Week 1

Since I last wrote it's been a bit of an uphill struggle. We had two days with great wind, unfortunately coming from the NW, which is exactly where we're trying to go. Yesterday, all wind disappeared again. It was a welcome break after the stresses of beating to windward, but, after bobbing about overnight, we started the motor this morning to try and get some forward progress. We will be into the low pressure systems coming our way probably by Monday. Then we'll have too much wind!

Despite the setbacks, we are about 1/3 of the way to Nuuk. We've crossed into a new time zone and the nights are significantly shorter now with only about four hours of darkness. Our approximate location is 500 miles south of Iceland and 650 miles east of Cape Farewell, the southernmost tip of Greenland. As we round the Cape, hopefully by the end of next week, we are planning to keep an offing of 150 miles to avoid this notorious and potentially dangerous area. All the pack ice and icebergs are swept around the Cape and up the west side by the southerly current coming down the east coast. Although the south coast has some of the best cruising ground, with very beautiful fjords, it doesn't open up until late August. Once around Cape Farewell, it's about 600 miles up the west coast to the ice-free zone around Nuuk where we'll be able to make landfall.

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Week1 28/6/2014 12:00 54°17.9'N 023°00.8'W

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Day 5

We've been at sea four days and are now about 400 miles off the Irish coast, just SW of Rockall. We haven't seen a ship, or, heard a voice on the VHF for two days now. Progress has been reasonable given that only yesterday had a decent sailing wind. After a couple of days sunning ourselves on deck, the weather has changed to what you would expect for the North Atlantic: grey, rainy, cloudy, squally and cool. The decent wind yesterday enabled us to put Gjoa through her paces and she rose to the occasion proving to be a good sailor. We had a bit of a rough ride last night as the seas were churned up along with 20 knots of wind, but, today the seas have calmed and the wind has dropped a bit. Forecast is looking ok for the next few days, but, there is a nasty low looming ahead that will be difficult to avoid. We'll wait for a couple of days to get a more accurate forecast. It may then require evasive action to avoid, or, at least reduce the impact of the hit.

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Day5 25/6/2014 12:00 53°22.3'N 018°46.9'W

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At Sea-Ireland to Greenland

Hopefully you are able to read this. As we're now at sea, I'm posting to the blog using our Iridium satellite phone as a modem. Until we have internet access again, I am unable to see what I've posted, so, please excuse any format errors etc. Also, I am unable to post photos, so, will be posting short text entries only for the next while.

We returned from our Irish land travels late Friday and left Baltimore Saturday afternoon heading towards Nuuk, Greenland. Although travelling through Ireland on a large, lime-green bus with cartoon leprechauns painted on it wasn't the most dignified way to see the country, it enabled us to see a lot in a short time. We went through Connemara, Galway, Dublin and Cork. Actually, Co. Cork and the area of the southern coast where we made landfall turned out to be the most scenic. The west and south coasts of Ireland would make a great summer cruising ground, uncrowded, scenic and many safe harbours a short distance apart. We didn't see any non-Irish boats during our week's stay.

The passage to Nuuk, Greenland is about 1,800 miles. We're hoping to arrive in eighteen days (July 9), but, it could go either way by a number of days. Our one week departure delay hasn't seemed to have made any difference. The same high pressure system is still entrenched overhead and we have made discouraging process during our first day out. However, we have enough wind to keep the sails full and we're travelling at 3-4 knots under sail, so, can't ask for much more with such light wind. The sun is shining and it's warm. It looks like there will be a change coming in the next 2-3 days. Nothing horrendous is forecast and we should get more wind, so, we'll just keep plodding along and we should pick up speed eventually.

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At Sea 22/6/2014 12:00 51°40.7'N 011°28.8'W

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Baltimore (Ireland!)

After the previous day's F7, we headed off for Ireland in light winds. After rounding the Lizard (Lizard Point, the most southerly part of the British mainland),

Lizard Point

the wind continued to decrease until we were left with <F3 and then absolutely no wind at all. I have never seen the sea so calm. The sails started to slat, so, we had to drop them and continue under motor alone. Gjoa is designed to sail, not motor, and without the stabilizing effect of a sail develops a most uncomfortable roll. Due to the lack of wind we didn't have the usual overfalls around the Lizard, but, the sea was still confused and contributed to the rolling. It was interesting to read the evocative names, on the chart, of the reefs surrounding us and can only imagine what conditions can be like here to have historical names like The Manacles, Shark's Fin and The Wrigglers.

There was an entrenched high overhead and the no-wind conditions prevailed for the entire voyage. We were only able to sail for about three hours. Performance under motor was less than expected and the weather conditions weren't changing, so, we decided to do a 'touch-and-go' at St. Mary's, Scilly Isles

Sunset at Crow Sound, St. Mary's

and have a good night's rest at anchor. The Scillies are an interesting group of islands that really warranted some additional time, but, we also wanted to spend time in Ireland, so, unfortunately just got a taster of their unique landscape.

