Oct 28, 2002
We have finally left mainland Europe behind, and have arrived at islands of
Madeira (Porto Santo), after 3 days and nights in the Atlantic Ocean. We were
really going crazy waiting for favorable winds in Lagos, while the worst storms
since 12 years hit central Europe. We're now happy to be out of the bad weather
systems, and far out here in the very sunny and warm (26C or 80F) subtropical
paradise. There's an awesome beach right next to the harbor, and the water is
quite warm here, too.
Leaving Portugal we had some huge swell running from the storms in the north, so
that occasionally big ships kept disappearing in the troughs of the waves. We
had practically no wind, so it meant a rolly ride for us. Luckily by now all of
us have strong stomachs, so no-one got seasick. I did take some seasickness
medication (an ear patch) for the sake of trying it out, but all I got was a
migraine (next time I'll go "natural" for sure). Arriving here we were surprised
to meet our old Russian friends from St Petersburg. They had been drifting
around in the bad storm for two weeks, and broken some gear. They look very
happy
now: I think surviving something that bad makes you enjoy life even more.
Russians are tough...
Because of the lack of wind, we motored practically the whole 450 nautical
miles. This burned less than half of our fuel, so we know that we can motor up
to 1,000 miles. But sailing is certainly more pleasant, as the boat will have a
steadier motion, and the rig will be quieter. However, we were glad to have that
long of a range, as our British friends were left wallowing around in the calms
for a couple of days without enough fuel to motor on. Nikki called some of the
ships on the radio to check if we were visible on their radar: we were glad to
get a positive answer. Thomas was standing by far the longest watches at the
helm station: practically one whole day and part of the nights. Nikki and myself
alternated 3-hour watches through the 12-hour nights.
Besides ships, we saw quite a lot of sea life. Dolphins were playing on our bow
wave on several occasions, jumping and swimming like little torpedoes right next
to our boat. They look very happy showing off their acrobatics. We also saw some
whales and sea turtles. It's amazing that the sea turtles are floating around
hundreds of miles from land.
Matti and Thomas each caught a tuna fish; thus we got a very fresh and delicious
meal of fried tuna right after. This will be very welcome when we cross the
Atlantic.
We'll probably spend a week or so in Madeira before heading down towards the
Canaries.
Ahoy,
Crew of S/Y Amati
Nov 6, 2002
After two days and nights of sailing, we arrived this morning at Las Palmas,
Gran Canaria. This is were the ARC-rally across the Atlantic starts from, we
have now until the 24th to get everything ready. This time we had an excellent
sail: broad reaching with fairly steady winds around 20 knots from NE. No need
to use the engine except around the harbors. I had calculated our average speed
to be 6 knots, but despite having a double reef on both the main and the genoa,
we were going faster. For the last hours we rolled the genoa in completely to
slow us down, so that we wouldn't arrive before sunrise. The last night we
overtook our British friends on Canina, even though they left a day earlier.
It's always fun to talk to the other sailors on the radio to see how they are
doing. Many boats are struggling with seasickness; we haven't had anybody
seasick since the Swedish waters.
We had again good size waves, around 2-3 meters tall. Sleeping is a bit of a
challenge, because the boat is noisy: water rushing against the hull, things
banging around especially in the galley, and a cacophony of various stress
sounds from the rigging. It's also hard to stay in place with the boat
rolling: lying as flat as possible often works, or bracing against the hull or
lee clothes. The kids seem to have no trouble snuggling up somewhere, and no
amount of noise or motion seems to wake them up. I got thrown across the pilot
house once: good thing Amati doesn't have very wide open spaces to fly across.
Waves even in the middle of the ocean are unpredictable, and can catch you off
guard. The first day you feel quite uncomfortable, but after the 10,000th wave
everything seems normal again.
Our Navtex received a warning of a swarm of locusts approaching from Africa.
Well, we thought that the modern sail materials are not very appealing to
locusts, and all our vegetables are well stowed away. Luckily, we didn't see a
single locust.
We really enjoyed Madeira. The most unique experience was the traditional wicker
basket ride from the top of the town to the bottom. Each basket is steered down
through the roads by two men with two passangers in the basket that just skids
along the pavement at high speed. Other than that we enjoyed the nature very
much: quite mountaineous and dramatic with excellent views from the various
walking trails. So far Gran Canaria doesn't look nearly as inviting, but we
might change our minds after having a chance to explore a little more.
The kids are having a ball with so many playmates here. Yes, there's a danger
that this whole thing will turn into one enormous party with all the 225 ARC
boats packed into one corner in the harbor. We still have a long list of things
to do, and we need to keep up with the kids' schooling, too. However, we are
glad to have made it safely to our last port on this side of the Atlantic,
despite the warnings of biblical plagues and all.
Nikki said she would still write about the great Halloween party she organized
in Madeira among other things.
