Eek--We sold our boat

 

It's official--we have sold Perry. She now belongs to another family that plans to live aboard and cruise. We have mixed emotions about leaving our traveling home of nearly a decade. We have had unforgettable experiences and made lifelong friendships.

Land life is pulling us back in. We bought a car and the kids are enrolled in school for the Fall season (speaking of which, since when did the school year start so early?!). We're excited to spend time with family and friends that we haven't seen in forever and less excited to be stuck in traffic and shovel snow. Be well and we hope to see and hear from you down the line.

Back on familiar ground

 

Charter boat central - Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas

It seems weird to be around so many Americans.

 

From our leather back turtle egg laying trip back in Grenada (we haven't taken many pictures lately). This was the smaller but better lit of the two turtles we saw.

The U.S. Virgin Islands has a lot of Americans, for obvious reasons. If anyone here were to ask us where we were from, they would mean which city, not which country. But no one has--maybe because as soon as they hear us speak, they know we're American.

Normally, the most common question we get on our travels is, 'Where are you from?' And being from the U.S. has usually garnered at least a little interest in places like The Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Southeast Asia, and South Africa. Once we left the Caribbean, the nationalities of our fellow cruisers got a lot more diverse.

Now that we're back on this side of the world, we're just one of the crowd. And the U.S. Virgin Islands is the U.S. There are multiple McDonald's here in St. Thomas. There are K-marts, Wendy's, Pizza Hut and Home Depot. It's the same, but different (they drive on the left side of the road in left-hand drive cars, McDonald's doesn't have soft serve cones, and you can hear a Caribbean lilt in a lot of voices).

The red light supposedly doesn't disturb the turtles as much as white light.

 

We're here waiting for the effects of tropical storm Alex to pass. The storm itself is long gone but it took with it our wind and we have been waiting for it to come back before leaving to head to Florida.

We picked up the mainsail battens that a cruiser on one of the Caribbean Facebook pages was giving away. Our friends Paul and Chris on Georgia were kind enough to pick them up for us, since they had just gotten to St. John as the batten gifter was leaving. When we were delayed in Trinidad and then Grenada, Paul and Chris had to leave and found a sailor in St. John to hold them for us until our arrival. We picked up the battens and the longer one fit almost perfectly. It was the kind of coincidence that leaves you worried that you have used up all your luck and will pay for it at some point. But we're not superstitious (just a little 'stitious').

Researchers measuring the 'smaller' turtle. One of the volunteers was told to put her hand under the eggs as they came out of the turtle so she could count them.

 

We were able to catch up with our friends Tim and Steph, who also own a Privilege catamaran, but were in St. Thomas about to run a charter on a beautiful Fountaine-Pajot Victoria. It's the kind of boat that makes it hard to come back to your own modest vessel without feeling that you're actually living in squalor. We last saw them eight years ago in Grenada and even though our paths have been different, it felt as if nothing had changed.

We haven't seen any cruise ships since we arrived, but that is about to change. Three cruise ships are scheduled to arrive in Charlotte Amalie within the next couple of days. We don't know how full the ships will be, but when we were here eight years ago, the town changed drastically when the passengers descended. They're the bread and butter of the area and sorely needed.

Around the world in 2869 days

 

It's a bit less dramatic than going around the world in 80 days, but we made it to Grenada, closing the loop on our circumnavigation. We left Prickly Bay in August 2014 and have returned after almost 8 years.

 

Our goal wasn't necessarily to go around the world, but now that we're here it seems like something to celebrate. We toasted the event with a bottle of Pierre Jourdan champagne from our visit to the farms near Cape Town. We have traveled 46,000 miles, visiting 46 countries and enjoying countless experiences and friendships. We loved Grenada during our first visit, so we're happy to close the loop here. It feels like all our old friends from back then should still be here.

We traveled overnight from Trinidad to allow us enough time to arrive in Prickly Bay during the day. Also, the few 'pirate' incidents that have occurred during this leg was during daylight hours. Our trip was mostly uneventful, though the wind and favorable current that had us ripping along at over 8 knots died to under 2 knots overnight. We got impatient and ended up motoring the last few hours. As a consolation, we did catch a mahi-mahi.

The bamboo cathedral in Chaguaramas, Trinidad

 

An old radar installation on the bamboo cathedral hike

We will be here a few days to have our life raft re-certified. What, you say? We should maybe have done that before the 5800 nautical miles spent crossing the Atlantic ocean? You may have a point, my friend. But what's done is done. 

Also on the to-do list while we are in Grenada is to win some more livestock if Bingo Night at the Prickly Bay Marina is still going on.

What with coming back to Grenada and posting our boat for sale, I've been hit with a bout of nostalgia. I stumbled upon this post with a video tour of the boat conducted by the boys when they were just wee little guys. Perry looks a bit different these days with different upholstery and no more 'goldfish/hand logo' on her hull and the boys are all grown up. Hopefully they will look back as fondly as I do upon this last decade aboard spent exploring a few corners of the world.

