The Grenadines were a beautiful group of many islands that we managed to explore for just over 2 weeks, although the same amount of time again would have been even better. There were lots of Islands that we didn’t manage to see. This post is only the beginning!
It’s the 7th of January and from where we were in Clifton harbor where we caught up with some of our boat friends from the other side of the Atlantic, we are off to the Tobago Cays. From our own research and some local knowledge from a very helpful cafe owner, we knew this was going to be a great experience and the underwater life did not disappoint!
On the way from Union to the Cays we caught a barracuda, and I genuinely didn’t think I’d ever eat barracuda but it was one of the tastiest fish we’ve caught so far!
We had the barracuda for two main meals including tempura battered fish tacos with couscous and peach salsa.
Fully reefed sailing towards Tobago CaysAn excellent Baracuda catch, we tie a string through the tail when filleting so we don’t lose it overboardBattered barracuda tacos
We picked up a mooring buoy in the channel just north of Petit Rameau island, anchorage fees here are the same as a mooring buoy so we thought it best not to risk damage to the underwater ecosystem and get a mooring. On arrival, we saw Danae had already got there and Artemis came in just behind and to our excitement, there were 3 buoys all in a row which Danae got an excellent picture of with their drone.
We got in the water to discover what couldn’t be seen from above, right under the boat we had turtles and more barracudas and further away we saw turtle after turtle after turtle, all totally relaxed about us being in the water with them, then came sting rays, Eagle rays, and beautiful fish. Anna even spotted a reef shark!
Sting ray with trunk fish all around
Same sting ray!
Spotted Eagle ray foraging
This little one had an itchy face as he swims away! Rather cute
Whilst at the Tobago Cays a boat came by to talk to us about a place with free moorings (not a common thing around here) at a resort with 3 pools, multiple bars, and a lovely beach, we decided to take them up on the offer of free mooring and pool use when we were definitely in need of a real shower!
We set off for our 100nm sail from Bridgetown, Barbados in the afternoon to give us a little daylight before sailing through the night and arriving with plenty of daylight the following day. This was Anna’s first night-sail experience so we were keen to have a fairly relaxed downwind sail. She took it all in her stride without even a hint of seasickness, Woop woop!
We set out with a fully reefed main and gull-winged genoa as we expected a brisk 20 or so knots, all went perfectly to plan and we were in view of the islands as dawn came around. We did end up a little farther north than first planned, due to wanting to maintain our sail plan, which meant the wind pushed us to where it wanted! Although this actually made the transition from deep water to shallower water around the islands easier, and then the sea was flatter on the west side of the various islands.
We stopped at the island of Canouan to check in, get some local currency (now Eastern Caribbean Dollars) and stop at a little beachfront cafe for some lunch. They even had a cute treetop table that we had to try, but aborted halfway through eating when a torrential downpour came through and everyone made a beeline for the cafe interior.
We knew sy_danae and sy.artemis were already a little way south of us on Union Island so naturally we set off again for a few miles more to reach Chatham bay. It was a busy anchorage but luckily there was room for us to squeeze in close to Danae.
We were very glad that the sea bed was sand (the best holding for an anchor) as the bay was incredibly gusty, one minute there would be no wind and Hannah Penn would bounce forward on the anchor chain and then there would be 30+knots. Interestingly when a gust comes and the boat was not already pulling back on the anchor, the bow will get pushed downwind, meaning you’ll turn sideways onto the wind, and then as the chain tightens, the boat gets slow motion whiplash as the bow is pulled back around.
This happened every half an hour or so all day and night, so we definitely set our trusty anchor alarm!
After being happy with how the anchor was holding, we headed to shore with everyone to have a great catch-up on how everyone’s Atlantic crossing went, and how many things got broken! We think Danae did the best in terms of not breaking anything but it catches up with them at a later date, stay tuned for our time in St Lucia for the story!
So during our chatting, we got onto talking about dinghies flipping over, which Artemis had experienced a couple of times now.. with their engine on…
The next morning a couple came by and knocked on our hull, about something, and you’ve guessed it, we forgot to take the engine off the dinghy before we went to bed, a gust had flipped it in the night and we looked out to find a sad looking little propellor sticking out of the water.
