St Helena - Zac

Mark Plato, the 'Saint' that took Jen and I on a tour of St Helena

One of the older 'Saints' on the island

If this guy could talk!

Me shooting Jen, shooting

Jen with our new friend

The following is an excerpt from my log kept during the trip from Cape Town to St Helena:

Day 1:

So I headed out of the V & A Waterfront Marina around 11:00am and passed through the two swing bridges and out into a very light breeze. Jen, Jeff and a photographer for a news paper followed me out in a Bavaria Yacht to see me off and grab some pix. As I said, the wind was very light but there was just enough breeze to fill the sails and keep me moving. I shut off the engine and took a look around and saw a big metal fishing boat about half a mile away on a collision course which is something you really don't want to see when you're in a light breeze going close to the wind. I kept on my course and hoped he would alter his course. As he got closer I called him on the VHF radio, but received no answer. As he got close enough for me to hear his engines, I started mine and spun Intrepid dead into the wind. He ended up passing just off my bow. Great seamanship, huh? I got the boat back on course and sailed along nicely past Robin Island. Unfortunately, after that, the wind died all together. As it got later, ships and fishing boats began to show up everywhere and a thick fog rolled in. By 11:00pm I had my spreader lights, navigation lights and strobe light all going hoping to make Intrepid more visible but I'm sure it was pretty much useless though because from my cockpit I could barely see the lights on the top of the mast!

As the night went on, I was navigating off the AIS and radar and there were some close passes. I had one ship pass less then half a mile away and I never saw a thing! If it wasn't for my AIS radar, a gift for which I am very grateful, from Dr. David Lowenberg, the night would have been very dangerous. The AIS radar lets me see the track position, name, speed, and course of most all ships. So, anyway...another sleepless night.

The next day, my Iridium sat phone charger slid off the counter into the sink. When I'm in a starboard tack, sea water backs up the drain and I always have about an inch of water sloshing around the sink. That is how I ended up with so little communication for the rest of my trip. I still had two bars of charge left on it which is about 20 minutes of the phone being on and I still had a week and a half to two weeks to go! I had to save that for emergencies. I called my mom to arrange a time to call her every two days for a quick weather report and to give my position.

The past couple of days have passed with not much going on. I've picked up the trades - a nice 15 - 20 knots apparent off the aft port quarter and am sailing with full genny and 1 reef in the main.

OK, so sorry for not putting what day it is on my blog but I've lost track. Not that that really matters out at sea. The sun does the same thing everyday anyway. It has been very overcast the last couple of days and the solar panels haven't been able to keep up with the draw so I'll have to run the engine to get some power from the alternator. Not that I need any speed from the engine, I'm going 6-7 knots running with 25-30 knots apparent behind me.

The other night at around 2:00am, the boat suddenly spun into the wind and when I got up to the cockpit I saw that the windvane wasn't doing it's job and the tiller arm was moving freely. I grabbed my Solar Light Cap (a very useful piece of gear. http://www.solarlightcap.com/) and saw that the two gears that connect the wind paddle to the paddle were in the water. I called my dad using my dying Iridium phone and asked him to call Hans at Scanmar and ask them how to fix it. I told him I would call him back in half an hour and hand-steered for about twenty minutes. Then I put away the genny and flopped around while I tried to get through to my dad who had really bad reception. I got the phone number for Monitor, called them up and got the directions for realigning the gears. In about 15 minutes I was sailing along nicely with the Monitor doing its job.

Not much going on the last few days...steady tradewinds. The only problem has been vane gears keep coming detached and always at some God-forsaken hour of the morning when its black as ink. Other than that, I'm making steady progress toward St Helena.

Smooth sailing the last couple of days with winds a little lighter than I would have liked but moving along in the 5s. Not much of any thing else going on so I'll write more when something happens.

OK, so I'm about 300 miles from the island and my sat phone just went from one bar of power to off so no more sat phone. I should be in in 50 hours or so. Hoping the wind doesn't die down too much more.

OK, well the wind did die all the way down. I had about 4 knots all night so I motored for awhile as the wind was predicted to increase within 12 hours. The next morning the engine died from a clogged fuel filter so I replaced it, siphoned some more diesel into the tank and tried to start the engine again. It cranked over once and just died so I looked in the engine room and discovered that the starter was screwed. I drifted off course all that night and most of the next day. My sat phone was dead so I had the same thing going on as in the Torres Strait - no communication. I knew that my parents were going to start to worry because I should have been doing at least 100 miles a day unless something was wrong on the boat. There was nothing I could do except for wait and bob around not going anywhere. It was driving me crazy so that day to keep my mind alive I pulled down the sails, not that they were doing anything) and tied a rope around my wast and jumped over the side. Don't worry, I got back on board pretty quickly because I've just seen too many sharks in the last 8 months to feel comfortable swimming in the open ocean. In the evening, the wind filled in and I was able to sail along at about 4-5 knots. It was a relief because at that rate I would get in around 10:00am the next day. I sailed nicely through the night and the next morning sailed my way around the island.

As there would be no way for me to anchor without an engine in such tight quarters, I was towed in to the anchorage around 11:00am. I got all moored up, met up with Jen and went ashore to clear customs and immigration. I did a radio interview and then went to do another interview at the Saint FM station close to the waterfront. I interviewed with Mike, the owner and main DJ, who then offered for me to stay with him in his house above the radio station. I've been there for the past couple nights.

In the last couple of days I've seen the whole island, Napoleon's grave (Yes, Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled and died here) and met a few of the locals who have been great and friendly people. I climbed up Jacob's Ladder - all 699 foot high steps and have started on the engine work. I should be getting some help from a mechanic on Monday.

Sorry it took so long to get this off. There has been very poor phone reception, limited Internet, etc. There is always a lot going on when I first arrive in port. I still need to get down to the jetty where sailors have been adding their names since they first began visiting here on there trips across the Atlantic. I can't remember if Robin Graham was here on Dove. I thought he went to Ascension further north. Anybody know? All is well and I will be in touch again soon.

Cheers,

Zac

Sliding down the rail of Jacob's Ladder, St Helena Island

Link to AOL Article:

http://news.aol.com/article/teen-sails-globe/373472