Some people have a dog or a cat that live on board with them, some might even have certain types of fish. My family, on the other hand have a pet chicken. How's that for eccentric? We found a chick about to be eaten by a (black) cat. After searching for it's mother and coming up with nothing, we took him (or her) home. The next day was the same, so the decision was made that we would keep him (or her). Jabez and I decided it was a boy and christened him Chico (which in Spanish means little annoying boy....   Actually I made up the annoying part) He's about 3 inches tall and he's yellow w/ black stripes on his back. He is also utterly adorable.
                               The chicken is the one in the middle, that's not wearing a striped t-shirt.

Baby Chico


And now the air is filled with incessant cheeping. He may be very cute to look at but behind the warm and fuzzy exterior, a  little devil lurks. ( I meant that in a good way Chico, stop biting my feet!)




By Anneleize Strauss

25 February, 2015

14 degrees, 48 minutes North

24 degrees,  48 minutes West

First entry in the log book, leaving Ilha Brava in the Cabo Verdes islands, heading for St Martin in the Caribbean, a distance of 2,210 miles on the open ocean.

From the Captain :

3 times, that‘s how many times we got pooped in this one passage. 5 times, the number we have been pooped in 13 years.

Pooped meaning that a wave comes, jumps over the stern or the poop, over the boat, enters the cockpit and comes down the hatch and supplies you with a wet bed, a temporary indoor swimming pool, and then the interior of the boat with sheets hanging to dry, sheets crusted with salt water. Needless to say we do not have enough fresh water to wash sheets while on passage. So after the second linen change the boat looked like an alley way in an old Hong Kong movie.

3 is the number of fish we caught, with 2 being the number we actually landed and 1 being the number of the one that got away.

 mahi mahi mid ocean

We left on a morning with a stiff breeze, created by the capillary action of Ilha Brava. Within 20 minutes of our friends, ‘Fun en Bouille’. With the wind from Brava, we were in 30 knots of wind within 10 minutes after leaving the anchorage.  But the idea of sitting for another stint of reinforced trades, the siroccos, was not appetizing. With the williwaw’s pushing the boat from side to side, winds blowing from a 180 degree range at gale force and then be gone, just enough to break an anchor loose.

We set our sights on the Caribbean.

Sailing next to our friend’s yacht, it was nice to see the family on board, with their baby in hand and their dog on deck, standing, barking at us. Though we would only stay in this position for a few hours, and by early evening, even their navigation lights were far behind us.

our pals sliding off waves

The wind and the unusual action of the sea didn’t dissipate much. We mostly sailed across the Atlantic with winds in the 20 to 35 knot range, constant.

The only time the wind dropped to less than that was 5 days out from St. Martin, when the barometer dropped 5 points, too rapidly, and then steadily raised up. The thunderheads started building big looming anvils on the horizon, which would blow up the tops like they do in the Midwest in the summer, sucking moisture, and by early evening start accelerating in speed, which, a pure nature lover might say, ‘a beautiful array of lightening was to be had’, though as a sailor we pronounce that same term as , ‘ouch, here it comes.’

Days rolled into days, with a steady pattern. Each person being woken up for their individual watch, finally the dream has come full circle: where we have these two totally capable crew members, called Anneleize  and Jabez.

They are able to stand a watch, make a meal in the kitchen (galley) and generally entertain themselves and sometimes us, while life goes by in 6 hour increments.

 Lines and lines of Sargasso on the ocean, getting tangled in the fishing lines/

Something new for us on this crossing were floating beds of sea grapes.  For more than 1000 miles most probably the biggest aquarium in the tropical  region, that usually seems nearly devoid of life. There were gardens upon gardens, lines upon lines of these bunches of golden sea grapes. Never were there 20 minutes that didn’t go by that you weren’t sailing in between or through a patch of this sea grass.

At one point we startled a shark, fast asleep, nestled in a patch of this sea grapes. When we saw him, our boat was within 2 meters of where he was sleeping. That was a first for us.