Time for the dinghy engine resuscitation procedure!…
I cleaned the seawater out with lots of fresh water and then got to work taking it apart and meticulously cleaning and re-greasing everything to prevent corrosion. For a while, the gear had been fairly stiff and we thought this service would be exactly what it needed. So all back together and working perfectly we set off to pick up Michel from Artemis for a snorkeling session, we got to their boat and changed from forward to neutral, loaded him and gear in, and went to change to forward only to find it was jammed in neutral :|not ideal!
We all went in his dinghy and afterwards I took the engine apart for the second time that day!… now we have a dinghy engine permanently stuck in forward, so slightly more useful than neutral but still not ideal. Beggers can’t be choosers I suppose!
After a mildly stressful day we were looking forward to a Full moon party on the other side of the island so we sailed (with motor too because we were running late and didn’t want to arrive after dark) to clifton harbor. The mooring field was packed and as the sun had just about set we got ourselves on a bouy instead of worrying about anchoring.
View from southeast side of Union island, heading towards Clifton Harbour
It turned out the party was canceled for some unknown reason so we all went to the Happy Island Reef bar instead and had the place to ourselves, it was a lovely time to talk to other boats we hadn’t seen since before the Atlantic ocean
More island exploring to come as we head to Tobago Cays and lots of others.
On the way to Mindelo we stopped off at a few other places.
Firstly Ilhéu Branco, which is an uninhabited 278-hectare islet. And secondly an anchorage on the south of Santa Luzia
We then headed to Mindelo on the day that they ARC+ would start, but our arrival and the chaos at the anchorage and start line will follow in another blog post!
We didn’t need to think much about our anchorages or how we were getting there, as at this point we were mostly just following Extress and their route on the way to Mindelo.
We stopped in at Ilhéu Branco for lunch, which fortunately we caught just as we approached the anchorage.
We didn’t hang around for long after lunch. When pulling up our anchor though, it wouldn’t come, and was stuck on something on the bottom. We quickly dived in to have a look at what was going on, and it turned out to be slightly caught under a lip of rock. We dragged it out and it came up with ease.
On the way to the next anchorage, we hit a fairly big acceleration zone between the islands leading to some fun heeled-over sailing.
Here you can see Extress ahead of us.
At the second anchorage, we ended up eating aboard Extress once again with some BBQed pizzas 🙂
These little BBQs are pretty awesome. They some with pizza stones, and you can easily pick them up and move them while they are BBQing as the outside doesn’t get hot!
We left Baia Da Mordeir a day or so before Extress, but the day after Danae, so decided to just head to the same anchorage as Danae!
This brought us down south to the next of the Cape Verde islands.
The approach was quite interesting, as there was a heavy swell coming into Cape Verde at the time, and it was managing to curve around most of the headlands and island features. The approach also had some shallows to the south also causing breaking swell. As a result, there were breaking wave all over the place, but also a nice clear path into the anchorage.
In the picture to the right, you can see the general swell direction (red arrows), as well as swell lines curving around the land (red lines), which lead to swell from all directions (green arrows). Our approach was roughly the white dotted line.
This also led to lots of opportunities to catch little waves surfing later, from all kinds of directions 😉
In fact, in the middle of the protected area, there is a sand bank that gets hit by a swell from both directions. Here, if you are lucky, you can catch small waves both to the south and then ride a wave back north again!
The swell continued in this anchorage the whole time we were there. The swell would push us forward a few meters and then the wind would blow us back on the anchor. Again, not super uncomfortable, but annoying to be moving all of the time.
In Sal Rei, Kathryn went Kitesurfing and Adam went Windsurfing, but we are pictureless!
The plan was to try wing foiling again, but unfortunately, the wind didn’t really behave.
We stayed in Sal Rei for a number of days before heading off to the next anchorage with both Danae and Extress, coming in the next post.
We did a night sail across to Gran Canaria, arriving in the early morning, which lead to some lovely views around the busy port.
The anchorage here is attached to the marina, and thus you have to pay a small fee just to anchor. The small fee is only a couple of euros, and this is great in comparison to some anchorages in the UK such as Salcombe that require you to pay around £15 a night to anchor near the river mouth…
We didn’t have lots planned from Gran Canaria, but generally explored, relaxed and ate some tasty food.
