Selinunte

Today we visited the ancient site of Selinunte on Scilly. The Jupiter temple was very impressive. When the site was picked,  the people knew what they were doing,  as it is sited just above an amazing white beach. But what was perhaps more amazing for me were all the wild flowers that really livened the site up. I have visited many Greek and roman sites before,  but mostly in high summer,  in the scorching heat. Other than the Jupiter temple the site is mostly a pile of scatted stones,  but with the wild flowers,  it made for a very interesting hike. I can really recommend a visit to this site to anyone.

How did the ancients do it? Skippers perspective of the 370 NM crossing from Fromentera to Sardinia

How did the ancients do it?

Sailing for days on end, days without land in sight, sailing through the dark nights. How did the ancients do it? We all know that Colubus cheated, and actually knew the route to the New World. The Vikings were the first to make it to Amerika. They needed to rely on the position of the stars, sun and the moon for navigation. This offcourse, could only give them the lattitude, as the Longitude problem would be solved a couple of centuries later in Greenwich. They had primitive compasses, and a sun stone, a stone that would allow them to locate the sun, even when covered by clouds. Their ships where sturdy, but open, and the man and supplies were exposed to the elements. For days, weeks, months even they would have to endure, not knowing how long to wait for the next landfall. They could not have seen any rocks at night (especially if the moon is not up, there is cloud cover, or the moon is simply shining from the wrong direction).

The crossing from Fromentera to Sardinia is some 370 Nautical miles, and we expect this crossing to take 3 days. Our tank is fueled up, weather forecast downlowded and checked, the course set, and we are off. We know that even if there is no wind, our diesel tank will last the whole stretch, and our larder will provide for far longer than 3 days. We haven't quite learned how to economize on the water consumption, and we go through a quarter tank roughly every two days. Fortunately, the water maker and solar panels can easily keep up with this rate. More importantly, our music and book collection will last much much longer than that.

Back to the vikings, staying motivated, without the luxury of hot showers, music and books to read, chilled drinks, and fresh food, and unlimited amount of drinking water, exposed to the elements for weeks on end. Our crossing went smooth, with the least amount of waves we have had thus far had in any crossing. For several days we only saw one or two ships visually. Since the radar and AIS can look much further, these devices could pick up quite a few more ships. Sometimes you can see the land when it is as close as a few Nautical miles, and other times you can see land from around 50 nautical miles. If the land is mountainous, this will improve the visibility significantly, and at night, we can see the lighthouses from about 40 nautical miles on a good night. Our radar can pick up targets from as far as 48 Nautical miles, if they are big enough. The vikings, of course did not even have lighthouses to go on. The Egyptians started the lighthouse practice, but this technology had not been transferred to the New World when the ancients landed.

This means that you need to either know that the location where you are planning to make your landfall is quite large and hard to miss, or alternatively you need to keep the cross track error in your navigation less than 5 nautical miles on a low visibility conditions, or 50 nautical miles on high visibility conditions. Fortunately, for the vikings this is true for America, which stretches across both hemispheres. It actually becomes quite a lot trickyier when navigating to small islands, such as the pacific islands, Svalbard, Madeira, and so on. Can you imagine, to miss the one island in the pacific you where planning to hit some islands are less than 5 km in diameter, and than having to go on to Australia? Or Happening on the next possibly uninhabited and uncharted island? Back in the day, this is the method how quite a few islands where discovered. And even worse, lost! If the navigational notes were off, it could become impossible to find back the place where you spent such a sweet time and planted your flag...

On our 3 day crossing, I had plenty of time to think about all this. As I write this, we are less than 30 Nautical Miles away from Sardinia, and we picked up the first land at about 50 Nautical Miles distance. As I type this, I am having a chilled fruit juice, and our boat speed is above 7 knots. When we left, our water tank was at one quarter, right now it is at 3 quarters full. How Times have changed. My respect for the vikings has deepened by an infinitive amount. Going out there, without knowing what is out there, and whether it is possible at all is in my mind the ultimate proof of courage. And we all know, the vikings had no shortage of courage!

SaltyPaws serves freshly made pasta on its crossings

The owner of the SaltyPaws taking a nap

The one vessel we see, and we need to take evasive action!

Tuxington overseeing the evasive nautical manouvres

Another sunset seen from Salty
Paws

At anchor in La Coruna - Our first night on anchor

At anchor in La Coruna.

The first night we spend at anchor was at La Coruna in Spain. I was amazed with how quickly the Rocna 40kg anchor dug in. It was a beautiful anchorage, next to the local beach, and harbor. The lights of the buildings looked impressive from out spot at anchor. As the rain was poring down, we were enjoying some light dinner. As a precaution, I had set 2 anchor alarms, one using the navigation system, and one using my nexus 10. The Anchor never dragged even a centimeter according to the gps. The nexus 10 anchor alarm went off, but this was only due to a change of the wind direction. The wind had calmed down from 30 knots out at sea, to a mere 15 knots while we where in the sheltered anchorage. We have enjoyed our best night of sleep so far, even better than the night before in the local marina.

