News Letter January 2011

Sorry everybody but we have been slackos and not updated this site for ages. This is not because we have not thought about it but we have been busy moving and the vagaries of the internet in different countries has proved challenging.

After mooching around in Faro, southern Portugal, for awhile at the beginning of summer we headed up the Guardiana River which forms the border between Spain and Portugal for much of its length. The river runs a rich red and is tidal for as far as we went. The town of Ayamonte is at the entrance and after going under the bridge at about the five mile mark the navigation is sort of common sense. The towns of Alcoutim, Portugal, and San Lucar, Spain, are about 20 miles up on either side of the river at what was an old ford. We anchored in the middle of the river for a while and were fascinated as the boat faced either upstream or downstream according to the tide. The towns are very pretty, and boat-orientated and the people very friendly. Met some very interesting fellow sailors, and had some fun get togethers. We attended a Farda? Performance in the village square one evening but could not understand it of course but it seemed very intense and sombre with the main actor in a long black coat and stiff brimmed hat, lamenting the good old days. Loved the church and clock bells competition between the towns, there is a one hour difference between the river banks. We traveled up the river to just past the town of Pomarao, but as the weather was heating up we decided to head back to the coast and the cool sea breezes.

       Bridge at Ayamonte                               Alcoutim                                          San Lucar

Alcoutim                                             Ted, Margaret, Jaap & Gail                    The view from the cafe.

   Anne & Tony off Razzamatazz                 Guadiana River                                  Guadiana River

Had a bracing sail back to the island of Culatra in Faro lagoon, and snuck in the east entrance to the lagoon by following in a fisherman. We spent a lot of time just relaxing. We did a few sails to Olhao and Faro, but mainly just caught the ferry to the mainland for shopping and traveled by train back to Lagos to pickup boat parts. Enjoyed the fine wining and dining on Culatra, and the great company of fellow sailors. Gail flew to Darwin and then to Bali for Zoe's wedding, which left Steve unsupervised for three weeks.

                    Faro                                   Typical Tile Street sign                                   Faro

             Faro Lagoon                                Faro Lagoon at Culatra                         Gail hard at it

Steve spent the time beaching GT, changing shaft zincs and sanding the copper epoxy anti-foul, socialising and missing Gail. Yeah right! As soon Gail got back it was all systems go for making preparations for leaving Europe and heading across the Atlantic.The day after her arrival it was two quick day sails back to Lagos, provisioning and more provisioning. Leaving Europe is a bit of a fine timing thing as you want to avoid westerlies but not leave it too late and cop some winter storms. For us, our visa expiry date meant that we had to leave mid September. We had hoped to visit Madiera but we got westerlies and did a big loop down to the Canaries instead. It was our first chance to try out our new gennaker. It worked a treat.

             Gennaker                                      Round about Lanzarote                                        Lanzarote

Landfall in the Canaries was at the commercial port of Marmolas on the island of Lanzarote. The island was controlled development-wise by an artist/ architect Cesar Henrique. For many years his strong design legacy held sway over the island and is still evident today . We visited the Calero marina and then settled into the Arecife anchorage and made friends and socialised with a group of yachties there who for various reasons were singlehanders and met our first female singlehander, Kari and caught up with Tony Beks, from Darwin on Rajin Cajin.

                                               One of many informal adhoc get togethers at Arrecife

               Beer run at Arrecife, 50 cartons.                                                          Sunset at Arrecife

The living was easy and the time for crossing the Atlantic seemed a long time away. Boats started to arrive in ever greater numbers and the date for the start of the ARC Atlantic Rally Crossing was set for the last weekend in November. The trade winds had not set in and it seemed that the La Nina weather pattern this year was going to upset the usual arrival of the steady trades. The ARC left and was becalmed for weeks. We moved over to Las Palmas on Grand Canaria and enjoyed our time catching up with friends from 'No Rehearsal' and their children whom we had not seen since they were aged 10 and 13 and now here they were all beautifully grownup. The partying and reprovisioning seemed to go on and on and still the wind was not co-operating.

                                                                   Singing and dancing on No Rehearsal

We saw a bit of a weather window and decided to leave. We and one other yacht, 'Ragin Cajin' were only ones to do so. It meant beating for a couple of days to get out into the wind but it was worth a try. As it turned out it worked and we worked our way mostly south towards the Cape Verdes and then out across the Atlantic. We had two days of calms and motored then but mostly we just kept on sailing. The passage time was 23 days which is longer than we would have hoped and seas were very confused with waves from four directions. The trip was pretty much without incidence and although we didn't have enough wind we didn't get any storms either. It was the first trip on which we had tried trolling a line from the back of the boat and it worked a treat with a tuna and then a mahi-mahi for dinner. We lost a few, mostly in the trying to get them on board time but we can only get better.

                                                                  Street views of Paramaribo capital of Suriname

Landfall at Suriname happened just before midnight on New Years Eve and we were able to drop anchor for the first time in over three weeks and toast the New Year before having a well earned sleep. On our approach to the land the horizon was lit up with fireworks for as far as the eye could see.

WOW, what a great display we thought, the government must spend a huge budget on fireworks. It made spotting the red and green channel maker buoys nearly impossible.

                                                    Trip into interior with Ozkan, family and friends

Clearing in was a lengthy process with multiple trips to different offices but everyone was very pleasant and at last we made contact with Ozkan and his beautiful wife, Gulay and daughter Sude. Their hospitality was very generous and we enjoyed our time in Suriname immensely. Suriname is on the northeast coast of South America and was colonised by the Dutch. It was called Dutch Guyana.The population is a mix of the original Indians, imported Negro slaves, Indonesians(also a Dutch colony), some Chinese and Indians from India(both of whom are the workers and traders), recently arrived Brazilians(mostly illegal) and of course expat Dutch. The main industry is bauxite mining and gold mining plus a little timber cutting.

                                                                                  Trip up the river

The prime minister is reportedly a murderer and probably a drug baron and cannot travel without fear of being arrested. He maintains his own personal estate within Suriname with his own army. There are probably more casinos in the capital city of Paramaribo than in Australia and the local population are the main customers. They spend their earnings at the casinos in one night and then subsist by a little illegal gold prospecting until the next pay day. There are more cars than people as the cars are imported duty free second hand Japanese cars and are very cheap. The traffic in such a small country is hectic as a consequence.

We would recommend Suriname as a sailing destination, it was friendly, safe and very interesting.

                          Sude and Ozkan                                                                               Gulay

                                Rita’s Etthouse at Domburg                                                           View from Rita’s