At times the boat would start vibrating and shuddering, like an old bicycle with a skew tire, when you pick up just a little too much speed. It turns out that the sea grapes would accumulate around the propeller in such a huge cluster that it would form disturbance around the rudder drag, which caused this wobble in the boat. Only by swinging the propeller, turning the shaft inside the boat, were we able to release the sea grape clusters. Strange how something that they make women’s perfume products with can be such a nuisance while we sail. But quite unusual to look at, in the sunlight the leaves shine yellow, which is quite a contrast with the deep blue ocean , these lines and patches of gold.

 the mighty flying fish looks like a B 52 bomber ready for take off!

We had thousands of flying fish taking off daily, we spotted whales or sometimes just their spouting, and dolphins coming to play with the bow of the boat.

dolphins, hard to capture in a photo.

moving through day and night

One thing we did notice, we did not have one clear sky sunset. The western horizon was always covered with a slight bank of clouds, and the first thousand miles the haze in the air that was caused by an easterly wind, like the sirocco or williwaw, blowing the Sahara sand, which covered the sun many days, and left a thick mud cake on the rigging, the sails and the lines .

When I was first told that the reason why there are surf-able sand dunes in Colorado, in the Rockies, and the sand originates from the Sahara, more than 4,000miles away, I though it a little bit of wishful thinking.

But I have seen the sand dunes in Colorado , pure white, and I’ve also been in a Sahara sand wind storm 1,300 miles off the African coast, that you can barely see the disk of the sun. Interesting, this little Mother Nature of ours.

Anneleize as we approach St Martin on our 15th day

For one thing we were fed exceedingly well on the trip. And one of the delicacies that we had aboard was a leg of Serrano ham, a type of prosciutto,  from Iberia, Spain. A swinging pendulum from where it hangs next to the mast, an ever shrinking pendulum .

What were the high points?

Getting out of fleece.

Catching dorado for the first time in years.

 Seeing how our children do understand and have benefitted from being around a life where a lot of responsibility, including a responsibility of safekeeping their parents, in the middle of the night, have blossomed.

After 14 days at sea and 14 nights, there was not a single uninterrupted smile when ‘land ahoy’ was uttered.  We glided around the NE of St. Martin, rolled into Marigot bay, and I wasn’t sure whether the champagne was opened first or whether we were in the water first, once the anchor was in the sand.

When that same day someone noticed there was a strong wind warning out for the last few days, only then did we realize that maybe that was the reason we didn’t see a single sailboat out when we did our last few hundred mile approach  to our landfall in the Caribbean.

The joke is what’s the difference between a surfboard and a sailboat? On this trip, maybe only that we had a refrigerator on our surfboard.

That was from our Captain.

Cabo Verdes islands

29 March 2015 

We are sitting in the Caribbean as I post this, as we did not have internet for quite some time, I am back peddling a bit.

From Santa Luzia, we had a brief sail to the bustling town of Mindelo on the island of Sao Vicente. Mindelo is the big city of the northern islands and as we knew Anneleize and Jabez's friends, on an English sailing boat would be there, we spent a few days in Mindelo before heading to one of the southern islands of the Cabo Verdes, Fogo.

Anneleize in the sailing dinghy, 'Bear Necessities' in Mindelo

 
 Anneleize, Jabez and their friend Lochland rowing to Lochland's boat in the harbor of Mindelo, Sao Vicente, Cabo Verdes islands

Lochland in his sailing dinghy with Jabez, the two boys, and Anna in 'Bear Necessities', competing with the boys : who has the fastest sailing dinghy

 The children had some good playing together and sailing in their sailing dinghy and we tried to get information about the island of Fogo. We knew there was a volcanic eruption on the island the end of November, 2014, but were unable to find anything more current on the internet to tell us if the island had been evacuated or if we would be able to stop and show Anneleize and Jabez a volcano. None of the locals I quizzed in Mindelo knew much about it.

I went to the Red Cross in Mindelo to ask if there was anything we could take on our boat to help with destruction from the volcano but they told me they didn’t need help, and were quite confused as to why I would want to do anything like that. A woman from the local sailor’s bar told us a Red Cross boat went to Fogo with supplies and aid, apparently overloaded, and sank in the harbor of Fogo, killing 15 people.

Armed with that pile of information, we sailed overnight to the island, seeing its conical shape against the backdrop of  a golden sunrise.

