The Adventures of Triple D

The last trip and arriving home

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:02:28 +0100

We are now all back in England!!!

We had an amazing trip home from the Azores - about a 9 and a half day trip. It was great fun having the boys on board and I think they enjoyed it too. Well I know Andy definitely did as he is possibly the most consistently cheery person that exists. Who else would reply to “Andy it’s 2am, time to get up” with “fantastic!” - and not even a hint of sarcasm. Neither of them got seasick and both gave our lovely autohelm a rest with a go at the wheel.

The trip passed incredibly quickly as we had such different conditions - from no wind in all directions, medium strength winds, to sailing through a gale. We ended with a bit of excitement as well - we were attempting to outrun a second gale through the Channel, allowing for a stop at Salcombe for their triple chocolate crepes. But the winds picked up earlier than expected, going from 6 knots to 35 in a matter of seconds (poor Andy was on shift by himself), and so we had to change plans and had a very windy day sail to Yarmouth where we rested for the night. It was funny seeing the boys get off the boat, after James’ complete denial of the existence of ‘land sickness’ he was proved wrong immediately!

We arrived at Emsworth marina just before midday on Friday, to be greeted by Jilli, Shelly, and mum’s friend Sarah, carrying a huge banner and wearing party hats. It was lovely! Then we had a big meal cooked by chef Andy - dinner for 8 and lots of drinks on board Triple D.

Everyone has been asking what it feels like to be home. Answer: very odd. Chichester was so full of people and they talk so loud. Mum and I wandered around in a daze our first day out! We can even notice a difference between Jilli and ourselves - she talks much faster and moves much faster than we do. It won’t be long until we settle back in completely though I’m sure!

We left the boat in true Triple D Disaster fashion. I had filled Jilli’s car up with my stuff to move to London and we were going to the car with the last load before setting off, when climbing off the boat I dropped Jilli’s car keys into the muddy, dark water of Emsworth marina. Panic panic panic. So I stripped off and climbed into the chest-deep, freezing cold water, to spend a good five minutes feeling around the mud with my toes for the keys. It all worked out for the best as I found them, and the remote locking still worked. But I have to say I did not think my last swim of the year would be in freezing cold water in Emsworth!!!

What an amazing year we have all had, with such fantastic memories. Triple D out for the last time.

Jilli

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 17:22:38 +0100

Well its Jills here, I haven’t been the most regular contributor to the Triple D blog but this will be my last updateL

I fly home today, and its very sad. Up until a couple of days ago I was all excited to be headed home but now… now I don’t even want to go! It’s just the idea that this year is over, and i have to go home to the cold and work and grey etc.

Right now I’ve been remembering the isolated anchorages in turquoise seas where you can jump in any time for a cool off and swim to the white sandy beaches… it’s been a pretty idyllic year!

But I’ve planned a busy-ish summer and am planning, whilst Mum and Alice endure the cold, the night shifts and the ever changing wind I will be eating in nice restaurants (hopefully), rebuilding my relationship with the TV and walking my dogs! YAY.

But for now, Triple D I must say ADIEU. Safe journeys to Mum, Alice, Cousin Andy and James. I hope the boys can live up to my brilliance as most useless crew! (Or perhaps they won’t be seasick and will do more than sleep?)

I am now on the other side of the blog. Let’s hope I keep up.

BYE BYE TRIPLE D! I LOVE YOU!!!!!

(as I post this she is currently in a plane on her way to Lisbon…)

Photo

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 17:20:26 +0100

Lava fields

Jilli and I at the crater

mist obscuring the pylon at the top

east side of Faial

Exploring Faial

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 16:47:46 +0100

A lot of the sailors here might not know it, but Horta marina is actually on an island called Faial. So yesterday we rented a car and set out to explore the island. Turns out Faial is actually a tiny island, and we drove from one end to the other, with detours (to get beautiful views of the ocean, as if we hadn’t seen enough of it) in less than 45 minutes. Slightly different from the 8 hour journey across the Dominican Republic!

