We left St Helena on the twenty fifth, a lovely day, around noon into light winds and clear skies. Fernando de Noronha is 1,750 n.miles dead down wind. St Helena's wind shadow played havoc with the wind flow for miles. By 7:00pm, 35 n.miles out, it had settled down to about 10 knots with light following seas; gentleman's sailing. The days that followed fell into the same pattern, light winds, very moderate following seas, around 5 to 10 knots boat speed and only the minor tweaks to the steering and spinnaker as small changes in the weather blew through. These are the days I dreamed of. Not much to do but deal with the fishing gear.
Ah yes, fishing. Too much fishing and not enough catching. Nora has done better than us by catching a flying fish that landed in her lap one dark night. Others report dining on dorado, blue fin tuna and yellow fin. We get a bite on less than half of the days we set the troll. We did manage to gaff a small, about 24", blue fin (I think), but he squirmed off before we secured him as did a 36" iridescent green Mahi Mahi. Others got away, either shaken free or mouths torn out by the speed off the boat; there's not a lot to be done when sailing at ten knots. The most recent escapee must have been quite a size, bending the short rod alarmingly and all but overwhelming the brake on the reel. The 50lb line gave up the struggle and we lost the lure and the fish. We'd do better settling for each morning's crop of flying fish. Eventually we did get a small blue fin tuna with the most amazing blue colouration of cobalt blue stripes on the back which appeared to glow in 3D from deep within the fish.
December 1st and 880 n.miles to go, roughly the midpoint between St Helena and Fernando. It is beginning to feel more like the tropics. Day time temperatures in the low nineties Fahrenheit, evenings warm enough to sit out in the cockpit, enjoy the breeze and look at the stars. Today's sunrise against dark clouds in the west and a rainbow made for a theatrical start to the day; "A dark and stormy mornin' " it wasn't, despite the stage lighting.
Our hydrogenerator quit. This is essentially a alternator with a propeller attached that is dragged through the water and pretty much meets our need for electrical power for the hydraulic autopilot, instruments and refrigeration. The propeller blades are unprotected and are easily damaged by whatever is in the water or just by boat speeds over ten knots.Replacements are $200 per and we have several shorn examples in the trophy bucket. Our last prop lost a blade a few days ago leaving us with just solar power, (not much use in the moonlight), the wind generator, (ineffective going downwind), and the diesel engines which envelope us in their exhaust stink in these light downwind conditions. We attempted a prop blade graft, a tricky business on a moving boat with a Rube Goldberg (Heath Robinson) jig cobbled together from scrap wood, clamps, clothes pins and a prayer to hold the blade in place while the epoxy cured. Reinforced with epoxy and fiberglass at the blade root, it was a thing of beauty. It lasted twelve hours, so not an utter failure. We now had a challenge on our hands. We chewed over a few ideas, and Zeke & I each chose our favourites and went to work. Zeke came up with lashing an outboard engine prop to a bladeless hydrogenerator prop cone. Even a mother could not describe it as beautiful, but function trumps form in these things and it worked flawlessly. I went with making three blades from surplus sheet metal bookends that slip into slots cut into the hydrogenerator prop cone and held in place by tabs bent into the new blades' roots and secured with epoxy. It also worked well and was quieter than the original. It lasted perhaps eighteen hours before the blades folded back under the pressure. We couldn't measure which was the most efficient.
The local wildlife put on a show on the last full day at sea, another spectacular cloudless day with 15 knot winds. One of the large-ish (four foot wingspan) ocean wandering birds showed up and spent a few hours wheeling left and right a few yards directly in front of the boat. Schools of flying fish, generally a couple of dozen, would erupt from the water every couple of minutes and go skittering away, looking for all the world like a cloud of woodland fairies scattering before some suitably scary beastie. The bird clearly knew the boat would scare them up and that all he had to do was keep a sharp eye and pick them off. They fly for dozens of yards, keeping themselves aloft by dipping their tails for an extra kick of speed and distance. We also had fish jumping around us, straight up and down like a kitten making a pounce and were paced for a while by a couple of unidentifiable larger fish a few feet off the side of the boat that may have been the cause of the jumpers and mass flights. Our most unusual visitor looked like a 10" plastic bag sailing in the breeze. Zeke identified it as a Portuguese Man of War, a fearsomely poisonous stinging jellyfish.
We arrived at Fernando de Noronha just before dusk that brought a waxing crescent moon and handful of tidily aligned planets on Tuesday December 6th after ten days at sea. An easy and relaxing passage by anyone's measure. A quick swim was followed by visits from old friends. Some wine and boisterous company and all is well.
Photos still problematic!!!
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