Jul 30, 2002
Greetings from jolly olde England! After 1444 nautical miles (2675
kilometres) and about 250 hours of sailing we are done with the Baltic and
North Seas. The latter has treated us a lot more gently, I must say. I and
the kids have never been to England before, so this feels like quite an
exciting milestone.
Our visit to Amsterdam (Netherlands) was interesting, although I wouldn't
call it a child friendly place. Prostitution and drugs are legal, with drug
cafes and paraphernalia visible everywhere. We have seen many museums, but
we skipped the 'hash and marihuana' museum, even though Nikki thought it
would be an educational experience for the kids. The maritime museum was a
treat with all the ship models and replicas, though. We also took a nice
water bus ride around the many canals.
Back at the North Sea coast we were treated by the beach culture everywhere.
It's really amazing, basically the whole coastline is one huge beach that
puts even California into shame. We keep telling the kids that they will
see enough beaches later on, too, when we have some time to settle down.
Well, we had a couple of beach days: the kids really love building huge sand
castles and getting buried in sand.
While sailing offshore, a large black inflatable boat approached us with men
dressed in survival suits. The seas were fairly large: the boat rammed on
our side and a couple of 'stunt men' managed to jump on our boat. They were
from Dutch Immigration, and wanted to see our passports while soaking wet
from the sea spray (Nikki gave them some towels). In reality they were just
looking for some excitement and were attracted by our American flag: they
stayed chatting with us until they were called back in from the mother ship.
Another offshore visitor was a dove who stayed with us for hours, let us pet
him, and even came all the way inside to the kids room in the bow. Nikki
soon ordered the bird out of the boat: the bird just let me grab and carry
him outside. Thomas spent the whole time with the bird, and was really
sorry to see him fly away as we approached land. This was also the first
time since Finland that we were able to sail with just swim wear on. We all
jumped to the water from the boat for a swim in the North Sea.
In Scheveningen (Netherlands) Nikki's parents and his brothers family came
to visit us again. This time we had excellent weather, and took them out
for a sail with a beautiful fast reach (15 kts of wind) out to the ocean
until we could see no land. The adults were really having a good time, but
unfortunately the seas were a bit too large for the three little nieces'
stomachs. This was soon forgotten, though, and our boys spent the rest of
the day teaching the girls new games. Matti was talking German all the
time.
Our mad dash to the south continued: the only thing the kids saw from
Belgium (Nieuwpoort) yesterday was a playground. Meanwhile I and Nikki took
a walk to the beautiful old town, which had a clear French influence. At
11:45pm I realized that we better start celebrating our wedding anniversary
when we still had 15 minutes of the day left. Nikki's mother had given us a
bottle of champagne and imported Alaska smoked salmon which we enjoyed at
midnight, while Nikki was still folding laundry with the other hand (this is
not a lazy vacation!). Then this morning we woke up at 5:45am and started
the trip along the Belgian and French coast and turned towards England once
we cleared the offshore sand banks (I think at least Matti saw a glimpse of
France, while the other boys slept).
When we started crossing the English Channel the famous British fog settled
in. This has the busiest shipping lanes in the world and we had to go
straight across with practically no visibility. I was playing games on the
radar while Nikki was listening and looking out. We had two uncomfortably
close encounters with ships, and were happy to see Dover emerge from the
fog. Dover just happens to be England's busiest port, too, and we had to
request permission to even enter the harbor area. Now we are here securely
locked in from the crazy tides, but had a heck of a time finding someone in
Immigration who was interested enough to check us in. We already took a
stroll downtown and enjoyed a taste of English fish and chips.
Tomorrow we are going to take it a bit easier and stay in Dover. On
Thursday Nikki wants us to take a train to London, because "we are so close
that we just can't miss it". We haven't kept up at all with the news: we
heard something about a "double dip recession", though (yikes!), and the
struggles at the Mercer Island School District.
Portsmouth, Aug 4, 2002
We crossed the zero meridian two days ago, so we are now in the western
hemisphere. We of course took the event on film as the GPS switched from
east to west, and had a little celebration. While visiting London by train,
we actually took a side tour to Greenwhich, where the world gets its' time
and where the longitude zero runs across. This was marked by a rail on the
ground: the kids had fun greeting each other from east to west, and standing
with one foot on each hemisphere.
After Dover, we had a nice stay in Britain's biggest seaside resort,
Brighton, where among other things we marveled at the queen's summer palace.