Costa Del Sol - A cruising perspective

Costa del Sol

We didn't spend too much time around the Costa del Sol. The things that struck me most about the Costa del Sol:

1. It is hard to escape the apartment buildings. Even the pilot guide is full of phrases like: “aim for the 4 large apartment blocks” to make your way to the anchorage or marina. This phrase is typically not very helpful, as there are apartment buildings everywhere.
2. We could see the snow on the peaks of the mountains peaks. I didn't expect that the SaltyPaws would ever see the snow, and now she has.
3. The anchorages are not very sheltered, and especially when the wind has a South component, it is hard to find a sheltered anchorage.
   

   

La Isla Fromentera - Skippers log

La Isla Fromentera

At First I thought that Ibiza would be too much partying. We ended up anchoring of La Isla Fromentera, just south of Ibiza. At night we could see the sun set over Ibiza. What a lovely place this was. The white beaches made the place look a lot like the carribean. We had a cycle ride, along the salt pans on the island, and also enjoyed the nature reserve. At our anchorage, just north of La Salina, we sometimes had the place to ourselves, at night that is. During the day, mostly motoryachts would come in from Ibiza and anchor in the bay. The restaurants were very accomidating to boaters, and you could order your paella over the VHF, and they would deliver to your boat.We never found out how the paella was, due the the extortionate prices that went with the service. Another well appreciated feature was, that the super market was next to the beach, and only a dinghy ride away. All in all we spent 3 nights at anchor here, the longest we stayed in one spot so far. Onwards to Sardinia.

On the way out we passed the town of Ibiza. From the water it looks like any other village on the costa del sol. Sprawled with highrise buildings. I just entered a note to self on the map: “Do not anchor here”.

On the way out, very close to our anchorage, we are send of, by a lone dolphin, making a couple of jumps in the water.

Crossing the straight of Gibraltar

Crossing the straight of Gibraltar

From Cascais, in Portugal, our plan was to move through the straight of Gibraltar, and find a nice spot on the costa Blanca. I have crossed shipping channels many times, even in dense fog, using the radar, so how hard could it be?

Our first leg, from Cascais to Cabo Sao Vicente went at a brisk pace of 7 knots, running on just the genoa. Hint, if the mainsail is not up, you don't have the risk of it accidentally gibing, and we were happy with our seven knots. On our way to Cabo de São Vicente, we didn't see that many ships, and this is generally how we like it. We did expect this situation to change, however, in the near future.

The leg from Cabo de São Vicente to the straigt of Gibraltar, was quite pleasant, the weather turned into very sunny and very warm, and the wave height reduced from nearly 3 meters,to less than a meter. We though we were already in the Med. Elizabeth made a wonderfull vegetarian meat loaf (I know, it sounds a bit like a contradiction, but wait until you had the first bite!) and a salad.

Also, on several occasions, we were greeted by a large groups of curious dolphins. Although we could see many ships on the AIS display, all heading towards or from the straight, we did actually see surprisingly very few vessels, mainly due to the fact we were staying out of the way of the main shipping channel. We used all our sails, including a first reef, on this section of the trip, as the wind slowly reduced on out way to Gibraltar, no next to nothing (we had to use the iron mainsail), picked up again to 20 knots, and just before Tarifa, dropped again to nothing, and finally settled into a refreshing 30 knots... In the wrong direction. The kite surfers at Tarifa must have been happy. We on the other hand were battling the 30 knots over the deck, wind against current and the lovely effect this has on the waves, and reduced visibility.

We did not get to see the kitesurfers, unfortunately, do to the heavy fog, which descended upon us throughout the night. We had actually planned our trip, so we would cross the Gibraltar straight in daylight, to make the crossing easier. However, this was not meant to be... Using the radar, and AIS, it was very easy to establish the viability range. In the worst part, the visibility was just a few hundred meters, causing me to see a Moroccan vessel, only at the last moment, as it did not have AIS or radar reflector. Presumably the vessel was engaged in nefarious activities, either smuggling or possbily worse,  illegally fishing in Spanish waters, because we saw it in the Spanish waters, and it was crossing the shipping channel towards morocco.

When we passed in front of the tower of Tarifa, we could barely see it, at a range of less than 2 nautical miles. At this distance, suddenly a high speed catamaran appeared on our AIS display. It was heading right for us at 22 knots! Evasive maneuvers... We did see a second high speed catamaran, coming out of Gibraltar.

