An Eventful Crossing

This week we crossed the English Channel from the Isle of Wight East Cowes and headed across to Cherbourg France. It's only a 75 mile jaunt and based on our traveling sped of five nautical miles an hour it should take us 15 hours but in reality, by the time you have stowed all shore lines and fenders and then hoisted the sails and done the reverse for docking/landing at the other end of the trip, it takes about 18-20 hours. Cruising is definitely something you need to do when you are NOT under any time constraints.

We had a boisterous crossing and compared to Ocean sailing you usually have more of a bumpy time of it crossing the channel. And I have to say it felt bitterly cold at times. Thankfully, below decks, we were able to run our diesel heating system which allowed us to nip below for a warm whilst keeping the watch (keeping a look out for other vessels), it was essential for one thin blooded female on board.

The following is an excerpt from our log of the trip cross channel.

Time	Event	Log	T	M	E	F%
1815	Slipped East Cowes Marina, bound Cherbourg France, Bob &Nicky on board	1349			on	100
2200	Sails hoisted, 2 reefs, engine off	1365	200		3.30	96.5
	20th April
0100	Engine on, sails lowered		200		on
0500	Alternator #2 shredded, probably due to misalignment. Much smoke. Engine off sails up, 2 reefs.		200		4.00	92.5
0800	Shake out reef, down to 1 reef	1412	200
1100	Sails down, engine on				on
1200	Berthed Chantereyne Marina, starboard side to.				1.0	91.5

At about 04:30 hours Robert was on deck manfully steering the yacht in the bitterly cold wind whilst I was snuggled down below in the bunk with a hottie bottie (hot water bottle) when I heard a weird noise, holy thawunk Batman what was that? If I remember correctly Robert leapt below deck started to open the engine room door and released a lot of smoke into the boat, he re-closed the door and raced back on deck to turn the engine off and he grabbed the fire extinguisher and re-opened the engine room door. Luckily the engine hadn't caught fire but there was something wrong. I had to climb on deck to keep a watch whilst Robert investigated.

Now the thing you have to remember is that we were motoring because there wasn't enough wind to sail and secondly we had already passed the mid-way point of the channel so we were back in the shipping lanes. And when I got on deck we were surrounded by ships and rather large ones at that. After checking over the engine Robert found the cause of our woes and it was this...

It's a metal whirly thing that sheared off the motor thingy attached to the engine.. lols.
It's something that sheared off one of the two alternators we have mounted on the engine. Now as you know if you've ever followed our blogs, we have work done to the boat and there always ends up being something not quite right about it. And this has just been added to the long, long list of those. In fact we've only had this second alternator fitted to the engine in the last month. And this was it's first proper outing.

Anyhoo, you can imagine the scene it was pitch black, no wind for sails and no engine, cast adrift in the shipping lanes of the English Channel in winter (well spring really, it just feels like winter). But fortunately it wasn't like that, once the smoke had cleared we still had an engine that was working and enough wind had set in for us to re-hoist the sails and head for Cherbourg. We ended up being thankful for the lead lined doors of the engine room and having an engine that still worked.

In fact we ended up having enough wind in Cherbourg to make berthing very tricky indeed but that's another story entirely.

Keep Well
Till next time x

Musing

We've had an eventful few months during our stay in England, visiting family and friends and getting work done on the boat. I am writing this on the yacht which is on a hard standing with the wind howling in the rigging and the boat vibrating from it's force. What better time to update the blog. 

Yesterday we lifted the boat out of the water to get her bottom sprayed, loosening off the weed that has a tendency to grow on your boat when you are lower in the water than the anti-fouling reaches. Unfortunately for us when they sprayed the bottom of the hull some of the anti-fouling came off right down to the metal of the hull, that's not what you want to see when you spent a shed load of money in the caribbean getting her re-painted and anti-fouled, grrrrr. I hate shoddy workmanship, it makes you feel really ripped off when you have spent so much money on the work being done. OK rant over. We are having a patch up job done by the yard here for several reasons; A) we can't afford the money, at the moment, to get the bottom of the boat sorted out correctly and B) we can't afford the time it would take to sort out the bottom of the boat. 

