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Atlantic Crossing
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Atlantic Crossing

Five of us are setting off for Suriname - Mike, Gill, Jane, Craig and Dominic. We’re giving ourselves two months, with a few stops along the way! Read more
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    Stuck in the mud!
    Avenues of bamboo. 😊A very high bird hide.🤣🤣🤣Some of the stunning tropical plants in Suriname.Peperpot Nature ReserveOne of the old plantation houses.A trip across the Commewijne River.

    A few days off the boat

    June 21, 2022 in Suriname ⋅ 🌧 28 °C

    Craig and I hired a car and left the boat for a few days. The first thing we did was get stuck in the mud. 🙈 In Craig’s defence, it was my fault. I suggested that we park in the only shady spot around. Because it rains every day, the shady spots never dry out and are in fact well-concealed swampy spots. Luckily help was driving by, so we were rescued. We had a wonderful (but hot) afternoon in the Peperpot Nature Reserve, visited the open air museum and had two nights of aircon! 😅 We also visited some old plantation sites. In the 1600’s when the Dutch took over, they started plantations to export colonial products like sugar, coffee, and cocoa. They were extremely successful but only because they used slaves and were apparently some of the cruelest slave masters at the time. When slavery was finally abolished in 1863, the plantations folded and there are no working plantations in Suriname anymore.Read more

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    Kouseband (yardlong beans).
    Roti kip (chicken roti) and no knives and forks. Delicious!A pampelmousse and a grapefruit walked into a bar...Dragonfruit.The menu at Joosie Roti Shop in Paramaribo. Lots of kip! 😋Bojo cake made from cassava and coconut.Party time! 🥳🍸🍸🍸

    Food stuff

    June 20, 2022 in Suriname ⋅ 🌧 28 °C

    I love going to the food markets and seeing what’s different. For starters, the beans (kouseband) in Suriname are about 5 times longer than those at home, and delicious. They chop them finely and cook them with onions. They are served with most rotis, which are usually not rolled, and you eat them with your fingers (often resulting in yellow fingernails 😁). We also found some pampelmousse which are like huge grapefruit, but not quite as tart. The pineapples are also sweeter and look more pointed than our stocky variety. The dragonfruit are startlingly stunning and taste a bit like kiwi fruit. Crisps are seldom made from potatoes but rather from cassava, bananas or breadfruit.
    In general, the cuisine comprises dishes from many different cultures like Indian, African, Indonesian, Chinese and Dutch and it’s quite different from the rest of the continent. Chicken, rice, cassava, shrimps or noodles are found in most dishes - usually spiced with peppers - and it’s all very tasty. There’s not much in the cake department though. I found a cake called bojo, which is made from cassava and coconut (and gluten free if you’re interested). It was full of flavour but looked and tasted very stodgy. I still ate it! 😆 I was also very relieved to find limes for my margaritas! 🤣    Read more

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    1LeguaanA lesser kiskadee - Suriname's national bird.Cayman

    Some Surinamese wildlife

    June 17, 2022 in Suriname ⋅ 🌧 29 °C

    Well, I haven’t seen a puma or a boa constrictor (small mercies) but there is an abundance and variety of other wildlife here. We have seen some naughty monkeys, leaf cutter ants, hummingbird babies, fast-moving sloths, moths that wear their heart on their wings, toucans, lots of lizards and leguaans, Kisadees (the national bird), river dolphins and turtles! 😊 Craig went on a nighttime boat trip to look for caymans (crocs) but I was unfortunately extremely busy and couldn’t make it. 😜Read more

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    Let’s get slothed!

    June 12, 2022 in Suriname ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

    If you were, for some reason, to consider the digestion of a sloth, you wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it’s quite slow. In fact, they descend from the tree tops just once a week to poop, which is odd considering how vulnerable they are on the ground. There are a few resident sloths at the marina here and one was spotted last Friday dragging itself along the sand. So I have been conducting a sloth stake-out, but sadly must have missed the ablution date. However, this morning, a juvenile sloth fell out of its tree (the height of failure, I should imagine, in the sloth world) but luckily it landed in some water and was fine. We saw it crawling along the ground (and it looked a lot like me after a jug of margaritas 😂) but it was a bit disoriented so one of the marina staff picked it up and put it back in a tree. Thankfully it was a three-toed sloth, as apparently the two-toed variety screech and scratch and bite. We then watched it slowly ascend and disappear into the canopy of leaves and my heart was happy. Seeing a sloth was the number one item on my list for Suriname, mainly because I think that we might actually be related. 😁Read more

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    Oh my heart!

