MON 12-JUN
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| Jura is First Departing Horta Harbor |
The weather once again was quite pleasant,
but also still quite cool with temps in the lower 60’s. And the Commanders weather forecast for our
planned route into the Mediterranean was also good enough. We had a lazy,
peaceful morning while our agent, Duncan Sweet, processed our paperwork. Just before 1100 Jura pulled up her anchor and headed out of the harbor, eventually
turning north towards England and Scotland.
At approximately 1120 the remaining there boats – Angela, Moxie and Relish
– also departed and headed towards Gibraltar, 1,128 nautical miles to the east.
Aboard Relish our new mate, Michel, got
the immediate opportunity to familiarize himself with the pilot house and
nav/comm equipment as he took the first shift at the helm. Michel is a veteran seaman and Nordhavn
owner himself – check out N50-26 Sea
Turtle if you ever have the chance.
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| Leaving Horta in Our Wake |
For the initial part of this leg we
experienced flat sea condition as we threaded our way east between the islands
of Sao Jorge and Pico. We also had the
fishing lines out once again, hoping that the numerous birds and dolphin pods
we were seeing would be favorable indicators…but we did not get any hits.
Just before 1700 we passed the eastern end
of Sao Jorge and were treated to the sight of three waterfalls spilling down
the steep southern cliffs of the island.
That was followed shortly by the light house at its eastern most tip.
Entering the open ocean waters between Sao Jorge and Sao Miguel (20 miles in
the distance) we had a pushing current giving us between 8 and 9 knots SOG,
along with gently rolling swells of no more than a few feet and an almost
imperceptible wind chop on top. It was a
really nice ride under mostly sunny skies and we had the stabilizers dialed way
back with a 15 knot speed setting.
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| Passing Pico in the Distance |
By the time we reached Terceira – the next
Azorean island about 65 NM east of Horta – it was 1930 local time, and the
ideal weather continued. Terceira is one
of the larger islands of the archipelago, with a population of 56,000 and
covering 153 square miles. Here you will
find the Azores' oldest city, Angra do HeroÃsmo, the historical capital of the island chain. (Documentation varies, but the islands were
first discovered in the 1300’s or 1400’s.) It is also the seat of the judicial
system and the main base of the Azores Air Zone Command, where the USAF also
keeps a remote detachment.
In contrast,
Faial only has about 15,000 residents, many for only six months of the year,
and Horta’s population is just under 10,000 people. Throughout the nine islands
of the Azores archipelago the key industries are agriculture, dairy
farming, livestock, fishing, and tourism, with the latter being
the most dominant. Regardless of which island you may choose to visit, the
scenery is spectacular and their people are welcoming and friendly. We’ll miss them.
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| Waterfalls on Sao Jorge |
The remainder of this first day enroute to
Gibraltar continued to be uneventful, with superb weather and sea conditions,
with all boats reporting ops normal.
TUE 13-JUN
Dawn came early in this part of the world,
with the glint of first light glowing dimly around 0500, highlighting only very
scattered clouds low on the horizon. Our
three-ship formation was a nice tight V-shape with one mile spacing. We had been tracking two non-AIS targets on
radar for most of the early morning – one was Jura, holding steady at 9 miles directly off our bow, as she had
not yet reached her northerly turn point.
The other was a slow moving blip bearing 118 that ARPA told us would cross
our path and pass within a mile of us, so we kept a close eye on that one. Eventually we got an AIS signal that identified
it as S/V Wolf, and she continued on a northerly heading as we passed by her
stern with ample clearance.
The sun peeked at us coming above the
horizon around 0620 revealing a partly cloudy sky and seas still with a gentle
following swell and light wind chop on top.
Ambient air temp was 63F and SST at 67F, with a 6-8 knot breeze out of
the southwest. We were still making good
time with an average speed of 7.8K since we had departed Horta.
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| Leaving the Azores Behind |
The seas picked up as the day progressed
with growing swells, some occasionally in the 6-7 foot range, but once again at
intervals that were quite tolerable.
That is, of course, unless you bring the boat to a stop and let them
roll you while broadside-to. Which is
what happened at 1000 when Relish hooked
up with a feisty blackfin tuna, and when Rick literally got rolled out of bed a
few hours earlier than he had planned.
But it was worth it – Silvio slowed the
boat and Chelle was on the rod. She handed
it over to our “other” Michel who reeled it in and then leadered it into the
boat. (He also cleaned the fish.) Voila,
fresh tuna for supper tonight! (Note to
other anglers – this tuna swallowed a Rattle-Jet XL lure that was being skipped
at the surface.) This was going to be a
good day.
