Day 1 - Not the Captains Log

lol....yep...I am not the Captain. Graham is my Captain. Oiy that pains me to say. Ha. Right man for the job though. He has everything figured out and the things he doesn't he takes time to think it through for a good solution. I noticed that he has also been working on his Captain communication skills. He did a great job orchestrating us all in bringing out the pole and even dished out a "good work crew" afterwards.

It seems kind of crazy to think we are on our way to the Caribbean. We had been planning on leaving next week but on Wednesday Graham checked the weather files and ran a plan by all of us of leaving the next day! Of course Amelia was a resounding "YES". Since the start of this adventure in France all she has talked about is getting to Antigua. I was happy to go if the weather looked good and I confirmed that it did look like the best window and Alex was....indifferent....I forget his exact words but they were something like...."well we have to go regardless"....gotta love him.

As I type it is actually the next morning at about noon which is 24 hours since we left. We had fantastic wind through the day yesterday and night and the waves were beautifully behind us. We surf down the waves so fast. Unfortunately at about 5am the wind died and also shifted which would of required going to the front of the boat in the dark and moving the pole to the other side. We opted to go with a bit of sail flapping for a couple of hours til the sun rose.

We are now all set up on the other side and making about 4.5 knots. Wind is about 6 knots, so this is pretty darn good. The sky is clear blue and the sun is out and we are in shorts. My watch just ended and Alex is up now. I am going to go get some shut eye.

fyi...we did end up catching up with the cruisers in Lanzarote. We had a few good parties and lots of laughs. We managed to get 11 people in our cockpit with room for more. Made me wish we had more time to get to know them all. We even attended our first fondue party on a sailboat! Lots of interesting people with unique perspectives and a willingness to share their time and knowledge. I hope we get to see them on the other side!

test

test post from sea...

African Pirate

I guess I always pictured someone hiding if we were ever boarded. I just never imagined it would be me hiding under a blanket in the cockpit as Graham and Alex chased an African pirate around down below. Finally they managed to show him the door. He may have been small but he was swift and cunning. Captain Graham gave me the all clear sign and I came out from hiding and scanned the never ending ocean for him until finally my gaze came to rest at the front of the boat. There he sat proudly on Salty Gingers bow. I thought perhaps he was catching his breath before talking the leap and I decided he was a safe enough distance for a photo to remember our first pirate boarding.  I placed the blanket next to me and leaned down below and asked Graham to pass me the camera. With camera in hand I leaned back up and scanned the front of the boat again and he was gone! I turned to go for my blanket again and there he was sitting on top of it and looking at me like...."Game ON!" I let out a yelp and watched as he took the leap, and I confirmed his departure. Relief washed over me and finally I felt sure that we were once again alone. Life returned to normal. Everyone returned down below and I remained in the cockpit. I scanned the horizon, checked the charts and settled in for a quick shut eye. I had my toque on and not 5 minutes later I felt that African pirate on MY HEAD. Needless to say I freaked out and was ready for a full on brawl but he was gone. I scanned the boat again and there he sat again at the bow and I swear it looked like he winked at me and this was the last we saw of our African pirate before he flew away.

Lol...I joke. Funny thing is that I really was terrified of the bird...chalk it up to a childhood tragedy which involved a pet bird and a box and also the fact that Dad had a bird that he let fly freely in his apartment!

This 5 day passage has been exactly what we all needed. The weather was pretty much perfect and perfect meaning a mixed bag which allowed us all to practice. The nice part was that even in high winds the sky was blue which does wonders for the psych-k(sp?) and Salty Ginger sails like a hot diggity damn! We partnered up before the passage and decided that Amelia and Graham, and Alex and I would stand watch together. We all got use to new shorter sleep cycles, working together and maximizing our sail while still being comfortable. Alex did tire of our deep talks though. Funny how philosophical you feel on a star filled night as your boat slices through the ocean. On one of our night watches I told Alex that I was thinking that sailing Salty Ginger was like raising a child. I could just set the sails and only tend to them when convenient and only set them to suit my needs and that this might work but Salty Ginger wouldn't realize her full potential and she might go off in the wrong direction for a while with no one tending to her and sometimes if I didn't let her lead I wouldn't get to see her soar...so much like raising a child. The next morning we were sailing along and Alex said, "Wind has died, time to let out more sail." I replied, "Lets wait a bit I'm comfortable." Of course Alex smiled and fired back, "Let Salty sail. Let her reach her full potential!" I laughed.

I was worried as we sailed down the bumpy coast of France, Spain and Portugal that my love of the sea was lost but this trip has reminded me of all the things I love. I wish I could find the words to describe how you feel at night way out in the middle of no where all alone and self reliant. Gorgeous star filled nights, beautiful orange moons, glowing seas. I guess it is best described for me as feeling perfectly at balance, like feeling full, like you want for nothing. It feels like an emotional cleanse and believe me I so needed this cleanse. I want to be better, do better, listen harder and see more. I feel ready for what's next.

