Windward Voyage: May 2014

Allan & Ursula Ward: Port Owen, Cape West Coast, South Africa.

Shearwater 39:

- L.O.A. 43ft (13.22m)

- L.O.D. 39ft (12m)

- L.W.L. 34ft (10.3m)

- BEAM 13ft(3.9m)

- DRAFT 6ft(1.8m)

HOW IT ALL BEGAN .

I placed my order on Nebe Boats on the 19/10/1992 for what was initially planned to be a complete factory built yacht that l would sail home to Durban from Capetown once she was completed. Unfortunately due to the demise of Nebe Boats in the early days of her construction it did not turn out that way, so l decided to truck her home to Ramsgate on the KZN South Coast to finish building her in our garden at home.

For many years we could proudly boast that we had the most expensive piece of garden furniture in town, but at the time l had no idea of how massive this project would turn out to be. As anyone who has built a blue water cruiser will tell you, particularly if she is kitted out with all the systems and the equipment that a modern cruiser has onboard these days, it is a daunting task . Looking at the positive aspects of this project, l know the boat intimately in that l designed and installed the systems, so from a repair and maintenance perspective l have no issues carrying out the work that is necessary from time to time.

The big day arrived on the 29/8/2008 when we craned her out of the garden onto a rig to truck her through to Durban for launching . What followed was three months of preparations to ready her for the maiden voyage to our home port in Port Owen on the Cape West Coast.

We had a fast passage down the South African East Coast including a storm off the notorious Wild Coast and arrived in Port Owen in dense fog. Windward had passed her first test with flying colours and since then we have enjoyed some great sailing on the West Coast.

The master plan has always been to go cruising, so our plans are to leave for Brazil via Luderitz and St Helena Island at the end of February 2014. So far everything is on track although the “To Do“ list still grows each day.

The purpose of this blog is to record our adventure for ourselves, family and friends. Although it will probably end up being a brief summary of events while we are cruising, we hope you will enjoy and share some of our experiences with us.

LIVING THE DREAM .

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

PIRAQUARA DE FORA & ILHA DE ITANHANGA.

During our stay at Bracuhy Marina l met a local yachtie who mentioned an anchorage where he cleans his hull and does general underbody work on his boat because the water is around 32 degrees Celsius.This is due to the local nuclear power stations discharging their cooling water into the bay and after reassuring me that l would not appear as someone who has had his fingers in a live plug socket we sailed for Piraquara de Fora .
After two dives scraping tube worm off the hull and checking anodes and a general check over everything is now tip top below the waterline . Cleaning hulls is a bit like mowing the lawn . This is when you wished you owned a twenty footer as in lawn mowing a townhouse is much easier to maintain than a one acre garden.
We then sailed for Ilha de Itanhanga , a beautiful little island with a very pretty anchorage with a huge sheer cliff face as its main feature. Tucked in the corner of this anchorage is a really nice little restaurant which apparently rocks in the summer season . We have had the place to ourselves for two days now and sitting in the cockpit in the evenings sipping Brazilian rum and fruit juice under a full moon has been very pleasant .

PIRAQUARA DE FORA . THE PLACE TO CLEAN HULLS .

HARD AT WORK IN 32 degrees water temperature.

LITTLE ISLANDS DOTTED EVERYWHERE.

THIS LITTLE ISLAND HAS ONE HOME ON IT , SOMEONE'S PARADISE .

THE MAIN FEATURE OF THIS ANCHORAGE ON ILHA ITANHANGA .

GREAT SETTING FOR A RESTAURANT .

Life is good .

Sunday, May 11, 2014

BRACUHY MARINA .

PREPARING THE BOAT FOR ISLAND HOPPING .

READY TO GO.

ILHA GRANDE TO BRACUHY .

WE WOKE UP TO FIND OURSELVES IN PARADISE .

DUCK IN TOW .

LOOK WHO IS ON THE HELM.

CHILLING ISLAND STYLE .

WHERE COULD SHE BE ?

THE FURNITURE GETS A BIT DAMP IN THIS RESTUARANT.

BRACUHY MARINA IN A BEAUTIFUL SETTING .