On one of our trips to land, we spotted the boat Magic of Bermuda whom we had previously met in Gibraltar. We ended up spending most of the day aboard Magic chatting, drinking tea, and telling stories. On the dock, we also met a French couple looking for a lift to Tenerife, and we decided to pickup our first hitchhikers.
The ARC leaves from this marina in Gran Canaria, so the marina was extremely busy with ARC boats.
Another little tradition of the ARC is boats painting rocks on the breakwater before they leave.
We had a very peaceful night sail to Tenerife with our 2 new friends. They cooked, we sailed. One of them, unfortunately, got a little seasick, but a good sleep out on deck helped them out. They were planning on taking part in a residential art project starting the next week in Tenerife, where they sail across the Atlantic on a catamaran and create art (a project run by @circusspacepirates)
We stopped off in Tenerife, dropping off our 2 hitchhikers. Our next guest was also going to be arriving in while we were here. The plan was for them to join us down to Cape Verde and then across the Atlantic.
As soon as Gareth arrived we sent him straight up the mast!
On the whole, Tenerife was another short stop off, where we restocked on Gas, food and did some final maintenance before setting off on what would be our longest crossing yet in the next weeks.
La Gomera
The sail to La Gomera was once again a night sail, but this time with 3 crew, meaning we could try with just a single shift each on watch.
Here we met up with SV Blue Note who we had planned to sail from the Canaries to Cape Verde with us in a little race, and they had also joined another Dutch boat called Extress who would also leave on the same day.
The story that we have to tell for La Gomera is the afternoon we nearly stole another boat’s anchor!!!
As you may be able to tell, we have fallen quite behind with our blog posts, we have just been having far too much fun and doing too many longer crossings.
We are currently in Barbados having just celebrated Christmas in an Airbnb!
But enough about what’s happening now, time to jump back and catch up!
You can already read about our adventure to the Canaries from Tarifa, exploring the first island, and hopping down to Lanzarote, and that’s where this post will start, exploring the Canaries.
Lanzarote
From the marina in Puerto Calero we hired a car to explore Lanzarote. Apparently, all hire cars here are hybrid Fiat 500s.
We headed to one of the main island tourist attractions (the volcano and park) to get our first volcano experiences of the trip.
There were hot water jets, volcanic ovens which cooked food you could eat in the restaurant, burning of wood, not gravel etc.
For some of us, this included a little flashback to our childhood, having visited the island before.
While exploring the Island we spotted a Decathalon and finally bought something we have been thinking about for some time… a SUP!
(It’s going to be getting quite some usage in the future)
Fuerteventura
On the way to Fuerteventura we saw a very nice-looking Risso dolphin or 2.
We ended up in a cheap marina recommended by our friends on SV Blue Note called Grand Tarajal.
Though generally sunny, one evening we got our first real thunderstorms here since setting off from the UK. The lightning was all in the distance and we managed to get a few nice pictures.
From the marina, we got a local bus up the coast to a town with a resort and hired another car, once again a Fiat 500, and started exploring the island some more.
We headed to the northwest coast to find some surf to try out our new SUP.
And you know what they always say, the best car for unpaved road exploration is a hire car. And that car is a Fiat 500!!! The video below doesn’t do the whole journey justice, and some parts felt like true offroading.
After a 30-minute bumpy ride which nearly caused us to turn around twice, we found ourselves at a lovely beach (and also saw that the northerly route might have been a little easier drive).
The SUP was a “Medium” Itiwit Inflatable Stand Up Paddle SUP (Length: 9′ (274.5 cm) Width: 33.1″ (84 cm) Thickness: 4.9″ (12.5 cm)), one of the surfiest looking SUP they had in Decathlon when we bought it. Also with 232 liters of buoyancy, it should be floaty enough for both of us to use to paddle to shore in the future.
It was quite a bit of fun…
This beach also had a great set of rocks which included a little pool of warm water that got the occasional wave into it.
Fully recovered from what ended up being a long, slightly swell-themed sail, we started heading down the coast of Lanzarote.
We hadn’t visited a marina in almost 3 weeks, so really wanted a decent shower. Puerto Calero looked a good distance away and could be a good starting point for getting to Fuerteventura. So off we went
This was mostly an easy downwind sail, with a little rain to start…
We called the marina on VHF 9, they quickly responded and said we could stay for 2 nights.
