Cape Verdes bound for Argentina - 14-20 Oct
by Kate Laird

14 October

25 49 South
42 16 West

We are all giddy with excitement over the text message on the Iridium we just received saying that Hamish's sister had a baby this morning!! Fantastic news. And it still amazes us to be able to receive news so promptly while we are at sea.

Things are quiet here, with 5 kts of true wind. We are motoring along. We'd hoped to pick up some strong tailwinds in the next couple of days, but today's weather report looks like they will just sneak off ahead of us, so we may well be grateful for the big yankee sail yet again. We can't move in 5 kts true, but once it's up to 10 we can eke along, although there is a big groundswell throwing the boat around, which will make it more difficult to keep the sails full.

Friday the 13th passed without too many incidents. After Hamish repaired the head, we noticed the oil pressure was high, so he changed the oil. We'd been hoping to avoid it until we got into port since it's tricky to get the right oil level with the boat moving around, and it's critical not to have too much oil (or too little, either). But that went well and the oil pressure is right down where it should be.

Since that took up most of Hamish's off watch, I told him I'd do another hour and we could change the clocks again- so Friday the 13th lasted 25 hours instead of the standard 24.

At about 3:30 am, the odometer on the GPS ticked over 20,000 miles; this morning Helen and Anna and I made a chocolate cake to celebrate 20,000 miles for Seal, Helen and Anna. That's nearly the circumference of the earth! (We'll probably have to bake another cake when we get to that milestone...21,600 nautical miles.)

At night, we can clearly see the loom of Rio (in fact, what I thought was the oil rig loom could have been Rio). It's 160 nm away, but it is very noticeable when all around is so dark. Hamish saw the Southern Cross this morning, so we are definitely getting south!

15 October

27 30 South
43 57 West

Discouraging day as there is enough wind for us to sail (about 10 knots from behind), but the ground swell is still so enormous that the sails can't stay filled. We'd need about 25 knots to sail well in this size swells, as the movement of the boat just throws the wind out of the sails - or literally "knocks the wind out of our sails". (Never thought about where that expression came from before.) Also know in great detail why they call it "flogging" sails, because the mental strain of the sails bashing about is quite unpleasant. All night we did about 5 knots even so, but around lunchtime that dropped to 3.5 knots, so we've just put on Mr. Cummins. Hopefully either the wind will pick up or the swell will die down.

So an irritating sort of night and morning (better now with the engine on)...but three fantastic sightings have made up for a lot:

A baby picture of our new niece via the Iridium.

The other two sightings were an albatross and a skua. Signs of the south. I don't know what kind of albatross it was. According to Peter Harrison's Seabirds, it could be a wandering albatross or a royal albatross. I don't expect I could tell the difference even fairly close up but this was quite a ways off. But absolutely magic to be seeing it fly, barely moving its wings (which is amazing in this light wind), arcing over the waves.

Helen is lying in my bunk, engine room headset on her ears, reading Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great.

16 October

29 09 South
45 36 West

145 NM midnight to midnight

Sailing again (just). Had a good sail through the night, poled-out big jib and about 25 knots of true wind. But the wind has come down a bit this morning so we're back to plodding. I motored for about an hour, and then the wind was up, so set the big jib again and got everything set up - then it started to rain and the wind died - so lots of activity after two weeks of the steadiest winds anywhere.

Three sooty albatrosses following the boat (we don't see those down south, although I saw a lot on my trip from Sydney to Cape Town) and another one, which we haven't managed to identify yet - either a gray-headed or black-browed probably. Those we do see down south. We could see these same birds in the south as they cover the mileage easily. The one with the gray head is gorgeous - dark wings, and massive wing span - glides so easily over the waves. It is not really following the boat (which might indicate a gray-headed) but I am pretty sure it is the same one we've seen several times. It's marvelous to be back seeing albatrosses again. Quite odd to be watching albatrosses while wearing shorts and a t-shirt!

So no more fishing for us.

We've broken out the fleece blankets to sleep under. Lovely temperature today - 70 - as the sky is thick with clouds.

The weather reports don't look very good for the next couple of days. Very light winds and some headwinds. However, this wind we have at the moment wasn't on the reports, so here's hoping that they will turn into something more useful.

Our Ardnamurchen heather is still on the bow. Tradition has it if you sail around Ardnamurchen Point in Scotland, you can to tie heather to your bowsprit - sort of like the Cape Horn earring, though neither H not I have the right to that since we've never sailed from 50 S in one ocean to 50 S in another ocean without stopping.