    June 3, 2022 in Suriname ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C

    This tiny green turtle hatchling went racing towards the ocean, flippers flapping, into the surf… and then was gone! No mommy or daddy to look after it! 🥺🥺🥺 Hatchlings engage in a ‘swimming frenzy’ for a day or two to get away from the shallow waters. These little creatures can swim the gauntlet of predators at up to 60m per minute at first. Another interesting fact is that the sex of a turtle is not determined by chromosomes but rather by the temperature outside the turtle egg. Generally, if it incubates over 29 degrees Celsius, it will produce a female, so global warming is causing havoc with the male/female ratios.Read more

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    Getting onto the ferry.
    Safety first!We had a meal of sweet and sour chicken and veggies and tofu with rice. It was all delicious! 😋1The leatherback turtle laying her eggs then covering them up.

    Turtle mania

    June 2, 2022 in Suriname ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C

    We were on a mission to see some turtles. It involved a one hour drive to Paramaribo and a two hour ferry ride across the Suriname River to a beach called Braamspunt. Along the way we saw some river dolphins, which are not very common. Once at the beach we had to wait for nightfall and then we went searching. We were lucky enough to find a leatherback turtle that had just crawled out of the ocean. We had to wait for about 45 mins white she dug her nesting pit and (surprisingly large) egg chamber. Once turtles start laying their eggs they go into a bit of a trance and then it’s safe to move closer. You may only use a red light to see her - white light is too disruptive. The soft eggs plop gently into the chamber and she usually lays about 100 eggs. Then she uses her back flippers to push the sand back over the nest and cover the eggs. She pats it down and then she’s off - back into the sea. Only about one in a thousand hatchlings will survive.Read more

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    1We had to change course because these boats we doing seismic blasting! 😖22Our marina at night.A feast with our yachtie neighbours. 😋

    Arriving in Suriname

    May 31, 2022 in Suriname ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C

    We arrived in Suriname 56 days after leaving Cape Town. Our last night at sea was a bit hectic: We needed to arrive at the Suriname River mouth at sunrise, but Fob had been flying along so we had quite a few hours to kill. We had to sail away from land and try to slow the boat down and this often resulted in the swells being side-on and causing a LOT of discomfort. In the middle of the night we were radioed by another vessel that instructed us to sail 10nm south because they were doing seismic blasting. 😡 We should have said no! But eventually the sun rose and we started up the river, fighting a 4knt current for a while. Our marina is 30nm up the creek and it took us about 6 hours to get there, but it was wonderful sailing past the lush tropical forests. There is only one other yacht moored here, so it’s wonderfully peaceful.Read more

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    Looking for some Northern Comfort

    May 24, 2022, North Atlantic Ocean ⋅ 🌧 26 °C

    In the middle of the night of our 50th day on this trip, we crossed the equator. Mike was on watch and he tooted the horn to get us all up (a friendly toot - not a drama toot!) It was pitch black outside and therefore we couldn’t actually see the line of the equator in the ocean, so we watched our latitude coordinates move to zero. Although this is a dry boat on passage, we allowed ourselves a tot of Southern Comfort to celebrate the occasion. And now ‘Southern’ is so yesterday! 😁Read more

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    Squall city

    May 24, 2022, South Atlantic Ocean ⋅ 🌧 26 °C

    The trip from Fernando to the northern bump of Brazil was champagne sailing. Calm waters and the wind behind us. Then the squalls started. We could see them approaching on the radar and the winds would go from 12 to 30 kts in a minute. The worst one so far was yesterday. Three honks on the hooter means all hands on deck and you just know that there’s going to be a bit of drama. The winds shot up and our boat speed started approaching 12kts (the safe speed for this boat is around 8). The boys jumped into action: Furl in the genoa, engines on and turn into the wind. This is the worst part because the boat is all over the place and things fly around the galley. The rain was pelting down and there were three drowned rats at the helm station, having the time of their lives. The boat speed dropped to about 3 kts and we stayed into the wind until the squall had stopped its little hissy fit. And sorry for you if you had forgotten to close your hatches and port holes. Then, just like that, the wind dropped so low that we had to put the engines on, the sun came out and asked us what the problem was, and life was back to normal. Until the next one…
    (Side note: You have port holes on the starboard side, but not starboard holes on the port side - they’re also port holes. Hopefully that sorts out any confusion! 🙄)    Read more