A neighbouring boat in the Scillies anchorage with a full moon.

The next night was spent at sea and the motor droned endlessly as we ticked off the miles. The wind picked up a little as we approached the Irish coast, on the nose of course and came too late to get us into Baltimore so we anchored overnight at Castletownshend and moved on to Baltimore the next day. Baltimore is the most westerly port on the south coast of Ireland, so, we thought it was well-positioned to act as the departure point for Greenland.

We had planned for a week in Ireland to do a bit of touring, but, with high pressure dominating over the whole of the North Atlantic, it also seemed to be an ideal week for departure. We went back and forth: should we stay, or, should we go? In the end, we decided to stay and take our chances with a later departure. The high pressure and no-wind was predicted to last all week. We can't motor all the way to Greenland, so, it seemed pointless to depart and wallow offshore while waiting. Also, we don't want to arrive in Greenland too early either. Right now the ice is still hard and fast for about forty miles off the tip of Cape Farewell, its most southerly point and there are many icebergs close to the coast.

First glimpse of Ireland

I'm writing this from Dublin. Tomorrow, we're heading out on a two-day backpacker's 'PaddyWagon' mini-bus tour to Connemara and Galway. A good way to see the west coast when you don't have time to sail there. Back to Gjoa on Friday, a few final preparations and depending on weather, we'll be off.

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Baltimore 14/6/2014 19:30 51°28.8'N 009°23.8'W

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Helford River

We spent nine days at Port Pendennis Marina, Falmouth. Provisioning a boat for a long voyage, from scratch, without a car, is a daunting task and we weren't looking forward to it. It's a lot of planning, list-making, hauling and the continuing worry of whether you have enough, or, have forgotten a crucial ingredient or two. We don't have refrigeration on Gjoa, so, menu planning was a little more difficult to keep interesting as well. Once you've gotten it all back to the boat via, in our case, train, bus, taxi and foot power, the logistics of where to put it all, in some logical order, so that you'll be able to find it again come into play. We stuffed it all in somehow and we even have room to spare, amazing. Hopefully, our planning will prove adequate in the months to come, I'm sure we won't starve.

Even though there was always something interesting to look at in the marina, like the two boats below, it seemed a shame to leave Falmouth without seeing more of it than the inside of Tesco and Sainsburys.

A 53m! American yacht fresh from a refit. Dozens of staff buzzed around on deck for days.

Falmouth Hotel

Combined with a visit to their large Marks and Spencer store, we did get to see Truro, a prosperous-looking market town with a lovely cathedral as well.

We also made the effort to get out our new bikes and ride along the Falmouth waterfront. One of the reasons we wanted a larger boat was so that we'd have room to carry bicycles and dive gear. I'd been lusting after a Brompton folding bicycle since arriving in the U.K., but, we never had the room.

Folded

Now that we were leaving and maybe not coming back, I was determined to get one as a souvenir of our visit. The Brompton is a unique British product with a bit of a cult following. It's the smallest folding bike you can get and is well-engineered.

Unfolded

On the watefront.

Those Victorians must have had too much time on their hands to make a seashell grotto like this one.

The marina bill was getting very expensive, so, we did a last-minute fresh food shop, laundry etc. and departed. It was blowing a F7 on the nose and we knew there was no way we'd make it around the Lizard without a lot of work, so, rather than beat ourselves up, we headed for the Helford River, a good anchorage recommended to us and set out again the next day, bound for Ireland.

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Helford River 10/6/2014 12:00 50°05.7'N 005°06.6'W

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Fowey/Falmouth

We left Salcombe, heading for Plymouth, with another light wind forecast, but, at least it was going to be an East wind, what luck! We made such good progress west that we decided to skip Plymouth and head for Fowey instead. Plymouth is always an interesting destination because there are usually a number of submarines and warships in the harbour to look at. As it turned out, we didn’t need to go into the harbour because they were all outside enjoying the sun and light breeze like us. At one point we were surrounded by four HMS warships, doing some kind of exercises, with helicopters taking off and landing on the flight decks. At least they weren’t live firing exercises which we encountered a couple of days ago off Portland Bill. It was interesting that, while in the live firing area, we experienced a GPS outage for about two minutes. Related, who knows?

Fowey

We were able to sail the rhumb line and with just the outer genoa set and the tide we were doing a comfortable five knots directly to Fowey. Fowey was a lovely town and the sun was shining.

We took the day off  and did some sightseeing which included lots of Cornish pasties and Cornish ice cream. Many interesting literary and nautical historical links were discovered there and enjoyed.

Fowey

This pod of dolphins surrounded Gjoa in Fowey Harbour and stayed all day.

The trip to Falmouth was uneventful. We are in a marina for a week or so where the remaining provisioning and list of boat jobs must be completed before we head offshore.

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Falmouth 01/06/2014 19:30 50°09.1'N 005°03.7'W

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