The 1st 500 miles
We leave Friday December 3 around 1 pm from Mindelo where we have been for almost 14 days. The 1st week with family visits from Wageningen and the 2nd week while supplying for the crossing. More boats leave and we have ‘company’ of some other boats between Sao Vicente (the island where Mindelo is located) and Santo Antão, but after that we only saw 3 freighters for the 1st 500 miles (2 at night and 1 during the day). There is a lot of wind and waves between the islands, so it is a restless start where we only carry the jib.
A fixed routine is established on board: the night shifts are divided. The mornings we are all present again around 9.30 am, go over the last night, eat some cornflakes, muesli or bananas and mess around with the weather forecast, drink tea and stare out on the sea or read. We also have daily contact with the Janjorem, another Dutch sailing yacht that we had already met in Spain and now encountered again in Mindelo. They also go to Suriname; sail a little further north than we do and also go faster, so will arrive earlier.
At 1:00 pm we grab the logbook and describe the past 24 hours and review our progress. After the restless start we ended up in calmer waters and make about 125 miles a day. The 4th day (Tuesday 7) we completed the 1st 500 miles at 6.30 am, which is about a quarter of the distance to be sailed. In the afternoon everyone takes a few hours to get some sleep and then we focus on the evening meal around 5 pm. We like to have eaten and washed the dishes before dark. From 7 pm the shifts start and 1 person remains on standby, while the other 2 (try to) sleep.
By chance we discover (you probably know who!) that a bolt has vibrated loose at the rudder. The rudder was resonating and inspection revealed the problem. Fortunately, this is fairly easy to repair, but it will also be on the checklist from now on.
We now constantly sail with the genoa and jib out. By the way, we haven’t seen a single animal yet except some flying fish and a single bird. This morning there was again 1 flying fish dead on board; they don’t seem to have much visibility at night. Last night there was a beautiful tiny moon to be seen, very bright, but unfortunately only from 7-8 pm.
We’re thinking about the time zones. In Suriname it is 2 hours earlier than in the Cape Verdes (and 4 hours earlier than in NL). You notice on board how you are used to looking up something on the internet; but of course we can’t! We keep in touch with the home front by means of e-mails and SMS via the satellite telephone.
From 500 to 1000 miles
Just now, Friday 10 December at 11.50 am we ‘celebrated’ that we only have 1000 miles to sail. Hooray! Around 5 pm we expect to be exactly halfway the distance and we have promised ourselves a drink with 1 beer. No further alcohol is consumed while sailing. Around 10 pm we expect to reach the milestone of having completed 1000 miles. And today we are also going to turn the clocks back one hour, because we pass 2 time zones, we just don’t know where exactly we pass them. So, a busy day haha!
Other than that, not much happens on board. The sails are out (genua and jib) and are sometimes reefed and later unfurled. We have a nice speed; we first kept to 125 miles per day, but are now well above that. The waves are still there and we keep rolling from port to starboard and vice versa. I can feel my hamstrings from bracing myself all the time and I already have the necessary bruises when I couldn’t keep balance. Unfortunately, no champagne sailing yet!
At night we approached a fishing boat within 0.3 miles. There was contact over the VHF radio about who should swerve and how we would pass each other.
Yesterday we showered with buckets of sea water and rinsed under our Decathlon shower, which was wonderful!
We’ve had 3 more whales at the boat, or so we think. After all, we can’t google them. Apart from a single bird and some flying fish, there is little to see in terms of animals. It has been quite cloudy nights, which is a shame, because then it is darker and you miss the starry sky with the currently tiny moon. We even had some light rain this morning.
From 1000 to 1500 miles
Today is Monday, December 13, the 11th day of our crossing. We have now completed 1384 miles and will hit 1500 miles early tomorrow afternoon. We are still sailing with jib and genoa and making good progress. We have meanwhile decided to make a stopover at the Iles du Salut, an archipelago just off the coast of French Guiana, Suriname’s neighbor. There is supposed to be a beautiful anchorage here at 1 of the 3 islands, Ile Royale. The other 2 islands are Ile Saint-Joseph and Ile du Diable (Devil’s Island). The latter is known from the movie ‘Le Papillon’ with Steve McQueen about his escape from prison on the island. Until 1953, these islands were used to detain prisoners from France. French Guiana has the French flag and belongs to the EU, has the euro as a means of payment and our phones will work again here! And 2 nights of sleep without shifts is also nice.
On board there are folded papers, packets of chocolate milk, a bag of gingerbread cookies and so on in the craziest places to ensure that things rattle back and forth all the time. We wash the dishes with salt water from the salt water tap and then rinse under the normal tap. It has become warmer; we set up the bimini, because it is too hot in the sun. We are amazed at the sea, which turns out to have so many faces.
Since last Monday we have only seen the sea. No boat, no animal apart from some flying fish and a couple of birds. The sea and each other and the Pantera…….
Having said this, we are just sitting in front of us with dinner in the evening when we suddenly see dolphins! From all sides they seem to be sprinting towards the Pantera to swim around the boat for a while. It always gives a happy feeling to see these so friendly animals around you.
From 1500 to +- 1842 miles Iles du Salut French Guiana
We finally reached 1500 miles on Tuesday, December 14 at 12 noon. We see a lot of rainbows and heavy showers around us, but luckily we can avoid them. On Wednesday we see 2 freighters, the first after more than a week. We sail a bit through the territorial waters of Brazil and on Thursday morning at half past eight we sail into the territorial waters of France. That’s why we raise the French flag. Just before that we see another fin swimming past, but we don’t see what else is attached to it. 105 miles to go! It gets dark and around 11 pm we see a light from the lighthouse on Ile Royale in the distance. Gradually more lights appear on the horizon and also lights from local fishing boats in the distance. Finally, we sail into the bay at Ile Royale around 02:00 on Friday morning (after 13 and a half days), drop anchor and uncork the champagne! We did it! An hour later we suddenly see the side lights of a boat approaching, as to what appears the next morning, a Norwegian boat with 3 men on board that had left Mindelo a day before us.
After a wonderfully quiet night (compared to the 2 weeks before) we wake up the next morning and look around us. We now see where we have ‘landed’: an abundance of trees on the island, also palm trees and monkey and bird sounds. We let it all sink in, shower with salt water and sweet after it, and inflate the dinghy. We sail to Ile Royale, go ashore and explore the small islet, once part of the penal colony that France established here. You can still find traces of this, often in neglected condition. This gives, if you think about the misery that probably took place here, a somewhat gloomy feeling. Nature on the other hand is beautiful: many trees, glimpses of the water, capuchin monkeys scurrying around. There is also a restaurant and hotel, so there are some tourists walking around. In the evening we eat something in the restaurant and sail back to the Pantera in the dark.
The next (Saturday) afternoon around 4 pm we start the approximately 175 miles to the outer buoy of Suriname. From there it is another 37 miles up the Suriname River to eventually arrive at the Waterland resort.