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    The most beautiful beach in the world!11The boat boys.5111Our guide, Felipe, on the right.4

    Fernando de Noronha

    May 17, 2022 in Brazil ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C

    A few years ago, Tripadvisor named one of Fernando’s beaches, Baía do Sancho, the most beautiful beach in the world. And that’s what this island is all about - beautiful beaches. It’s a prime holiday destination for Brazilians and very expensive (a loaf of bread costs about 60 ront). We drove around most of the island yesterday and our rather dishy Brazilian guide, Felipe, (with his Rasta hairdo) took us to some absolutely beautiful beaches. We drank coconut water out of freshly opened coconuts and ate fresh fish at a local restaurant. It’s very hot and humid here and the boys are loving the Brazilian beauties who don’t use a lot of material on their bikini bottoms! 😂 A very chilled and laid-back island! 😊Read more

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    The deep blue sea

    May 14, 2022, South Atlantic Ocean ⋅ 🌬 28 °C

    After having a swim in the middle of the Mozambique Channel on our last trip, I really wanted to have a dip in the middle of the Atlantic. The seas were too lumpy right in the middle, but I still managed one about 300nm before Fernando de Noronha. Mike put some ropes on a couple of fenders and threw them out the back (or should I rather say stern), then we hoved-to and Dom and I jumped in. The sea was probably about 4000m deep there, but I didn’t look down just in case.Read more

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    Gill looked like I felt! 😁11Koster's curse that bears round, black berries.1Tomato face strikes again! 😂

    The greenest mountain

    May 7, 2022 in Saint Helena ⋅ 🌬 27 °C

    In the mid-1800s Darwin visited Ascension and later encouraged another botanist, Joseph Hooker, to import plants to the island so that when planted they could capture the rain and improve the soil. Over 200 different species of exotic seeds and seedlings were shipped from Kew Gardens, as well as Argentina, Europe and South Africa. These were planted on what is now known as Green Mountain. The fittest survived and this eclectic mix slowly spread to cover the whole mountain. There is now a tropical rain forest at the top of the mountain, which is in stark contrast to the surrounding black volcanic soil. And believe it or not, I climbed to the top! Well, we drove half way up, but still. It was one of the most beautiful walks I’ve ever been on. The plants are a lush green and very varied. You walk through fine grasses waving in the wind, and then through a forest of bamboo that reaches the sky. You can find Cape gooseberries, ginger and banana trees in between the Norfolk Island pines, mosses and prickly pears. The best part is that it is cool and the top is misty and there are no snakes on the island to worry about (much to Craig’s disappointment). There are also surprisingly hardly any bugs. Craig saw one little ladybird, and that’s it. It was a steep climb for the likes of me, but the spectacular views from the top made all the huffing and puffing well worth it!Read more

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    Go figure!

    May 6, 2022 in Saint Helena ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

    The story goes that the Ascension Government ordered some road signs to warn drivers of the wild donkeys that roam around. Firstly, the company that supplied them had run out of donkey signs, so they naturally sent some camel ones. And secondly, the government actually put the camel signs up! 😂Read more

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    Comfortless Cove
    Comfortless CoveOne Boat. At one time it was a bus stop and now people seem to leave their trophies here!Long Beach where the turtles lay their eggs. Ive never seen so many nests on one beach.Turtle hatchling egg shells.Lots of communications stuff around.