We have just four more days to get the boat over to France before Scrubby has to go away to work again. So now we are waiting on two things, firstly for the bottom of the boat to be finished and secondly the weather. It's blowing a hoolie out in the channel (on shore as well). I think the storm is over Scotland at the moment but it's affecting us here at the southern part of the UK as well. It would have to abate quite a bit before we could attempt a crossing. I bought some more sea sickness tablets yesterday I wouldn't want to be heaving my insides out!!!!!

We have asked several of the family to make the crossing with us but have had refusals all round. This is a shame for us because with shorthanded sailing even one more person on board would make a huge difference to how tired we feel when we get across the channel and with Scrubby rushing off to work the difference to him is huge. I get to sleep it off but he has to fly off to his next job already tired. He's a champ, I admire him greatly.  

On a sad note despite my inner hopes Mr B never found his way back to us/me. I always look out for him whenever I'm in Hereford (where he went missing from) but it's just not to be. I'm so sad about this and miss him so much. In tribute to my piggy I'll end this post with a picture of him.

Keep well x 

Piggy wearing my flip flops.

England

We've been in England for a couple of weeks now and we're having a busy time of it fixing this and that. There is some work that we'll be carrying out here while we wait for spring and the cruise to Norway. We've had the heating fixed on the boat which is essential for the stay in the UK. There wasn't much wrong with it thankfully it just needed a jolly good service. We want to get the cockpit awning fixed which will make the yacht even more cozy yet but have to wait for the upholsterer to fit us into his busy schedule. One of my little sisters is making us some cockpit cushions at cost which is going to save us a lot of money. We are getting the cockpit table repaired and the hinges replaced which will cost us an arm and a leg (each). We need to get the main bunk's cushions replaced with some sprung mattresses which will be awesome when we get around to getting this done.

Some major repair work under way at the moment is on the dorade vents - basically we have decided to get rid of the two vents into the main saloon because we had major leaks from them when we started shipping green water over the decks on the way from the Azores to France. This means we have to find some way to fill in the holes that are in the deck which is not a little job by any stretch of the imagination. We have done some of the prep work already and are just waiting now for some better weather so we can get on with it. Pictures will follow once the job is underway.

We have started posting the videos of our Bermuda to Azores cruising series and you can access those HERE . It would be good to hear your feedback when you watch the videos so please leave a comment  for us and we'll get back to you (when the internet allows us..lols).

On a sadder note my cat Mr Bigglesworth aka Biggsy or Piggsy is missing form my sister's house. So fingers crossed that they are able to find him again. Hang in there Piggy I'll be picking you up soon, hopefully.


Keep Well and Cheers x

France.

We made it to France, Cherbourg to be more precise. We arrived a couple of days ago and are heading off to Paris tomorrow for a quick catch up with Gilly and her family. Gilly is one of Scrubby's sisters. No time for sight seeing though because we have to get across channel to our winter berth on the Isle of Wight. The weather is looking good for a Tuesday departure next week.

The reason for the stop off in France is that it's the only way we could get the cat into the UK legally. You are not allowed to land him there from a sailing yacht so we had to take him over by ferry where we were met by my little sister Jo who is going to mind the cat for us until we can pick him up again. Unless, of course, we manage to re-home him before then. He needs a forever home on land for several reasons one being that he gets very seasick and the other is that  bureaucratically it's turning out to be a nightmare taking an animal into lots of different countries. Ho hum.

So, I'm just off for a terrific hot chocolate that they serve over here, we have a favorite cafe already and I expect that Scrubby will manage a pastry or two at the same time.

Keep well.

A quick update

It has been a while since I last posted. This is due to several reasons such as we set sail for the Azores and I have been too lazy to bother (lols). We reached the Azores about 10 days ago now and have been carrying out repairs and preparing the boat for the next leg of our journey across to the start point of our circumnavigation in Norway. We plan to over winter in the UK and then head out to Norway in the spring. Well, that's the plan but as we have found out the reality is usually slightly different to "the plan". 