First, they had us moor on the fuel pontoon to fill out paperwork.
Before then moving to one of the most expensive accidents waiting to happen (between 2 million pound catamarans) alongside the pontoon.
Fortunately, we pulled off a smooth docking without a hitch.
Kathryn was still crazing pizza, as we didn’t find one in La Graciosa, so this was top of our list.
There was a little place called MargaRita on the other side of the marina, and the pizza there was truly amazing.
A big sail even if it was downwind.. but it wasn’t, we tacked all the way from Cadiz to Gibraltar, over 60 in total, we basically tacked every 30 mins for about 28 hours straight!
And experienced just about every wind condition you could possibly think of, from none at all to perfect conditions with about 16-17 knots and often gusts came through of over 30, they were very sudden and quickly disappeared but not quickly enough to keep full sails up, so throughout the day and night we were putting more sail out, then less, then more.. it was exhausting…
When we neared Tarifa there was a lot of wind and there were many kitesurfers out making the most of it, at one point it looked like they were racing us.. I think they’d win pretty easy tho!
The thing which did go in our favor for the most important bit was the tide/current going through the straights of Gibraltar, somehow we managed to time it well to be going in the same direction as the 3knot tide which took us nicely into Gibraltar in the early evening.
On our way into the Bay of Gibraltar, we passed a number of huge container/cargo ships, hiding in the mist.
Dolphins saw us into the bay before disappearing into the night 🐬🐬 no pics this time tho 🙁
We arrived more quickly than expected even with all the tacking and we had reserved a marina spot for the next day as there’s no anchoring allowed in Gibraltar, so we sailed on by and anchored to the north in a Spanish anchorage, I didn’t realize quite how small the country is till we sailed from one end to the other in about an hour!
As we came into the anchorage we spotted a boat that looked strangely familiar but not because we had seen her before, she turned out to be another Nic 38 from the same era as Hannah, called Salara.
We started off in the evening to another of our planned destinations, Huelva which was about halfway to Cadiz, 55nm away. It was an easy light wind night sail and we arrived at Huelva just before lunch the next day.
Sunset sail
We anchored up and got settled in to make lunch, whilst baking a fresh loaf of bread we put up our awning canvas which sits over the top of the boom, it gave some much-needed shade to the main saloon because the temperature and sun were scorching
Adams loaf 🍞
Whilst eating lunch we checked the weather again only to find that, that afternoon and night was the only time in the next 4 or so days that had any wind at all!
So instead of staying the night in Huelva we pushed on for another night sail to Cadiz, which we needed to get to relatively soon to check out of the EU as our days here were quickly passing, we had used over 2 months of a 3 month allowance (damn Brexit!) And still, want to go to the Canary Islands which count towards the allowed 90 days in a rolling 180 day quota.
Another vibrant sunset 🌅
The sail to Cadiz was a lot faster, we left around 4:30pm and arrived around midnight, averaging 6.2knots.. our best average to date, as well as our fastest recorded speed of 12.2knots 🤓
After getting into Cadiz we anchored amongst a few other boats right next to the massive suspension bridge
Cadiz suspension bridge
Day 82-83: Sesimbra to Sines, well actually let’s carry on to Faro
A standard day sail or so we thought when we left Sesimbra, the sail started off fairly slow with less than 10knots of wind, a gorgeous day for sailing and relatively flat calm seas.
We made lots of Instagram stories of this adventure, so you can watch the complication below which includes spoilers, or come back to it at the end.
As the sea was so flat and we wanted to make good time we thought it would be a great opportunity to try hoisting the dinghy on a halyard to sit alongside the hull of the boat instead of being either dragged along behind (slowing us down a little) or deflating it, which is effort!
So I got in ‘Little Han’ whilst we sailed along and fashioned a bridle so we could hoist her up with relatively even pressure
And a little while later we had a nicely working hoist with fenders and support lines so it didn’t move around.
As we carried on through our sail we checked the weather (again) this usually occurs about 6 times a day especially when we don’t write down what the forecast actually said! But this time it was in response to a message received from Adam’s Mum with a link to an approaching storm, one which we knew would be hitting us within a couple of days.