Fogo in the distance, with a golden shadow sunrise

As we get closer, we see more definition of the island and more clouds

 We anchored in the tiny harbor, a local guy swimming to the boat to take a stern line ashore. The next day we made the trek to the volcano.

We had two young guys driving us in an old beat up van. Creole is the favored language of the Cabo Verdes and we didn’t have any to use up. We tried for conversation in Portuguese and English, but the two guys were not that interested in conversing.  We drove for an hour or so, around the southern side of the island and then began climbing. The road was a mix between being newly tarred and old cobblestones, and at times dirt.

Cobblestones

and fresh tar road

We drove until we couldn’t drive anymore because a large lava flow had passed over the road, covering it.

 

The  lava flow covers the road

Volcanic lava, 4 months fresh

 We got out of the van and walked to the flow, feeling the heat still coming through at places. Standing on top of the lava, we could even see many heat shimmers in the distance, though the rock had cooled enough to be solid. We walked up one of the hills to get a better idea of the destruction.

Layers of lave

Newly formed rock, a bit rough

There was a village that was completely wiped out, nothing but a few roofs were visible. A local man told us his government knew the volcano was going to erupt, but didn’t inform the public. He and his family were luck y to have gotten out when they did but they lost everything they had.  We handed out clothes that the children had outgrown and an old second hand bicycle was well received.  It seemed there was not much more we could do.

Roofs of houses in the distance, underneath lava

Inside the crater

Walking around the lava flow

We sailed the next day for Ilha Brava, the western most of the islands and our last stopping point before heading for the Caribbean.

Brava provided us with a lovely anchorage, steep hills surrounding it with a small fishing village peeking over the top of one of the hills. Again, dusty, barren, rocky and brown, I wonder how these hardy people can carve a life for themselves out of this desolate and harsh ground. If you didn’t know greenery existed, you wouldn’t long for it.

Arriving in the anchorage of Brava

Philip put into action a diving course for Anneleize and Jabez and after studying the dive books, they had their first open water practice, going to 15 meters.

Philip and the children take the dinghy for their first 'open water' dive

One of the fisherman from the village took special care with us, Jose, introduced us to his family, spoke to us about village life, we had a few meals together. He rows 2 or 3 miles around the corner, between Brava and Fogo, to do his fishing, and then rows back again. His wife takes the fish to the main village to sell it.

Jose and his family

We had 3 almost 4 days of a sirocco wind coming through from Africa. Because of the steep hills of Brava, when the winds finally reached our anchorage, having picked up speed coming over the island, the winds would race down to the water and whip it up, bringing more than 50 knots of gusts at a time.  We sat with Abracadabra for this, not wanting to drag anchor, and even dug out our massive stern anchor, from the depths of the boat, and deployed it to keep us more secure.  

The winds coming, roughing up the water

Philip sits on the boat with the winds pushing the boat against the anchor in Brava

When the sirocco comes, it brings with it sand and dust from the Sahara. It also obliterates the sun, making it a surreal disk in the sky.

These photos are from Gran Canaria, when we were also buffeted by the scirroco winds

To try to show how the sand and dust gets into the air and atmosphere and lays a find cloud between the blue sky and you

When it would have been a stunning day, with the scirocco winds, the skies turn grey

During this time we had a local fishing boat from one of the other Cabo Verdes islands, Santiago, that came into the anchorage to sit out the bad weather. We watched them anchor and re anchor over the course of 3 days. We also watched ourselves, checking where they were during the nights, so they didn’t bump into us.

They anchored with rope and we anchor with chain, and because of this the two boats swing differently. We swing in a fairly tight circle around our chain, while the Santiago fishing boat, well it is as if they swing hither, tither and yon. They were all over the place.

We were all ashore, at the rocky beach with Jose, we were watching that fishing boat moving around, and they were coming to close to Abracadabra. Philip jumped in the dinghy and raced out to the two boats, but arrived only after they had collided with our starboard side, putting a nice scratch into our brand new paintwork.

I did mention that we painted Abracadabra for the very first time, while we were on the hard in Portugal? It was a bit traumatic to go from gelcoat to paint, and we spent hours and days coming to this momentous decision. She is a 38 year old boat and the gelcoat was becoming a bit thin. So to have an old fishing boat make fun of our sleek new look, putting a reminding mark on the side of the boat, it was distressing and more than a little disappointing.

