Altair Cruising Log

On March 7 we said good-bye to Cape Town and scenic Table Mountain and started our passage up the Atlantic to the Caribbean. It was a good passage with one expected cold front a couple of days out that gave us 30-35 knots of wind from behind with higher gusts and 12-16 foot seas. We reduced sail and continued sailing with no main and only a handkerchief of headsail; we were still going a steady 7-8 knots/hour as opposed to our more normal 5 knots! It was a bit of “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride” but we made good progress. This was followed by some nice days of sailing and a few days of calm where we needed to motor. We crossed the Prime Meridian (0 degrees longitude) on March 18 returning to the western hemisphere. It took us 13 days 22 hours to complete this first leg of 1,740 miles to St Helena, an average of 125 miles per day.

St Helena is a small, isolated island with steep terrain and almost no flat ground, located in the middle of the South Atlantic. It is an island of contrasts -- crusty, barren volcanic coastal regions and lush green interior – making us think of a mint cream filled chocolate. We constantly marveled at the diversity of terrain from almost moon like starkness to lush groves of tree ferns seemingly within feet of each other and all on a small island only 10.5 by 6.5 miles. The anchorage is an open roadstead with depths of 60 feet plus, which can be rolly and uncomfortable; the swell pounds the waterfront with surf crashing over the shorefront road making it unwise to use your own dingy to get ashore. The local seamen have developed a rather exciting system to get to and from your boat. A water taxi service in small 12-foot boats makes a loop through the anchorage every two hours to ferry people to and from shore. When you approach the jetty you must grab a knotted rope and swing ashore as the boat rises on the wave. The boatmen are very skillful at keeping the boat along the jetty as waves toss it around and we witnessed no serious mishaps. But getting on and off with jerry jugs full of water or diesel, groceries, clean laundry etc. could be a challenge.

Like many islands along routes of exploration and trade with the Far East, control of St Helena passed between the Portuguese, Dutch and Spanish before finally coming under English rule in 1659 where it has remained. The East India Company (EIC) ran the island from 1659 to 1833 as a re-provisioning and watering port on the route to India. Many fortifications still remain on the hilltops and strategic points around the island all with numerous old cannon lying about; Paul wished he had a bigger boat so we could take one with us. St Helena lost its EIC business when the island was transferred to the crown in 1834 and the economy has ridden highs and lows every since. It’s importance with shipping declined with the advent of steam-powered vessels greatly reducing travel time to India and further with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 along with improvements in refrigeration reducing the need to take on fresh provisions. Ships once depended on St Helena, now St Helena depends on ships.

Since 1978 the RMS St Helena and predecessors have been the sole supply ships and only means on and off the island; it is a purpose built passenger/cargo ship that does a loop between Cape Town, Walvis Bay, St Helena and Ascension Island on a three weekly basis. The few tourists who arrive do so on board this ship and can stay for a week while it goes to Ascension and back. After many years of feasibility studies and argument, the British Government announced while we were there that the island would get an airstrip hopefully by 2010. Having seen where they plan to build it, it’s going to be quite an engineering feat, never mind having to land all the materials in primitive conditions. At present all cargo comes ashore in containers transferred to barges then craned ashore. All passengers come ashore in the same manner we mentioned in the beginning with the elderly and infirmed placed in a metal cage that is craned over onto a barge and taken ashore or out to the ship.

The Saints, as the locals are referred to, are some of the friendliest people we have met. The population is an interesting mix of British settlers, slaves from the South Asian sub-continent, East Indies, Madagascar and Chinese indentured laborers. With a population of less than 5,000 everyone pretty much knows everyone else, and we quickly came to recognize many people as we walked around the main town. In modern times the island has suffered from lack of work and a loss of people emigrating to less isolated places. While many Saints still go to England, many now also leave for two year plus contracts on Accession and in the Falklands. St Helena has remained fairly isolated until recently in many ways. International Direct Dialing (at vast expense) connected the island to the rest of the world in 1990 and in 1995 the Saints finally got television. They still don’t have cell phones!

Narrow roads with steep switchbacks and tight s-bends traverse the interior of the island and make shifting out of second gear an infrequent experience. We rented a car with three cruising friends to explore the island over the long Easter holiday weekend and Paul only shifted to third two or three times. On several occasions our rental car refused to carry all five of us up step sections of the roads necessitating the four passengers to walk.

We took a tour of the island with Colin in a 1928 charabanc – a long wheel based open topped car, which is kind of a cross between a station wagon and small truck. It was a great adventure tracing Napoleon’s life on the island. Needless to say with the long chasse and tight turns on the roads, it took several tries to make many of the corners. It was nice to see so much of St Helena on our first full day and get an idea about the roads before we decided to rent a car.

St Helena is most famous for being the place where Napoleon was exiled after his defeat at Waterloo and escape from Elba; chosen because it is one of the more isolated places on earth. Napoleon arrived with his entourage in 1815 and remained until his death in 1821, some believe from arsenic poisoning but many feel he died of stomach cancer. Differences of opinion on whether Napoleon should be referred to as Emperor or General resulted in no marker on his tomb. In 1840 the French government received permission to exhume his remains and he was taken back to France. So now one of the “tourist highlights” on St Helena is an empty, unmarked tomb set in a lovely forested glen. Napoleon’s residences during his stay on St Helena, Longwood House and The Briars as well as his tomb, are maintained by the French Government and dedicated history buffs make pilgrimages to see them. After touring Longwood House with the enthusiastic guide, we were all interested to learn more about Napoleon.