Right now we are in Portsmouth, near the Isle of Wight. This area is
Britain's yachting and racing centre: this week is Cowes Week, with about
1000 yachts participating. I've never seen so many sailboats on the water
at once before. No, we aren't going to try to pack ourselves into Cowes
with the hot headed racers, but we are planning to take a ferry over instead
to get closer look at the shoreside action and the local sites.
Ahh, what a spacious marina we have here in Portsmouth, quite American style
(and a price to match). In Amsterdam the whole marina basin was filled with
boats, and I mean FILLED. Every available nook was used, and boats were
rafted criss-cross, with only one narrow and twisty exit from the marina It
took until 11 am in the morning before we were able to get out: the boaters
were just incredibly patient, and slowly, one by one, everyone who wanted to
get out got their turn, and the rest of the boats reshuffled without much
fuss. It's amazing how the Dutch can organize themselves like that without
someone orchestrating the process. In Scheveningen we had five boats rafted
to us, while we were also rafted to another boat. I've seen rafts up to
ten, and inventive ways of securing lines to keep the whole structure
together.
We will stay here for a while to catch up on the "to-do list". Nikki is
getting nervous about the children's education, because we haven't done too
much of the formal school stuff yet. I'm trying to postpone worrying much
about it until we are at least in Portugal. My main concern is getting
safely across the Bay of Biscay, which can get really nasty towards the end
of August.
Thanks for all the emails we have received from you, please keep them
coming! We always download the mail with great anticipation and read`them
together.
Ahoy,
Crew of S/Y Amati
Here's from Matti:
July 24, 2002 Amsterdam
We had a really nice sail downwind (wing on wing). When we docked at a
really tight marina, we right away took a walk. We took a loud ferry to
Amsterdam. We decided to take a tour boat around Amsterdam. It was short,
but interesting. When we got off, we took a walk to the old town where a
cathedral and the queens palace was. It was a long walk. We walked back to
the ferry and back to our boat.
July 25, 2002 Amsterdam
We took the ferry back to Amsterdam and walked to a big maritime museum. We
saw an old queens boat, learned about the Flying Dutchman, and the trade
between India. I learned a lot. We ate at the cafe there. Then we went to a
ship which was exactly the same as the ship under water in Amsterdam. It was
cool. I would live in the captains cabin with the window open. Then we
walked to a restaurant. A small dish would be a mega dish in Scandinavia. My
parents took a medium size dish which was even bigger. It was smeared with
grease, and fat. We couldn't finish it. Then it was a walk back home. Me and
Thomas still played at the playground.
July 26, 2002 Scheveningen
We had a sail up wind. Thomas and Antti got seasick again. When we got
there, we took walk. We ate ice-cream and went to the beach. I built a
sandcastle. Then we took a walk back to the boat and ate chips.
July 27, 2002 Scheveningen
Today, my cousins, uncle and aunt, and my grandparents came. Me, my
brothers, and my cousins played our scooters. When we went back inside, it
was a harsh time with my cousins. They get a bit to feisty, especially with
the oldest boy..... me. We went sailing. Vivian got seasick. Everybody else
was fine. When we got back, I just gave all the girls, game boys, so that I
have my peace for a while. Then they had to leave.
July 28, 2002 Breskens
Today was a fun day. I went to the beach with my brothers, built a huge
sandcastle, and played in the water. When my parents came to pick us up at
8:00 pm, I was already buried. We then ate at a restaurant until 11:00 pm.
July 29, 2002 Nieuwpoort
We anchored and took a dip in the water. Then we arrived at Belgium. We kids
played on a playground, while our parents walked. We had a nice dinner.
July 30, 2002 Dover
A sail across the channel to England. This was the place to buy books,
books, books. To bad the shops were closed. We took a long walk, ate at a
fish and chips restaurant, and I found a two pence. This was also a place
with a lot of churches.
July 31, 2002 Dover
Today we went book shopping. Lots of books we bought. We also went to a
museum where we saw the oldest boat in the world, a bronze age boat. We saw
also lots of other stuff. We also took a long way uphill to the Dover
Castle. We saw a real trebuchet, and where the king lived. Under the castle
was a secret world war two base. It was really cool. This was a really fun
day.
