Part 2

Day 14 of the Return trip

The wind is still on the nose. The cheer of the days past is fading in the face of exhaustion and the prospect of MORE beating. The road to Tristan from here is looking like it will be upwind, if there is any wind.

A sneaky low pressure system developed above us out of nowhere, while the high behind us slipped to the south. Each of these is too big to get around, so we have no choice but to push on through.

Let's hope that tomorrow holds some better news.

Bren

On the Nose Again

Day 13 of the Return Trip

Our pleasure cruise could only last for so long. We had to wake up from that dream yesterday, when the wind swung around and put us on a beat with

25-30 knots from the South-East. It's bumpy, cold, wet and uncomfortable...

HOWEVER,

Being the unflappable optimists that we are, we are not going to discuss this. There have been far more positively memorable happenings in the last little while. So in stead, today, the readers of this blog are going to be treated to Ricardo's recount of the brighter side of Day 13:

"

A wake up to remember

Day 13 mostly just ambled by, slowly the perfect wind of the previous few days swung around and as evening approached we were on a gentle beat.

As with most nights I was taking a pre-night watch nap, resting up to recharge for the evening ahead. Suddenly a very stern shout came from Dave, "Ric!"

This time I was in trouble, I jumped out of bed as quick as possible and my mind raced through the endless possibilities of what was wrong...

I popped my head out the companionway and my eyes immediately fell upon a white-gold tower shooting high into the night sky, as it arced round to the north the immense white glow bloomed into all the colours of the rainbow!

Whoah man, instant euphoria, we could not believe our eyes mother nature had treated us to one of the most rare occurrences in the natural world, a WHITE

(NIGHT) RAINBOW, the moon was full and perfect in the east, the ice-crystals above us refracting in all their glory and the clouds to the west provided the canvass for this beautiful artwork.

The evening went by and non of us could get over what we had seen, spirits on the boat were high as the wind picked up and the gentle beating turned to bouncing around while we made our way to Tristan.

When waking Dave up for the sunrise watch, we were all quick to remind him and Raf to put out the lures. The ocean was consumed by the warm yellows of sunrise when Raf looked back and saw the small hand line going crazy with a big silver splash at the end, "Oke, there is definitely a fish on the small hand line..." Immediately Dave sprung to action and started reeling in our catch a great little 3-4kg tuna. While letting the line back in the water, boom another bite another tuna, this one got half way to the boat before jumping free, but no worries because just as soon as one let go another went for the bait. The early morning kept Dave busy pulling in tuna after tuna, we kept 2 and released what we weren't going to eat.

For lunch we pulled out the soy sauce and wasabi and called upon Dave's sushi chef skills and dinned on the freshest sashimi you could ever ask for. Later in the evening it was my turn to cook the remaining tuna, to be honest I was at a bit of a loss - I haven't really cooked much fresh fish - so I did what any person with a Portuguese Mom would do. I asked myself "What would Mom do?" A pan, olive oil, freshly chopped garlic, a little bit of this a little bit of that and done - delicious pan fried tuna fillets for dinner. We even got Gina to eat a little.

We are now carrying on towards Tristan and wishing you all a very happy Easter.

Love to all

Ric.

Back Down to Earth

Day 12 of the Return Trip

After a few days of splendour, the euphoria on the boat has calmed down a bit.

The breeze dropped off yesterday afternoon and swung around to a very cold Southerly wind. (read: bitterly cold). Shortly after sunset we had to drop our trusty kite, Florence Kite-in-gale, and put up the big #1 genoa. It's a bit slower, but at least now we won't be outrunning the fish.

The night watches were chilly but fairly uneventful. The moon was with us for the whole night last night, and didn't shy away into a shadow like last night. Turns out, we received a message from Raf's Traveena yesterday saying that she hopes we didn't miss the 'blood moon'of the previous night.

Apparently the best places to have seen it from were either South America or some remote position in the South Atlantic. Who'd have thought?

Day 11 meant that our own fresh-food rations were depleted, and we could start busting out the vacuum-sealed wonder-rations that Kax prepared for us before she left (thanks, Kax!). It meant that we could have pancakes for breakfast this morning. The pannekoeke that were made by Gina and yours truly were gobbled up nearly as fast as Vitoria de Carvalho's biscuits (thanks, Vitoria!).

