6th December 2006

News & update 6th of December 2006

Alan We, Alan, Rob and Toni (me) departed Puerto La Cruz as planned and shipshape. First stop was Cumana still in Venezuela, where we got the cheapest Diesel Fuel in the world. We bunkered 600 liters and only had to pay US$12. That’s a Bonus! We cruised from Island to Island heading west. Tortuga, Los Roques, Barlavento, Bonair and are now in Curacao. We would have liked to stay longer in those remote Islands, but the sail plan is tight. Little Swan Running Free We will be heading west to Aruba then Cartagna in Clombia and hope to be trough the Panama Canal before Christmas. Alan’s Report Bonair,   December 02nd 2006 In case of possible interest I thought that I would set out how we live on the average day on the good ship 'Little Swan'' when underway ie sailing or motoring to our next destination/port of call. At present as these are usually only 60-70 miles apart we are day sailing ie getting underway at 6am as the sun rises and at our normal cruising speed of 5-6 knots arriving before dusk at 6pm. As we are going into coral island anchorages with no lights/moorings/facilities and the reefs and coral heads could do us a lot of damage we have to navigate/pilot with great care to avoid any problems. It is my job to handle the navigation and pilotage for each passage-working out waypoints to feed into our two GPS units and to plot our position on the chart. Bonair 2 Toni the owner takes over from the autopilot for the final couple of miles to the anchorage and Rob the other crew member acts as lookout in the bows spotting for reefs with his Polaroid glasses. I am working below deck partly at the GPS and chart and then checking depth and taking bearings from the deck. It is great fun and you cannot afford to make mistakes!! When the anchor is down and we are safe and secure we celebrate our arrival with a nice cold beer from the fridge. Bonair 8

Bonair4 Whilst we are on passage we tend to one hour turns steering for the first few hours before switching to autopilot and cooking our meals, writing up personal or ships log, sunbathing, clothes washing in the bucket by hand or just lying on the bunk for 40 winks and thinking of England! (ha ha!) When it comes to the longer passages of 400-800 miles when we will be at sea for 3-6 days or longer then at night we have a watch roster system of 2 hours on and 4 off. This starts at 6pm after we have all eaten our dinner together and goes through to 6am. We do our own thing as regards breakfast and lunch but take it in turn to cook the evening meal with the non cooks doing the washing/drying up.