We were able to get fresh vegetables from the local gardens, a stalk of bananas as well, and Jose helped us to top up our water tanks before we began our crossing to St. Martin in the Caribbean. 

Arriving in Santa Luzia, So happy to put the anchor down.

 Not a bad sunset

 Only boat in the anchorage

 Anna and Jabo off for a day of adventure on an uninhabited island

 Jabez on the mountain top

 Lunch...

 And the chef preparing the lunch

Full moon sneaking over the hill

Our sail from Las Palmas, Gran Canaria to Santa Luzia in Cabo Verdes islands was a trip of 850 miles in a straight line and we were 5 days (and of course nights!) at sea.  If you do the math, we averaged 170 miles in a 24 hour period, which for us, was pretty speedy. I can also say as each mile south passed, we sensed warmer temperatures and slowly began taking off layers of fleece and wet weather gear.
Two occasions of note transpired while we were sailing. The first,  we crossed the Tropic of Cancer, another indicator that we are getting closer to tropical waters. We did not see a sign at sea that said we had crossed it, but we did take notice of the latitudinal line on the GPS.
The other GPS induced fun was a moment when we marked 21 degrees, 07 minutes north and 21 degrees, 07 minutes west. This doesn’t happen often, and we are not always watching the GPS, so it was an instant of excitement to have both the latitude and longitude be the same numbers, and to have been looking at the GPS to be able to notice it. We do end up creating our own entertainment at sea!
Anneleize and Jabez were excellent on their night watches, looking for ships, checking our course, making sure the sails don’t flap. We divided the night watches into 2 hours slots, during which someone was awake and usually sitting in the cockpit. We watch for ships, but also see the night sky, observe the ocean and the boat’s progress.
For this trip, the ocean moved in all directions, making for an uncomfortable ride at times. When we had swell with us, the motion of the boat was more consistent and easier for all onboard, and occasionally we had a side swell that would twist things up and change the flow from a fluid one to a lurching one.
An entry in the log book,  55 miles from arriving in Santa Luzia reads, “29 Jan 2015, 08hr50, 17 degrees, 27 minutes north, 24 degrees, 07 minutes west, wind direction NE, wind strength 10 – 20 knots, barometer 1025, boat speed 7.4 knots, sailing direction, or course, 225 degrees, soupy, lugging, bucking, wallowing, messy, confusing; these all describe the sea state and the movement of the boat.”
We had phosphorescence often at night, sparkling the waters around us with light. For a few nights we also had what I call lightening bug phosphorescence. These were random lights that would flash, under the water. Just one flash, almost like Christmas lights, but never in succession, or in a line, more like lightening bugs, random. And those lights we could see in the distance too, not just around the boat. I cannot remember seeing this phenomenon before, in more than 22 years on and off the sea.
The absolute best though, the adrenalin rush at night time, is a visit from dolphins when there is a lot of phosphorescence in the water. Night watch in the cockpit, the noise of the ocean in my ears, the sky dark but for the stars, and all of a sudden a “pthooo”, abrupt and out of nowhere, right next to the cockpit. I jump at the noise, then realize I have visitors, and it is my signal to watch the waters around the boat.
The luminescence comes alive with the dolphins movement, I can see torpedos of light through the water, a blaze of brilliance moving alongside us, coming toward us, bullets of light heading for the bow of the boat. It is one of those special moments that is difficult to describe. To watch the water light up as a moving projectile, aimed at Abracadabra, it is funny, scary, thrilling and joyful all in the same moment. Perhaps it is the idea that I am not alone on night watch, there is someone else awake and with me. Perhaps the dolphins caught me unaware, frightened me with a sudden sound that gets my heart going, and then, when I realize who and what made the sound, I am exhilarated with the display of lights accompanying their visit. It’s not an everyday occurrence, or an every night occurrence, so when phosphorescence  and dolphins combine, it makes my night watch an occasion.

When we arrived and dropped anchor, we felt, somehow, we earned the right to put the anchor down and sit back for a moment. We  recounted our feelings and experiences, we spoke of the challenges of the passage,  and most assuredly, we appreciated the stillness of quiet water. A passage, any passage, but especially a passage like this one where we worked hard to arrive, is a humbling moment.

