Brest Maritime Festival

After waiting five days for gales to calm down, we had an amazing trip across the Bay of Biscay. There was just the right amount of wind – enough to get us moving nicely without kicking up too much sea. This lasted for the whole three-day trip and we sailed all the way, motoring only the final two hours into Brest. We didn’t see many whales on this trip but had quite a few dolphin visits, with some spectacular leaps out of the water. John's wife Fiona met him here and they jumped ship to go camping in quieter quarters.



We arrived on the second day of the Brest Festival and were immediately in the midst of chaos. Almost 2000 boats were crammed into the harbour, all different sizes and types and from various countries. There were classic yachts, working boats, sailing dinghies, Old Gaffers, luggers, square riggers and super-fast race boats. Not to mention the fishing boats, ferries, trip boats and ribs whizzing about the harbour on their daily business. We met up with old cruising friends and made some new ones too.



The streets surrounding the dock area were cordoned off to form a vast festival ‘site’ full of tents offering all sorts of goodies: T-shirts, beer, ice cream, crepes, moules-frites… There were displays of French boat-building, Norwegian shed construction, Irish peat burning, Newfoundland rescue dogs in action, Vietnamese woven ‘basket’ boats. huge mechanical smoke-breathing dragon got dragged through the streets,

Every day, the water outside the harbour was full of colourful sails doing ‘manoeuvres’, and each night at 11pm, hundreds of boats paraded in the harbour, with laser lights playing over the sails and Breton music broadcast through loudspeakers.

Ed hit it off with Katie!

The Whittons of Topsham joined us for the week. Maria felt queasy sailing around the harbour in a force 1 so she and Ed went for a drive in their van for a couple of days leaving Grace to learn the ropes. We did a day-sail to nearby Camaret to escape the masses and had a lovely lunch ashore with John and Fiona and a relaxing afternoon on the beach (plus a chilly swimin the sea).


We went for a midnight sail to watch the Bastille Day fireworks and joined in the evening parade for working boats. Dave had great fun up the mast setting off hand flares given to him by the organizers, until they told him enough was enough!

I also found time to carve and paint a wooden plaque or ‘toile de mer’ to add to the collection of over a thousand from all the boats that have entered the Brest festival since its beginning twenty years ago.



It has been a great way to end our three-year voyage and we are now on our way back to the UK. Instead of joining the fleet sailing to Douarnenez today, (which is the wrong direction), we headedg north to l’AberWrac’h, and from here we will head straight back to Torquy. We should be back in British waters sometime on Saturday.

INDEPENDENCE DAY IN SPAIN

We nearly had a crew mutiny when Dave got Jay to clean the bilges on American Independence Day.



In Jay’s own words, as e-mailed to friends in the US:

So I thought I´d share with you my holiday. I am in Spain on a boat load of British folks. Today I woke up with my little American flag proudly hanging over my head (the ¨Made in China¨sticker recently fell off while I was re-wedging it so I was feeling pretty patriotic). Those stars and stripes began as a way for me to poke a little fun at my captain, but today it stood for all the beauty and splendor of my country. I actually pondered those guys in the white, curly wigs who declared our independence for us instead of my usual 4th activity of going to a barbecue and drinking a couple of beers. At breakfast I was slightly confused about our beginnings. Most Americans go for the dark, rich flavor found in a cup of coffee so why get so mad about a few twigs and herbs that don´t taste that good anyway?

I don´t think it will be much of a surprise to any of you that the rest of the Ros Ailither crew showed little emotion when I blurted out ¨Happy 4th of July¨ half way thorough the meal while spattering a little more catchup than usual on my bacon and eggs. Although they didn´t share my enthusiasm for the day, I have a not so faint suspicion that they had thought about how to celebrate. After breakfast, I put the washing out on the line and came below as David and Hazel talked over plans for the day. They didn´t have time to get everything done themselves so they pitched a fun little activity my way.