WE WERE EVENTUALLY MOVED AWAY FROM THE GIN PALACES.

BRACUHY MARINA . R12OO P/D. EISH THERE GOES THE BUDGET .

Saturday, May 10, 2014

BAIA DA ILHA GRANDE .

Having done the hard yards I was really keen for Rob to see as much of the islands in the little time that he had left before flying home to his family.
We went ashore at Palmas and did a bit of exploring and then hiked to the famous Lopes Mendes beach.It is considered one of the most beautiful beaches in the world for good reason.The sand squeaks when you walk on it and it stretches as far as the eye can see.
After two days at Enseada Das Palmas we motored around the corner to Abraao , a bustling touristy little town which is the main centre of Ilha Grande.Urs was in her element with dozens of little shops, restaurants right on the beach and very quaint .At night walking around the town there is a great atmosphere and we really enjoyed parking off in restaurants and watching the world go by.
All too soon it was time to get Rob onto the mainland so we sailed for Bracuhy Marina which allowed us to check out a lot of the other islands on route . Its a beautiful bay with little islands dotted all over the place .
We arrived at Bracuhy Marina which we have since discovered is considered the best marina in Brazil to tie up amongst multi million dollar gin palaces , some of them resembling little ships making us feel quite insignificant.
The marina is situated at the entrance to a series of deep canals which lead to magnificent homes on the waters edge all with their private docks and beautiful yachts moored up in front of these properties. Urs and l took the duck and explored this boaters paradise .
One night out in a marina restaurant we met a wonderful couple both professors Philippe Gouffon and his lovely wife Frederique Grassi who lecture physics at the Sao Paulo University . When they heard that we were from South Africa they joined us at our table and it turned out that the two of them both mad yachties , earlier this year sailed from Baia da Ilha Grande to Capetown , spent a week provisioning the boat with one day to sightsee and hopped back on and sailed back to Brazil all because they only had two months leave available to them which barely allowed them time to get back .
They were giving a talk at The Brazilian Cruising Associations Annual Conference which took place here at the marina and Philippe invited me to attend some of the talks .Unbelievable the support that is available to the brazilian cruisers and because the talks are all in portuguese , Phillipe did his best to translate to me while the talks were in progress.We became good friends and hopefully will see a lot more of them while we are cruising the area.By the way , they own a Sparkman Stevens 32ft monohull which now has a Transatlantic crossing both ways under her keel .
We have spent two weeks in Bracuhy Marina , will probably have to sell a property to pay the bill but the boat is spotless , organized and ready to do some serious island hopping.
We sail tomorrow morning for a little anchorage in the bay where l need to dive on the boat , change anodes and scrub her bum clean and then we are off.
With 365 islands and 2000 beaches to explore , who has time to get bored , not us .

RIO TO BAIA DA ILHA GRANDE .

THE EXCLUSIVE RIO de JANEIRO YACHT CLUB.

TIED UP IN RIO.

CHECK ME OUT BOET ON COPACABANA BEACH , COOL HEY.

POSING ON COPACABANA BEACH .

REMEMBER THE GIRL FROM IPANEMA.

OUR NEIGHBOUR THE LEGEND FRANCIS JOYON ONBOARD IDEC.

URCA ,RIO. ROB AND URS WITH THEIR " I LUV RIO BAGS ".

ROB & URS . HOOLIGANS .

WHAT A JOL .

THIS IS WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE AFTER TOO MANY TEQUILAS

RIO de JANEIRO .