We lost our fire for a while. Literally. Of the four lighters that we had on board, none of them would work. Not so much as a spark, which is all that is required to light the gas-stove. We found a half-box of matches which we counted out to 30. Which would last us 15 days if we lit the stove twice a day - PROVIDED we got it right each time. This was not ideal, as it would mean no tea in between meals, and if anything happened to even a few of the matches, we'd be resorting to induced electrical short-circiuts to get our spark.

LUCKILY I found something that would save the day. A little red Ferarri lighter belonging to our dear friend Andrew Pavitt (Andyyyyyyy!) that I thought may have been lost. So could someone please tell Andy we all say thanks he is a lifesaver. And tell him if he was looking for his lighter, not to worry. Brennan has it.

Just want to give a last shout out to some peeps - Brad, Harrison Ford, Thoris, Jess Rawly and all the friends and family who have been mailing us.

You are all biscuits of the highest order.

Brennan

Dancing in the moonlight

Day 11 of the Return trip

Anything that happened during the daytime yesterday dulls in comparison with the happenings of the night.

It all started as the sun went down on a rare clear-skied day. On the west it disappeared, and at the same moment the moon rose to greet us in the east - like a scale, with one side going down as the other rose. It wasn't just any moon. It was a full and bright moon, which first peeked through a perfect hole in some distant cumulus coulds, but then rose to dominate the entire sky.

The wind was still behind us at about 15-18 knots, and it was to be the first night through which we would keep the spinnaker up. We were making really good ground, enjoying the panoramic view from the top of the mountainous waves, before surfing down the face of them.

The moon was unbelievably bright, and was only dimmed by the occasional micro-weather system that passed over our heads bringing more wind. We latched onto each of these little squalls and Ciao Bella took off. Our motto for last night was: "Tristan by Easter". Our top speed logged last night was 16.7 knots under Dave and Gina, and we also had a few hours runs of 10+ miles (a good couple of those due to Ric D). We are well on our way to a 200 miler now!

We thought that we were lucky to have the full moon with us for the whole night - but there was more!

On our watch at 04:00 (our time), Raf pointed out to me that the moon was no longer full. A big chunk of the thing was missing! We watched over the next few hours as the light of the moon was gradually stolen away by the earth. Who would have guessed that on the clearest night, we would be treated to a FULL LUNAR ECLIPSE!? It was mind-blowing. We got the whole crew up to see it. I even stayed up an hour after my watch ended to see it through.

The best part about it was that, as the moon faded to that soft reddish colour, all the stars came out and took over the sky.

So how was YOUR night last night?

Brennan

Stumbling over mountains

Day 10 of the Return Trip

We are on our tenth day of conquering this mighty ocean, and surmounting all of the challenges that such a passage presents. We are currently: over

1000 nautical miles from Montevideo, where we departed; about 1000 miles from Tristan da Cunha, which is our hopeful stopover; and 2500 miles from Cape Town.

We have made some really good time in the last few days. We are chasing for a 200 miler (200 nautical miles in 24 hours). We are pretty sure that we've hit it at least once, but our chart plotter has bombed out, and our log trip keeps resetting. so we are not 100% sure. One thing that IS for sure though, is that this boat has been rocketing. "full moon, clear skies, surfing the massive waves, Ricardo's epic lunch... hmmm..." reflects Raf.

We have had a taste of some serious South Atlantic rollers. Looking backwards here is equivalent to looking down when climbing a cliff. You just don't. Gina did once while she was driving, and couldn't suppress a little yelp. The waves are big, but also mostly gentle.

We have dealt with a lot of rain in the past few days, but yesterday afternoon, Ric and I saw some strange blue stuff appearing behind the sky.

Today, the sun is out in full force, but it's still a bit windy and rough to hang clothes and mattresses out to dry.

Yesterday was another eventful one. Immediately after sending yesterday's position report and blog post, the *jargon alert* Jib which was poled-out pulled out of the tuff-luff, and while Ric and I were dropping it, the sail split at the foot and ripped the whole tack off the sail. So basically, we wrote off one of our sails.