The far end of the island was covered in lava from the 1957 eruption and the landscape looked like a black desert. The very end of the island was actually created by the eruption. There was a museum about volcanoes but it cost 10 euros to get in, we had learned quite a lot about volcanoes in Madeira and Lanzarote and decided we would rather spend 30 euros on lunch, (greedy girls) so instead we paid 1 euro to climb up the lighthouse for fabulous views of… guess what? The ocean! We were a bit confused when we had to go down some steps before we could begin climbing, but everything became clear when we were outside once again. The lighthouse was built on top of a two-storey house, the first storey and a half of which had been completely buried by the lava from the volcano.

By this time it was lunch time, and we drove through some tiny deserted villages, the buildings made out of volcanic rock, with beautiful black sand beaches and jagged lava sticking out of the sea. No restaurants to be seen however - it may be yachty season but it is not yet tourist season, and I doubt Faial gets that many tourists anyway! Soon enough we stumbled upon a local cafe run by two brothers with stunning views over the ocean. We all had hamburgers and maltesers for pudding - very disappointing that we didn’t have any of the local food, but hamburgers were less than half the price of everything else!

In the afternoon we drove up to La Caldeira - the crater of the volcano. There is a 6km walk around the rim of the crater - Jilli and I were under the impression we were just going to look at the crater, Mum of course had been hiding the fact that she wanted to do the walk. “We’ll just go a little way” she said and set off. Eventually Jilli asked how far - “Well I thought we’d walk half-way round” she said, giggling to herself. Here we mutinied but agreed to climb up the hill to a telephone pylon hiding in the mist to see if we could get a better view. Once at the top, it was absolutely freezing, the wind was howling and the mist was blowing in so we couldn’t even see the crater. Mum threw a strop at not getting to walk all the way around but Jilli pulled the “it’s my last day” card and so we set off back down the mountain! Floundering around in the mist without a clue of where the car was, or even where the crater was. Luckily we made it back down safe and sound! By this time it was actually almost 4pm so far too late to go for the walk anyway.

That evening we went out for dinner (a surprise) to a restaurant in Horta, where you cook your own meat on a hot stone. It was amazing. Mum had the mixed grill with white fish, tuna, squid, shrimps, pork, beef AND chicken. Jilli and I were slightly less adventurous (although I ate mum’s squid) and had four huge steaks to cook. Yum yum yum!!!!

Today Jilli left…. it was very sad and she wrote a last blog post which I will post after some photos.

James arrives on Sunday, Andy arrives on Monday, and we plan to leave Tuesday morning. The weather looks quite good for that at the moment but obviously it can all change!!!

some of the hundreds of paintings in Horta marina

Mon, 30 May 2011 20:01:13 +0100

some of the hundreds of paintings in Horta marina

Photo

Mon, 30 May 2011 19:53:54 +0100

me the night b4 arriving in St. Lucia

the night before arriving in the Azores

Faial hiding behind lots of cloud

Photo

Mon, 30 May 2011 19:48:21 +0100

The Azores!!

Mon, 30 May 2011 19:38:55 +0100

Well we made it across the Atlantic for a second time. Europe greeted us with grey skies, rain, freezing cold temperatures, and (strangely) mosquitos. Having put anchor down at 00.30 and crawled into bed for my first night of unbroken, still sleep, I heard that familiar whining, but was too exhausted to do anything about it so comforted myself with the thought that I was wearing so many thermals as defence against the cold that all would be okay. Needless to say, it covered my face and hands in bites instead. Grrrrrr.

Mosquitos aside, the sailing trip was absolutely fine. A lot more frustrating than the first trip across as we had even less wind, and what wind we did have always came from in front, making it even colder than it would have been anyway. The temperature did make it slightly less enjoyable than the first trip - but our wonderful boat has a raised saloon meaning that it is extremely comfortable (and we can keep watch) from inside - we just made camp on the sofas in our thermals, Jilli watched movies, mum ate chocolate and I read books. All good!

The best thing about this trip was the wildlife. For the first week we were sailing in sea of Portuguese Man-o-War jellyfish, a different one floating past at least every 5 minutes for a whole week. Dolphins visited us nearly every day, and a few at night, when they are only visible as streaks of glittering bioluminesence. We also saw quite a few whales and lots of birds.

