Canal cruise

We had a lovely time on the Caledonian Canal this weekend after what has been the most challenging and toughest leg of the trip so far - involving the topping lift coming loose and wrapping itself around the mast, necessitating a trip up the mast at sea; a near collision with a fishing boat; going through tidal gates in fog and rain; engine breakdown; a winch handle overboard and a snapped radar stay. Our levels of endurance were tested beyond limits! Full account to follow.

I had to leave the boat at Fort Augustus to return to work, but luckily our friend Martin is helping Jim to sail Fettler to Inverness today. The lads are sailing on Loch Ness as I type with a nice southwesterly breeze pushing them across the loch. The Canal is truly beautiful and it's been a tonic looking at the amazing scenery while making our way across. Next weekend our plan is to pick the boat up in Inverness and sail the rest of the way to Granton.

CHANGE OF PLAN!!!

Latest from the sailors: "Big plan change. We can't go through the Forth and Clyde. Now heading to Fort William for the Caley Canal."

And because this post-er has been so SLOW at posting this update (&*^&%%^%%$% computers!!!), I can confirm that they arrived in Fort William, made it on to the canal and even picked up a drifter (Martin). He has been put to hard labour assisting Jim and Sonja getting through the one million locks along the canal.

We look forward to seeing them back in Edinburgh soon!

Peeling out

Looks like we'll be shifting on for the Clyde this afternoon.
Have been busy updating our posts right back to the Azores with photos and even a video clip, so be sure to check all the way back to 'Fettling'!
Smashing place, Peel. We've visited the Isle of Man before and were really keen to return. Not disappointed.
The early night failed to materialise last night, after we met a very nice and interesting couple at the pub here. We got chatting and went first back to their beautiful house for coffee, cakes and homemade damson and sloe gin before repairing to the vessel for a nightcap of Azorean aguardente.
Wish we could linger...

Baltimore - Peel

As Karen kindly informed you all, we arrived in Peel on the Isle of Man this morning after a 2 and a half day journey up from Baltimore. We left on Sunday evening, as soon as the gale had passed and had a beautiful few hours of gentle sailing before the wind conked out altogether and we had to motor. It was light winds or motoring all the way along the south coast and around the corner. We had a bit of a job rounding the Tuskar rock, actually, as the wind died when we were nearly there and there was 3 knots of tide running against us.
Once we rounded the bend, the tide turned and we moved quickly up to the north. As the day wore on, the wind gradually returned and then increased until, by late afternoon, we were having some great sailing under what we call our 'Trade winds rig'. That's the full main out on one side with the jib poled out on the other.
By nightfall, the wind was up to the point where it commenced our third gale of the trip so far. By now we were down to double-reefed main and storm jib, and so it continued through the night.
The passage from that point was incredibly fast. We had a little tide in our favour and that, with the gale of wind behind us, pushed up our average speed over ground to around 7.5 knots!
There was also a lot of shipping to deal with, particularly between Dublin and Holyhead. The most interesting encounter was when I spotted a warship cruising along beside us. I hailed them on the VHF, to make sure they knew we were there, and had a little chat with the radio officer on board HMS Grimsby. Good fun.
We were happy to arrive here this morning and tuck into the shelter behind the breakwater. The inner harbour is tidal, so we rafted up against a fishing vessel on the outer wall, went for showers and lunch, returned to the boat for a snooze and then moved into the inner harbour.
It's a beautiful spot. We're going to wander around a bit, have a pint or two and then an early night.

Atlantic creatures

So, Sonja's post the other day gave a brief overview of the weather we encountered on the crossing. That will be fleshed out later, once we're back in Edinburgh and can add photos, etc. Now for the wildlife.
We had heard from quite a few folk that the deep Atlantic expanses are quite barren of animals. That was also our experience on the voyage from mainland Portugal out to the Azores but not this time. Pretty much every day for the first 8 days we saw dolphins or porpoises, who were happy to come and play with the boat for awhile. The most fantastic thing was when they came during the hours of darkness and both they and the boat left glowing green trails of phosphorescence behind them.
We also encountered whales several times. The first was a bit of a shocker for me sitting on night watch in the cockpit when a whale blew right next to my ear. Nearly jumped out of my skin! Fortunately it was downwind, so I was spared the odour of its breath.
The next day, we actually saw them. Sonja was looking out over the stern when she saw something that she took for a weather phenomenon at first. It turned out to be a pod of 3 pilot whales, spouting before sounding.
The day after that, I was up on deck (having a pee, as it happens) when I saw what looked like a large cloud of brownish smoke nearby. This of course was another spout, but emanating from a much larger specimen this time. Probably a humpback - a true leviathan of the deep. Even the small portion of it that was sticking out of the water was much larger than Fettler.
Aside from seabirds (Storm petrels and shearwaters, mostly, switching to Fulmar petrels, gannets and guillimots further north), the most frequently sighted animal was the Portuguese man o'war. A particularly nasty jellyfish if you get entangled with it, but very interesting to see with its own wee purple sail up.
Sea turtles we saw several times and I saw the dorsal and tail fins of a swordfish one morning.
That was all in the first 8 days. After crossing the 48th parallel, both the abundance of wildlife and the weather changed. No more dolphins were sighted until we were coming around the Irish coast the other night.

FETTLER PROGRESS UPDATE

Jim and Sonja came near enough to land to send the following text:

"Arrived Peel, Isle of Man, this morning after tearing up the Irish Sea like a rocket in the teeth of a gale. First Manx cat sighted already."