    The sights of Ascension

    May 6, 2022 in Saint Helena ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

    You can only live on Ascension Island if you work there or are under 18 years old. Once you retire, you must leave. So nearly everyone there either works for the Ascension Government or is part of the US or British military bases. There is no tourism and there are no facilities like car hire. But we were lucky enough to meet Herbie, the head of Sea Rescue, who said that his wife, Tanya, would happily drive us around the island (and keep our shopping in her fridge while we were out - nothing is too much trouble for these kind island people.😊) So Tanya took us to the beautiful, but sadly named, Comfortless Cove, where we found a most unusual cemetery. She drove us through the US and British military villages. The British village is called Two Boats and there’s also an area called One Boat, because, we’ll, there’s one boat there! We got to see the beaches where the turtles lay their eggs. Sadly, we were not allowed on the island at night time to see them, but every morning from our boat you could see the fresh tracks. It’s also hatchling season, so the friggin’ frigate birds are continually circling the area. We also got to see the Sea Rescue boat being launched for it’s weekly training session. She showed us the many and varied communication structures and the unusual landscape. We visited the museum and had a drink at the NAAFI (not ‘nafi’) bar (Navy, Army, Air Force). A truly fascinating place.Read more

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    Poor little Foblet! She has since been repaired and is fine. 😊
    1This photo doesn't illustrate the horror of the landing. 😬Okko to the rescue! 🥳

    Not a soft landing

    May 6, 2022 in Saint Helena ⋅ 🌬 26 °C

    We had heard that getting onto Ascension is not easy. The landing consists of a couple of steel steps or a couple of concrete steps - take your pick. There are also a few thick ropes that you can hang onto for dear life. And you can expect to get wet. So when Craig, Dom and I arrived there in Foblet (with all our goods in a dry bag) we were a bit shocked to see how extreme the swell was. It would recede from the steps then rush back and completely engulf them in foamy water. But we thought, hey, they said it wouldn’t be easy. So after a few manoeuvres, Craig managed to get Foblet alongside the concrete steps and Dom made a dash for it, grabbing the rope and doing a bit of the splits as the water sucked Foblet away. Within seconds he was almost waist deep in water standing on the steps. Craig tried to get Foblet closer again so that I could get off, but another huge surge of water came in, lifted us up and threw us bow first at the rocky wall. We could hear crunching noises as poor Foblet got her nose smashed. We were both hanging on for dear life and there were quite a few swearwords coming out of my mouth. Foblets reverse gear was no match for the force of the water, and within seconds we were smashing against the rock again. More crunching noises and more cussing. And did I mention that 3m Galapagos sharks are spotted around this area every day, waiting for the likes of us! Craig managed to get us away from the landing but Foblet’s nose section was starting to deflate, so we had to try and pump her up whilst negotiating the current. In the meantime, Dom went ashore to ask for some help, and someone came to drop us a stern line from the platform above. But by then it was clear that Foblet needed some attention, so somehow we managed to get Dom back on board and we limped back to FOB. Well, I was so shaken by then that this incident literally drove me to drink - a tequila and a G&T to be precise. A bit later, Okko, one of the guys who was working on the nearby tugs, must have seen poor Foblet’s deflated spirit, so he stopped by in his rather large and wonderful rubber duck and offered to drop us on land and pick us up later. He did this for us every day, (another example of the kindness of strangers) and although he made our lives so much easier, I’m not sure that I want to get onto that landing ever again in my whole livelong life! 😂Read more

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    1Our spectacular approach to Ascension Island.One if the many radomes on the island.

    Ascension

    May 5, 2022, South Atlantic Ocean ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C

    When we first saw Ascension Island just before dawn, it looked like a scene from a Bond movie - there were red, green, white and yellow lights strewn across the breadth of it, the odd one flashing. It was not what I expected of a remote mid-Atlantic island. But when the sun rose it revealed another story. Yes, there are scores of satellite dishes, radomes and masts all over the place, but the landscape is spectacular and other-worldly. It was formed by a volcano a few million years ago (to be precise 😁) and there are about 40 cones visible on the island. A combination of lava, ash and clinker give it a moonscape feel. In fact there are whisperings that the moon landing was filmed there 😱. And since NASA had built a telecoms and tracking station for the Gemini, Apollo and Skylab missions, you just never know! But most importantly for all of you who use GPS, Ascension hosts one of the five ground antenna placed around the world that enable the system to operate. So, very important, nê?Read more

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    The yellowfin tuna gift from Colin the ferryman.
    Swinging spring onions 😊Flinging fish!A flying bag of tuna