Once all the formalities had been completed we settled into the yacht club's facilities very nicely thank you. I have never seen a yacht club quite like it , real luxury with everything available including free coffee all day. After day one Rob was on a caffeine high second to none.They don't have walk-on moorings but chain moorings in the bay and run an excellent ferry service 24/7.
We hopped onto a bus and did the tourist thing, visiting the famous beaches at Copacabana and Ipanema . The weather was perfect and the Brazilians love the beach and it doesn't matter what shape you in , they let it all hang out . Rio is a beautiful city surrounded by mountains with magnificent trees lining the streets and what was noticeable was a lack of litter . The public transport bus system works very well so getting around was not an problem .
Urs and l have been given a second invite to the Rio Yacht Club , so we plan on sailing back to Rio sometime within the next few months possibly around the World Cup Soccer period and getting to know the city a lot better .
After gallivanting around the city one day we returned to the boat to find that our neighbour the South African cat Genevieve had been asked to move and our new neighbour was the sailing legend Francis Joyon onboard his flying machine IDEC a 97ft tri with a beam of 54ft displacing 11 tons . Quite a sight this monster trimaran and our Shearwater side by side and she is even lighter than we are . A bit like the beauty and the beast . He currently holds the world record for the fastest single-handed non-stop circumnavigation of 57 days ,6 hours, 23 minutes and 6 seconds averaging 21.6 knots boatspeed . To put that into perspective , our fastest speed that l noted while surfing down a large wave was 11.4 knots . Seemed quite a humble guy and spent most of the time working on his boat . A different breed these speed freaks .
After enjoying Rio we set off early one morning for Baia da Ilha Grande sailing just off the famous beaches of Rio . The forecast at the yacht club was for a 5 to 10 knot NW so the thinking was that we would have a long day of motoring. Twenty miles short of our destination we had 25 knots of wind and 1,5 knots of current on the nose resulting in us arriving at our first planned stop Enseada Das Palmas in the dark and with pouring rain to make things a little uncomfortable .
After dropping anchor and settling the boat and seeing that this was our original destination it was a great excuse to celebrate and the Tequila and everything else in our booze cabinet was soon flying down our throats while classic rock music pumped through the sound system .
The next morning with serious hangovers we stuck our heads out to find ourselves in paradise . This beautiful little bay surrounded by tropical rain forest and far off in the distance we could hear a troop of howler monkeys greeting the day .
We had arrived .

Friday, May 9, 2014

CABO FRIO .

We checked in at the very plush yacht club which is a branch of the Rio de Janiero Yacht Club in Rio itself. Situated on the river bank with great facilities and very pleasant surroundings it was a good place to step on Brazilian terra firma for the first time .
We headed off along the beach to check out the city which is a bustling seaside resort and being the Easter long weekend it was packed.I thought l had seen packed beaches but Cabo Frio takes the cake. There were thousands of bodies stretched between the waterline and the beachfront road . Standard dress it seems in these cities is T-shirt , baggies and slops . My kinda style .
We sampled the restaurants and checked out the city and the one thing that we noticed was how freely families and woman in particular wandered around the beachfront at night without seeming to be too concerned about their safety.It reminded me of Durban in the old days .
Soon after arriving we met a wonderful local yachtie Guilherme Moraes and his lovely lady Valeria onboard their yacht Zingaro and since that day we have become firm friends . He has gone out of his way to assist us in so many ways even giving me a shore power plug which suited the local socket . We have now named him St Bill for being such a giving human being.Being a longstanding member of the prestigious Rio Yacht Club , he promptly invited us as his guests to visit their club in Rio and l must add, you can only arrive if you are invited . We jumped at the opportunity so after a pleasant stay in Cabo Frio we set sail late afternoon for Rio to allow us an early morning arrival.
The sail to Rio was pretty hectic with all sorts of shipping on route . One vessel in particular that l had spotted from a long way off appeared at night like a christmas tree . We would pass each other two miles apart and both of us showing our port (red ) lights l wasn't too concerned. What puzzled me was her boat speed and although she did not have AIS l estimated their boat speed to be around 2kn . The next thing , l thought l could see a vague shape behind the vessel so we switched on our powerful sealamp and this object which resembled a block of flats appeared .That prompted the towing vessel to turn on their search light and illuminate this object for us to see in all its glory . Apparently unlit objects being towed back and forth from the oil fields is quite common along this stretch of coast .
We arrived in Rio in the early hours of the morning to be greeted by the famous Sugar Loaf and to Urs's delight Christ the Redeemer with his arms outstretched to welcome us to this famous city . Following St Bill's instructions to the t , we motored into the inner basin of the Rio de Janeiro Yacht Club and went alongside to check ourselves in. As l walked into the marina office , a very friendly guy stuck his hand out and greeted me with the words Allaaan from the beautiful yacht Windwaaaard.St Bill had even completed all the documentation , what a welcome .