The end is near

 

Photo courtesy of Michel Luthi on Javerne.

Perry is headed back into the water this afternoon and we will start our way up the Caribbean this week. We haven't seen much of Trinidad because we have been so focused on boat work. We have tried doubles I'm a fan but the rest of the crew isn't into savory and spicy breakfast.

Our Atlantic crossing

The trip seems so short on paper

We have completed our Atlantic crossing and again have decent Internet access and a little bit of time and energy. I write this from Perry on the hardstand at Peake Yacht Services in Chaguaramas, Trinidad. We're here to fix the hull paint that was damaged in Galle (by the way, the ferry that we saw in Galle on its delivery voyage is here in Chaguaramas), change our cutlass bearings, and a few other projects.

 

Morro do Pico (Peak Hill) in Fernando de Noronha, Brazil

I have added pictures to the blog entry about St. Helena that was made from our satellite email, originally with text only.

After we left St. Helena, we made a 13-day passage (1804 nm) to Fernando de Noronha, Brazil. It was the second longest passage we have ever made. We were very happy to have satellite email updates from family and friends along the way because it turns out that being stuck on a boat for almost two weeks without very good sleep can get tedious. 

On the plus side, after a slow start, we had decent wind for most of the trip. The constant squalls kept us on our toes and required frequent sail changes, but at least we were sailing. We motored for about 11 hours on the last day, as our wind disappeared.

Fernando de Noronha is kind of a mini-Hawaii for Brazilians. The scantily-clad, mostly Brazilian tourists were a far cry from the conservatively dressed crowd we have become accustomed to over the years. The Brazilian Brazilians were on prominent display with rear-end photo ops being the local twist on selfies. The main activities in Fernando de Noronha (besides seeing and being seen) are spending time at the beach, snorkeling, diving, and surfing. Matt and the boys enjoyed body surfing and Conrad rented a board for a few hours.

It is one of the most expensive places we have been and we only stayed four days. Matt repaired the top car of the mainsail track, whose pin had bent. This consisted of bending the pin back into shape (think a beefy vice and lots of hammering) until we can get somewhere to get a replacement. It was nice to have a break before moving on to our next destination: French Guiana (or straight to Trinidad, depending on conditions and timing).

Prison cell on Ile Royale

Matt chose our route to minimize the time spent in the ITCZ (the doldrums) and maximize the current that runs along the coast. The strategy worked well and we had three days in a row on this leg where we sailed more than 200 nautical miles a day. We motored for about 5 hours total, typically when squalls sucked away our wind. This was also during the time when our generator was acting up and we needed to charge the batteries with the engine anyway. 

Our fairly boring passage was rudely interrupted by the aforementioned generator at (of course) 3:00 a.m.  It got a bug up its butt and decided to start putting out more than 300 volts (it's only supposed to put out 230 volts). Fortunately, though our Sterling battery chargers are only spec'd to handle 270 volts, they were able to handle the additional power without frying. Had we been running the watermaker at the time, we would probably have burned out the pump.

The repaired AVR

Matt sent a satellite email out to cruising friends and got some helpful advice that confirmed his suspicions. The AVR (automatic voltage regulator) had failed.  Matt was able to pull the board out and identify the issue: a broken wire connecting one of the components to the circuit board. Luckily he was able to fix it by epoxying the loose component (the glue holding the component down had failed, and the vibrating component had eventually cracked the wire) and soldering in a jumper wire. Fortunately, the sea state wasn't too rocky for all this, though being stuffed into a cramped engine room underway is no one's idea of fun.

Ile du Diable (Devil's Island) - Because it was impossible to land a boat, a cable car carried prisoners across strong currents and shark-infested waters

We decided to stop in French Guiana because had we kept going, we would have gotten to Trinidad on the weekend (Easter weekend), which would have meant overtime charges and closed offices. In total, it took us eight days (1378 nm) to get to Iles du Salut, which is comprised of three islands (Ile Royale, Ile Saint-Joseph, and Ile du Diable--Devil's Island) used by France to house prisoners. Papillon and The Dreyfus Affair made famous Devil's Island (where political prisoners were kept in horrendous conditions). Ile Royale is now idyllic and swarming with tourists, so it's hard to get a feel for the oppression that the prisoners must have endured.

Peacocks roam Ile Royale

An 'open air' cell on Ile Saint-Joseph, where the worst of the worst prisoners were kept, exposed to the elements.