I won’t say too much more about it as we did a daily log - http://blog.mailasail.com/tripled

We are in Horta, a town on the island of Faial, in the Azores. Horta is lovely, all green rolling hills, tiled buildings and tiled pavements. The marina is amazing. It is considered bad luck to leave the Azores without painting a logo of your boat at Horta marina and so every spare inch of concrete is covered in brightly coloured paintings. All over the walls and along the concrete pontoons. We are planning our contribution and really hope it will turn out better than our previous efforts in Gran Canaria! I love transit marinas like this as they are always so busy. Every spare inch is used here in trying to fit in as many boats as possible, and everyone is bustling around fixing sails, cleaning, doing their laundry etc…

Talking of doing laundry, I have now been sat at the laundrette for two and a half hours and we are still not done. Our washing machine has decided to give up on us just when we needed it most! It is run by a very nice Portuguese lady who I have been chatting away to in Spanish as she replies in Portuguese. I’m not sure either of us really understand each other but I keep getting first dibs on the empty machines as she turns other people away and tells them they will have to wait an hour or come back later…

We also made friends with the fuel man when we realised we couldn’t pay him. (he didn’t take card). He came with me to help catch ropes and was telling me about the different skippers he has had in Horta, including one who was “a very big sailor, all the big races, but not a big person, you know, very ice.” I think he was very taken with Mum as a skipper though as he then went on to talk about us - “it is incredible what you do, three women, I mean, not incredible because women can do what men do, because, you know, it is not just a man’s world, but still, incredible.” Bless him. And we have paid him now.

On that note - we have seen no other all-female boats all year, and only two other female skippers from the Arc. Last night we went out to a restaurant that was obviously frequented by yachties - although it was full there were only two other women there!!!

Right - the washing is now done so I better go and fold it before heading back to the boat - it is a beautifully sunny day in Horta today! We are here at least until the beginning of next week, doing some sight-seeing and waiting for James and Andy to arrive. Jilli flies home on Thursday!

Another Ocean Trip!!

Sat, 14 May 2011 13:29:40 +0100

Well we are off tomorrow for the Azores. The forecast is not great as it is for very light winds most of the way across so we are buying more canisters so we can carry 100 litres more of fuel (550 overall) - but it is not due to change for over a week and at least there is nothing nasty coming.

There was a chance that Jilli could jump ship in Bermuda but the crew in question only arrived yesterday afternoon after a particularly uncomfortable sail up from the Caribbean so was understandably not keen to leave again immediately! So Jilli is on board for her last trip on Triple D.

We have had some boat problems in the last few days (it was messy, I won’t go into detail) but super-mum fixed some pipes and we seem all ready to go. Just got food to buy and pre-cooking to do.

Bermuda has been lovely and we are so glad we came here, we wouldn’t have missed it for the world! Great atmosphere in St. George’s with all the sailors getting ready to leave, and we are all going to miss walking through the streets saying ‘good morning’ to everyone we see. Its also been great to catch up with all our old ARC friends, who can believe its been five months since we were all together!

Much love and thank yous to the Bermudians that have been so nice and helpful - special mentions to the Scots, Doug at West End yachts and Linda for showing us around the island. We have had such a good time here, but here comes the next adventure… We should be around 2 weeks to the Azores (maybe longer due to the forecast) and we have heard they are also lovely.

EMAIL US!!! And we will be updating our progress on http://blog.mailasail.com/tripled

Triple D + 1 extra does Bermuda!

Fri, 13 May 2011 19:46:46 +0100

Hello! I thought i’d give the Darling girls a break and do a little Bermuda blog for them. I have been staying aboard Triple D for 1 week on the beautiful island of Bermuda. There is SO much I could write about but today is my last day here so I want to get out to enjoy the sunshine!!

Upon my arrival Triple D was out of the water at the naval dockyards having some maintenance work done. Once onboard I immediately felt at home as I have stayed on Triple D a couple of times before. It was great to see Trycha, Alice & Jills again - they were all looking very healthy & tanned, Triple D looked great too!! We stayed in the dockyard for a few days where Doug, the marine yard guy, became our tour guide. One of the things that will stick with me about Bermuda is how genuinely friendly & helpful everyone is.

As soon as the boat was back into the water we motored onto St Georges, having lunch along the way & seeing the island from the water which was great. All of the houses here have white roofs which are used to catch the rain water as they don’t have mains water. The actual houses are painted all different colours so the effect is very pretty.

