CruiseNews #16
Date: 11/30/99
Port of Call: St. George, Bermuda
Subject: To Bermuda
We arrived safely in St. George, Bermuda on Wednesday, November 24th.
The passage was longer and more difficult than we expected and we are very
glad to be here!
We left Hampton, Virginia in the afternoon of Wednesday, Nov. 17th
after a stop to take on fuel. It's a good thing we did, since the
first three days out were so calm that we had to motor.
On our first night out, we bundled in our cold weather clothes, as
the forecast was for lows around 32 degrees F. The cold, clear and
calm weather was at least great for star gazing, and as we each stood our
watches we enjoyed seeing the Leonid meteor shower through the night.
On Thursday morning near 10:00 AM we passed something that looked just
like the tidal rips common to the waters of the Southeastern U.S.
The bow slewed around to port for an instant until the autopilot corrected
our course, and the GPS navigation receiver showed us getting pushed steadily
to port. We were finally in the Gulf Stream, a northward flowing
current of warm water in the middle of the ocean.
Shortly after that we had a close encounter with the Russian ship "Kapitan
V. Ivanov", who ignored all of our hails on radio and passed us very close
aboard, forcing us to completely reverse our course to avoid having them
run us down. We suspect that their watch was asleep, as we saw and
heard no sign of human activity on board. Since then, we referred
to the incident as "our encounter with Crazy Ivan".
Thursday night was again calm, and again we motored through the night
watching the stars and the meteor shower.
Flying the new spinnaker
Throughout the
day on Friday, the wind kept teasing us, occasionally filling in to about
5 to 8 knots, then dying out. We raised our new asymmetrical spinnaker
for a while, but in the light winds we were only making about two knots
through the water towards the east. After an hour we checked the
GPS and found that a Gulf Stream eddy had actually pushed us two miles
due north! Reluctantly we restarted the engine and motored on towards
the east. Throughout the evening, as the wind alternately filled
and died, we sailed, motorsailed, or motored.
At around 9:00 that evening a squall line rolled through, bringing
strong but shifty winds and lumpy seas. Behind the squall line the
wind finally filled in, but from the southeast--exactly the direction we
needed to go. Throughout the night and into Saturday we beat into
15-knot southeasterlies. Sovereign does not sail well to windward,
and we found this very rough going. On other passages we found that
we are usually a little queasy for about the first two days, and then we
get our "sea legs" and the motion doesn't really bother us. But on
this passage, we found beating into ocean swells to be a very uncomfortable
motion, and we never quite got over our queasiness.
Each day around 3:00 PM we had been checking in with a weather forecaster
who gave us a detailed forecast for our area of the ocean. On Saturday,
our forecaster passed us a message that Cathy's father had been admitted
to the hospital and was about to have open-heart surgery. This news,
when added to our fatigue from standing watch-and-watch every three hours,
the uncomfortable motion of the boat, our frustratingly slow progress upwind,
being 400 miles from the nearest land and completely unable to do anything--even
offer encouraging words to Cathy's father--really disheartened us, and
made it very difficult to continue. Still, we had no other option,
so we continued to beat into the strengthening southeast winds and growing
seas.
A rainbow peeks out from behind a squall
On Sunday, our
weather forecaster said we needed to be much farther east than we were,
to avoid the worst of some developing heavy weather. Even though
the wind was blowing from the east at 15 knots, we dropped our sails and
motored due east.
As Sunday turned to Monday, the wind built to 20 then 25 knots, the
seas grew to 9 to 12 feet, and we gave up motoring and sailed close-hauled
on the port tack towards the southeast. Our speed slowed as the seas
built until we were averaging only 2-1/2 knots. Tuesday was more
of the same, as we slammed through head seas at 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 knots, trying
to inch our way upwind to an imaginary line at 64 degrees 30 minutes west,
when we could safely turn south without fear of being blown onto the reefs
of Bermuda. We reached that line at 9:00 PM on Tuesday the 23rd.
We turned downwind, and immediately our speed jumped up to around 6-1/2
knots. I don't know if the motion of the boat was actually better,
or just seemed better because we were finally making progress directly
towards our destination, but we were much happier and more comfortable
after that. In the next 12 hours we traveled more distance than we
had in the entire previous day! We arrived at our waypoint off Bermuda
just after the sun had set, and made our turn for the sea buoy.
The last 10 miles to the sea buoy were the worst of the whole passage.
The course was directly downwind, but when we made our turn we were so
overpowered under triple-reefed main and staysail that our windvane was
unable to steer the boat. We had just finished cleaning up the boat
and ourselves to get ready for customs, and Cathy had just finished dressing
after her shower when I called her up on deck to steer while I doused the
main--quite a job in the dark in those seas. Then we headed for the
sea buoy under just our small staysail, with the boat rolling 30-40 degrees
to either side. Everything that Cathy had just cleaned up down below
went flying around the cabin again in the violent motion.
We reached the sea buoy by about 8:30 that evening. It was a
little tricky because in those seas the light for the buoy was visible
for less than 1/4 mile. Fortunately, most of the rest of the lights
for entering St. George's Harbor were on shore and high enough not to be
obscured by the seas. Entering Town Cut was a little hair-raising,
as it is only 90 yards wide. Once through the seas instantly flattened
out and the wind dropped in intensity.
Ship entering Town Cut, St. Georges Harbour, Bermuda
Just as we were
trying to decipher all the lights on shore, Glyn from Wandering Star came
out in his dinghy and led us to Her Majesty's Customs Dock. Glyn,
the customs official, and the dockmaster were there to catch our lines and
for the first time in 7-1/2 days and 865 miles we were no longer under
way. The customs official generously allowed us to stay tied up to
their dock overnight, as long as we moved off at daybreak. For the
first time in over a week we were able to sleep at the same time--pure
heaven.
Passport stamps from Bermuda
The next morning
we moved out to the anchorage and spent all day cleaning up from the saltwater
that found its way through all of the vents during a particularly nasty
part of the passage. This was Thanksgiving, and in the evening we
went ashore to an American-style Thanksgiving dinner that was put on by
a local church.
The weather was so poor for the next two days that we were unable to
even leave the boat.
We had some excitement Sunday morning as a strong low-pressure system
moved directly across Bermuda. It was about 5:30 AM and still dark
when the winds suddenly shifted 180 degrees and increased to 30 knots.
We saw gusts to 45 knots, while other boats reported 55. We were
concerned for a while, as our stern was very close to a channel buoy, and
another boat was sitting just a few feet off our bow. Shortly after
daybreak we moved to a more secure and less crowded spot.
Finally on Sunday we got to go ashore. Everything was closed,
but we wandered around the town of St. George. It is lovely here.
The houses are painted pastel shades of pink, yellow, blue, and peach.
All the roofs are whitewashed, with special gutters designed to catch the
rain and divert it into cisterns for storage. The streets are narrow,
and some are paved with hand-laid stones fitted so precisely together that
they are as smooth as pavement. All the buildings are very old--hundreds
of years or more.
Jenny, Glyn, and Cathy ashore at St. George, Bermuda
The people we have
met have been extremely friendly and very helpful. And the water
is that enticing greenish-blue color that only occurs around little islands
in warm climates, a color that travel agency posters and picture post cards
try to capture but never quite can.
The trip here was so rough, and the sights are so captivating that,
if it were not for the fact that our visas are only good for 21 days, I
think we would stay forever.
Smooth sailing,
Jim and Cathy