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| Very Fresh Tuna for Dinner |
We conducted our usual afternoon fleet
briefing, reported fuel stats, coordinated our timing for the next two time
zone changes, and confirmed that unlike Moxie,
Relish did not crack any toilet seats
while fighting its fish in the swells.
We had taken a slight detour to the north of our originally planned
course to manage some coming weather patterns – mostly predicted wind and increasing
swells that would likely come out of the north in a few days, by which time we
could take a more southerly track to keep that stuff somewhat on our
stern. All that made our predicted
arrival in Gibraltar at least a half day later than originally planned.
A short while later we had another hookup
– again on the same (green) Rattle-Jet lure; this one took some line with it
before Chelle got it tired enough to bring it to the boat. As Michel grabbed the leader we were treated
to a close up view of a beautiful juvenile blue marlin – approximately a
3-footer. It then spit the hook and
happily sprinted off into the swells. It
was close enough for us to call it a “catch and release” opportunity.
As Chelle was preparing the small tuna for
an early dinner (around 1700, that’s really
early for us), we hooked into more tuna – both lines got hit simultaneously,
our first double header of the journey.
We lost one but boated the other….another nice blackfin….or what we call
a “football” in the U.S. because of its shape and relatively small size. (But one that still yields some very nice
filets.) We’re fairly certain this scenario
was a first for us: cooking the first
fish while still reeling in the second one.
In the early evening the crew of Moxie
also boated their first skipjack tuna.
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| N55 Moxie on Our Port Side |
We ended this day knowing that we’d passed
our northernmost point of the entire journey (well above the 38th
parallel and not quite to the 39th) which meant that Relish was nearly 900 nautical miles
north of its Nassau departure point, and that Angela and Moxie were over
700 nautical miles to the north of their Palm Beach jump off point. More importantly, of course, was that we were
also 3,000 miles east of Florida and nearing Spain – about 650 miles west of
Lisbon. And we still had a nice current
and the wind at our backs.
WED 14-JUN
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We Went Considerably North of the Planned Route
Between Azores & Gibraltar |
The overnight helm shifts continued to be
peaceful and uneventful, and some of the radio chatter that had frequently
accented previous nights had tapered off – after nearly a month of voyaging
conversational topics were thinning out, and perhaps some fatigue was setting
in. But we had a bright waning gibbous
moon and a very comfortable sea state for the wee hours shift.
Aboard Relish
we figured out this handy layman’s guide to sea conditions; we call this the
“Forward Shower Stall Scale” or FSS Scale. Over on Moxie they would probably convert the following to various
conditional states of the toilet seat in the forward head:
(1) Mild & comfortable seas: you can take a shower standing up in the
forward head.
(2) Moderate seas: you can still shower standing up in the
forward head but you bounce off the shower stall walls a few times.
(3) Heavy seas: you can shower in the forward head if you’re
sitting down.
(4) Very heavy seas: you’re not taking a shower today, get used to
the smell.
And as the sun rose just before 0630 we had
started out at #1 on the FSS, with gentle 4 foot rollers pushing us from the
northwest and a light wind chop on top from a light southwesterly breeze. Air temp was 65F and the SST had warmed
slightly to 68F. Skies were partly
cloudy, providing a bit of eye relief from that early morning brightness.
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| This Poor Squid Boated Himself...Instant Bait |
Fishing lines aboard Relish and Moxie got
deployed early – yesterday’s success with green Rattle-Jet lures trailing long
(50 meters behind the boat) had our anglers’ hopes high. Green feathered things seemed to be the
winning ticket, so that’s what we rigged to start the day. Relish also
had some unexpected bait to use – a very unfortunate squid had landed on its
teak table in the cockpit some time during the night. Just before noon the crew
of Angela got the rare pleasure of
seeing a pod of Orca killer whales playing in and around their bow – a
spectacular sight. Later in the day
Relish did get a hookup with something that stayed down and fought hard, but spit
the hook about 45 feet from the boat; we got a glimpse of blue as it neared the
surface, so we guessed it was a bonito or tunny.
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| A Pod of Orcas Join Angela in Formation |
The fleet’s noontime weather report was a
mixed bag – relatively good for the next few days, but then about the time we
planned to reach the Straits of Gibraltar later in the week it was looking pretty
ugly. The straights are known for nasty
conditions when the inflow or outflow currents collide with strong winds from the
opposite direction, and that’s exactly what the forecast was calling for. For now we decided to take the weather
router’s recommendation to continue on a mostly easterly heading rather than
direct to Gibraltar – basically we were aimed directly at Lisbon. By the time we reached the coast of Spain the
strong north winds would be kicking in and we could then turn south towards
Gibraltar to put them on our stern.