    The kindness of the Saints

    April 30, 2022 in Saint Helena ⋅ 🌬 23 °C

    We found the St Helenians to be be very kind and friendly. They have limited resources on the island, but what they do have, they are very generous with. One morning on the ferry ride, one of the fishermen gave us a huge piece of fresh tuna he had just caught and wouldn’t accept anything for it. A few days later I asked Lisa at the Consulate Hotel if she knew where I could find some eggs. The next day she was waiting with six fresh eggs and wouldn’t accept payment. And when we climbed Jacob’s Ladder we were told that there are no taxis at the top to bring us down (and as you can imagine, there was no way on this earth that I was going to walk down as well 🤣) so Lisa handed her cell phone over to us with the taxi driver’s number and said she had some credit on it so we must just use what we need! I’m not sure that I would hand my phone over to some salty-looking strangers. The day before we left, we did all our provisioning and Hazel at the hotel said we should leave it there while we went around shopping. At the end of the day we returned to the hotel where Peter had his bakkie waiting outside to load it all up and drive us down to the harbour. They had also sold us a case of beer at the retail price, making nothing for themselves. On the ferry ride back, one of the Ukrainian yachties gave Dom a big bunch of spring onions - we’re not sure why😂 but it was very kind of them! On the morning of our departure, the ferryman Colin arrived in his boat with a huge yellowfin tuna which he also just wanted to give to us. We couldn’t possibly eat it all ourselves so we paid it forward a bit and gave some to some other yachties, Craig and Barbs, who were setting off for Brazil. They had already left their moorings so they turned back and the only way to get it to them was to fling it! 😁 As we sailed away we felt very humbled by these generous Saints.Read more

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    Our ferry transport to the shore.

    Next step

    April 29, 2022 in Saint Helena ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C

    We’ll be leaving St Helena tomorrow morning and heading for Ascension Island. We should arrive there in about five day’s time and will spend a couple of days there. Looking forward to sailing again and not eating so much! 🙈 Did some final provisioning today and had our milk delivered from above. 😁 We have really enjoyed our time on this friendly island.Read more

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    The red bean is ready to be picked. They have to be picked individually to avoid the green ones.
    Coffee tree saplings.Green beans which will take about 8 months to develop.Dried, sorted and ready for the roast.The coffee roaster. Steve leaves them in for about 9 minutes to get a darker roast.Roasted!Coffee and biscuits on the veranda! Yum.

    Coffee time

    April 28, 2022 in Saint Helena ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    We visited Farm Lodge - one of three small coffee plantations on the island. Steve, the owner, was there and explained the process, which is extremely labour intensive. Every bean is hand picked, peeled, pulped, sorted, graded, dried and roasted and he and his wife do it all themselves. This results in it being very expensive (£10 for 125g) but it is one of the few pure arabica beans found in the world. It was brought here in the 1700’s and as it is the only bean on the island, it has never been modified. It’s delicious!Read more

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    Ground control

    April 24, 2022 in Saint Helena ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C

    Flights between St Helena and SA were stopped during Covid and have only just resumed. We were lucky to be in the right place at the right time to see the plane land on the long runway (nearly 2kms long). Only the second flight this year. Not a very busy airport!Read more

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    The Briars
    Longwood2Jonathan, aged 190 yrs+.The Governor's residence

    Island houses

    April 24, 2022 in Saint Helena ⋅ 🌬 24 °C

    We spent the day travelling around the island and saw The Briars, the first house that Napoleon stayed in after he was taken prisoner by the British and brought to St Helena. We also went to Longwood, where he stayed until his death. Then we met Jonathan the tortoise who is apparently over 190 years old. He lives in the garden of the Governor’s residence, Plantation House, which is surrounded by beautiful forests.Read more

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    Island birthday

    April 24, 2022 in Saint Helena ⋅ 🌬 23 °C

    I never thought that I would celebrate a birthday on St Helena Island, but here I am! My gift from Gill was a most beautiful painting of the view from our boat, which I will treasure. Then we caught the ferry and everyone on board sang happy birthday! We had a fabulous day driving around the island visiting all the interesting places, and Craig had managed to find someone to make some cupcakes for me. If you know me, then you’ll understand what a highlight that was! 😂Read more

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    Jacob’s Ladder

    April 22, 2022 in Saint Helena ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C

    Some may not believe it, but I climbed the 699 steps up Jacob’s ladder. Dom and Craig were very kind and patient and stopped every 50 steps to rest (and then every 30 steps…) but we did it. The record is just over 5 mins and we did it in 50 🤣! I think that it’s safe to say that tomato face was the handbreak here! 😁Read more

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