Now I´m not exactly saying they´re still sore about the whole ¨Keep your old woman we´ll get ourselves a president thing¨, but...actually that´s exactly what I´m about to say. Dave went off to take care of a few phone calls, John went shopping for dinner with Katie, and I don´t know what Hazel did but she was really quiet all day while I was literally up to my armpits in oil. For some reason I found myself paying reparations for my country WINNING the war by cleaning the bilges because our generator had been leaking for a few days. To make things worse, while I was digging around for old screws, bits of stainless, and fist fulls of congealed oil, my beloved Red Sox hat that I got while at Fenway with my brother John and our father, got a thorough dousing with black, um I´m not sure exactly what the stuff was but it smelled horrid and probably won´t come off. When I was about half way done, Hazel came down and timidly said, ¨I don´t suppose you can drink a cup of coffee while you´re doing that can you?¨ Yeah that´s right COFFEE! When you combine that with the filth that covered most of my exposed skin and...sniffle...the tarnishing of my hat I don´t think that there´s a more blatant way to say, ¨Take that you dirty American. Next time just drink your tea and be happy!¨

Well, being a strong, stubborn Yankee I did my job without complaint...until now which may very well negate the claim I just made so maybe I shouldn´t have written any of this email...and at lunch I showed them. Sort of. Since I was hot from being in the engine room for so long I didn´t feel like a hot drink so I did the best I could. I chugged a Coke right in front of all of ém while saying, ¨Yeah, how do you like that¨...with my eyes because it´s really hard to talk while you´re drinking. The rest of them pretended not to notice my patriotic stand against their attempt to re-colonize me, but I´m pretty sure they know that next time they ask me to clean the bilges...well I´ll probably do it, but when I´m done there better be a Coke waiting!

Anyway, HAPPY 4TH OF JULY. Have a burger for me because tonight John´s cooking fish pie and I don´t even know what that is.


Back to Hazel:
It’s not been all bad though! We have spent a fair bit of time wandering ashore in Sada. It isn´t the prettiest of towns- most of the cute little houses have been knocked down to make way for big ugly apartment blocks. But there is a nice sandy beach and a long seafront promenade where everyone dresses in their finest to ´parade´ on weekends. Katie is loving being ashore, seeing people, grass, sand, dogs and getting lots of practice at walking on her own. She is nearly there...



We have sampled lots of the local delicacies – thick hot chocolate and churros, tortilla, frango, paella, bacalao. We spent an evening drinking cerveza in a local pirate´s bar full of boating knick-knacks where Katie learnt to do ‘cheers’ with her sippy cup. The weather further north seems to be calming down and we are hoping to set off across the Biscay to Brest in the next day or so.

Back in mainland Europe

We left the Azores in flat calm conditions. We motored away from Sao Miguel and watched the lights of it grow smaller all through the night before the island disappeared altogether the next morning. The wind stayed light and almost on the nose so we hoisted the main, topsail and jib and motor-sailed for the next four days, enjoying the warm temperatures and calm, almost glassy, seas. None of us felt remotely seasick this time, and even Katie had her sea-legs from the start. And her appetite!



John did an amazing job of spotting wildlife.
He identified lots of birds - Cory’s Shearwaters, Bulwers petrels,Wilsons and Maderian storm petrels, some that even John had never seen before.
We saw a shark, a shoal of tuna and one turtle drift by. We saw plenty of dolphins, both common and striped - often feeding in groups, with shearwaters circling above to pick up stray fish.


Most amazing of all were the number of whales. Some were too far away to identify and others only surfaced briefly. One crossed so close across our bows one morning that John thought we might have a collision. But we had clear views of a pod of sperm whales swimming parallel to the boat, fin whales coming the opposite way and minkes up close. One large but unidentified whale easily overtook us when we were sailing along at 6 or 7 knots; they really are magnificent creatures.

After four days the wind finally picked up from a good direction, allowing us to sail. A gaff-rigged schooner appeared on the horizon and stayed on a parallel course for two days. We spoke on the VHF, they were the 100’ sail-training vessel ‘Ruach’ from Germany, heading home after a planned stop in Torquay. Eventually we parted company as they kept on their direct route and we altered course eastwards to avoid gale force winds further north.

A storm was heading for western Ireland and kicking up big seas even 300 miles to the south. Winds were no more than force 5 where we were but big swells created an impressive sea and we rolled quite nicely for the next couple of days.



Katie was fine throughout, although she was frustrated at not being allowed on deck so much. Instead, she enjoyed bouncing around the material walls of my bunk below.
John found the motion hard to cope with and didn’t feel he’d really got his sea-legs yet. However, he still valiantly stood his watch, helped out with Katie and did his share of cooking etc.