August 1, 2002 London
We woke up very early to get to the train on time. It was a 2 hour trip to
London. When we got there, we walked around. We saw the Parliament building,
Big Ben, statues, and visited a Monastery where all the kings and the
important people where buried. We ate then ice cream and visited the queens
palace. We ate hotdogs, and took a boat tour to Greenwich. There we walked
to a house, which has a line that divides the Earth from East to West
(Longitude 0). It was also a cool museum. We set our watch to the exact
time, and I mean the exact time. We ate at Burger King and took the boat
back to London, and the train back to Dover.
August 2, 2002 Brighton
We crossed the line of Longitude 0. We celebrated that. When we got here, we
walked all the way to town. We just spend our time at a carnival, and took a
bus back home.
August 3, 2002 Brighton
We took a bus to town. We visited the Royal Pavilion. I wanted to live in
there. It was so neatly decorated. I think that is the most beautiful house
in the world. We took a bus tour, and ate bread for lunch. Then we played at
the bungee jump place and took the bus home.
August 4, 2002 Gosport (Portsmouth)
We basically did nothing but played and eat and write email.
From Matti
Hello!
On July 28, a pigeon flew on our boat.
It looked exhausted from flying a long
way from land to the sea. It peed 3
times and pooped 1 time on our deck.
Then after some time it flew INSIDE
OUR BOAT!!
My mom didn't like it so my dad brought
it back outside. (we were lucky it was not
a wild bird because it was marked by
someone)
When we got close to land again, it flew
away. Our family had a fun time with that
pigeon.
your friend, Thomas
(Juha: I'm trying to get Nikki and Antti to write, too. However, Nikki
prefers to send snail mail, and Antti writes only how much he loves
everybody).
Aug 9, 2002
We are in heaven! At least if you are a sailor, that is. Never mind what I
said in my previous mail, we did decide to go and join the Cowes Week of
racing madness here on the Isle of Wight, right in the middle of all the
action. Never mind that this fun costs $120+ a night, which is twelve times
more than what we paid in Scandinavia. And that means docking on the
outside of the breakwater with four race boats rafted to us and crews
trampling over our boat day and night. (Did I mention that there are about
1000 boats racing every day).
The partying here goes on until about 4 am with a live band playing and
girls pouring in from the gates to party with the sailors. The race boats
are quite Spartan, but with big crews: I think the idea is to party all
night and get drunk, then you won't even care where you sleep; and on with
the racing the next morning. Yesterday it was the Beach Boys' night with
the local 'Cowes Boys' doing a fairly decent rendition of all the classics.
We
almost felt homesick listening to "California Girls" and "Surfin' USA".
Incidentally, our American flag got stolen that night. Our fault, since we
forgot to follow the protocol of lowering the flag at 9 pm, which we got
properly chastised for by the harbour master.
Today we watched some of the racing from shore. The starting guns are real,
big, brass
cannons: 20 of them in a row, with officers in uniforms firing them. You
can smell tradition here. The chandlery where we just bought some bits and
pieces opened in the 18th century. Actually, there are mostly chandleries
and pubs here in West Cowes: just what the sailor needs.
We also took the time to visit the palace of Queen Victoria, which is within
a walking distance of here. What a feast to the eyes. I'm sure the kids
would like to mention, that we also anchored in the Solent and took a
refreshing swim from the boat.
Ahoy,
Crew of S/Y Amati
There is nothing much to add, just that the real history of this place gets
swept aside in this sailing Mecca.
We just ran through Queen Victoria's Summer Palace, House Osborne, where she
lived happily 90-100 days/year with her 9 children, and her husband Prince
Albert of Saxon-Coburg for more than 55 years. Thank heaven for written
museum guides, which I usually devour in the evening in bed, while Juha
reads the RORC cruising guides. Museum guides have been also so far our
teaching materials for the kids - the strict, organized Calvert School
Schedule hasn't settled in yet - it seems so much out of this world(and
needs too much parent preparation). The kids get a big portion of maritime
history as well; in Portsmouth at the naval base, there was not only Admiral
Nelson's "Victory" to visit, with which he defeated in 1805 Napoleon's fleet
off Trafalgar, but also parts of the recovered "Mary Rose", which was Henry
VIII's flagship, and which sank just outside of Portsmouth in 1545. After
having seen so many sunken and recovered ships from centuries ago (Wasa ship
in Stockholm from 1628, Bronze-Age Boat in Dover from 1550 B.C., and the
Mary Rose in Portsmouth from 1545), the kids have really the recovering and
conserving method of ancient ships with polyethylene glycol down like their
ABC's. Maybe they will become maritime archaeologists one day -seems to me a
fascinating job.