Ahoy,
Crew of S/Y Amati
Dear friends and family,
Being finally in Las Palmas, from where the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers starts,
feels really good. We had our ups and downs in these last 5 months ever since we
left Finland, but now there seem to be only some new fun challenges ahead. I
think my worst down was, when we were trapped in gorgeous Lagos, Algarve,
Portugal, where I felt like in a mousehole waiting for the right weather and
wind to cross over to Madeira. Only later Juha read in one of the guides, that
we were doing this passage kind of late in the year, where it is more likely to
get hit by westerly lows coming through.
On our passage to Madeira (3 nights , 3 days, 450 nm), our time in Madeira, and
our next passage to Gran Canaria ( 2 nights, 2 days, 300 nm), we got the first
taste how it is to be without running fresh water all the time, and endless
shore power. The brand new marina in Canical, Madeira, had not put in the water
lines on the dock yet, so that we lived for more than a week only on our 700
liter fresh water supply on the boat. The kids got used to getting handed a
beaker every evening with exactly 500 ml of fresh water from which they had to
wash their faces and hands, brush their teeth, and rinse their toothbrush.(This
is a real art - try it youself at home some
time!) Washing dishes was done with our salt water pump with only a sparingly
fresh water rinse afterwards. Well, we arrived in Las Palmas with lots of fresh
water left in our tanks. However, on these islands here, where most of the fresh
water comes from desalination plants, water is more expensive than wine, and I
hope the kids have learned a lesson, that water is a rare and very precious
commodity in many countries in this world.
Juha and I got used to our 3-hour night watch schedule, and we are very
comfortable with it. A very close encounter with a huge container ship on our
last passage in the middle of the night ( and we were not in any traffic
zones) reminded us again how important it is, to have one person actively
sitting outside and holding watch all night (no matter where you are). Because
of Juha's red/green blindness, he could not identify the containership's
navigationlights (green for starboard, red for port) early on, so by the time he
woke me up, we could already see the ship's huge bow wave and hear the ship's
engine noise against the wind - he was probably 1 mile on our starboard side. We
put on our mast strobe light, tried to contact the ship by VHF twice (no
answer), and made a wild attempt to get out of the way by putting the engine on
full power. The container ship passed probably less than 1/2 mile behind us, but
we were wide awake for the rest of the night.
Yes, in non-pumpkin-land, we did have a very modest Halloween party for the
kids. We were moored in Canical, Madeira, on the 31st of October, and I had
hunted down 3 squash-gourd looking pumpkins that were more long and narrow than
wide. Sweatingly I managed to carry them more than 5 miles on our bike from the
town to the harbor - it was worth the effort. We invited our british cruising
friends with their children over to carve them, have treats and do other fun
crafts. The kids went trick-or treating to 3 different boats and had very
inventive costumes. (Black mesh mosquito netting for a Vampire gown, shredded
white dacron sail material as a ghost costume). In the evening we put the
pumpkins with the candles on inside on our foredeck, to keep the evil spirits
away from our boat. It looked very pretty. I am amazed how grateful the children
have become for whatever we do, because they realize, how difficult normal tasks
of life can be on a boat.
With my british friend Allison, we decided to write a cookbook entitled "Your
most favorite food to cook on board after 5 Beaufort ". We've done already some
research and our russian friends, who went through a gale force 8/9 from
Portugal to Madeira, recommended mashed potatoes from a bag. Yeah, cooking is a
challenge, even if you have a cardanic hanging stove. The first challenge starts
with just getting all your food items or ingredients out of your storage areas
and fridge without having everything else spill over, fall over, fall out, being
messed up, etc...Once you have managed that (and this takes maybe only 30
minutes), half the deal is already done. Then, when you have thrown everything
into the pan on your cardanic hanging stove, and when there are waves of 3-5
meters hitting your boat from the side, you just amazingly stare in the pan,
that tilts more than 40 degrees back and forth, and wonder, how the food can
stay in there without landing on the floor. So, if you have a favorite recipe to
cook after force 5 Bft., that has been tested out, please submit it to me.
Schooling is not going quite the way we thought it would. The Calvert curriculum
is very well structured, but just too broad and all encompassing. There are just
not enough hours in the day to fit everything in, and we have never finished so
far the prescribed daily lessons, as it is recommended in the Calvert
curriculum. Even though our lessons are very intense, and Matti is already 1/2
through his whole Mathbook for the year, I feel, that they lack in hands-on
experiments for science (as prescribed in the curriculum), and creative
writing/language activities. Recently Matti discovered his childrens'
microscope, that we took along, and so we have been preparing microscopic slides
with all kinds of samples to look at (Potato peel, plant leaf, fresh water, salt
water, fish scales, jelly fish, insects, hair from different animals, etc..),
for the past 3 weeks.The good thing is, that all the kids profit from these
mutual activities - even Antti knows now how to handle a microscope.