A swift circled us for a while before landing, exhausted, on the rigging. We kept him warm in a box and despite John’s best efforts at reviving him with water and food, he had to be given a sea burial two days later.

Katie missed Jackie but became better acquainted with Jay on this trip. Jay also showed great potential as a master chef. He spent ages whisking egg whites and sugar by hand, here he is mastering the art of piping!
Despite Jay’s best efforts, and three hours in the oven, they didn’t turnout quite as we’d hoped and also had to be given a sea burial.

Comment from Jay: Stupid meringues!


Just as the sea started calming down, the latest weatherfax showed a new gale forming in the Bay of Biscay so decided to head for shelter. We are now in a small town called Sada, just south of la Coruna. We met friends with a similar trawler on our outward journey three years ago and they have settled here on land. We are catching up with them while we wait for better weather conditions to head for Brest.

The Azores

The Azores are made up of nine islands spread over 200 miles. We had really wanted to explore our landfall island of Flores, which is one of the most remote and hence relatively unspoilt. However, we had just time for a leisurely lunch ashore on the first day before discovering the weather was about to change.
A big low pressure system was bearing down on us and would make the anchorage very uncomfortable if not untenable, so sadly we decided to head for shelter on the neighbouring island of Faial.



This turned out to be a good move as the next four days brought strong winds and heavy rain. Every day brought new arrivals from sea, including one yacht that got towed in by the lifeboat.
A long-lost friend of ours from the Exe rafted next to us after a rough delivery trip from the Caribbean. He and his two crew-mates had spend 26 days at sea, survived two fires on board from a faulty starter motor and several days of gale force winds. They were delighted to tie up ashore, especially as the owner of the boat treated them to a few nights in a hotel to recover.

Katie was delighted to be on solid ground again and was itching to walk, even in the rain! We squelched around the town in search of internet and fresh bread, admiring the mosaic pavements and fancy Portuguese architecture. The cafes were refreshingly cheap – a toasted sandwich, a beer or a freshly squeezed orange juice all cost around 1 euro.



We hired a car to explore the island during the worst of the weather. Volcanic explosions in 1957/58 created a half-mile of new land at one end of the island and a museum there was meant to have fantastic photos. Unfortunately we couldn’t find the entrance as workmen were digging up the carpark and it had become a mudfield.
The spectacular view from the top of the caldeira was also completely lost in fast-moving clouds, but it was a spectacular drive, mostly for the fact that Dave could barely see the road in front of us! However, we did have a tasty meal in a local snack-bar and got a taste of the island – fields of grazing cows, old red windmills and hundreds of hedges of the famous Azores blue hydrangeas.










The harbour walls of Horta are a sight in themselves. Their entire length is covered with paintings from boats that have visited the island, some dating back to the 1980’s. It has become a mark of good luck to leave your mark and we had fun searching for boats we recognized. Finally, the rain cleared up and I was able to find a clear spot on the wall and carry on the tradition of painting our boat on for posterity.



Jackie’s sister, Mag, joined us in Faial and the three of us took Katie to a natural seawater swimming pool. We had seen it from the hire car and watched waves crashing over the rocks and swamping the pools. This time, it was calm and tranquil and one pool was completely empty. A few stray jellyfish got scooped out by a brave local before anybody ventured in. Jackie stayed with Katie, who didn’t want to get her feet wet, while Mag & I braved the chilly water. One end of the pool had a barred ‘window’ overlooking a rocky channel. You could hold onto the bars and watch the sea surge towards you until an extra-big wave come right in over your head. All very invigorating!

We then left Faial and had a sailing tour around the central group of islands. Jackie did the navigation and did a great job of plotting courses and transferring them into the GPS. She also managed to finish her hat! Mag survived her first experience of sailing without getting seasick and even seemed to enjoy it!



First stop was Sao Jorge, with its fantastic views of the mountain on Pico opposite. All night we listened to the bizarre noises of the local Cory’s shearwaters which roost in the cliffs surrounding the harbour. They sound almost like wailing children, or cats.



