Ilha das Couves and on..
Author: Shirlz
Thursday, 16 September 2010
After nearly a month tied to the comfortable wooden dock at the Museo Hidrografico in Rio Grande I decided it was time to leave. The cold fronts had been coming through with frightening regularity. Two or three lovely calm days and then the wind shifting around and strengthening. NE, N and round to the S. I needed at least four good days to make it comfortably to Florianopolis a distance of nearly 400 nm.
At last, after a particularly nasty cold front, the forecast looked reasonable and I set off with a falling tide which gave me a nice fast run down to the entrance.
Lots of fishing boats going out. Massive swell running over the reef. Not nice. Eventually things settled down and I had a pleasant first night at sea. Counted over 20 big ships waiting to go in. The port must have been closed for the storm.
Most of today and last night I’ve had to motor as the wind was very light. At dawn this morning I watched as albatrosses and shearwaters were gliding along in front of the huge swells. No wind at all. It looked as if they were using the air being pushed up and along by the moving water. Quite lovely to watch. Their white undersides tinged pink by the early morning sun. The sky looks scary with lots of wispy Ill-omen clouds.
Now the wind has picked up a little from the east and we’re moving along comfortably almost on course. The new sail definitely performs better to windward despite looking so scruffy.
Poor Sinbad. He had really been enjoying our stay at the museum dock. I feel such a traitor moving him on again.
Friday, 17 September 2010
I decided to motor for a while to maintain my distance offshore. Fell asleep for a few hours as the engine noise drowned the alarm. Woke up to find we had altered course but luckily to seaward. Killed the engine and then battled on in the pitch dark (no more moon) to get the Navik to hold the new course. Had to equalise the control lines as the port one seemed much longer than the stbd. This meant I ran out of chain on the stbd tack compensating for weatherhelm. Struggled for a while with cold stiff fingers, rolly motion and a headlamp that kept flickering off. Sorted it out eventually and how nice to be heading in the right direction, doing 5knots with the wind on the beam.
Constant big ship traffic. Had to get more sleep but managing to get up every 15min to look out. Wind started picking up and soon we were down to three panels. Had to go forward to sort out the mastlift which had got caught up on the wrong side of the sail as usual. This meant putting on full foul weather gear. Velcro sticking to everything it touches. Zips that you need to be a contortionist to close. How do the fat ladies manage?
Going along fairly comfortably now. The sun is breaking through and the albatrosses are out – wheeling over my wake.
Sunday, 19 September 2010
After a brilliant day or so of downwind sailing the weather changed. Pretty much as predicted. Motoring now as the wind is light and on the nose. Only 60 odd miles to go and I would normally just dawdle along under sail but that blasted forecast has scared me with it’s prediction of very strong N wind Mon and Tues. The last leg upto Santa Catarina is due north so I’m making the most of the calm weather.
Earlier this morning the day tank ran dry. Just finished refilling it and topping up the oil.
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
Ha ha ha. Sunday, Monday Tuesday we were hove to in a NE gale. Massive waves. Lots of water over the boat. Spray dodger knocked off. Dinghy chock broken. Oars adrift. A bit of a shambles. Thank goodness the boat heaves to nicely. Impossible to sail. Running off would have taken us back to the start. As it is we lost 50 nm.
Managed to set off again about midday today. Heavy clouds and some rain. It feels very exposed without the spray dodger. Still the odd rogue wave crashing into the cockpit. Chart table got drenched during the storm. The wind is still quite strong and the seas are enormous and confused. Very slow progress. At one point I noticed that the mast lift had come untied and was tangled round the halyard and lazyjacks. Had to heave to and spent an hour battling to sort it out.
The last 12 hours I had to handsteer most of the time as the Autohelm is not powerful enough to rely on and we were too near the coast to take chances. I was very tired and if I’d nodded off it would have been disastrous. Lots of big ships. Intermittent heavy rain. Pity about losing the protection of the spray dodger. When the sun came up we still had about 14 nm to go. It was very slow. Wind built up steadily blowing against us.
At last we were past Ilha do Coral and approaching the entrance to the bay at Praia da Pinheira close to the entrance to the south channel of Ilha Santa Catarina. A few fishing boats around. Anchored in the Southern end of the bay at about 10:30 am.
Learnt this trip:
Albatrosses fly in no wind conditions using air pushed up by moving swell.
Sail needs adjusting.
Everything must be stowed below decks in storm conditions.
Effects of heaving-to. Speed of drift to leeward.
Anything that is not exactly as it should be will chafe through or break.
Tags: Brazil, cruising, The High Seas