17 October

31 00 South
47 38 West

midnight to midnight: 141 NM

Bimbling along in light winds. Yesterday morning, the winds were behind, we had the Yankee poled out and were rolling along, then the wind died completely and we motored for a couple of hours before it filled in at 25 knots right on the nose - 180-degree shift. We sailed close-hauled all through the afternoon and night and into this morning, when it's gone light and freed a bit.

We were very pleasantly surprised at how well Seal beat to windward. We normally avoid it like the plague, and true, this was only 20 knots true wind or so, but the seas were quite sharp and steep and close together because it was wind against current. It's Jimmy the wind pilot's favorite point of sail too. Normally, we can avoid beating by watching the weather reports, but after nearly a month at sea, one no longer has the luxury of choosing the weather.

Helen sat down this morning and read every word of Fantastic Mr. Fox.

It is a gorgeous day today: bright clear weather (like autumn in New England, even though it is spring here), and cool. We are wearing jeans for the first time since leaving Lydney. Albatrosses flying past and a tiny sparrow-type bird, which may be hiding on board somewhere now. The sparrow looked like a fly in comparison with the albatrosses. I still haven't gotten a good enough look at the head to say for sure what the big species are, and we still have the Sootys following us.

18 October

32 22 SOUTH
49 19 WEST

midnight to midnight: 131 NM

distance to Mar del Plata: 525 miles (please do not ask for an ETA!!)

We're pretty pleased with the midnight to midnight, as all but an hour of it was sailing in winds of less than 10 knots true. The headwinds of two nights ago flattened the swell, and so we were able to make very good speeds with the full Yankee and full main. When it got very light, Meg (the hydraulic autopilot) was pressed into service, as there wasn't enough wind to keep Jimmy (the wind vane autopilot)'s vane in trim to steer the boat.

You may wonder why we record midnight to midnight rather than the traditional noon to noon, and the answer is laziness: the GPS will automatically calculate back to the last midnight, but not between noons. We could of course figure it out on the chart, and since we plot every midnight and noon, we usually do, but we tend to only record the midnight to midnight.

Today is another "position party", so we will get out the world map at the next change of watch and mark the position on with Helen and Anna. Chocolates to be distributed to all hands. As there is no more chocolate on board for the night watch crew (barring hot chocolate, which crew have been observed making stronger and stronger each day), this is a big event. When we are just family on board, chocolate is normally distributed only to those who stand night watch.

So today marks three weeks from our 24-hour stop in the Cape Verdes, and four weeks from leaving the Canaries. Helen and Anna are doing extraordinarily well despite being four weeks without a run around. They had some running in our two hours ashore in the Cape Verdes, but that's it. (Having written that, they are now having an argument over who plays with which stuffed cat. Since they each owned a stuffed cat, one would think this wouldn't be a problem.)

Since we are now motoring with 3 knots of true wind, Hamish made bread this morning on the 3 am to 6 am watch with the breadmaker. I experimented with "beer bread" the other day, which was rather good, though it contained no oil or butter, just a can of beer and flour and so on. Today's loaf, however, is a triumph: Helen declared it to be the best loaf Hamish has ever made.

Have finally gotten to where the weather suits my clothes - jeans, T-shirt and bare feet. Ideal wardrobe. Of course we are heading south at 8 knots and it won't last that long.

19 October

34 16 South
51 48 West

midnight to midnight 179 NM

distance to Mar del Plata: 358 NM

I sent the report too early yesterday. No sooner had I finished than we had the finest meal *ever* on Seal and perhaps anywhere, Hamish was in the midst of making French Onion soup (40 minutes of browning the onions, etc.) when he happened to see a piece of packing crate floating on the water. He whipped the boat around, came up to it and handlined over the side (we can't troll anymore because of the albatrosses). Within seconds, a beautiful dorado was on the hook, with another dozen swimming calmly around it. Helen came and got me, saying there was a fish. I didn't believe her, but came up onto the deck. Hamish lifted it over the side and into the cockpit, and dispatched it with the least fuss I have ever seen. I don't think the fish had actually realized it was caught. The other dorados certainly didn't see anything amiss.

Helen and Hamish gutted it, and Hamish served it up with his French onion soup (seasoned with Madeira) and the fresh bread he'd made in the morning.

Just for those of you who are imagining us living on tins of cold baked beans...

Great day of sailing yesterday, often reaching speeds of 9 knots with the full main and Yankee on a beam reach. Now we're back motoring again in 8 knots true.

The high pressure system looks well stabilized over us, so we are expecting fairly constant light winds over the next couple of days.

We're right on the edge of the continental shelf. Lots of fishing boats last night, and we're now back in soundings - about 450 feet deep (80 miles offshore). The River Plate Estuary is an amazing feature. The inner shoal extends about 50 miles offshore, with depths of as little as 9 meters out of sight of land.