Antti often gets blamed for too many things, and his big brothers certainly
don't mince their words, either. After one such incident Antti had a serious
melt-down with severe home sickness, where the whole world was just crushing
down on him and he threatened us to move in seriously and forever with his best
friend Thomas H. back on Mercer Island. He burst into tears, but he was brave
enough to work on his emotions by producing a 10 page stapled together booklet,
where he drew/colored our house on Mercer Island, with every single room on each
page represented. I think, this year off from all the hustle and bustle of
scheduled kid activities, gives the children a chance to really think what they
want to do with their lives, when we come back.
The fun thing here in Las Palmas is now, meeting so many other families from all
over the world with common interests. I felt right at home, when our boat got
invaded by a whole gang of 12 kids 2 minutes after our tireing 48 hour passage
from Madeira. The boat was all messy, the deck salty, slippery and dangerous,
the leeclothes were all strapped on still in the salon, but the kids had a
party, ate all our chips and drank all our remaining drinks, and were happy to
be together.
What are the kids doing while we are on our longer passages? Depending on the
weather (when it's calm,we really try to do some schooling), we found that each
child has his preference: Matti likes to play board games, gameboy, read books
or go fishing (take care of our traveling lines), Thomas sits endless hours and
goes on watch, checking all the instruments and filling in our official log book
meticiously every hour, and Antti likes to play games, read, or help me cooking.
All of them enjoy our precious evening hours together sitting out in the
cockpit, enjoying the endless stars above us and telling the most amazing
stories. After that they fall asleep whereever they find a leecloth that secures
them, and we can enjoy some peaceful nightwatches.
Our main concern here in Las Palmas is, before we leave on 11/24 for St. Lucia,
to get our watermaker fixed (which broke down when using it for the first time),
and our moody SSB radio working, which has somewhere a bad connection. After
these fixes we'll be in heaven and ready to leave. My brother from Germany is
coming on 11/17 to join us for the crossing. The kids are excited to have
another crew member on board. I hope, my brother knows what kind of a gourmet
kitchen he is getting into for 4 weeks.
Thanks for all your very thougthful e-mails. They are truely precious to us and
we devour any news you write. I am truely very sorry, if we don't always answer
every e-mail individually right away, since we have only limited opportunity to
use the satelite connection.
Solong,
from Amati crew Nikki.
Hi everyone!
We've been now 2 weeks here in Las Palmas and life has been very busy. The
atmosphere in this crowded harbor is ranging from excitement, nervousness, cheer
panic to partying mood. There are over 225 boats moored here, waiting for the
Atlantic Rally Crossing to start, and everybody has something to repair on their
boats. Some people had whole engines replaced in the last minute, others still
fix new stoves, solar panels, generators, water makers etc... the repair list is
cheer endless. Others again have their boat still hauled out and do rudder
repairs etc...We have most of our major repairs "done". The unreliable SSB could
not be fixed even after 3 different servicemen checked it out. The water maker
is running after Juha received spare parts from the US; however, I call it a
"Juha-fix": even though it is producing freshwater, it leaks saltwater at the
same time. So Juha just drilled some holes into the floor of the cabinet, so
that the leaking salt water can drain into the bilge. I just hope, that the
water maker produces more fresh water than it leaks saltwater.
Today I got my second last shopping for the 3 week provisioning done; among the
only Spanish speaking butchers, a little red hair girl helped me choose the long
lasting meats, and we get everything vacuum packed and frozen delivered to the
boat in 2 days. Then we only need to buy still some fruits and vegetables.
So far we have been so busy that we have seen only the harbor and the
provisioning stores. We are still planning to do a short island sight seeing
trip 2 days before we leave. On Sunday, the 17th of November, my brother joined
us as crew, and everything has been going smoothly so far.
The kids are having a great time with different activities each day; today they
had a fancy dress making workshop for the fancy dress party tonight. Tomorrow
there will be at 9:00 a.m. a sextant workshop for them, an SAR helicopter
demonstration, live flare demonstration, life raft inflation demonstration
etc...
One of our neighbor boats packed an artificial Christmas tree today onto their
boat; it was a pretty strange feeling to see that green tree on that boat,
especially when it is here 30 degrees Celsius, and everybody is running around
in shorts. The tree looked kind of out of place.
I am sure Juha will e-mail all of you still before we leave. You can follow our
daily position (compared with the other boats) on the website of
www.worldcruising.com. Solong, and you'll get mail from me in St. Lucia.
Nikki
Yes, this has been a very busy 2+ weeks, like Nikki said. I've gone through
everything I could think of in the boat, and everything looks good to go. The
water maker troubles I could better describe with a lot of "colorful" Finnish
attributes. At least now I can RTFM, when I finally received the right one after
the third try.
But overall, it has been a lot of fun here!
We will be sending/receiving e-mails also from the middle of the Atlantic every
day, as we are required to report our noon positions to http://www.worldcruising.com
. There's a page there where you can see all the positions and tracks of
selected yachts right on the map.
Juha