Love from Alan Greetings  Curacao 7th December 2006 Curacao Here we are in Curacao-one of the islands that make up the Netherlands Antilles-and the largest of them in terms of area. population and economic output. The island was Spanish back in the 1500's but was captured by the Dutch in the 1600's and except for a short period of British rule in the early 1800's has remained Dutch ever since. Little Swan is anchored in an expanse of water called Spanish Water which has just one narrow entrance from and to the sea. It was used by the Spanish galleons as a haven from hurricanes and is about 5 miles or 20 minutes by bus from the capital-Willemstad. Curacao was an important base for Dutch Privateers in the 16th and 17th centuries and became an important centre in the Dutch slave trade in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Today it is a different sort of slave ship that comes calling. These are the "Cruise ships' and they are the current main source of income for the local populace which is made up of various nationalities but predominantly Dutch. One or two liners come in each day and stay for 12 hours or so. Each has about 2000 passengers who flock ashore after breakfast to buy clothes, souvenirs, etc. and after an 8 hour shopping spree with just enough time spent having lunch, then return to the ship to get ready for dinner and dream of another shopping spree the next day in another port!! Perhaps they are the modern day slaves to fashion or the 'must have society' or consumerism.   I visited the Maritime Museum and hope to do a 2 hour self guided walk tomorrow. There are plenty of D colonial style buildings which are colorful and attractive as well as some forts to explore. Perhaps we on little Swan are more like the Privateers of old and passengers from the QE2 and Oceana to whom I spoke seemed to think that our approach was the more exciting and adventurous. We have a few technical problems on which we are working and about which I will write later. We were due to leave for Aruba and then Cartagena(Colombia) this Friday but this looks like slipping by a couple of days. The hundred or so yachts in Spanish Water come from many countries and there is a lot of exchange of information about different ports/countries as well as technical help given freely. If the UN worked as well the world might be a better place.   The main problem we encountered in Curacao was with the forestay or wire rope which holds up the main mast and stops it falling backwards. A rather important wire!! It is made of stainless steel and consists of 19 strands woven into one rope. On fitting a new navigation light unit to the top of our main mast we found a break in one of the 19 strands and in such cases it is normal and prudent to replace it at once. This took longer than expected with lots of climbing up and down the mast and meant that we did not install our new wind turbine generator.   Commissioning Wind Generator Cartagena Morro This is the unit I bought in the UK. and which I brought with me on the flight to Caracas. We now hope to install it in Cartagena so that it can start to generate power for the batteries and help run the freezer/fridge more effectively. This latter item is vital in the temperatures we are having. I mean we have got to have cold beers and ice in our Rum And Cokes!!  I must go down to the seas again to the lonely seas and the sky- (Sea Fever by John Masefield) Alan Garth Report No 5 Alan Garth Cartagena 14th December 2006 Arrived safely in Cartagena (Colombia) after 450 mile passage from Curacao which as expected took us 3.5 days. Our original plan was to call in on Aruba for a day but as we were 2 days later than scheduled in leaving Curacao as a result of the technical problems we decided to give it a miss and get back on schedule by sailing straight for Cartagena.  We sail today Jim lad on the noonday tide for Porto Bello in the Spanish Main said Long John Silver -Treasure Island by R.L.Stevenson. Club Nautico Cartagena  Actually we go from here (Cartagena to Colon in Panama at the start of the Panama Canal a distance of 270 miles or hopefully two days sailing. I hope that we can call in on Porto Belo which is close to our route as this is where Sir Francis Drake was buried in 1596 in the bay in a lead coffin!! He, like the pirate Henry Morgan in the 17th century had been raiding the area for the gold, silver and emeralds being mined in Peru, Colombia and Mexico etc. Porto Belo was where the galleons assembled as a fleet to sail back with the treasure each year to Spain via Cuba. Alan Garth Cartagena (Colombia)   18th December 2006 And all I ask is a tallship and a star to steer her by- (Sea Fever) We had the Trade winds for most of the way from Curacao blowing from the North East. This means the wind and swell were from astern and we had to gybe downwind in a corkscrewing sea.. This was not to the liking of Rob who had a period of seasickness not helped in all probability by our having pork chops and sauerkraut for supper!! Not the best combination for a delicate stomach! It was his birthday yesterday so for a special trip he hot to be hauled up the mast in the bosuns chair and then woken at 3am from his sleep to come up on deck to get the mainsail down in a squall that hit us!! A birthday to remember!   Alan Garth Colon-Panama 22nd December 2006 Well here we are in Colon at the start of the panama Canal and in the heart of the old Spanish Main! Cartagena was most enjoyable. It is a world heritage site and the old city within the old walls is full of plazas, cathedrals/churches and old merchant houses with ornate wooden balconies. It is very similar to lima and Cuzco in Peru which I visited earlier this year. There is a lot of poverty there but the people seem cheerful and happy and they are all slim! No MacDonald’s or KFC to be seen!   The streets are very lively with vendors calling out their wares just as it must have been in Georgian London. The ice cream man rings a cycle bell and the other vendors sell everything from sunglasses and cigars to watches! It seemed that even the poorest person had a mobile phone and was using it so that with the traffic noise the din was indescribable! Having said our farewells to our fellow yachties we had met we set sail for Colon calling en route at the San Blass group of tropical coral islands off the coast of Panama. These were made to be photographed for a holiday brochure with coconut palms and white sand beaches surrounded by clear blue seas.   San Blass1 San Blass Indian Most of the islands are less than 50 yds in diameter and less than 3ft above sea level. Like the Maldives with global warming it is likely that they will cease to exist in the near future: I am fortunate to have visited both before it is too late. The islands are inhabited and the locals came out in their dugout canoes to sell us cloth.   San Blass2 We gave one family some water, sugar, rice and a toy koala bear as a Christmas gift. Apart from coconuts and fish these people have few resources. Chickens are kept for eggs and meat but the ones I saw are very thin.  After San Blass at my special request we called in to anchor overnight at Porto Belo. This is where the Spanish Galleons assembled and where Sir Francis Drake died and was buried in the bay. It looked an interesting place with a fort and ruins to investigate and we might go back there as it seems we will not be able to go through the canal until the 26th or 27th December. May we wish all of our readers a Happy Christmas. Take my drum to England, and hang it by the shore Strike it when your powders running low. Drakes Drum-Sir Henry Newbolt Was the night before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring not even a mouse!   As the Christmas holiday and weekend here in Colon meant that we could not progress any further with our transit of the canal we decided to go back to Porto Belo for Christmas eve/day for peace and quiet. Little did we know that the Panamanians do not celebrate quietly!! Porto Belo Just before midnight after I had retired to my bunk, having hung up my pillow case, the church bells started. Not bells but a single bell rung I think by Quasimodo of Notre Dame fame as it was just rung haphazardly unlike our peals in an English church. This coincided with the loudspeakers from the local bar being increased to a dangerous decibel level to render a Spanish language version of Silent Night that could be heard across both the town and bay!! Fireworks were then set off accompanied by flashes of lightning and one yacht set off a distress flare. With all this noise the cocks obviously felt that dawn had arrived so they started crowing and the town dogs then decided to join in with barking. All in all an interesting if not Silent night for a Christmas eve. At 5am things quieted down a little except for the cocks and dogs and we got an hour or so of sleep before the dreaded church bell started up again to summon the towns folk to church. Toni and I decided that we needed a good walk and set off on a trail through the jungle and uphill to find an old fort. We eventually found where it had been after climbing some slippery, steep mud slopes only to find that it had been reclaimed by the jungle. On making our way back to the boat through the town we came across a young boy with his latest toy - a radio controlled car and a young girl with purple crash hat and roller blades which perfectly matched the colour of her house!! We decided to leave PB soon after midday and return to Colon in time for the reopening of offices today so that we can progress our plans for the Panama Canal transit which takes 2 days and hope to start on the 28th.  Hope that you all had an enjoyable Christmas. Alan Garth Colon 26th December2006 PS Nothing in my pillow case. I gave Toni my Immodium tablets for his problem!! Entering Panama Canal