Yeah, the missing 3'x5' American flag on our stern this morning was a big
blow to our moral; Matti found immediately a hair sample on the flag pole
and suggested DNA sampling of the whole harbor to find the thief. Thomas
wanted to stand day and night guard right next to the flag - he felt
responsible, because he had been navigator for that previous day and was
responsible for taking in the flag in the evening. Antti just wanted to walk
through the whole harbor and check every single boat, if they may have it
flying - we could have easily distinguished it between all those Union Jacks
here, because it has 2 oil spots in the 13 red-white stripes. Whatever
happens:Antti is on the look-out.
After 2 months on the boat we have kind of a daily routine down regarding
everyday life. Antti is the best helper when it comes to grocery shopping.
Packed with backpacks and other bags we walk often miles to the closest
supermarket. We have to rely on Antti racing his kiddy shopping cart through
the aisles, because we often lack the matching coins for the locked up adult
shopping carts.(Costco could really safe in employees, if they would just
lock up all their shopping carts with a coin that will be returned, if the
cart is returned to the locking system) So, we know exactly how many kiddy
shopping carts we can fill up, before we can't carry it anymore in all our
bags all those miles back to the boat. We also got used to the fact that the
cashier doesn't smile at you and ask you how you are, but makes a gruff
face, if you can't bag up your food fast enough. In fact, I tried the
American way and asked the cashier how she is - it seemed to be a question
too much out of this world. Our laundry gets washed on the boat in our
fantastic Italian washing machine only whenever we feel, that the marina
over-night fees are too expensive; 30 gallons water per load and shore power
seems like a little price then. The same rule applies when taking a fresh
water shower on our boat.
Our evening highlights are always when Juha downloads the e-mail through the
sat-phone. The 5 of us gather then all around the laptop, and everybody is
anxious to see, if he/she got personal mail.Any kind of news back from the
good, old USA seems like a treasure to us. Matti and Thomas have been via
e-mail in contact with other ARC-kids (the ones participating in November
across the Atlantic). Matti writes regularly to Alix ( 11, female) from
England, and Thomas to Pippa (10, female) from Italy. The different
approaches are striking: Matti is a cool historian, Thomas a straight
forward technician.
I can honestly say, that our TV on board has hardly been used. The local
news are just not entertaining enough, or so monotonous/efficient, that we
do find the "off" switch after 15/20 minutes. Other evenings, we are busy
getting things prepared or stored away for our next day's early leave; if
you want to have the tide with you, you are better prepared to get up at
5:00 a.m.. Getting the boat ready for a trip is basically like cleaning up
your house before the cleaning lady comes. All counters have to be clean and
empty, easily prepared foods for the day are stored in the top layer of the
fridge, water bottles filled, drinks stored easily accessible. Life vests,
tethers, foulies are laid out to be put on easily in the morning. Juha sets
his waypoints on his electronic charts the night before. If we have the
time, we give the kids a lesson in navigation and let them figure out the
compass course and distance on a paper chart the evening before, and then
they have to calculate our estimated time of arrival. We haven't introduced
them yet, to taking the currents into their calculation. We check the
weather forecast the evening before either by VHF, radio, MF, the Navtext
system, newspaper, or TV. So far we never needed an alarm clock to wake us
up in time.
Tonight, spending our last night in Cowes, and having 4 boats rafted to us,
from which drunk people trample all night over our boat, I have no problem
staying awake. I have to admit that I got quite loud in disbelief, when I
saw today,(after our last night's flag incident), some crew trampling
ignorantly in their street shoes over our hatches. I was raised to respect
other people's property.
Our next set date is Tuesday, the 13th of August, when we want to be in
Falmouth. We'll meet my brother, who is driving all the way from Germany
there, for the last time, get our last snail mail through him, and get then
hopefully ready for crossing the Bay of Biscay.
Solong,
Nikki.
Aug 17, 2002
We're at the corner of the Bay of Biscay in Brest, France. This is the
dreaded bay: we're looking at the bull right in the eye! If anyone saw the
picture of the lighthouse in the storm at the Suomalainen's, we just sailed
past it. The big Atlantic swell smashing against the shallow, rocky coast
of Bretagne does look quite impressive. If you look at the Amati routing
plan, we weren't planning to come here, but since we already missed
Cherbourg, we thought that it would be a major embarrasment not to land on
the French soil at all. So instead of skirting The Bay, we're right in it.