The main town, Jamestown, was built in a narrow valley that stretches a few miles up from the shore and has changed very little from Napoleon’s time with cobble stone streets and ancient churches. One famous feature is Jacob’s Ladder a staircase that rises steeply 700 steps to the plateau above. It was originally built in 1829 as an inclined plane that used mules turning a great winch to bring supplies up to the fortified storehouse. After burning in 1867 it was converted to a staircase in 1871. Like most yacthies that visit St Helena, we hiked to the top of Jacob’s Ladder but rode down in a car as the descent back down the stairs is quite hard on the knees. We ended our stay with a combined celebratory dinner with good cruising friends to celebrate Paul’s birthday and Easter.

Leg two of our Atlantic journey from St Helena to the island of Fernando de Noronha off the coast of Brazil took 13 days 15.5 hours to cover the 1,735 miles, an average of 127 miles per day. Hmmm, another 13 day plus passage, seems to be a pattern here….. After three weeks of sailing in the Atlantic we finally caught a fish – a very nice yellow fin tuna, perfectly timed right before dinner, providing nice fresh fish dinners for four nights. The tuna was caught with a fishing pole given to us by a friend in South Africa (thanks Eddie).

While Fernando de Noronha is not an official port of entry for Brazil, yachts are allowed to stop even without the required visas in our passports. It was nice to be able to make this stop to break up the passage and experience a bit of Brazil without having to get the visas at $140 each.

Fernando is a national park along the lines of the Galapagos and as such there is a daily anchorage fee for the boat and daily park fee per person making the stop a bit expensive at $40 per day; but worth it for a short visit. With no rivers to muddy the water, there is excellent diving in the clear waters surrounding the island. The harbor has a large fleet of dive and snorkel boats that were busy each day; some pretty basic by American standards but they seemed to do the job. We saw many huge fish while snorkeling and had turtles swimming by Altair on a regular basis; they always seemed shy but curious as they checked out the boat at anchor - such elegant, graceful creatures.

Fernando is one of the cleanest places we have been on our way around the world - litter is almost non-existent! They have an excellent recycling program and litter bins all over the place – along beaches, trails etc. Pretty cool after some of the litter-strewn places we have seen. Adriana, a woman who does eco-tourism here on Fernando, said that they have “brainwashed” the locals (her words) and told them if they litter tourists will not come; they have listened well. Fernando is a big holiday destination for Brazilians and the island is scattered with numerous small Pousadas (guesthouses) but has no major hotels giving it a quite, laid back atmosphere. A local cruise company comes up from Recife twice a week on four day cruises with mid-day to mid-day at Fernando their only stop. The cruise ship reminded us of the original “Love Boat” in Mexico in the early 80’s, it was a bit of a time warp.

The island is noted for its successful turtle-nesting project. We were fortunate to have the opportunity to see perhaps 50 baby turtles hatch and make their dash to the sea. The little guys clamber down the beach using their front flippers then frequently get tumbled when they met the sea. We felt for the little guys as they were either pulled quickly out into the surf or washed back up the beach, left high and dry forcing them give it another try. The research station staff keeps track of the two-month incubation time and schedules nest openings for just before sunset so visitors can come to watch and more importantly protect the hatchlings from predators. All the baby turtles are weighed and measured before being released down the beach as a group. It seemed a bit bizarre for 300 people to watch the hatching of 50 turtles but the cruise ship was in that evening!

Each evening we would stop at a small restaurant overlooking the harbor to watch the sunset while sipping caipirintias – a wonderful Brazilian cocktail of cane spirit, muddle lime and sugar. On several evenings we joined groups of vacationing Brazilians singing and dancing with the evening’s musical entertainment. Brazilian Portuguese a melodious language and Brazilians have music coursing through their veins. They seem to truly embrace life with full enthusiasm.

When it was time to go, we raised anchor and sailed along the north coast of Fernando before heading off shore. We were soon overtaken by an intense rainsquall and the island quickly disappeared from view. We are still amazed by how heavy tropical rainstorms can be. While in Fernando we had talked with a South African delivery skipper who has made the Cape Town to Caribbean trip 23 times. ‘Rolly’ said he has tried various tactics on trips north but has always comes back to a basic tried and true one so we followed his advice. From the island of Fernando we headed towards Fortaleza on the mainland of Brazil, when we reached the 2,000 meter depth contour off Fortaleza, we headed NW and followed the contour all the way to the Caribbean. The Guiana Current runs along the coast here and we had steady 1-2 knots of current pushing us along for almost the whole passage. It also worked out great for crossing the doldrums as we only had to motor for eight hours across this area of no wind that can sometimes take days to cross. We did have some light air closer to the Caribbean but finished the passage with several wonderful days of sailing in lighter winds but no real swell making for a delightful finish to our passage.

Our only fish this passage was a four-foot Wahoo caught one morning, a mere 10 minutes after throwing the line in the water. Paul was very excited! The large fish gave us 12 steaks and good-sized jar of ceviche. On April 25 we crossed the Equator returning Altair to the Northern Hemisphere for the first time since March 2001. Again, the passage took 13 days and 8 hours this time to cover the 1,903 miles, an average of 143 miles per day.

We arrived in Tobago on May 3, almost exactly two months after leaving Cape Town and were very pleased with our Atlantic Adventure. Finally in the Caribbean! Just happens that we arrived right before the start of Tobago Sail Week - the local weeklong sailing regatta publicized as the Friendliest Regatta in the Caribbean. We couldn’t resist so two days after arriving we sailed five hours to Store Bay at the other end of Tobago. So much for our plans to just hang out for a week or so! We had a great time and met lots of local sailors but that’s a story for later. Between regatta week and getting caught up in the social scene in Trinidad, it has taken us a bit to get this log written. Too busy liming with the locals (Trini for socializing).

Hope this finds everyone well.

Paul and Suzette on Altair
Chaguaramas Bay, Trinidad, West Indies
6 June 2005