Our next stop was the lovely island of Graciosa, very green and lush with minimal development. Red windmills overlook the harbour.
We all went for a long hike in search of an old stone tower leading down inside the caldeira. It took us a while to work out that we had been walking round in circles for an hour at the top, and the road we wanted entered via a tunnel below us! By this stage, the tower was closed but the caretaker passed us on his way home and took pity on us. He not only opened the tower up especially for us but also gave three of us a lift the last km. What a hero!
The inside of the caldeira was a green oasis and a path in the corner led to the tower. This went down 103 steps into a huge cave. One side had a pool of cold water (15 degrees) and the other side had rocks which were hot to the touch and a bubbling sulphurous ‘siltpool’. Very weird and wonderful.



From there, we sailed to Terceira, a much more built-up island. We arrived late, had a meal in a very touristy restaurant and left the next day after a brief wander around the town.

Then an overnight sail to our final island, Sao Miguel, where we were shocked to find ourselves in a big town, complete with busy traffic, a buzzing whale-watching business
and construction work galore.
However, there is a lovely open air swimming pool right next to the marina. With such a great venue we expected the price to be steep. It is in fact free for under 16’s and over 60’s and costs everyone else 40 euro cents!

Jackie and Mag flew to France from here and John joined the crew two days later.
John is an avid bird-watcher and drove us 40 miles along the island to see one of Europe’s rarest birds - the Azores bullfinch. We were pleased to spot several of them, and took in some lakes and steaming fumaroles along the way.



Now we are heading out to sea once again, 1100 miles to Brest in France, where we hope to arrive around the 6th July.



From the crew:

I’m happy to say that since 2005 I did manage to remember three Portuguese words: caneca – 1) mug, 2) big beer; galao – white coffee; obrigado – thank you. You’d be amazed how important those can be after a night out in the Azores. Now, on to Brest. Bierre, café au lait, merci.

Jay

PS - Miss ya Jackie. Couldn’t ask for a better ex-wife. See you in Maine. I might even
cook dinner…or supper…or is it tea?

Newport to the Azores

We arrived on the island of Flores in the Azores after sixteen and a half days at sea. For a long Atlantic passage, it has been amazingly uneventful.



We set off from Newport with light winds and calm seas but after a winter of being tied up in a marina, it took a couple of days to find our sea legs.
Jackie took Stugeron tablets before we left and remained invincible. Dave and Jay were both fine but ate rather less than normal.
Katie became very clingy and wanted frequent bouts of feeding. Maybe as a result of this, I felt dreadful and, after fighting it all day, finally found myself hanging over the rail for the first time ever.
Thankfully, this state of affairs soon passed and we all got into the swing of things.


Thanks to Jackie’s husband, Robin, we used the services of a weather expert to give us a good start to the trip. We had expected the Gulf Stream to give us a bit of a rough ride, but with light winds from behind we found the complete opposite and were able to ‘ride’ the Gulf Stream for several days, consistently clocking speeds of 8-9 knots. Apart from one day where the swell picked up and the wind reached force 5, we had calm conditions and near-flat seas.

Despite all assurances that ‘you can’t fail to catch a fish’ in the Gulf Stream, we dragged a fishing line for over 700 miles and failed to catch a thing! Perhaps ‘Ros Ailither’ knows she’s not a fishing boat any more.



Along with the weather information, we were given the positions of the warm and cold eddies that spin off each side of the Gulf Stream. Each eddy can stretch up to 200-300 miles across, flowing either clockwise or anticlockwise at up to two knots. We were given a route taking us on a slightly zig-zag course to hit each eddy in the right place and take advantage of favorable currents as much as possible.

In theory you can double-check your position by testing the temperature of the seawater. The Gulf Stream should be in the 70’s, warm eddies in the 60’s and cold eddies in the 50’s. In practice, every time we threw our plastic thermometer over the back with a fishing weight attached to it, it came back reading 64 degrees!
However, we could confirm we had favourable current as the GPS showed we were moving along at faster speed than we knew we were sailing.

Katie did a lot of sleeping for the first two days then she wanted to explore her new floating world. I had made material ‘lee-cloth’ enclosures that Katie could use as a playpen while underway but in fact we didn’t use them much, except on the odd occasions when I climbed in with her.
She was quite happy to potter around the wheelhouse floor, boarded in by a stair-gate and removable wire mesh on the open doorway. This gave her a great space to practice walking on a lurching boat, and she was soon getting into all the nooks and crannies – her favourite game became emptying out the suncream cupboard.