I can assure you, that we will be very patient and wait for a bullet proof
weather forecast before we do the three day hop across The Bay to Spain.
The sail across the English Channel took about 25 hrs. We started at 2:30pm
with mirror calm seas, but after a while the wind built up from SW and we
were able to just beat into it. However, I had calculated our passage very
conservatively with a speed of 5 knots or so, and Amati was doing over
seven. This didn't look good, because it would mean arriving close to the
French coast still in the darkness and against the very strong currents. We
had to figure out how to sail slower: what an unusual concept. So we
started
reefing. Double reef on the main didn't make much of a difference. Genoa
reefed to the second mark, and still blasting along at close to seven knots.
Oh
well, I thought, let's just keep going and kill the time later.
Over the night the wind veered all the way to NE and finally died, while the
seas kept building. At the morning twilight we were tired of listening to
the sails and rigging slatting back and forth, so we took sails down and
started motoring. We were rolling a lot in the big beam seas, and the boat
was quite noisy inside as everything in the cabinets was getting knocked
back and forth (note to myself: need to do a better job at securing things).
However, the noise wasn't the thing that kept us awake and anxious: it was
all the shipping! The Channel was just full of ships and fishing vessels:
hardly a moment of solitude. We had to change our course several times to
avoid them. Staring at and interpreting the navigation lights in the
darkness and sticking bearing lines on the radar over the ships kept us both
quite alert over the night. The kids were all offering to stand night
watches, too, but of course we just used them as an extra pair of eyes when
they occasionally woke up in the night.
We received gale warnings in the areas west of us, and the pilot book
warns against "loitering" in this region, so we just powered through the
currents.
When we arrived at Brest, we were too tired to deal with the hassles of the
marina, so we just anchored in the bay, took a quick swim, and went to bed.
Right now (Saturday) we are tied up, took a walk around Brest and its' big
castle, and are already planning a little excursion to Paris. We have very
friendly American neighbors who came by a motorboat (Krogen 54) all the
way from San Francisco to here; they are giving us some good tips.
Looking back to England, I think we truly saw the best of it: it's just
unthinkable that a whole country would look as nice as the places we saw:
Brighton, Cowes, Lymington, Weymouth, Dartmouth. The marinas are expensive,
but they really are in prime locations. Dartmouth had an impressive
entrance with a steep-sided fjord, where we were surrounded by castles and
villas, and anchored with a view to the lively town. In Lymington we had
Nikki's English family friends visit us; the next day they took us on tour
by car
through the area and a gorgeus breakfast in their holiday flat. Our boys
enjoyed
very much playing with their 7-year old daughter, Natalie. Antti an Natalie
have
already written letters to each other. In Dartmouth Nikki's brother,
Roland, came to visit us again in Dartmouth.
Ahoy,
Crew of S/Y Amati
Hi!
Today, we landed on France after crossing the channel. England was really
fun. I think I would want to live in England. My favorite places in England
were Dover, Brighton, Cowes, and London. Now the first and last time in
France, we are going to visit Paris tomorrow. I am very excited. I took
French class in the USA, so France isn't going to be a problem, but my mom
always has a French dictionary. I think all of Europe is cleaner than
America, except for the Netherlands. Write to you soon.
from Matti
Aug 25, 2002
We arrived at La Coruna on Saturday morning after a 52hr down wind passage
across the Bay of Biscay. The wind was a little stronger than forecast
towards the end (6 Beaufort), but since it was with us, it wasn't a problem.
We are just tired and a little worried about a Norwegian boat, Nadja, who
left shortly after us with the same plan, but whom we haven't heard from
since the middle of the bay.
I will leave this message short as we received some truly horribly news from
back home: we are mourning the loss of our greatest friend and supporter,
Heikki, who lost his life under very tragic circumstances. I and Matti, who
is Heikki's godson, are planning to fly back to Seattle for the memorial
service on Saturday. Before that we are trying to get the boat to Bayona
(120 miles away), which has a better marina. Right now the forecast calls
for near gale force winds off Cape Finesterre, so we will wait for smoother
weather.