CABO FRIO BEACHFRONT IN THE BACKGROUND.

LOVELY YACHT CLUB WITH FIRST CLASS FACILITIES.

SITUATED ON THE BANKS OF THE RIVER .

CABO FRIO MAIN BEACH . I THOUGHT I HAD SEEN A PACKED BEACH,CHECK THIS OUT.

RIO.THE FAMOUS SUGAR LOAF.

CHRIST THE REDEEMER.(In the far distance on top of the mountain.)

Thursday, May 8, 2014

AN AMAZING LITTLE LADY .

My little wife is going to kill me when she reads this post , but l cannot tell you just how proud l am of her for having just completed this ocean crossing .
One night sitting through the graveyard watch contemplating life , it suddenly dawned on me that here she was fast asleep down below in the pilot berth , thousands of miles from civilization in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean .

Now you might say , what's the big deal . Some of us , myself included , really enjoy being at sea and relish the thought of an ocean crossing . For someone with a deep rooted fear of water , this would be the last place that they would want to find themselves . In fact not too long ago if she had been given two choices , cross an ocean on a yacht or a jail term , l have no doubt that she would have opted for prison life . For as far back as l can remember l have lain in bed at night and dreamt of sailing my boat across an ocean whereas in her case this dream would constitute a nightmare .

To put this statement into context , when we first met some 36 years ago she was terrified of the deep end of a swimming pool . When we built our pool many years ago , l made sure that even in the deepest part of the pool she would be able to keep her head out of the water while standing on her toes .
For all the years that l spent building the boat and the thousands of hours that she has had to listen to me rambling on about far off lands and going cruising , she must have agonized over and over about how she was going to deal with her phobia of water .

THE AMAZING LITTLE LADY .

How many times have you heard a wife explaining to her husband that a Boeing points much higher into the wind than his boat does and that if he thinks that she is going to cross an ocean with him on his pokey little boat then he must be crazy . Fortunately that hasn't been the case with us and the fact that she had the courage and was brave enough to step off the dock and join me and share my dream , for that l will be eternally grateful .
My kids and l can count our lucky stars that in this lifetime we can refer to this amazing little lady as our mom and wife .

I am not finished just yet . This is the bonus part for me .
We have all heard about the X chromosome and the Y chromosome . Well there is a third called the C chromosome and you guessed it , C stands for cruising . Well my DNA is overloaded with them but fortunately it seems that l have been able to pass some of them onto her . Since we have arrived in Brazil she has slotted right into the cruising lifestyle and apparently here in Baia da Ilha Grande , there are 365 islands and 2000 beaches and she is itching to go and explore these cruising grounds .
How wonderful life is .

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

SUMMARY OF OUR TRANSATLANTIC CROSSING .

Looking back from when we sailed out of our home port on the 3rd March to now , sitting in paradise in Baia da Ilha Grande , we had a great crossing .
The boat sailed like a dream and behaved impeccably . She suffered no damage and for us no injuries or afflictions of any sort apart from a hangover after our celebratory party onboard when we had completed the final leg of our journey .
For me it was sheer joy to spend time at sea and sail week after week on a boat that l had completed and to use the systems that l had spent countless hours planning and installing and finally being able to test them on a long passage of 4400nm ( 8140kms for the non-boaters ).
Robbie our mate of 40 years was perfect company for us and apart from basically taking charge of the provisioning responsibilities prior to us leaving , he stood a diligent watch . As the miles passed under our keel he became more and more familiar with the boat and her idiosyncrasies and we reached a stage where he would have his preferred set up on the chartplotter while he was standing watch and then when l would take over the watch , l would change it back to my preferred screen.We had a lot of good times and it was really nice to be able to share this experience with a good friend.
But Rob and l both agreed that the star of the show was my little wife . She was fantastic , always working away in the galley producing meals , coffee and tea while the boat pitched and rolled across the Atlantic . Whenever a sail change was needed or a chore had to be completed she was always ready to assist in which ever way she could , with a smile . She has always lived by the rule that the difference between an adventure and an ordeal is attitude and her attitude throughout this crossing was wonderful.
The three of us shared a special experience and met some wonderful people on the way .