Our first night at St Georges was spent at anchor so we had to get the dinghy ashore & the boat moved around alot more too. We went ashore to meet with some other people who had made friends with Triple D along the way & again everyone was lovely! It seems that if you have a boat/are on a boat then you instantly become friends with other sailors.
The very next morning we managed to get a space alongside the marina wall which made getting on & off the boat MUCH easier.

For those of you who don’t know, the traditional drink of Bermuda is the “Dark & Stormy” which is rum & ginger beer. I have had them before at home but they taste MUCH better in actual Bermuda!! Its probably fair to say that I have drunken my fair share whilst here especially on mine & Alice’s big night out which was great fun, has provided many laughs since & ended with us getting home at 3am!

Thursday was spent sightseeing, we climbed up to the top of Gibbs Lighthouse for views around the island of its amazing turquoise waters & pink sandy beaches.

After lunch we managed to find a secluded beach for a couple of hours relaxing & snoozing in the sun.

Its been really great spending time with Trycha, Alice & Jills especially in
such a beautiful location. There is ALOT more I could write about but the one thing that will stay with me when I think about the week I have spent here is how much FUN & LAUGHTER we have had - oh the stories I could tell………………. !

ps - Rum Twizzles are also very good!!

Over & Out

Shelly

Photo

Sun, 08 May 2011 17:40:31 +0100

Naval Dockyard

lovely smooth bottom!

the climb up

Bermuda!

Sun, 08 May 2011 17:32:49 +0100

Well we have been in Bermuda for over a week now, and at first were so shocked by how COLD it was! I wore jeans and a hoody, and a coat the first day. Although I looked at the weather forecast and it was for 20 degrees so I think I was overreacting slightly.

The day after we arrived we sailed from St. George’s to Naval Dockyard, at the other end of the island. As we left the anchorage, another boat pulled out their ARC 2009 flag and waved it at us which was nice! (We still have ours up although it is so tattered that only about half of it is left).

On Monday morning our boat was taken out of the water and put into West End yard; it was put back in the water this morning.

Living in the yard has been interesting to say the least! Not being on water means no electricity, no toilets, no sinks, no fridge…. Doug, who manages the yard, has been extremely kind and allowed us to use his washing machine so we spent two entire days getting all of our washing done. We were also using the staff toilets and showers - going to the toilet at night was not fun when we had to climb down the big ladder, walk across the yard, through the workshop and to the toilets!!! Hassle. No fridge also means lots of eating out - yum!

One day we got the ferry into Hamilton and explored, you have never seen three girls so excited to see a Marks & Spencers and a French Connection!! We were picked up by Bill and Linda Pollett - Dad’s godfather’s son - and went back to their house where Linda gave us an amazing spread for lunch. It was a lovely day and really nice to meet them. (So yes, Grandma and Papa, we have met up with the Polletts!!) We came back to Hamilton a few days later, spent all our money buying M&S tins and curry sauces, and then tried on all the clothes in French Connection.

We have also been exploring Naval Dockyard which is lovely, old stone buildings built by the British Navy and quite recently restored. We spent an afternoon at the fort, exploring the keep and its grounds and the museum in the Commissioner’s House.

Then on Friday, Shelly arrived!!! Bearing gifts of creme eggs, mini eggs and twiglets. Amazing. We spent yesterday at the beach as the weather has got slightly warmer now. Yesterday we had to put the boat in the slings as the keel was being anti-fouled. This made it even more difficult to get into the boat - we had to climb up one ladder onto a truck then up another ladder onto the boat! Doug took us out for dinner with his daughter, Caitlin, to a pub called the Frog and Onion which was lovely - a really enjoyable evening with good food!

Today we are back in the water and Triple D is so happy. The dust from the yard had made her so dirty but Jilli and I used a powerhose on the dock and now she is gleaming, with a perfectly smooth bottom. We are going to go so fast! We’ll probably get to the Azores in 6 days instead of 12….. Maybe.

Plan is to sail over to St. George’s tomorrow as some of our friends from the ARC are coming up and it is a nicer harbour. We are planning to leave for the Azores any time after Shelly leaves on the 13th, weather permitting. It has been blowing out of the east recently which is not what we want!