According to Público, Hurricane Danielle changed its course and will hit Portugal on 11 and 12 September, bringing rain and strong wind. The hurricane proved to have an uncertain route and has now included Portugal in the route; however, its classification will change once it reaches Portugal.
So after discussing in detail if the anchorage we were approaching would give us appropriate protection, we did agree that it would be fine.. however, it would leave us trapped there for probably 3 days as leaving it soon after the storm passed over would have meant sailing through an unwelcome sea state (3-meter swell!.. no thanks!)
As we were sailing along pretty nicely now we looked at alternatives and getting to Faro sprang to mind, about 120 miles further than the 30 we expected to be sailing that day! The overall track was rather long and varied.
The afternoon wind picked up and we were cruising along on our fastest point of sail, a Beam Reach at 7-8knots, it was really the first time in at least a month we have had really fast sailing conditions, so thought may as well carry on as we should have good wind all night!
As night drew in so did the swell, it wasn’t too bad as the wind picked up a little more too which is actually a good thing when there’s swell as it stops the boat from rolling into the wind as much when you come down off a swell wave
My night watch started at about 2am and everything had been going smoothly, about half an hour in we were getting faster and faster, and I shone a light at the anemometer, it said 33knots, I thought that’s rather a lot to have no reefs in, but being still on a beam reach means the boat doesn’t heal as much as close hauled so it’s more comfortable in stronger winds, still I needed to choose to do something as the wind waves were picking up too the options were to reef the sails (had already taken the mizzen down earlier) which is hard work in the night, or turn down wind further, away from our destination but as we were going so fast a few extra miles didn’t make much difference
Adam had woken up by this point saying he felt the vibrations in the hull and asked if we were going faster!
We decided the best action would just be to turn down wind a little which makes it seem like there’s less wind as your going more in the same direction as it
At that point there was a crack and the sound of metal running over the fiberglass deck, I shone the torch outside trying to see what had broken, Adam got out of bed to help, luckily all it turned out to be was the jib forestay which is usually lashed down out of the way when not in use had worn through the lashing, but now was wildly swing around in the wind from the top of the mast, it hit the windscreen and got caught on the windscreen wiper.. just long enough to grab it so it couldn’t cause any more damage, this time I took something more substantial to hold it down, a couple of shackles will do the trick.
I donned my lifejacket and went out into what was turning into a bit of a stormy night to secure it to the deck whilst Adam shone a torch on me all the time!
So with that minor inconvenience sorted out he went back to bed and I carried on with my watch
5am came around and it was almost time for me to have a snooze but not before a wave hit us a bit differently to all the others and knocked the dinghy half out of its bridle, it was now half dragging in the water. We had to put a lasso of rope around the far back tip of the dinghy, turns out our Little Han is not so little when your trying to lean out over the side of the boat to throw a rope around its far side, so with some boat hooking and heaving it up higher it was finally back on and well supported.. time for a sleep 💤
As we rounded the southern corner of Portugal and got into the Lee of the land in the morning the wind subsided as did the swell and we quickly slowed down to a crawl, so time to change the sails again! It was cruising chute weather. (This also looked pretty cool due to the shadow cast by the mast)
We love using our cruising chute now it’s got a sock to be hoisted in, it means you can hoist it without it filling with wind so much less likely to damage the delicate light airs sail
By midday we had both snoozed enough to catch up on the sleep, we’d just missed out on!
The water looked so inviting and knowing it had to be at least be a little warmer than where we were previously I decided it would be a good idea to jump in whilst we sailed along!
We threw one our big fenders out the back on a long line to grab hold of and I threw myself in, the cool water was not as freezing as it was in Spain where I couldn’t even stand it even in a winter wetsuit so we jumped in and out a few times and as the boat was going slowly we could even have a swim next to the boat and not be left behind!
We even took some underwater pics and a video of the hull.. which we are due to clean now that the water is more barrable! Looks at all that gunge 😱
So with all the day’s excitement over we eventually made it to our anchorage not long after sunset and with a few hours of lovely calm sailing before getting there we had the boat all wrapped up in sail covers and tidied up before we anchored, even teeth cleaned so all we had to do was drop anchor, set an anchor drag alarm and get into a well-deserved bed
