After three weeks our time in Saint Helena is coming quickly to an end. For us, the trip from Cape Town was one of the best we ever had. Both the wind - mostly around 25 knots - and the swell were coming from behind, so that after the first day we took down the main completely and were moving as if on tracks. No fuss whatsoever. The story was very different for a friend of us, who was sailing at the same time. A 30 foot long keeled boat apparently behaves very differently in these kind of conditions and he was having a miserable time of it with three reefs in the main and constant rolling. Even here at the anchorage he was still rolling like crazy. Shows again that it very much depends on what kind of boat you are on.
The big swell outside of Hout Bay did cause one problem on our boat as well. My spare battery took off, smashed into the automatic water pump and broke off a nozzle. Since the pump is well lower than the tank, we lost all our drinking water. Not exactly a life-threatening situation as we had bottled water and all kinds of other liquids on board. Still, while in a pinch, I might be content to drink only "homebrew", I don't much like it for taking showers or washing my hair. And the best of all women will get positively grumpy in this kind of situation. I had to get water quick. The next source was in Jamestown, Saint Helena though. Originally we had planned to pass this island close by and sail directly to Brazil.
After 16 days of sailing we arrived. The last night we were drifting, as we didn't want to arrive in the dark. As friends had already told us, it was a rolly anchorage in very deep water. Not quite as bad as the one in front of Betio, Tarawa, Kiribati, but here the swell was coming from the side.
After a short time we were together with old friends and acquaintances. Just in time for my 52nd birthday party. Henry & Tuk from PARPAR, Kirk from SALSA, Neil from FULL MOON, as well as Bill & Melissa from RELIANT showed up.
Most of the time here, I had to deal with the water-system. I had connected a smaller spare pump, put water in the tank, nada. Even the foot pump in the galley didn't work any more. I had to take apart half the salon to get at the tank and open it up. I fixed the old, stronger pump and when finally I managed to get water, it was so filthy that I had to dump it overboard. The foot pump still wouldn't work at all and by this time I was losing my temper on a regular basis, with the slightest provocation and at ever shorter intervals.
That's when I decided to change tack. I sent my girls ashore without me, so that I could concentrate on my work. There was another reason, though. By this time the swell had become considerable, so that I didn't really dare to anchor my dinghy that close to the rocks. I simply didn't trust the small anchor I had bought for the dinghy in Fiji. If the anchor doesn't hold, you can write off dinghy and outboard motor. Kirk did it anyway and lost his diving mask and snorkel. He also holed his dinghy, so that it always fills with water now. His anchor, on the other hand, held so well that he had to dive with a crowbar to retrieve it. The joys of going to out-of-the-way places.
Finally l decided that I had massive amounts of air in my water system. I didn't help to pour in water at the top, as the back pressure was too big. I took a powerful manual bilge pump for the dinghy and used it to push water in instead of sucking water out. At the same time Liping operated the foot pump in the kitchen. That finally did the trick and everything was working once more as it should.
Except that I now noticed a leak in my water tank... After a lot of swearing and two more days of work, that problem was fixed as well. Man! PARPAR & FULL MOON had taken off for Ascension just after my birthday and soon RELIANT was on its way too. Kirk had quite a few problems with his windvane self-steering and was busy fixing things as well. And as we heard later, both FULL MOON and RELIANT had problems with the SSB radios. Only PARPAR didn't report any problems.
We still had time for a trip around the island where we had a look at the houses of Napoleon Bonaparte, his tomb, the giant tortoises, the Jacob's ladder and many other interesting sights. Unfortunately we were sitting in the back of a pickup-truck which my back didn't like at all. Liping and Aurora Ulani went to a barbecue picnic at Sandy Bay but I couldn't go as I had picked up some kind of virus and suffered from neck- and headaches for about three weeks.
Aurora Ulani and I took her little fishing net and tried to catch some sea creatures. She enjoys this kind of activity tremendously. Just like her father. After a little while we had caught some starfish, a crab and various other creatures. The fish were too fast and the sea urchins were too well entrenched in their holes in the rocks. Unfortunately for the crab, it was gobbled up by the starfish.
The "Royal Mail Ship" RMS ST. HELENA came by. We watched how they offloaded three containers at a time onto barges which are powered by some gigantic kind of outboard engine, which looked like heavy duty construction machinery.
Then there was the big discussion whether we should go and watch the hatching sea turtle on Ascension. We had tried at Ashmore Reef between Australia and Indonesia, but were not successful. We really would like to watch this! However, our friends had told us that it is often impossible to go ashore there as the swell is even more of a problem. Also, Ascension would mean quite a detour and from there to Salvador de Bahia the wind would not be on such a propitious angle compared to leaving directly from here. Even today, when we are about to set sail, we haven't made a decision yet.
No matter what, we have a longish time at sea ahead of us which suits us quite well. It'll get warmer all the time, the moon will accompany us at the beginning of the trip and we are well in the trade-wind area now.