Photo

Sun, 08 May 2011 17:18:15 +0100

very narrow entrance into St. George's

Bermuda

WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM

Mon, 02 May 2011 16:53:55 +0100

I am posting this from lovely Bermuda Monday 2nd May.

We left Provo last Monday and arrived here just before midnight on Saturday. The wind was forecast to be 15-20knots east then swinging round to the south. Well it was more 20 knots all the way except for the last day and mainly out of the east. There were really big seas and the wind was in front of beam all the way. This made for a very rough crossing and an inability to do much ob board. Luckily we had prepared several meals before leaving as cooking was really hard. No one really enjoyed it much but we did make a fast crossing . We didnt feel like eating much anyway as we were all troubled by mal de mer. We all lost over 1kg over the 5 days. On Wednesday night especilly it was really stormy with huge amounts of lightening and great squalls passing through. Anyway we did make it and we can take some pleasure from knowing we can cope and at how fast we went. Triple D seemed to love it all and we did comment that she could manage well without us!!!

We were hopeful of arriving at Bermuda while it was still light as on the chart it says it is difficult at night but the wind let us down and it was after ten when we started to approach and really dark as there was no moon. There were loads of lights flashing all over the place white red and green. It was all a bit scary but Jilli went on the VHF and a lovely man from the harbour talked us in. They have had so many boats getting wrecked that they have a wonderful radar and watched us all the way with instructions when to change course. We motored into St Georges and tied up at the customs dock safely. After doing all the paper work we then were able to anchor in the harbour, also quite hard in the dark, and its a lot smaller than it looks on the charts. We had a wonderful night sleep. That is one of the good things about long crossings-how well you sleep afterwards!!!

Bermuda!

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 13:22:40 +0100

We are leaving for Bermuda this morning! We will be uploading daily logs and position reports to http://blog.mailasail.com/tripled and you can email us at tripled@mailasail.com

It should take us about six days but be quite a windy crossing - so don’t worry Shelly, we will definitely be there waiting for you!

Photo

Sat, 23 Apr 2011 21:46:31 +0100

with Riney in the caves

Bambarra Beach

down to Mudjin Harbour

Mudjin Harbour beach

North and Middle Caicos

Sat, 23 Apr 2011 21:32:48 +0100

On Tuesday 19th, we woke up very early in the morning to catch a ferry over to North Caicos. We weren’t able to take our boat over as it is extremely shallow and there are no safe anchorages, sadly. The ferry journey takes you past several small cays to end up at North, where we had rented a car. The car hire men weren’t the sharpest tools in the box - after we’d waited around for ages they finally came over to our car. Mum asked how to move the seat forward. “Is broken”, came the reply. “Ah,” said Mum. “Now that’s a problem, as I only have very little legs.” The guy giggled and said “Yes, is problem!” before walking off and leaving us to it! So Mum began driving perched right on the end of her seat, before eventually allowing Jilli and I to drive as we have much longer legs.

We drove right through North Caicos and over a causeway onto Middle (the Turks and Caicos islands don’t have the most imaginative names!) The views were absolutely beautiful, down over sea and cays to the north, and over green marshland to the south. Our first stop on Middle Caicos was a huge cave system. A guided tour was $30 each but you could explore part of them by yourself for only $10. Obviously we elected to explore them by ourselves, but Riney (nicknamed Rasta - ‘everyone on this island has nicknames, I’m not actually a rasta) offered to show us round anyway as it gave him an excuse to get inside the caves away from the boiling hot sun! This was brilliant as we got to explore much more than we would have done by ourselves - lots of stalactites and stalagmites, land crabs, spiders (I avoided those) and bats which flew out around our heads!!

Riney also recommended us a restaurant for lunch which would be much cheaper than the more touristy places, and phoned up for us to make sure they were still doing lunch. So we each had a huge plate of chicken and freshly-made chips at Dillon’s for $5 ($3) each!! Delicious.

The afternoon was spent visiting several beaches - Bambarra Beach, a lovely long stretch of sand surrounded by extremely shallow, still water protected by the reef, and then Mudjin Harbour - a small, empty beach backed by cliffs, with huge waves rolling in. The only way to get to this beach was by climbing down some steps and making our way through a cave!