We replaced it with the storm jib, poled-out with the full main. The breeze had died down to about 25 knots, so it was decided to hoist the small spinnaker and make the most of the down-wind conditions. We put a reef in the main before this, just to be safe.

When the kite was up, we were hit by an unexpected squall with wind in the high 30s. We rode it out for a little while at light-speed, but couldn't prevent *jargon alert* a broach when the pole-downhaul strop snapped. So with the boat on her ear, we scrambled to get this kite doused and packed away. In the flurry of activity, Dave cut open the top of his foot. So with our first broach, we had our first casualty. Casually, Dave cleaned it and patched it up with super-glue and a bandage. All was fine, and we were back to square one, but with an added reef in the main.

The second casualty of the day was the loss of our lucky Golden Rapala fishing lure. The one that has bagged us most of our edible fish. We don't know what happened to it, but reckon it may have been a hungry Wahoo. Pure speculation.

Ja, nee. Aside from that, everyone has had a turn to do some driving and some surfing - with Gina and Raf especially showing some great prowess and composure in the big breeze and big sea.

In the Deep end

Day 9 of the Return Trip

Day 8 was our lightest wind day yet. We managed to get plenty far enough north to escape the brunt of the coming low-pressure system. Around lunch time the breeze died off almost completely, so we took a few minutes to have a swim in the seemingly infinite and impossibly blue water.

Just after Raf, Ric and Dave were taking 'selfies' with Dave's GoPro about 20m from the boat, Dave took a dive under with the goggles to get an underwater pic of Raf. The next thing we all hear is Dave shouting: "Shark!

Shark! Get back to the boat!"

I tried to turn the bobbing boat back in their direction, while the three of them scrambled the short distance which must have seemed like a mile. We were all skeptical of Dave claims to have seen a shark in the middle of the ocean, but it just so happens that in the background of one of Dave's underwater pics of Raf, there it is - a flipping Jonny. Right there.

A few minutes of motoring later, we spotted a turtle, so Dave and I hopped in and swam with it for a bit.

For the rest of the day we motored along at a leisurely pace, with an albatross swooping around us curiously.

On an early morning night watch, Raf noticed some black icky stuff in the bottom of the boat. It was oil which had leaked from the dipstick that I hadn't put back into place correctly. We saw the reult of it when we lifted the floorboards and it was just a mess of black slime. So I spent the better part of the morning (actually the whole morning) on my hands and knees cleaning. The fact that the wind and waves were up, and the Ciao Bella rodeo show was on again didn't help much. But now it is clean.

We have caught 2 Dorado this morning and we intend on having one for lunch and one for dinner. You can't believe what catching a fish does for everyone's spirits. Especially Navidave/Davidaloca/Guardavida/Dave

Moorcroft.

The breeze is cranking up. We have 2 reefs and the #3 jib up, wind on the beam, and it's my turn to drive.

Hope you're all having a cracking weekend back home!

Bren

Soaked!

Day 8 of the Return Trip

Greetings from an entirely wet Ciao Bella!

The past 24 hours have been filled with some very successful sailing, most importantly, in a homeward bound direction. Our day started with a modest 12 knot breeze coming out of the north east, but as the day wore on, the wind built substantially, reaching a rough 25 knots by nightfall. Although good gains were made, it was during the night that things really took off.

As of 10 AM UCT time this morning, our 24 hour run stood at 170 odd nautical miles. Most of this was accomplished a few hours either side of mid night in some solid breeze averaging 25-30 knots. A sizable 3m swell over our starboard quarter allowed for some fun surfing with speeds regularly exceeding 10 knots. Personally I attribute this impressive performance to our lunch and supper intake yesterday - deliciously fresh dorado!

As you would expect, we woke to a rather wet boat and this gloomy overcast day does little to enlighten the prospects of drying anything out. Never the less, the mood is good onboard and we are all chuffed to finally be making some solid ground in a homeward bound direction, even if it means another night of wet clothes.

Thanks to everyone for the messages so far!

Dave