23 January, 2015 Las Palmas, Gran Canary, Canary Islands

28 degrees, 7' North
15 degrees, 25' West
on the GPS

While Heidi and Stefan were with us on the island of Gran Canaria, we rented a car to see a bit of the island, including driving up to the highest point, Roque Nublo, which is a volcanic cone.

During this drive we were six people in one of the smaller, least expensive rental cars. In order to accommodate everyone in an easy style while driving, Anneleize volunteered to sit in the back of the car, seated sideways. Philip and Stefan were in the front, Heidi, Jabez myself in the middle, and Anneleize, perpendicular to the rest of us, bringing up the rear. Off we go.
We arrived during market day at one of the hill towns and the village was over stuffed with cars, We saw cars lining the road before we entered the small town, cars parked on sidewalks, in every place imaginable, so we dropped Stefan, Heidi and Jabez off and went to look for a place to leave the car.
Because the roads were winding and curvy to get up to this hill town, Anneleize had a bit of motion sickness, exacerbated by her reading in the back. Yes, we did tell her not to.
As we were looking for parking, and she was feeling sick, and starting to cry, she said she wanted to get out of the back. Philip abruptly stopped the car, I was sitting behind him and jumped out to open the back of the car, pulling a crumpled Anneleize out, pushing her into the back seat while teary eyed.
A woman in a car behind us honked her horn, stuck her head out the window and shouted in Spanish, 'What are you doing with that child?'
I yelled back, 'She is my daughter and she's sick!'
I knew immediately what it looked like to her : child abduction.
There were 3 reported missing children last year in Gran Canary, none recovered to date.
We met up with Heidi, Stefan and Jabez and spent a good two hours walking through the market, tasting some locally made cheeses and sausages, stopping for a coffee, and meandering our way back to the car.
Just as we arrived to the car a policeman on a motorcycle pulled up in front of the car and stopped. Within a minute another policeman in a car pulled up next to the car behind us and stopped.
Clearly that woman had taken our license plates down and phoned the police.
Now it was our job to convince the police that yes, the children were ours, and no, the police were not about to break open a case of child kidnapping. It took some doing.
Philip and I did have our passports as we used them to get the rental car that morning, so they were with us. Anneleize and Jabez's passports were on the boat.
We had no identification to prove that the children were ours. No identification that they would consider appropriate, officially appropriate, that they could tick off in the correct box. So we gave them all that we could think of.
Philip pulled out his wallet and showed a picture of Anneleize and Jabez together, arms around each others shoulders, taken 4 or 5 years ago.
I explained that we lived on a sailboat, the boat's name is 'Abracadabra'. I told them the boat was in the marina in Las Palmas, the gate number and slip number and asked them to phone the marina to verify this information. I didn't have the marina phone number with me but I figured they could find the number easier than I could.
I then told them that Anneleize and Jabez's passports were on the boat and we would be happy to show them the passports if they wanted to escort us to the marina. (An hour or more drive)
If you read the last post, you would remember that we were on the local Canaries television, an interview about how we were spending our New Year's eve in Arrecife, another of the Canarian islands.
I now used that as further proof that we do exist, that we are a family, maybe an unusual one, but we do have these two children and they are our own. I wrote the information down on a paper and asked the policeman to verify this television transmission, and that he would see all of us documented, with our boat, in the Canaries, on one of his very own TV channels. .
All of this explaining took the better part of an hour, and in the end, after conferring with his superior officer, the policeman told us we could go. He seemed not sure if he could believe all the information I gave him, and so readily, and was a bit stumped about the TV part.
The good news is I am not writing this to you from some jail on a tiny island in the north Atlantic!

18 January 2015. Las Palmas, Gran Canary, Canary Islands, North Atlantic.

We spent the first 4 days in Morocco doing sail repairs, by hand, and general clean up and maintenance on the boat. Anneleize and Jabez were great sewers, learning how to zig zag stitch with two needles going at the same time.

Philip went up the mast to check the rigging and to replace the top mast light that went out during the passage.