We just managed to make it back in time for the 5.30 ferry and weren’t back at the boat until 7pm after having left at 8.30am. A long day and we felt the usual apprehension, wondering if the boat would still be where we had left it…. Luckily it hadn’t moved at all and we watched Black Swan that evening.

For the past few days we have been in Turtle Cove Marina, cleaning the boat and waiting for the wind to settle so we can leave for Bermuda. It has been 30-40 knots in the ocean, and from the north for the past few days, but it is swinging around now so the aim is to leave on Monday. We will be posting daily logs on a different website - I’ll write up the address tomorrow as I’m not sure what it will be yet - and this will also show our position.

Turks and Caicos have been beautiful and we have enjoyed getting to know the island and its people - this morning I walked to the cafe with internet and every single person I passed said ‘good morning’ - we are really going to miss this friendliness when we get home! But equally, we are very excited about Bermuda, especially as a few of our friends from the Arc should be there around the same time as well!

Photo

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 19:57:34 +0100

anchorage at Leeward Going Through

'Grandad'

Provo

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 19:50:17 +0100

We were anchored just off Turtle Cove Marina so after a rather rolly night we decided to dinghy ashore to check out the marina and go to the supermarket.

The marina was certainly very protected, but also very expensive. Although it had a cheap base rate, they charged a minimum of $15 for electricity and $5 for water PER NIGHT!!! We never use water due to our watermaker, and wouldn’t use $15 of electricity in a whole week. AND they didn’t have free wifi!! So we were slightly disappointed. But we found a lovely cafe with wifi that did amazing breakfasts so we treated ourselves before walking to the supermarket.

This was only a 20 minute walk away, but was made much more difficult by the fact that, mum being mum, she had forgotten her shoes. Jilli leant her her flip-flops and set off in bare feet. Now, going barefoot is one thing in England or on the beach, but its another thing entirely when the sun has been beating down on the pavement and the tarmac is practically melting with heat. We experimented with wrapping Jilli’s feet in plastic bags (did nothing, and she looked ridiculous), and giving her my shoes while she piggy-backed me. Crossing roads, we would each wear one shoe and hop across, or one would cross and throw the shoes back to the other. Needless to say, mum walked on oblivious, occasionally complaining about the flip-flops hurting her toes.

Back on the boat after our shop (they had dairy milk chocolate! - but no easter eggs, creme eggs or mini eggs), we began to motor round to Leeward Going Through, an area of small uninhabited cays and small water-ways just off the east coast of Provo. It is a beautiful area, one of the most beautiful anchorage we have been in, very protected and we had it all to ourselves! On the way in, I was standing at the bow keeping an eye for coral heads, when a huge dolphin, at least 5feet long, floated right past the side of the boat, on its back so I could see its white belly - this was JoJo, a very famous, old dolphin in the Turks and Caicos.

On Monday, we took the dinghy to Little Water Cay, which has been made into a National Park due to the number of iguanas on it. We were given a tour around the island by the lovely Alex, extremely knowledgeable and able to answer in detail all of mum’s questions - also absolutely gorgeous. After the tour he left us to explore by ourselves and sat in his hut with his top off…. Lovely!

But we were meant to be looking at the iguanas, and saw absolutely loads of them, ranging from small, young females, to the huge ‘Grandad’. They are odd creatures, the males with spikes all down their back and big fat bellies.

That afternoon we went on a long dinghy journey to explore Leeward Marina, which had not been finished at the time of our cruising guide’s publication. We found a gorgeous, huge marina, that was absolutely empty, as was the hotel/condo complex next door. It was very eerie, and we found out from a nearby dive shop that it had only been open for a year before going bust. Very sad. We have seen more evidence of the credit crunch in the Turks and Caicos than any other island. There are just so many buildings that are either completely empty, or only half built, with no signs of life. But it was another disappointment with the marina - as we are leaving for Bermuda from here we wanted to spend a few days in a marina before leaving to get everything sorted on the boat!

Photo

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 19:19:13 +0100

the lagoon at Sapodillo Bay

clearly marking the edge of Caicos bank

rain cloud