This morning our 4 night, 4 day passage came to an end and we arrived officially in the tropics....we have crossed the Tropic of Cancer. We are at dock in Lanzarote in Canary Islands and will be waiting on a weather window to make the leap across the Atlantic at the end of the month!





ps....Mom painted this following the blog and I absolutely love it and had to share. Enjoy

This is COOL

Click on this link http://shiptrak.org/ and enter our call sign VA3PRY and click VIEW button.

The website draws our route from all the position reports we have sent since 2009. I wish it had them all since we left Antigua in 2008 but this is pretty close and way cool. I watched as the red line was drawn and I won't lie to you it felt really good. What an amazing adventure we have had and are having.

Looks like a weather window is opening up for Monday. Fingers crossed we will be sailing away to the Canary Islands. We will be in good company as there are 3 other Canadian boats who will also be on the water with us!

Tomorrow is Amelia's 14 birthday and I am so looking forward to surprising her with a day long palooza of birthday events! I am so lucky to have such an amazing daughter and friend to share these adventures on sea with. I wouldn't want to imagine life without her constant chatter, singing and craziness. I truly am grateful to continue to spend my days with my little sweet and sour girl!!

Man she's a bitch

Not going to soften the language or edit my grammar...she was what she was, a mean bitch! I could hear her scream, "You want to call yourself Salty, you have to earn that title!!!" She slammed into us from every different direction, she let us believe things would be good and waited until our guard was down and hit us hard. We must of looked to comfortable in our dry cockpit after one of her blows, so she decided it was time to kick it up a further notch. Wet and salty, pruned hands, freezing cold....she still wasn't happy. Time to knock the shit out of Salty Ginger with confused steep short seas. Graham wasn't going to go down without a fight, so he went head to head with that bitch. He took the boat off auto pilot and wasn't going to let Salty take on this ocean on her own. He navigated the crazy waves trying to avoid the nasty short steep ones which would cause a huge massive SLAM, BAM, CRASH on SG. Of course this made her only angrier....what have you got now I screamed in my head...she delivered....25 to 30 knot winds right on the nose and of course coming from the place we wanted to go. Now we were trying to do wide tacks with nasty seas to get to our destination. We only had 17 miles to go but she was going to make them the longest 17 hours. I don't know what got into her. She seemed so happy when we left. Full sails up and into the darkness we went. I have to wonder if my comment as we sailed happily away brought this on. I said, "I think I need more practice sailing Salty Ginger before we head out on the crossing." The words were ringing in my ears for those last 17 miles as we tacked and tacked. "You want practice, than practice you shall have!"

ok....I joke....40 hours with little sleep makes me a little silly. We finally made that 17 miles and fought a good fight. We headed up the river at Lagos, Portugal with our Canadian flag proudly flapping in the wind behind us. People waved from the sides of the river. A fishing boat passed us with friendly smiles and thumbs up. We came up alongside the reception pontoon like we actually knew what we were doing. A friendly cruising Canadian was standing at the dock. Things were definitely looking up and I so hate to say this but that feeling of overcoming a really awful situation and persevering and succeeding is such a rush. Truly addicting. We were all riding the high for a while.

Once we had checked in at the reception pontoon the marina opens this draw bridge and you motor through to the actual marina. It was very cool. The Salty Ginger crew is getting pretty good at docking now (I so hope I haven't just jinxed it). Graham maneuvered the boat like a pro and we tied off with no issues. We looked up and around us and OMG....we had found the CRUISERS!!! Every boat around us is an open ocean cruiser....raymarines, wind generators, dinghies, ssb antennas! We were all so happy and it wasn't long before we had already met two more boats of cruisers. Can't wait to have folks over for drinks. Tonight though we are to exhausted after the sail or should I say fight...It took all our energy just to rinse off all the salt from Salty and then crew, make dinner, tidy up a bit, watch our show, nip of wine and out for the night.

I would end here but I it would be wrong not to share with you all what just happened. Graham yelled out from on deck "FIRE, grab the fire extinguisher the boat across from us is on fire!" I jumped up on deck with fire extinguisher in hand. (keep in mind that it is early morning and very calm and quiet out). I see the smoke coming out of the side of the boat that Graham is running up to. I smell what smells like an electrical fire or burning rubber. Graham is pounding on the boat to see if anyone is inside. I run up to him and hand him the extinguisher. No one is coming up from below, so I tell Graham jump on board. Cruisers on other boats are popping out and wondering what is going on. Graham is yelling, "smoke." Finally he is on board and looking below when a nice looking older woman pops her head up and unzips the cockpit enclosure....She is smiling and this is when I realize....their boat is not on fire. She is laughing now and tells us that when they turn on their heater it smokes quite a bit. Other cruisers are now yelling over, "Just burnt toast?"....lol...we let them know that there is no fire...just over helpful Canadians! We really just wanted to make sure that everyone here knew that....."THE PERRY's" had arrived.