Sailing Solo
The rain is hurting in my face, so hard comes the pour down horizontally that it feels like hail. The wind howls around Stamper. I just sprinted to the mast to put a third reef in the main. We are in the ITC, inter tropical convergence zone. Around the whole of the equator known for no wind areas, thunderstorms and heavy squalls. This is the first time I feel a bit afraid and really lonely. This squall lasted 2 hours, rain like a waterfall and wind gusts to 49 knots and sustained wind of 30 knots. Happily no lightning here.
The beauty of being far out at sea, on your own:
Solo sailing has never been a favourite of mine, travelling is all about meeting people and being solo is a threshold to that. Besides the realistic risk of not noticing passing ships and risking a collision. From Saint Helena to Saint Maarten I did sail solo and even decided not to stop underway in Brazil and maybe Surinam but go the 4000 nautical miles nonstop. There was no other option for me, but it also did not feel as a second best choice. In fact I looked forward to more then a month alone at sea, clear my mind and body of a lot of anger.
The track would bring me mostly moderate broad reaching winds, little traffic at sea and than mostly commercial freighters who always have an AIS on. The advantage is that you are sure to get an alarm at least half an hour before they reach Stamper and check that all goes well. In fact I did see two fishing vessels under way without an AIS and guess that I probably missed 4 others while I was asleep or inside. That is a risk but not one I consider irresponsible. Stamper itself has an active AIS, so most of these 'blind' vessels will see me if they have their AIS receiver on, which most do I expect. Avoiding the real small fishing boats was my prime concern, and I did so by staying 200 miles off the coast of South America. Fellow yachties on this stretch did sail there to gain advantage of the Guiana current and did not report much small boats. But better safe than sorry. Once close to Saint Maarten I took the deep water route between Antigua and Guadeloupe and than south of St Barth's to St Maarten. That is where I did get a near collision with a small open fishing vessel from St Barth's. It had anchored in 50 m water at the edge of deeper water just 20 miles from St Maarten on my route there. Once between the Caribbean islands I did not sleep to keep an eye on just these type of dangers. It was just before sunrise and still dark and I had looked carefully around me before taking a cup of coffee and not seen any signs of boats near by. Coming up after 5 minutes, this small boat had its lights on, just 50 meters on my starboard side and was at anchor. The skipper probably thought he only needed to put on his lights when other vessels got really close but he did not account for toilet breaks of people on watch.
Seaweed (saragossa weed?) on the northern hemisphere. Growing as a reaction to more CO2 in the air?
It is so dense that it hinders the steering of Stamper and dampens the waves:
During those 30 days at sea, other than shipping, handling of Stamper was not an issue. I did wake up triggered by changes in wind or sea-state to see if sails or course needed adjustment. For the rest when I went sleeping I set an alarm for one hour to check around.
Being alone was what I wanted leaving from Saint Helena. The first half of the journey was for me healing. Letting the wind blow away my built up anger and keeping in touch with family and friends with small emails through the satellite phone was a delight actually. Gradually I could see through frustrations and give myself a broader perspective, essential as that lasting anger eats away at your mental and physical health. I did get a medical issue that needed something more than a standard treatment. In itself sailing solo does not make that much worse. I was glad with my friends on shore as my daughter gave me some good advise. I got a lump on my hand just between the knuckels of my small and ring finger. It grew quite fast and hurt a bit. I thought it might be some parasite, a worm or so, that had gotten through my skin somehow and did not want it to grow without me trying to get rid of it. So I used a heat treatment that sailors in the pacific used to treat MRSA bacteria infections. It is painful but for that it seemed to work. I guessed it would at least give some discomfort to a snugly growing worm under my skin. Indeed to swelling got less and the pain eased. However my daughter, who is a GP, replied that it was probably a tapeworm and heat would never kill it. Instead she advised medicine which I luckily had on board. That improved the situation. In Saint Maarten I visited a doctor to get his opinion but was very disappointed as his diagnosis was already set in stone based on what I told his secretary. He did not even look at my hand nor did he want to hear my but's and prescribed me the last antibiotic for MRSA bacteria. I decided to wait and see what happens with the remaining small lump before doing anything.
Normally on large passages you do not count the days, instead I set milestone for every half of the remaining voyage. That way you seem to get quicker to your goals and that works nice for me. After the first half I started looking forward in my life and imagine doing all the nice things I was planning. It is like planning a vacation being sometimes better than the thing itself. Than when you are at 3/4 of the way it is 'only' 1000 nautical miles to go. That seems like a small distance. But stay alert! the entry into the channel of Antigua was quite choppy with lots of squalls and wind direction changes. As Stamper was going nearly straight before the wind there was a constant danger of jibing or moving onto shallow spots. It keeps you awake at the least.
Would I do it again? No! not many passages have this easy character for solo sailing for one and this time the solo was healing for me. I do not seek that for every passage and love people around me.
Wishing you all a good time and looking forward to Anneke coming on board for the last stretch to Europe.
Rob.