On February 21st, we left Saint Helena and set
sail on the long voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Our destination was French Guiana, 3,100
miles to the northwest. The initial 2,000
miles would likely be dead downwind in the light SE trades, so we rigged Saviah
for running with twin jibs. The whisker
pole was on one side and the mast from our sailing dinghy on the other. Once out of the lee of Saint Helena, we
hoisted both the genoa and gennaker and set the windvane for a course dead
downwind.
It seemed to be a much more comfortable and slightly faster
ride with the two headsails. For the
first 11 days of the trip, the winds were ESE to SE at 10 – 15 knots, and our
average speed was over five knots.
During this time, adjustments to the steering or the sail trim were
seldom needed. One exception was that we had to drop the
gennaker every few days to retie the sheets due to chafe where they rubbed
against the dinghy mast.
 |
| running with twin jibs |
The winds were incredibly consistent during the first two
weeks. There was very little to do in
terms of sailing, but we kept busy on a few days fixing things that broke on
passage. We have been lucky so far in
that our gear failures have been rare, but the harsh marine environment and a
lot of blue water miles over the last few years are starting to take their toll.
On day three, Andrew noticed one of the stove gimbal pegs
was about to break off. We had made our
third temporary repair in Saint Helena, but it wasn’t effective. These small pegs that are attached to each
side of the stove had nearly been sawn in two by the mounting brackets they
rest in. They were near the end, but we
needed them to last until we could get our new gimbals in Barbados. After disconnecting the propane, we pulled the
stove out of its cradle and put it on the cabin floor. This is never easy on a rocking boat, but we
were able to rotate the pegs and reinstall the stove. We checked it daily and kept our fingers
crossed that it would hold for a few more weeks.
Other minor repairs included replacing the latch on the head
door that snapped in two, stopping a new water leak that developed in the thru
hull for the sink drain, and replacing the hinge on one of the galley doors
that broke off. Then some stitching
along the foot of the genoa began to unravel. While in South Africa, we had the
sail re-stitched, but they apparently missed one seam. Andrew tried sewing it while the sail was
up, but it wasn’t easy, and he almost fell off the boat a few times. So we dropped it for about an hour and hand
stitched it.
Day seven brought our most worrisome gear failure. A squall was looming on the horizon,
prompting us to drop the gennaker temporarily while it passed. We were sailing along downwind with only the
genoa and suddenly headed off course on a beam reach. The
windvane was no longer steering and seemed to be stuck in place. Upon closer inspection, we found that the ratio
rod had broken in half. Without it, the
windvane wasn’t going to work.
At this point, we were 1,000 miles from Saint Helena and
2,000 from French Guiana, with no spare on board for the part that broke. With several
weeks left on the passage, the thought of hand-steering 24/7 was daunting, so we
started brainstorming ways to rig a temporary fix. The half inch thick stainless rod was three
inches long, with half of it protruding from a bronze housing. After the break, the longest part was now two
inches long, and fortunately, it did not fall in the water. If we could put the broken rod back into the
housing and find a way to hold it in place, maybe it would work
temporarily. We considered gluing it,
and then decided it would be better to drill and tap a hole in the housing and insert
a screw to hold it in place.
When we left Seattle, we had tons of extra screws and a new
drill and tap set. Nearly three years
later, there are only a couple of rusty taps left. We managed to find two screws that happened
to fit the remaining taps, and a few dull drill bits that were close to the
right size. Di steered, while Andrew
hung off the stern of the boat, drilled a hole in the bronze housing, tapped
the threads and finally tried to put in a screw. This was extremely difficult to do while Saviah
was rolling back and forth, and he broke several drill bits in the
process. It took an hour to get the
first one done, and then the screw broke off in the hole. He started over again, and this time was very
careful, since it was our last screw. He
carefully tightened it, and it seemed to hold the bolt in place. This entire repair would have taken less than
five minutes in a marina, but off at sea, it took several very frustrating
hours. Fortunately the repair worked,
and we set the windvane to steer us downwind again. Now if it would just last for another 2,000
miles.
Winds remained light and steady from the SE, and by day 12,
we found the south equatorial current, which added an extra knot to our speed. A few days later, we were approaching the
equator near the NE coast of South America and entered the ITCZ (Intertropical
Convergence Zone). This area, also
called the doldrums, is the band between the SE trades of the southern
hemisphere and the NE trades of the northern hemisphere. There are generally very light winds and lots
of squalls. On day 15, one squall passed
through during the night with gusts of 25 knots. This put an end to over two weeks of running
with twin jibs when our gennaker blew out.
This was another very old sail that was near the end of its life, and
our time sailing dead downwind was almost over anyway.
By the time we reached the equator on day 16, the NE trade
winds were starting to fill in, and we had 10 – 15 knots just aft of the beam. We sailed along with the genoa and a single
reef in the main for our last seven days, with a bit of a boost from the Guiana
current. On day 23, we were in the
fastest part of the current, and Saviah was flying along between eight and nine
knots.