If the next forecast for the straits turns
out to be as crappy as the current one then we would start looking at holing up
at an intermediate location to wait out better conditions – Rota, Spain was a
likely place for us to consider.
Silvio, Michel and Rick took a few hours
in the afternoon aboard Relish to
tend to some lurking maintenance items.
First up was the wing engine’s stuffing box, which we finally managed to
adjust to get its running temps in an acceptable range. That same engine had also developed a slight
coolant leak whose point of origin was difficult to pin down, but after 30
minutes of running time it had completely disappeared, and coolant level was still normal; we’ll need to monitor that.
Then there was the 6KW genset which had developed an oil leak back in
Horta; suspecting an overfill condition we pumped some oil out via the Reverso
oil change pump and manifold, then ran an hour long test with good
results. So now we had some time to
relax.
As sunset was nearing we were still 450
miles west of Lisbon, with 650 miles to reach Rota…and at least another day
from there to reach Gibraltar. Andre,
taking a break aboard Angela, hooked up with a hard fighting fish that took
some time and considerable effort to reel in – a 36 inch blackfin tuna. That is a big blackfin!
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| View of Another Sunset from the Cockpit |
Sitting in the cockpit with a warming sun
on our faces – and seas at the lowest level of our FSS scale – was a great way
to end another good day.
THU 15-JUN
At 0400 the trip odometer on M/V Relish showed exactly 3,500 nautical
miles traveled since departing Nassau on 16-May. Angela
and Moxie had clocked just over 3,300 miles since departing Palm Beach on
17-May. For this final leg the fleet had
steamed 496 nautical miles since departing Horta, at an average speed of 7.68
knots. All three vessels were averaging
a minimum of 1.3 NMPG (including generator burn) so fuel reserves were more
than adequate.
As we progressed further east (our
longitude was now squarely in the teens) we noted a gradual increase in both
air and sea temps – by sunrise we had 67F with an SST of 69F. Swells had built overnight to an occasional 9
footer, but intervals and direction remained quite comfortable, with WNW winds
at 10-12 knots and a mostly overcast sky.
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| Bow Goes Up |
By midday, however, it was mostly clear
and sunny, and Moxie had hooked up
with more fish as had Relish – a
marlin and a tuna on both vessels. There
was no further fishing action until very late in the day when Relish landed another small blackfin
just before sunset with Michel on the rod and reel. The seas were starting to churn a bit more,
initially about a #2 on the FSS scale, but that rapidly went to #3 as the winds
clocked around to the north with increasing velocity. We were getting anxious to see the next day’s
updated weather forecast.
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| Bow Goes Down |
FRI 16-JUN
By the early morning hours the seas were
just plain messy. The wind was out of
the north at 25 knots with gusts to 30, giving us nasty short-interval wind
waves of 3 to 5 feet on top of the larger swells. That pegged the FSS scale, and the question instead
became where one could sleep without getting levitated or tossed. Answer: somewhere down low and aft of the
pilot house.
Around 0500, aboard lead boat Angela, Bernie suggested – and everyone
concurred – that we make a slight turn to the southeast to cut the next corner
and put some of the wind and waves a tad more to our sterns. That definitely helped but the ride still
resembled boating in a washing machine, and the stabilizers (bless them) were
getting a workout. There would be no
fishing today.
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| Sleeping in the Salon -- Sometimes a Necessity |
As the sun rose to illuminate a partly
cloudy sky and an ocean of whitecaps, we were 220 NM due west of Lisbon,
Portugal. We had been underway 90 hours
since departing Horta in the Azores, and had averaged just over 7.5 knots to
this point. While ambient air temp still
hovered in the mid 60’s we noticed SST had decreased to 67F with the north wind
and frontal passage.
At noon we received a weather forecast
update from Commanders via sat phone, and it was just as lousy as the last
one. It also appeared the winds would be
clocking around to the east starting tomorrow and on Sunday, building further
as we approached the Straits of Gibraltar.
So we decided to plow ahead on our ESE heading towards the coastline of
Portugal at whatever pace we could comfortably maintain, hoping to eventually
find some protection in the lee of the land.
After that we would update the forecast for the straits and decide
whether we should wait for a window at one of the coastal marinas or just plow
on through.
The afternoon brought more of a high
overcast to complement the wind and rough seas; everybody spent the rest of the
day just hanging on or napping in between the routine engine room checks and
helm shifts. And everyone slowly got
used to the new noises and vibrations such a vessel can make when bouncing
around in big seas.