We drove to Marrakesh to pick up our new crew member, Heidi, Philip's sister. She arrived intact after a marathon flight session from Capetown to Amsterdam to Morocco. While she was with us for a month, we played tourist, especially around Morocco.
We traveled to a small oasis town called IGMIR. We drove 3 to 4 hours from Agadir, in a south easterly direction, though rock, dirt, more rock and just in general rock. And then, all of a sudden, we see a palm tree, one of those fabulous date palms that provide dates in the middle of the desert, and we arrived at the bottom of a valley carved by erosion, wind and rain.
Of the 600 inhabitants, a friends' mom runs the only guest house, and we stayed with her. We visited the local school where the 8 children ranged in ages from 3 to 12 years. The children study at the little one room school in the mornings and at the mosque, in the village, in the afternoons. Omar, the teacher, wrote Anneleize, Jabez and Heidi's names in Arabic.

The sail from Agadir, Morocco to Graciosa, one of the 8 islands of the Canaries, was, more or less 210 miles. We had lots of wind, no wind and then more wind making for a bumpy and noisy trip. We arrived in the morning, dropping anchor in Playa Francese and happy to have the boat still. We launched the dinghy and the shore party of Anneleize, Jabez and Heidi went to find Stefan, who would be arriving in Graciosa by ferry in the afternoon.
Stefan joined the boat for his first night at anchor, and for the rest of us, a full night of sleeping without the need to do night watches.
The next day we left the boat on anchor and  had a walk on Graciosa, which is mostly what one does. There are one or two roads in the one village on the island, but otherwise, most people who come by ferry walk to one of the beaches for the day. Philip spoke with some locals during lunch to find out a sirocco was coming, winds from the Sahara desert, which would make our anchorage dangerous for Abracadabra.

We high tailed it back to the boat, put the dinghy on deck, stowed everything and pulled up anchor for Arrecife, on the south east side of the island of Lanzerote. By the time everything was put away and our anchor was up, it was almost dark, so we had a busy night sail south, along the coast, with the lights of the various villages and towns as company. We arrived around 4 or 5am and dropped anchor in the commercial harbor, moving into the required marina after a few hours sleep.
With Heidi and Stefan, we toured the Cesar Manrique foundation, which is basically Cesar's house,  carved out of the volcanic lava fields. He is no longer alive, and his house has since been turned into a museum. The design and flow of the house, or at least the portion the public is able to view is a stunning masterpiece of what one can achieve, if only you have the idea. Some people look at the lava flow and think, just a bunch of rock, while others look at it and decide to build a house.

As we were spending New Year's eve in Arrecife, we managed to be interviewed by the local television station, Telecanaria, as an example of how some of the peoples of Arrecife being in the new year. This is the link address : http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/telecanarias/telecanarias-31-12-14/2936043/
The transmission is in Spanish, and it is in the middle of the program, more or less, if you search Abracadabra, you may find it.

We left Arrecife to sail to Fuerte Ventura, an island just south of Lanzarote, leaving mid morning. The winds changed as we were sailing and when we arrived at our intended anchorage in the afternoon, we decided against it as it would be rolly in the night and uncomfortable. So we sailed back to the southern tip of Lanzarote, near Playa Blanca, and had a lovely quiet evening, after a rigorous day of sailing. The next afternoon we lifted the anchor for Gran Canaria.
Sailing through the night, we were able to see the glow of Las Palmas' lights from 40 miles or so at sea. It seemed like we might be sailing to New York city, the way it looked in the dark. We had our sails out, goose wing, or wing and wing, as it was a down wind sail.
We spotted the red and green of the harbor entrance through the backdrop of millions of city lights, including differentiating stop lights from harbor lights. What we couldn't figure out were the lights of the 5 or 6 oil rigs, with maybe 15 to 20 floors of lights, and in places that weren't mentioned in any of our information. It was only when we entered the harbor, and came close, could we see that these were oil rigs on huge ships, drilling for oil, within the harbor walls, and some outside of the harbor, but close to shore. The looked like a cruise ship, but with almost christmas tree lighting.


Heidi and Stefan have flown back to South Africa from Gran Canaria, and we prepare for our week or so sail to the Cabo Verdes islands. 850 miles or so.