In the late afternoon of March 16th, we
approached the Iles du Salut, which are part of French Guiana. We sailed around to the south side of the
islands and dropped the hook, completing our longest passage of 3,100 miles in
23 days. Saviah certainly didn’t break
any speed records, but considering the winds were light and most of the trip was
dead downwind, we were happy with our average of 135 miles per day or 5.6
knots.
 |
| Iles du Salut |
French Guiana is an overseas region of France, bordered by
Brazil on the south and east and Suriname on the west. Our plan was to stop here for a few days to a
week to rest and take on water and fresh food before finishing the last leg of
our Atlantic crossing. We were also
looking forward to spending time on the Iles du Salut (Islands of Health). These are three small islands, Ile Royal, Ile St.
Joseph and Ile du Diable (Devil’s Island), grouped close together and lying six
miles off the mainland.
We had the anchorage all to ourselves and slept hard that
night. We awoke the next morning to see
our friends on the Swedish sailboat Mare Liberum sailing into the bay. We had met Mark and Maria in Cape Town and
were excited to see them again. Later
that day, the four of us headed over to check out Ile Royale. It was nice to stretch our legs with a walk
around the island and see some of the local wildlife, including iguanas and
monkeys.
 |
| view of Ile du Diable from Ile Royale, curious monkey on Ile Royale |
While on passage, we both read the novel, Papillon, by the French convict Henri
Charrière. It is his account of the
14-year period that started with him being wrongly convicted of murder. After being sentenced to life in prison, he
was shipped off to these islands, which were part of a French penal
colony. He was imprisoned here for
nine years before he ultimately escaped to Venezuela.
The penal colony operated on these islands for a hundred
years, before being shut down in 1953.
It was used for only the worst criminals of France, and its inhumane
conditions made it controversial at the time. Prisoners were murdered by each
other, and tropical diseases killed many others. Apparently France transported around 56,000
prisoners to the penal colony, and fewer than 10 percent survived their
sentence.
It has been 60 years since the prison was closed, but many
of the structures are still standing, including the guards housing, prison
cells and various other buildings. Catamarans
from the mainland bring tourists out on most days, where they can visit two of
the islands, Ile St. Joseph and Ile Royale. No one is allowed on Devil’s Island, which is
where the political prisoners were previously held.
 |
| penal colony ruins |
After two nights, we headed to the mainland to buy groceries
and take on water. We weighed anchor and
made the nine mile sail into Kourou, the nearest port in French Guiana. The waters off the coast are quite shallow,
so we waited until high tide and had a fast downwind sail, with 20 knots
blowing from behind us and a swell of 8 ft.
Fortunately the waves were going in the same direction, but they were a
bit steep, and we realized we may be stuck in Kourou for a while waiting for
good conditions to sail back to the islands.
We sailed far enough up the Kourou River to get some
protection from the ocean swell before dropping the anchor. We were a concerned that it would be hot and
buggy up the river, but it wasn’t too bad.
The winds blew steadily while we were there, which kept it relatively
cool, and we put nets over the hatches to keep the mosquitos out at night. After checking the weather, it seemed prudent
to stay at least one night before heading back to the islands.
There isn’t much to see in Kourou other than the Guiana
Space Centre, which is the European Space Agency’s primary launch site. We considered taking a tour, but it was all
in French so we figured we wouldn’t get much out of it. Instead, we walked around the sleepy little
town to do our shopping. The food was a
bit expensive, but we were desperate at that point. The last big supermarket we were in was Cape
Town, nearly two months prior. They did
have a nice outdoor market where we found cheap locally grown produce. We filled the rest of our time catching up on
boat chores and laundry. Fortunately,
our friends on Mare Liberum were there as well, and we had a good time hanging
out with them.
We also used the outboard we bought in Cape Town for the
first time, which was mostly a fiasco. We
still hadn’t figured out a good way to get it on and off the boat, and we kept
forgetting to open the air vent or fuel supply or something else, causing it to
die on us half the time. It almost died
for good when we were approaching Saviah one afternoon right as a squall with
heavy rain was arriving. Andrew was in a
hurry and turned hard and gave it a bit too much throttle. The outboard wasn’t tightened down enough, and
it flew off the transom. Andrew held on
to the throttle, but the outboard was completely submerged in the river. So after only about an hour of use, he already
had to change the oil, replace the fuel, and take off the carburetor to clean
it. He got it running again, but it was
starting to seem like we were better off just rowing.
French Guiana is often on the edge of the ITCZ, and lots of
squalls with heavy rain passed through. The
weather forecast called for more of the same, and one night turned into several. We hadn’t even cleared into the country, as our
plan was to only stay for a day or two, and we were told that as long as you
weren’t French, the local authorities didn’t care. Finally after four days in
Kourou, the winds shifted to the east and moderated a bit. We sailed back to the islands, but were
disappointed to find that due to the recent wind shift, some swell was now entering
the anchorage.
It was late in the afternoon when we arrived, and the
catamarans that bring tourists out to the island were untying from their
moorings to sail back to Kourou. After
they left, we decided to tie up to one of these moorings for the night. Unfortunately, the next morning it was more
of the same, and the forecast showed two or three days before conditions
improved. We could see the catamarans
approaching in the distance, and they would not be happy to see us tied to
their mooring. The thought of anchoring
in the very soft mud and bucking seas made us nervous, so we decided it was
time to leave.
We had really hoped to spend more time there, but it just
wasn’t in the cards. We quickly stowed
things aboard and got Saviah ready for passage.
On March 23rd, we untied from the mooring and headed out on
the 635 mile trip to Barbados, the last leg of our Atlantic crossing.