Aboard Relish
Rick passed the time building some new Maretron instrumentation screens (in the kneeling
position), and somehow Chelle managed to find a braced position in the galley
to cook up the fresh tuna we had caught the night before for another great
supper. Not an easy feat given the way
we were pitching and rolling.
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| Building New Maretron Screens |
As the sun headed towards the western
horizon over a boiling ocean we had about 160 nautical miles and 21 hours to go
on our ESE heading to reach the coast of Portugal….and hopefully some calmer
waters.
SAT 17-JUN
In the wee hours of the morning the seas
were still churning: some furniture in Relish’s salon got rearranged courtesy
of one big broadside roller. But
somewhat surprisingly the waters calmed as the early morning progressed; by
dawn the wind was northerly but only at around 12-15 knots, and the swells shrunk
to the 3-to-5 foot range. Intervals
remained tight with wind chop on top, but it was considerably better than just
a few hours ago.
By sunrise we had an air temp of 66F and
the SST was 67F with a gradually falling barometer but clearing skies. We were hoping that the forecasted stronger
winds out of the east might be further delayed as we continued heading towards
the Portuguese coastline, which as of 0640 was now 90 nautical miles off the
bow. If that were true, and we got into
the protected lee of the coast, we just might wet the fishing lines later
today. Or benefit from some better
sleeping conditions. By early afternoon
our sea conditions were downright pleasant, so we turned further to the south
nearer our original route, and started to close the distance between us and
Gibraltar.
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| AIS Traffic Builds as Land Gets Near |
We of course also noted an increase in
radio chatter on VHF channel 16 as we got closer to civilization once
again. It was a good reminder that we
needed to remain vigilant for traffic, as it would surely soon increase in
volume, especially compared to what we had been experiencing in the middle of
an ocean for the past week. And by early
afternoon our radar screens were getting cluttered with return blips and AIS
symbols.
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| Land Ho -- We Found Portugal |
Aboard Moxie they were also eyeing some sea floor features on the chart,
one seamount in particular seemed worth a detour for some drive-by trolling, so
that’s what we did. Nobody netted any
fish from that excursion, but it got us closer to the Portuguese coast. And shortly thereafter everyone had cell
phone service and plenty of spam email to sift through.
By 2030 we had turned the corner around Cape
St. Vincent (Cabo de São Vicente) and Sagres Point at the far southwestern
corner of Portugal with its cliffs and lighthouse within easy view. The issue now was what route to take into the
Straits – direct and risk some headwind and head sea pounding, or continue
hugging the coast. Regardless, eventually
we would have to bash our way through the rough seas within the Straits.
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| Sunset -- Just Before 2200 Local Time |
Knowing that was coming we decided to enjoy our last sunset on this journey with some quiet time in the cockpit while on relatively calm waters.
And then we decided to experiment. Around midnight local time Angela and Moxie peeled off to the north to hug the coast a bit more, while Relish continued direct toward the
Strait. At daybreak we had lost AIS
contact with each other but were still within radar and VHF radio range. By midday it was clear that Angela and Moxie had the better ride and were making better time even with
the added distance. Relish had slowed to make the ride more tolerable in the head seas
where initially she encountered square waves of 4 to 6 feet at quick intervals. It was the proverbial “boating on a waffle
iron” ride.
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Land Ho -- We Found Portugal
|
By the time we neared the actual Strait of
Gibraltar, however, none of that really mattered much.
While Relish was a few miles behind the other two boats, all
three of us eventually got clobbered with 8-to-10 footers at wickedly close
intervals as the 30K winds buffeted against the opposing current. Hugging
the northern coastline helped minimize that somewhat, but it wasn't until we
turned the corner at Tarifa to head northeast towards Gibraltar itself that we
escaped the big waves.
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About to Turn the Corner Out of the Straits & Towards GIB
|
At that point we only had 15 miles to go, and relatively flat water in spite of the still howling winds. It was nearing 2100 and sunset, so we were hoping for calmer winds inside the marina. And a couple hours later as we cruised into the large harbor at Gibraltar we got our wish -- winds had calmed, and both Angela and Moxie had just finished docking using the last two alongside ties available. Silvio maneuvered Relish into the tight Med-mooring spot that remained, and by 2300 we were all secure at our intended destination on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
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| Approaching The Rock at Dusk |
We'll have at least one more blog entry to wrap this up....we'll try to summarize the stats on the journey itself, get some more shots of both our crews and Gibraltar, and put this whole thing into perspective.
But for right now we are going to clean up ourselves and our boats and go get some time on Terra Firma.
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| Moxie Moored at Gibraltar |
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| Angela Moored at Gibraltar |
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| Relish Med-Moored at Gibraltar |