We plotted our position on the chart each day at noon and all took a guess at the number of miles run. The winner got free pick from the goodie bag. Our best day’s run was 176 nautical miles (under sail in the Gulf Stream) and the worst was 73 (motor-sailing against head winds and counter-current).

We had planned a half-way celebration of ice cream on deck so were disappointed to find it came on the one and only day of heavy rain. We sat in the wheelhouse and shared a big bar of Cadbury’s chocolate instead...
We were within the maximum ice limit at this stage and heard over the VHF an ice patrol vessel asking passing ships (including the QE2) if they had seen any icebergs. We radioed the patrol vessel ourselves and were glad to learn we were at least 100 miles south of the southernmost iceberg.



As we headed east and away from the threat of ice, we came into the ‘Azores high’, a huge area of high pressure, which gives light winds and calm seas for hundreds of miles.
This was Dave’s opportunity to try out his newly-acquired spinnakers. Jackie and I had trying to talk him out of using them for days, as we were nervous about the sheer size of them. They turned out to be perfect light wind sails and not as unmanageable as we’d feared. Unfortunately the bigger one ripped right down the length of a seam the first time we got it up but the smaller one was brilliant and kept us going in mimimal wind.



We were happy to sail along gently until the speed dropped below 3 knots. Then the sails started slatting and the boat rolled uncomfortably. This is generally what happened when the sun went down so for the last week we motor-sailed at night. This also meant better sleep for those below and less to worry about for the person on watch.

We all enjoyed our night watches. Doing one three-hour shift each meant we got plenty of sleep and so we weren’t struggling to stay awake. It was warm enough to sit out on deck and just enjoy being surrounded by the stars and the ocean.
The water rushing past the boat sparkles with phosphorescence and the turning propeller leaves a ten-foot luminous trail behind. This is caused by tiny organisms in the water which are disturbed by the boat and glow in self-defence.




Dave woke me one night to come and watch a pod of dolphins playing in front of our bow wave. There were up to nine of them, all weaving in and out, crossing over each other and swapping sides of the boat. But the amazing thing was the stream of phosphorescence they left in their wake. You could clearly see the track of each dolphin as they darted away from the boat and double-backed on themselves, weaving back in with the pack. They looked like glowing torpedoes. We all sat on the bowsprit looking down as they effortlessly kept up with our 5-knot speed. They stayed with us for over an hour. Absolutely magical.

The calm seas and warm weather made for lazy days on deck. The boat rolled so little Katie was able to walk around fairly easily. After experimenting with bulky lifejackets and her frustration at being pulled back by a short tether, we found a good compromise. We put a harness on her and attached the other end to whoever was walking her around the deck. She liked to carry something in one hand and helped us with the daily chore of changing icepacks in the cooler on deck.















Otherwise, lots of books were read. We made a token effort to learn some Portuguese.
Jackie and Jay both started knitting a hat each. There was an element of competition to it so we were surprised when both hats were nearly finished and they both unraveled the lot and started all over again!
We watched as Portuguese men-of war drifted by and pods of dolphins fed in formation.
A whale surfaced thirty feet from the boat then disappeared.

In the afternoons we got the paddling pool out for Katie. One balmy evening we had a BBQ on deck. I would never have believed how flat it could be in the middle of an ocean.
We were able to run the water-maker and the washing machine. One day we had every available ounce of sail set and strings of washing flapping on the line!














Our crew have been great on the trip. Jay seems to have survived being the only American on board. He stuck a small Stars & Stripes flag by his bunk to remind him of home, only to find it was made in China!
He had the biggest appetite on board and woke several times from a nap with the horrible feeling that he’d slept through lunch. I wouldn’t say we played on this but we did put the clocks forward two hours one day and pretend we’d already eaten!


Jackie impressed us all with her dedication to her knitting and we are confident that her first ever hat will eventually be finished despite many false starts, dropped stitches and tantrums along the way. As Dave says, knit one, purl one, drop two…
She was brilliant with Katie, they are now the best of friends and Katie has honoured this by trying to call Jackie by her name - a real first.