Sep 4, 2002
Matti and I are back in La Coruna, Spain, after attending Heikki's memorial
in Seattle. It was a hard trip, but it really was the right thing to do out
of respect for Heikki and his family and friends, and also for our own piece
of mind. Many thanks still to Wingersons, Huttunens, Suomalainens, Celeste,
and Suokkos, who invited us to their homes during our short stay. It's just
incredible how many people Heikki touched during his short life. I'm sure
he has a good net connection up there, so we'll stay in touch.
Between the flights back from Seattle, Matti and I took a long bus tour
around Madrid. Matti likes to see capitals, so this was the fifth one we
saw during our voyage.
We will continue our cruise as planned, albeit behind schedule. Luckily we
have until mid November to get to Las Palmas in the Canaries for the start
of the Rally across the Atlantic, so we are in no big hurry. Just before
Heikki passed away, he had on behalf of us signed the sales contract for our
previous boat, 'Tuuli'. We had to still find an American consul here to
verify our signatures for the final Bill of Sale; he happens to be on
vacation, so we have to wait two more days before we quite anxiously sail
on.
Sep 11, 2002
A few days ago we rounded Cape Finesterre, the impressive and somewhat
dreaded northwestern headland of Spain. We had an excellent downwind sail
under sunny skies: 20 knots of wind with full sails winged out doing over
seven knots. Our telescopic whisker pole and longer than standard main boom
let us spread out quite a bit of canvas for excellent downwind progress.
Setting the rather long and heavy pole on the pitching and rolling foredeck
is something that I'm not totally comfortable with yet, but we are hoping to
get more practice before the Atlantic crossing.
Right now we are anchoring at an idyllic old Galician fishing village,
Muros, in a Spanish Ria (fjord) of the same name. Galicia (the land of
Asterix and Obelix) is quite unspoiled with beautiful nature, somewhat
reminiscent of the Pacific Northwest. Roman influence is still felt here
with all the granite construction and architecture. In La Coruna we
actually visited the oldest working lighthouse in the world (Torra de
Hercules) that was built by the Romans. Life is quite relaxed and pleasant
here, and we have also been taking it easier recently. Nobody speaks
English here: the only one I had a decent conversation with turned out to be
a Finn, heh.
Every morning we wake up with at least a dozen neat little wooden
boats surrounding us with old, local men very quietly casting bait.
Everyone is
sitting in their own colorful little vessel. It definitely looks more like
a hobby rather than serious business. We never saw anyone catching fish,
even though they are jumping all over the place. We have been ramping
up our own fishing efforts with all kinds of gear, albeit without any luck
yet.
Today we chose the worst bottle of liquor in our stores to use for killing
the fish: the Danish aquavit was the definite choice. A squirt of that
'potion' in the gills of a fish is guaranteed to drain the life out of the
any creature before it has a chance to thrash all over the boat.
Today we had a great day, just the kind of a day that many people cruise
for. After celebrating Antti's birthday we took a long dinghy ride along
the ria to a beautiful, quiet beach where we swam, hiked along the beach,
and the kids spent hours building little huts for themselves from the
materials they found on the beach. We also learned that landing a dinghy on
an ocean beach is no simple matter: we got swamped coming and going with the
Atlantic swell.
Actually, yesterday was perfect, too,
although totally different. We took a bus to the catholic pilgrimage town
of Santiago de Castello and spent the whole day there in the ancient
surroundings. In the 1000-year old cathedral Antti was intrigued by a
statue of 'Saint of the Knocks', which is supposed to increase your
intelligence if you knock your head against it. Being protestant
'infidels', we didn't want to risk our chances.
We will stay here until the wind turns to North: we have enough time now to
be spoiled and only sail downwind. In fact, we are in the area of the
northerly Portuguese trade winds: theoretically from here on it should be an
easy 'milk run' all the way to the Caribbean.
Ahoy,
Juha
P.S. We are actually in Bayona now (didn't get around sending the e-mail
yesterday). This is our last Spanish harbor before Portugal. No, the milk
run hasn't started yet: we motored the whole way upwind, and there's a gale
forecast for Sunday.
Nikki:
Yes, we have definitely gotten used to the Spanish timing: breakfast at 9:00
a.m., lunch between 2-4:00 p.m., and dinner at 10:00 p.m. Since we are in
the western most part of the middle European time zone, the sun rises and
sets late. It will be different in Portugal, which has GMTime, even though
it's on the same longitude as Spain.