When we crossed Gibraltar, we could barely make out the rock, on account of the viability being much better at higher altitudes. However, as soon as we made out way into the Med, the wind dropped to nearly nothing, the fog lifted and the sun came out. All good things come togather, as by this time, Elizabeth's samosas came hot out of the oven.

We decided to set sail to Estepone for a thorough decrustification.

Tux and Luna on Watch

Luna on the Navigation Console

Leaving Cascais at a brisk pace

Tux and Luna on the bridge

Vegetarian meat loaf and salad

Dolphins  between the bows

Time for a vitamin booster

Last sunset in the Atlantic for a while

Radar and AIS display, just before entering the straight. Note, we are in the middle of each of the displays.

Luna helping out with the navigation

Luna on watch for incoming heavys

Tux, not even lifting a single paw...

Wait, he IS lifting his paw

Tower of Tarifa

Elizabeth making Samosas in front of Gibraltar

Vegetarian Indian Samosas

How to make your first love fall in love again.... this time with sailing!

There are many great relationships, where the man loves sailing, and the woman loves staying ashore. People have therefore asked me the question: "How did you get that woman to love sailing as well?". What I should have done, is use "Would you like to sail around the world with me?" as a standard pick-up line. The second question would then not be: "What is your favourite dish" or "What sports do you do" or even  "What music do you like?" no the second question would be: "Do you ever get sea sick?". But no... when I met Elizabeth, on the glacier, she made me quickly forget about the questions I should have asked, and instead we looked at the stars on the glacier, we looked in each others eyes and we fell in love. Only too late did I realise, that the woman I was now madly in love with had never sailed before in her life... However, sailingwise she did have a few things going for her, she was a surfer, and into kayaking, and I even managed to get her to like snow and water kite surfing. Stay tuned for how I got the love of my life into sailing.

The Plan: Happy couple sailing in fantastic weather

The North Sea in Spring is perhaps not the best place to take the Love of your Life sailing for the first time. That is, if you want her to go sailing with you ever again, and especially if you would like to sail halfway around the globe with her. The cunning plan, was to introduce Elizabeth gently into sailing, stacking all possible positive factors to my benefit that I could think off: Starting with a spacious 40 foot catamaran, filled with some of our best friends. Sailing Easter time in Greece - good weather guaranteed, and topped off with rounding Santorini, the most romantic island.

A spacious 40 foot Nautitech catamaran

Some of our best friends were joining on the trip - Thank you Amira for taking the picture

Easter in Greece - good weather guaranteed

I should have known better, and Lady Luck ended up teaching me a lesson or two. While back in  Norway is was the best Easter ever (30 degrees, blue sky, hardly any wind), in Greece it wast the worst Easter since the past 15 years. We experienced 12 degrees throughout the week, lots of rain, and multiple days with 35 knots of wind. (we decided not to sail on the day it was blowing a staggering 45 knots). Easter is to early for the Meltemi, so this was a "Normal" storm being thrown at us.

This was my worst scenario being realised. And, off course it could have been the end of the line, for a Relationship that included sailing. Even worse, this could have been the end of the line for A Small Boy with a Big Dream.  On Andy's birthday, we rounded Santorini in miserable weather. However, this made Andy's birthday cake taste all the better that evening.

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Santorini on Andy's birthday. A whole lot less romantic, in the rain and 12 C.

Making Andy's birthday cake taste all the better.

Sailing back to Athens in 35 knots

With the sun and a good friend, 35 knots does not look so bad

Mono hull passing by at 35 knots of true wind speed

Sharing the fun: helming in 35 knots on a wet, outlying helm station. We are still smiling :)

This radar reflector (btw it does NOT work as radar reflector) came down in Elizabeths face. The only reason this was a happy ending were the protective sunglasses.

To make matters worse, we did not have enough warm clothing (we were actually very well prepared for "typical" Greek weather, not for the Straight of Siberia), the Nautitech catamaran has an outlying, and very wet steering stand, we did not thrust the autopilot to steer us through these waves, so we had a very wet steering experience, and to top it all off, Elizabeth got a radar reflector hurled at her!!!

After this episode, Lady Luck had her way, and Elizabeth was put off sailing for the rest of her life. I am now working to get a professional crew to sail the boat to Australia with me. No! This is how it could have gone but it didn't. Elizabeth loves sailing, especially in bad weather. And even better, she did not get sea sick even once. Rather than Lady Luck stacking the odds against me, perhaps she knew that the only way to get Elizabeth into sailing, was to make it challenging enough.

This was later confirmed, by Elizabeth taking a sailing course in February in the Solent. Again it was blowing 35 knots. She came back, all smiles, and very confident with her sailing skills.  Now she says that sailing in light wind days is boring, and sailing only gets intersesting at 35 knots!

Thank you Lady Luck!

And thank you to our friends, who where there with us in Greece!!

 And most of all thank you Elizabeth, for falling in love again, this time with sailing!!!