20 October

36 19 South
54 49 West

166 NM to Mar del Plata

We've had to put the duvet back on the bunk!

Hamish had an extraordinary watch last night with a pod of dolphins swimming around the boat. We were under sail at about 6.5 knots, and the dolphins were shooting through the water, clearly visible from the phosphorescence shrouding them. Occasionally one would dart out to the side, making a streak like a comet's tail behind it. Then at the same time, there were large shoals of fish that, as we passed through them, scattered and formed a star burst, like fireworks around the bow, with feeding dolphins swimming through the middle of them. He'd seen the dolphins like this before, glowing on the bow, but never with shoals of fish as well. I managed to see one dolphin when I came up for the next watch. It was an amazing sight.

We are motoring along in almost no wind. It should fill in tomorrow, hopefully, or we will be pulling into Mar del Plata on diesel fumes! We just dipped the tanks, and have 24 hours of motoring left, and 20 hours to go at this speed! That is cutting it pretty fine after 4000 miles (we were unable to fill the tanks to the top when we took on diesel in Cape Verdes, as the boat was bobbing so much in the swell that we didn't dare take the level anywhere near the dipstick hole). The daytank is paying for itself now, as we can take diesel from the very bottom of the tanks and then run it from the daytank without worry that the engine will suck air with the roll of the boat. (The fuel transfer pump can suck air without a problem, but the engine will stop if it sucks air and requires bleeding before it can be restarted again.)

It is so calm that Helen and Anna have gotten out all their tiny dollhouse cups and saucers, and have arrayed them all over the saloon table. Hopefully we will not take an unexpected roll. Occasionally there is a clatter of small things, but they pick them up again without too much complaint.

I have had more emails back about the connection between the packing crate and the Dorado than anything else I've written...fish (tuna, Dorado, etc.) often congregate around things floating in the open sea, like logs, planks, bits of packing crate etc. It was quite good sized - maybe 8 foot by 2 foot? - a flatpack box that had opened up. It's always a good bet to go handline near logs etc. that have been floating a long time. I don't know how the colony starts, but there were easily a dozen big Dorados living under this one. I'm not sure what the advantages are to living under a packing crate, compared with living in the open sea. This Dorado had a lot of soft barnacle-type things in its stomach and no flying fish. It definitely wasn't eating as well as the one we caught the other day. It looked like they were all juveniles, under a year old.

Every account of liferaft survivors mentions that a colony of fish settle in under the liferaft within a few days in the tropics, feeding off the growth on the bottom of the liferaft (it's one of the reasons people can actually survive in liferafts). We were shocked to see barnacles growing on the treadmaster on the top of the scoop. It's submerged when we are going over 8 knots, so it has spent very little time underwater on this trip; these were definitely a pelagic strike, rather than barnacles we'd picked up in Las Palmas, since it was never under water in Las Palmas. The metal underneath the scoop has no barnacles; presumably the aluminum is too hard a place to strike to. (Also the water can sit in the treadmaster groove for a while after the scoop re-emerges). We've had a few barnacles grow on the bare hull astern where it squats in the water above the antifouling. The rest of it looks okay as far as we can see. Thank goodness for new antifouling paint.

As long as the wind does fill in, it looks like we will make it to Mar del Plata on one bin of garbage. (That's a standard American-sized kitchen bin). It's pretty astounding how little rubbish one produces at sea. We throw all our biodegradables over the side. This is much more than one would throw in a compost heap, because we also throw out meat, bread, and egg shells, etc. Everything else stays on board, including bottles (apart from two messages in bottles, which we couldn't resist!) and tins. A lot of yachties throw those over the side, but apparently tins are quite damaging because they create a little circle of pollution around each one on the sea bed. So we take them all ashore and recycle them if possible when we get in. We take the bottoms off all the tins, then flatten the bodies, and they take up very little space - we have filled two kitchen bins with flattened tins. A lot of people say they don't have room for the rubbish, but obviously it took more space when the tins were full! We've really eaten very little this trip with the warm weather. Normally we have an empty tin barrel to fill with used tins - but these are all still full of unused tins - so instead we have a big Rubbermaid box standing in.

The rubbish doesn't smell, because we are maniacal about washing everything that goes in it (butter wrappings, tins, plastic bags containing cheese, etc, all the milk cartons).

The other reason we have been able to do it on so little rubbish is because we removed so much packaging in Lydney and Las Palmas. It is extraordinary how much packaging comes with a car load of groceries!

You can learn more about the Lairds and Seal at their website www.expeditionsail.com.