Our hearts are still heavy and saddened by the loss of our dear friend,
Heikki Kanerva, and he has been traveling with us in our minds. We have been
looking at this cheerful country with more somber eyes, and our family has
come closer together. Spain is, on first sight, a very clean, friendly,
cheerful country. Everybody dresses very nicely - even the children are
dressed up (no jeans or sweatshirts) - and only the Spanish teenagers and
tourists are wearing jeans and t-shirts. Spanish life on the streets and big
plazas starts right after work (around 7:00 p.m.) and lasts until dinner
time (10:00).(Sun sets here around 9:30 p.m. right now.) Kids all ages run
and play around the plazas, while the well dressed women promenade in groups
around, and the husbands sit in the bars and street cafe's. There are hardly
any subcultures visible with green/purple/red/blue dyed hair, tattoos, or
pierced body parts all over.
The countryside and villages we have seen look all very self-sustaining:
every inch of land is used for growing vegetables: corn, cabbage, wine,
tomatoes, beans, pumpkin, squash, fruit trees, lemon, bananas, oranges
etc...very often you will also find chicken our sheep kept in the backyard.
Here in Galicia almost everybody has also those typical "granaries" in their
backyard: a rectangular building built from rock and freestanding, raised on
4 rock pillars.We were told that wheat was kept in there for the winter
time. So, in villages where you would normally suspect nice flowerbeds for
decoration, you will rather find corn or cabbage planted.
We have started Calvert schooling seriously; we feed the kids with
assignments after one another until their heads are smoking. Then they get a
5 or 10 minute rest and can go outside and count the boats, seagulls or fish
swimming around us. When their heads are cleared up, we have the next stack
of assignments waiting for them, so they won't get bored. Pedagogically this
is probably not the most optimal way of teaching, but trying to teach 3
different levels at the same time, leaves us with intense multitasking,
correcting, checking, advising, explaining, answering questions, discussing,
etc...After 3 to 4 hours, we need a break ourselves. We have detected also
the different work habits of our kids, as we were told by their last
teachers, in no time: Matti is a very studious, hard worker, who just needs
guidance to not lose the broad perspective; Thomas tries to avoid additional
assignments by being deliberately slow, and Antti has still a short
concentration span and lacks certain seriousness to his work. So far the
kids have been, although, still very enthusiastic.
Since La Coruna we have started traveling with other cruisers together in
small groups; we have made new friends and it is always exciting to enter a
new harbor and see, who is already moored there. We have socialized with a
British couple from northern Wales on a Nauticat 38 ( who were grateful for
using my washing machine), a Norwegian family from Christiansund with 2 kids
(Thomas and Antti were thrilled to play playstation 2 on their boat), a
British newlywed couple, who will go with a Westerly bluewater cruising
around the world, and tomorrow we are expecting an Australian couple on our
boat for dinner, who are on their 1st circumnavigation. It is fun to meet so
many different and mostly modest people from all over the world.
So much for today,
Nikki
Sep 17, 2002
We're in Portugal, in Viana do Castelo. This is our 10th country in just a
little over three months of voyaging
(Finland-Sweden-Denmark-Germany-Netherlands-Belgium-England-France-Spain-Por
tugal). However, we are almost through Europe now, so the next new country
will be in the Caribbean (St Lucia). Anyway, I like Portugal already. This
is a seafaring nation with very nice old towns: they may look a little
weathered in places, but that just adds to the authenticity. The Portuguese
are formal with their paperwork: we already ran four times back and forth to
the marina office to get us properly cleared in. People are very friendly,
though, and they even speak English here. Viana do Castelo is an old (16th
century) port wine trading town, and we are already testing the produce here
in the comfort of our boat, while listening to the wind whistling in our
rigging.
The weather is nasty. The barometer dropped quickly to 1,000 millibars
while we were out in the ocean. There's torrential rain and strong gusty
winds from the south. We were actually sailing quite well under a double
reefed main and a full genoa, until the wind veered from east to south.
However, we arrived here exactly as planned, whereas all our neighbors had
more ambitious plans, but came here to seek shelter instead (the wimps!).
It's funny how you start getting to know the boats: most of the voyagers
have similar plans, and you keep meeting the same people in the harbors
along the way. Right now we have American, Australian, and British
neighbors, whom we met all before. Everybody is automatically friends here:
we're swapping tips and stories, and inviting each other over. At sea we
talk over the radio to ask for weather conditions, or space in the marinas.