Does Pinkerton have competition for becoming their ship's cat???

Storm force

Had to leave off blogging rather abruptly yesterday as the boat we were rafted up against decided to pull out and head for a different harbour with better shelter from the west. The forecast was bad enough to convince the organisers of the Round-Ireland Race to delay the start, with F9-10 expected in the vicinity of the Fastnet Rock. We therefore decided to get off the pontoon ourselves and take the vessel out to one of the mooring buoys in the bay. Good move. The winds in the bay peaked at 50 knots at around 0300 and, though we were tossed about a bit, we had a good and worry-free night's sleep.
We spent the morning and early afternoon doing various little jobs on board before Dermott (the super-friendly Harbour Master) suddenly appeared in a RIB asking if we'd like to be taken ashore for a couple of hours. Good chance to get the latest weather files and plan our strategy for the next few days.
The winds are supposed to go down this evening, so we'll likely pull out later on and make a break for it. Looks like there'll be another Atlantic depression coming through on Thursday so we're planning to get as far as we can by Wednesday evening, before tucking in somewhere to wait out the next spell of weather.
We'll do our best to complete the account of our crossing in good time. It's a bit tricky though, as when we have a few spare moments, we just feel like relaxing a bit. Anyway, managed to download the photos off the camera yesterday and they're looking good so you should all be in the picture soon.

the smooth and the rough

We had left Ponta Delgada with a forecast of light to moderate winds for the first four days, and this held true. In fact, we had Force 3 and 4 from the east for most of the first eight days and were beginning to wonder if things could really be this easy!

Then we crossed 48 degrees N, the pressure began to fall, and our first gale, from the northeast, was upon us. Since it was coming from the direction we wanted to go in, it was a straightforward decision to heave to and wait it out. You can see from the video clip below, taken while hove-to, that things were actually pretty calm on board. I got a bit of a jolt at the end and lost it, but it gives a fair impression.

We spent a comfortable night hove-to (actually got more sleep than usual) among high seas before things moderated and we got under way again, only to encounter a second gale a day later. This time, it was from behind so we ran in front of it for a while, then hove-to again. In total, we spent 25 hours hove-to on the trip.

This was the first time we had experienced full on gales on board Fettler, and it was a very positive experience. She hove to beautifully, and we felt safe inside.

Things were decidedly damp after the two gales, but luckily the next day was beautifully sunny, and we managed to dry out and had a great run past the Fastnet Rock and into Baltimore, a wonderful natural harbour with a cute, colourful village.

More later - we will spend tonight on a mooring buoy as the weather is picking up and then continue towards the Isle of Man tomorrow afternoon.

Safely arrived

We reached Baltimore in Southern Ireland yesterday evening, after a voyage of 11 days and 5 hours. Superb!
It was an incredible experience. Feels a lot longer than 11 or 12 days, but in a good way.

Fettling

We’re ready to go. The rigging was finished a couple of days ago. Just as well that we decided to replace it since one of the old deck fittings, beefy though they looked, crumbled in Thomas’s hands when he pressed on it after we pulled it out. The mainsail is back on as are the dodgers, the lines, the anchor and the solar panel. Engine-wise, the water pump has been serviced, gear and sump oil changed. Sonja has provisioned for the trip and the little hammocks are bulging with fresh fruit and veg.

Tomorrow we’ll wrap up the last bits and pieces and then take the boat out of the harbour so we can scrub the hull beneath the waterline. Sunday is looking good for departure.

My week here before Sonja arrived was full of boat work, but the social scene was pretty lively too. My days took on a strange pattern of waking early, working all day and then being sucked into some drinking session or other until late. Not bad. Last Friday, for instance, I was finishing my day’s work by scrubbing the chain, rode and anchor that had spent the winter on the harbour bed, holding us off the pontoon. Pretty foul. I was nearly done, when I noticed the chap who had helped out with the marina dinghy when I needed to get the anchor up. He was on a nearby boat, so I took him and his friend over a couple of beers by way of thanks. These were gratefully received and I went back to work. Soon though, I heard a cry of “Hey! Stop working!” and they invited me aboard for a beer. Several hours later, I staggered back to Fettler, clutching a parting gift of a large lump of swordfish, which I cooked up for a very late supper (and lunch the next day).

The weather has been beautiful, not too hot, not too cold. We’ve hung out with some of the friends we made here last year and met some other sailors as well. An interesting junk-rigged ketch pulled in from St. Martin (in the Caribbean), the day after Sonja arrived. Mike, the affable septuagenarian solo sailor, duly invited us aboard for six o’clock G&Ts that evening. Sonja slipped away at about 0130, while I lasted a further three hours. It was a lethal night for that bottle of gin.

The very next morning, at 0900, one of our Azorean friends, João (bloody brilliant guy), arrived to take us on a little tour of the island. We stopped at a remote spring that produced the most fantastic sparkling water, before having a lunch of small fried mackerel by the sea and looking for the elusive priolo, the Azorean bullfinch. This is Europe’s rarest bird, with only 200 breeding pairs remaining, and we managed to spot about 10 of them in the mountain reserve where they live.

João also made us a present of some freshly picked coffee berries from his garden – we were instructed to soak them in water, remove the outer shells and then dry the beans in the sun for a few days. This coffee will be processed across the north Atlantic and should be ready for roasting when we reach Edinburgh.

This evening we’re off to dinner on another friend’s boat (Ricardo). Delightful folk.

It’s quite hard to tear ourselves away from this beautiful island and our good friends here, but we will definitely be back!