A hundred miles from Flores, the peace was disturbed by the gaff on the main sail coming down. The tongue of metal holding one end of our gaff up had shattered, probably from all the swinging in light airs. We immediately got the sails down and lashed safely, Dave climbed the mast, retrieved the sheet block and replaced the broken fitting, and within half an hour we were relaxing on deck again. Luckily it broke when it did and not in bad conditions or at the start of the trip…

It was almost an anticlimax when the faint outline of land appeared ahead but we got excited as it grew clearer and we could make out the lush green hillsides. We saw yachts’ masts from behind the breakwater and as the picturesque harbour opened up we were amazed to see our old friend Nick, (who has sailed around the world since we last saw him in the Caribbean two years ago!). He came alongside in his dinghy, showed us the best place to anchor and joined us in a celebratory glass of bubbly and a cooked dinner. A nice welcome to the Azores!

Leaving Newport

It's 0800h on 21 May and we are about to leave the dock.
The weather has finally given us a four to five day window to get offshore and clear the Gulf Stream.
There are 2100 miles between us and the Azores, we are counting on covering 100 miles a day but hope to do more so should arrive somewhere around 10 June.
Wednesday is traditionally an auspicious day to set off on a sea voyage and will apparently ensure us the favour of the Norse God Wodin!
The sun has also come out after a day of rain yesterday so we are setting off in good spirits.

David's tried executions by hull cleaning induced hypothermia and electrocution by welding. I'd say I've got a better chance of survival in the middle of the Atlantic than at a Newport marina. - Jay

Almost ready to go and really looking forward to it. Just about to cast off our lines. See you in the Azores! Love Jac xx

Ready to set sail

Bonnie & Earl threw us a wonderful leaving party on their boat last Saturday. Friends came down from Maine and Massachussetts to see us off along with friends from Newport. Bonnie did a great spread of food, the remains of which fed us for the rest of the week, and everyone chipped in to top up our provisioning fund. Even the Antigua Classics Cup made an appearance to pass around rum punch. A great night!
Thank you guys. We certainly won’t starve on the way home…

Katie's best friends - Bonnie, Madi & Marin


Already, the winter boat-dwelling community is dispersing. The ‘Bonnie Lynn’ headed upriver for their annual haul-out and one by one the other boats are moving to their summer anchorages. It is always sad to say goodbye but we are glad to have met a great bunch of people.

We now have our crew aboard. Jackie, from yacht ‘Blackthorn’ of the Exe, is joining us as far as the Azores, and Jay, son of Jim whose boat Dave has just helped launch, is joining us for the whole trip (or as long as he can cope with Dave!).

The crew - Jay, Jackie, Dave, Katie, Hazel

We let Ros Ailither’s mooring ropes go for the first time since October and went for a shakedown sail in Narragansett Bay. It felt great to hoist the sails and get the boat moving again, especially as we topped 6 knots. More importantly, it gave us a chance to find any snags in the re-rigging of the boat and also to remember what sailing feels like!

However, our leaving date of May 15th has come and gone and we are still in Newport waiting to go. There have been a series of low-pressure systems coming up the coast at roughly three days intervals, each crossing our intended path and causing nasty conditions in the Gulf Stream.
We are waiting for at least a three-day window to allow us to reach and cross the Gulf Stream in favourable conditions and give us a good start to the trip.
Since storm systems tend to track to the north of the Gulf Stream, once we clear it, we should have better conditions and it should be plain sailing all the way to the Azores. That’s the theory…

In the meantime, we have all been busy onboard - stowing provisions, lashing safety netting to the lifelines, and generally getting the boat ship-shape. Dave and Jay scrubbed the waterline from the dinghy but Jay (who was the one reaching down underwater) had to recover with a hot shower and sauna afterwards as his arm had turned purple from the cold water!



We are also trying to get in a few ‘last’ swims in the pool and walks ashore. Jackie and I did the Cliff Walk but it was so long since the last time that I’d forgotten how rough the terrain got and the last stretch had us doing a bit of rock-hopping with Katie suspended in the buggy between us.

At the minute, the weather looks like it might be good for Tuesday so we willbe ready to leave if conditions are still good.