Sep 30, 2002
We are currently in Cascais, which is a fancy suburb of Lisbon. Yesterday
we took a quick train ride to Lisbon to visit some famous maritime monuments
and museums. We have also done some tours inland to visit ancient
Portuguese towns (Obidos, Sintra), besides all the fishing oriented towns
(Povoa de Varzim, Figuera da Foz, Peniche) that we have stayed in along the
coastline.
Finally the kids have plenty of playmates! In fact, now that we are
traveling at a slower pace, there's more time for social life for all of us.
We have had now for three days in a row a dinner party for adults in one
boat, and for the kids in another boat. During the day the kids play with
each other (fishing, scootering, cards, ...), or we visit sights together.
Currently our group includes Belgians, Australians, British, and Norwegians:
there are plenty of others, too, that we haven't had a chance to meet yet.
The Australian man thinks that the Finns are the craziest people on the
planet for sure, after someone took him to a sauna and made him roll around
naked in the snow while visiting Finland (I was flattered of course).
In one of the previous harbours we ran into some crazy Russians from St
Petersburg, who are drifting around in a primitive, self made boat around
the world with a three person crew: a captain, a cook, and a public
relations lady. We invited each other for dinner (I made them drink
Finlandia vodka, of course). They weren't aware of such "minor"
navigational obstacles as tides and hurricane seasons before leaving their
home waters of Lk Ladoga, which they claim to be just like the Atlantic
Ocean. Yes, there are many kinds of cruisers out here.
We are also trying to sneak in some education and boat maintenance work in
between. Today the kids were writing essays about what we saw in Lisbon. I
spent the whole day checking all the hardware on the boat for lose screws,
lubricating things, etc.
There's plenty of nervousness among the voyagers about the weather pattern:
we have had southerly winds for weeks now, even though the prevailing winds
(called Portuguese trade winds), are supposed to be northerly at this time
of the year. Finally tomorrow the winds are supposed to change, and there's
reportedly a huge amount of boats casting off towards Madeira (off the coast
of Africa). We have decided to be more patient, and spend at least another
week in Portugal, sailing all the way to Algarve, which is the south coast
of Portugal with Mediterranean climate.
Oct 17, 2002
Another big low pressure system is developing off the coast of Iberian peninsula
bringing southwesterly gales. It looks like we will be stuck here for another
week. We were starting to develop a mild case of harboritis, so we decided to
rent a car to escape this place for a while. For a sailor, Gibraltar certainly
is an intriguing place, so we decided to undertake the arduous drive through the
Portuguese and Spanish desert lands in a tiny Fiat.
Gibraltar is a huge rock that marks the border between the Atlantic Ocean and
the Mediterranean Sea. Throughout its' whole history it has been fiercely fought
over, and it shows. The big Moorish castle there has withstood fourteen sieges.
Currently "the rock" belongs to the British, but the Spanish claims for it
haven't ended. In fact, none of the Spanish maps we have even mention Gibraltar
by name, and there are no road signs until you are right there. So we had to
guess how to get there, and resort to "traditional methods of navigation" by eye
sighting the rock from the car, which sticks out like a sore thumb in the
Spanish eye.
What an interesting place, though: quite British with awesome views to Africa
over the narrow Strait of Gibraltar. We spent a whole day hiking and visiting
the various historical and natural sites. The kids especially enjoyed the wild
African apes climbing around all over the Upper Rock area. Some locals consider
them a nuisance, as they are not very shy, and try to snatch your food at every
opportunity. However, they sure are great entertainment for visitors. The cactus
trees were another reminder of the African proximity .
The hotels in Gibraltar were obscenely expensive, so we stayed in Spain instead
in the first Mediterranean hotel with a great view to the sea. This meant that
we had to put up with the hassles of crossing the strict border control several
times. Driving a cheap Portuguese car, we didn't attract much attention. In
return we obtained a tax free water maker and some goodies from the local
Safeway.
From Matti:
Hi! We had a fun visit to Gibraltar. We rented a car from Lagos where our boat
is moored. The car ride took 12 hours. We rented a hotel in Spain. The next day,
we went to Gibratar and took the cable car up to the big rock. We saw wild apes,
some guns, a neat cave with an aditrium inside. It also showed ancient skulls
and marks. We saw the Great Seige tunnel and the Moorish tower. I learned many
things including that Gibraltar was seiged 14 times. We spent two nights there.
We just got back yesterday. Write to you soon!