sailing through the weeds. I imagine the little pre-barnacle plankton must be in abundance there. It turned out they weren’t just on the unpainted surfaces, they were all over the hulls (not the rudders or props, strangely). Every dinner plate area of the hull must have had between twenty and fifty of the little creeps sticking out and slowing us down. There were another three on the paddlewheel housing as I had guessed. I pried them off and cleaned the hull ahead of them to smooth out the incoming water flow. It was so deflating. Our paint had been pristine the last time we examined it in St. Helena. Now we looked like one of those boats that has sat unpainted at a dock for years. There wasn’t enough wind to move us and I was due to go off watch, so we would have to wait until later to see if it worked.
Maryanne’s watch was even calmer (like wind: zero point something). I didn’t sleep as I should have. I kept thinking about all of those damn barnacles and how it would be hard for us to get moving in such light air dragging them around. I got up early to tell Maryanne I intended to clean the whole underside. She seemed to know that was coming and didn’t seem at all surprised.
With some calm seas (and in daylight) Kyle decided to take a swim and evict the sprouting gooseneck barnacles that were hitching a ride and slowing us down
The goosenecks come off pretty easily. All I had to do was run a plastic scraper along the hulls and they fell away into the depths. As I was about halfway through the job, I was startled by something that brushed by my back. It was a little triggerfish nudging at me to knock off a few more morsels. I saw it peck at a few of them, but it didn’t seem to have either the mouth strength or the teeth to get them easily. It was very tame and even let me cradle it and hold it out for Maryanne to see. Some of its friends showed up and soon I was handing out barnacles and patting the little fish on the sides as if they were puppies who had been given a treat.
Once I was finished, we put the spinnaker back up and were pleased to find we were able to go a knot in two knots of wind and the speed wheel even said so. Later, I noticed the school following behind us. They don’t seem like very fast swimmers and would fall behind if we went more than three knots and catch up again when we were slower. After one especially good burst of speed, we finally lost them and they had to go off in search of a big patch of weed or something for shelter.
Well, we were now moving again, if slowly. At least the nights were clear and beautiful with lots of starlight and bioluminescence. They said the winds will be returning in a few days (days!). I wasn’t buying it.
Four days later, we got trade winds for twelve hours. It then blew like crazy for another twelve, with us holding on and clenching our teeth, before it disappeared again altogether. Maryanne was on watch when we finally crossed Begonia’s outbound line by mostly drifting. We had now completed a circumnavigation on Begonia! A few hours later, on my watch, we were rounding Southwest Point on Great Inagua Island in the Bahamas, so we didn’t care anymore about the annoying winds. We found a nice patch of clean sand and dropped the anchor four thousand miles from where we last hauled it up. We've arrived - I think it’s time for a toast.
We made it! 793 hours and 40 minutes (34 days) at sea and 3,719nm (speed wheel) 4,031nm (GPS route) covered