We will be posting v-logs of our trip from Bermuda to the Azores which, even if I say so myself, had some wonderful highlights such as, a visit from a tiny bird, whale sightings, bird sightings and an encounter with about 50 dolphins. We did lose some of the footage due mostly to tiredness when down loading the footage en route but we saved enough for a good showing I think. I still have to view and log all the footage before I start cutting clips together and posting on you tube so that may not happen until we get to the UK. Unless the weather forces us to stay in the Azores longer than we have planned for.

One of the big things that I have learned about living on board the boat is that we have exchanged money for time. We no longer have any money but the most important thing we do have now is time. This is something that neither of us were really expecting, once you have worked on the most important maintenance issues on the boat you are then left with time. Time to sight see, explore and maybe more importantly time for each other. 
Anyway that's enough babbling for now, time (ha ha) for a couple of pictures.

For my 50th birthday, which happened in Bermuda, several things happened, Scrubby went away to work leaving me on the boat for 6 weeks.

I met and made a new best friend.

and Scrubby sent me one of my little sisters for my birthday.

Got to love a guy that after 27 years of marriage can still manage to surprise you **smiles**.

Have to go now and ride my bike to the local supermarket to pick up some groceries, keep well.

Nicky  =^-^=

BVIs to Bermuda, Day 1.

So, BVIs to Bermuda day 1 has been posted to you tube and you can view it here.

There's not a lot to say about day 1, it started off dry and sunny and then went wet and dark (J/K).

We cleared Customs from Sopers Hole, Tortolla, BVIs and that gave us 10 days to sail across to Bermuda before the cats "get out of jail free" papers expired. Now this is easily doable when you are a larger yacht with a speed of 150+ nautical miles (nm) a day. Koru on the other hand is a 36 foot steel hulled motor sailer. She is neither a pure bred sailing yacht nor a sleek, fast gin palace aka a motor boat (well she may be a gin palace).  She's a bit of a mongrel really, but she's our mongrel put together with Scrubby's blood sweat and tears (and his families forbearance). She averaged 100 nm a day which puts her slightly on the Tortoise (should that be Turtle?) side of things rather than the Hare's. You'll see what I mean once I've posted more videos.

That's all for now.

Take Care

=^-^=

What a slacker!

A lot has happened since my last post (well that was my first post on this blog). The boat was launched to our relief but the work and the problems continued. I don't want to be a Debbie Downer so I won't mention anymore on that subject. But needless to say we eventually managed to leave Nanny Cay and headed around to Sopers Hole. We have many great memories of Sopers Hole from our last visit there 3 years ago and with that at the back of our thoughts we picked up a mooring buoy and proceeded to have a very nice time meeting other "yachties" and locals alike. Well, the nice time lasted until the starter motor in Bob's own words "crapped out".


When we sat there with our head in our hands and reminisced about what it cost to get the engine looked at during the refit we were slightly less than happy about it. So once again we contacted the engineer on the phone and after a brief discussion we asked him to find a new starter motor and install that rather than bench testing the misbehaving one and cobbling together a fix on it. Anyway, yet another $1000+ went kicking and screaming into someone else's bank account, grrrr.


That's enough about the boat, what happened to the cat I hear you ask. Well, during the work on the boat the cat was unhappy with the workmen and tried to get into all sorts of impossible spaces to get away from them.

Mr B

I left a cupboard open and in he scampered.

Mr B in the forepeak chuck in locker.

He also ran into problems with the heat and the fumes that sometimes permeated around the yacht from the paint. The only solution we had was to take him off the boat and take him to, yes you've guessed it, the beach.

Me negotiating a little bridge coming back from the beach.

Mr B is in the cat carrier.

Thank goodness we purchased a trolley, he's too heavy to carry any distance in the carrier. 

Home again.


I have to say that he quite enjoyed his time sat at the beach, watching the water and the people splashing about in it. We also enjoyed the odd coffee or two (or three) we supped whilst relaxing with him.

I LOVE THIS PHOTO OF MR B.

Coffee makes us happy.

Mr B chilling on his sun lounger.

I think that you've had enough of me babbling on for now. More catch ups to follow and maybe I'll throw in the odd teaser video from the sailing we did to get to (dah dah daaahhhhh) Bermuda.

Keep Well.

Cheers =^-^=