 

After two days at Iles du Salut, we started on the final leg our of our Atlantic voyage.  Our 4-day passage to Chaguaramas, Trinidad was a mixed bag. Our first day was 214 nautical miles, which is one of fastest days we have ever had. On days two and three, the wind and current moderated a bit and as we approached the coast of Trinidad, we still had 60 miles to go and only a few hours of daylight left. So we slowed down to make sure we would arrive the following morning. We passed a couple oil rigs, one of which lit up the night sky with an eerie orange glow.

We'll spend a week or two in Chaguaramas (hopefully no longer than that, though boat yards have a tendency to suck you in). The boat yard is remote and you need a car to get groceries and most other things, though within walking distance there is a Budget Marine and an expensive convenience store that carries produce. Fortunately, Peake Yachts provides a free shuttle to the mall and grocery store and the facilities here are nice. That's okay--there are fewer distractions; all the better to get our work done.

Goodbye St. Helena

This post was originally made with the satellite connection and email but has been updated with pictures.

Jacob's Ladder (699 steps)

 

After just over a week in St. Helena, we are continuing on our journey across the Atlantic. St. Helena is not big but is packed with unique and varied terrain (hills and valleys plunging into crystal clear waters, arid scrub, and pastures from an English countryside), as well as loads of history. 

Napolean's house/museum

We visited the house where Napolean spent his final days and used Internet in the remains of an old castle. There are cannons everywhere. The people are friendly and welcoming. Every passing car (and there are a lot of cars) and pedestrian waves and greets every other car and person.

Napolean's tomb (his body has been moved to France)

It's one of the more expensive places we have been, which is understandable considering how remote it is. We will also not miss the anchorage because it can get quite rolly. The trade-off is that we have seen huge Mahi Mahi and Devil rays swimming by the boat. Apparently, a whale shark swam right by our boat in the anchorage but we were busy fixing something and didn't notice.

Sandy Beach

We plan to head to Fernando de Noronha, which is part of Brazil, for a short respite. You can see our progress at https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Perry.

Approaching St. Helena

Namibia to St. Helena

Technology makes our life as ocean goers so much easier. Besides the auto-pilot ('Otto'), satellite communications for weather, GPS and radar, AIS is our superpower out here. It's like our eyes, but better. The Internet has all the details (look up Automated Identification System), but basically AIS uses VHF and GPS technology to let ships track each others' position anywhere on earth. Smaller fishing vessels in certain parts of the world often don't have AIS, so you still have to keep watch). Most of the time, ships will see us on AIS and avoid us without even a radio call. As a vessel under sail, we technically have the right of way, but bigger ships always win.

But sometimes ignorance can be bliss.

On our passage from Namibia to St. Helena, there was a huge tanker called 'Winning Kindness' that was drifting along as we passed it. We were too far away to see it but it showed up on AIS. We wondered what it was doing, but often ships will change their speed to get to their destination at the right time. Then later that evening, we saw the same ship on AIS again. This time it was going 12 knots and we were projected to be on a collision course. It didn't help that our boat speed was fluctuating a lot due to the flaky winds we have been getting, making it hard for other boats to predict our position. As we kept an eye on the boat's position for the next hour and a half, it occurred to me that it was like the start to a bad horror film. 'An unsuspecting family unwittingly sails past a tanker. Later, the same tanker is suddenly in front of them and heading straight for them.'

Well, of course nothing bad happened and the tanker passed a couple miles behind us. If we hadn't had AIS, we would never have even known the ship was there until we saw its lights as it got closer. After spending so much time making sure we would avoid hitting Winning Kindness, we later saw on AIS that it was drifting along at .3 knots again. Of course, even though the drama on AIS kept us in suspense for such a long time, without AIS it would have been much more disconcerting to see a huge tanker that close to us, especially at night.

Being in South Africa and Namibia reminded us that the Portuguese gave the world more than Peri Peri chicken. Vasco da Gama and Bartolomeu Dias, who were Portuguese explorers that landed in Africa in the 15th century, did their exploring without any of the information or technology we rely on. It puts what we're doing--with all the tools at our disposal--into perspective.

But almost nine days at sea is still nine days at sea. Overall, it was a pleasant-enough passage, but it was certainly not a set-it-and-forget-it kind of sail. The flaky wind required many course adjustments and sail changes. The seas kept much of the ride bumpy and banged the boat around. But we made bread (using Maeve--the 50-year old sourdough starter that Merel on Anjea gave us), fished (1 mahi mahi and 1 tuna) and played Euchre.

As always after a long passage, we were elated to see land. We were greeted by huge volcanic cliffs that plunge into the sea and a mooring field full of boats, including a few that we know. Having arrived on Tuesday morning, we have a couple days on the boat before our PCR tests on Thursday. It's just as well because it gives us a chance to rest and work on some of the projects we have accumulated. We can't do much about the dead start battery for the generator and starboard engine until we can get to land, but the top car for the mainsail needs a repair and the clothes we have been wearing for way too long need to be washed.