Tawodi Sailing Adventures

43.49 S 15.06 W 425 miles south of Tristan Da Cunha
Superstition’s not a large object in our life. At least it wasn’t until recently. The Captain’s always towed the line on a certain ritual; never begin a voyage on a Friday, it’s just plain bad luck, but he’s stretched the line between the beginning of a voyage as opposed to what amounts to a little stop along the way. South Georgia Island was one of those stops- merely a comment between Ushuaia and Cape Town, so when we left the Island on a Friday afternoon we didn’t concern ourselves with the superstition.

I don’t think the Captain will leave port on a Friday ever again.

Engine failure by way of a broken starter motor came just before a 150 mile thick zone of ice- uncharted islands drifting in a sea of fog and squalls, only half of which showed on the radar. The ice encompassed three days of stress coupled with uncountable course changes and a severe lack of sleep. But as soon as we cleared that wall of worries we still had to face our engine difficulties. Rebuilding the starter and completely bleeding the lines still left us without a working engine, still left us facing a severe energy deficit. A plethora of ideas and a substantial amount of talk finally led the Captain to discovering a leaking fuel deck fill. Ever since leaving Ushuaia the ocean had been dripping itself into our fuel tank.

After draining 5 gallons of seawater from the diesel tank we had a running engine again. Happy feet danced their little dance and we turned everything on, plugged everything in and enjoyed a moment of freely sipping at electric juice.

One uneventful day followed.

And then yesterday in the early morning hours the wind began to build. By 8 am it blew 35 knots and that’s when the link plate between the autopilot and tiller failed. The wind climbed over 35, over 40, over 45. The seas topped 20 feet. Neither of us wanted to hand steer in any of that so we lashed the tiller, pointed ourselves north and began to crawl our way to Tristan Da Cunha.

North to a welder that could put the Humpty and Dumpty of our autopilot and tiller back together again.

The cracks between crisis have been filled with incidental failures. The Captain being caught by a wave that sideswiped the boat, caught while he was making hot chocolate. A cup of boiling water made its way down his right leg and filled his boot. The blower motor that inexplicably found and ate a hat, frying itself completely. The brand new water blade for the windvane that crumpled in half the moment it touched the water. The windvane itself worrying at fastener holes as though it was trying to leave the boat entirely. The cast iron griddle flying out of the suddenly open oven door, across the cabin. The leaping quarts of water shooting out of the galley sink. We are plagued by minor disaster.

So we’re going to Tristan Da Cunha to find a welder but we’re also going just so we can stop. Stop and start again on any other day but Friday. Until then we’re keeping our fingers crossed. Until then we’re still on a voyage that began on a Friday.

49.15 S 22.21 W 2041 Miles to Cape Town
Due to a series of failures we’ve lost our ability to start our engine. The loss of auxiliary propulsion doesn’t do much for crew morale but, what brings us right down is the loss our our major charging device. Without the engine we rely solely on wind generators, solar panels and conservation to maintain our battery bank and allow us to enjoy the comforts of home. The wind generators can meet part of our needs but not all and this southern ocean loves its cloudy skies so the solar array doesn’t add much. Conservation remains the only controllable way to keep the autopilot and radar running all the way to Africa. As such our postings will be few and far between. As such we won’t be using lights, refrigeration, heat, stereo or watermaker until Africa.

I imagine we won’t be smelling too good by then.

It is not a good situation but it is not dire. Uncomfortable, yes. Unexpected, indeed but we hope all will come out well in the end.

On the up side we can look forward to leaving behind what has evolved into a vast, miles wide, hundreds thick field of icebergs. Once that avalanche of stress subsides life should be much better- charging system or not. Losing our engine was unexpected but not nearly as unexpected as the size and breadth of the sea-ice zone. Here’s to leaving it all behind.

53.03 S 33.02 W 2500 miles southwest of Cape Town

An anguish of clothing; that’s what this place requires, that and a radar. We’re climbing north with the icebergs, marching along with city block sized ice-cubes. It’s disconcerting company to be keeping. Eerie wedges of white bobbing along the ocean leaving behind a deadly trail of snappily sharp ice-droppings. Fog tends to obscure our eyes and then rain obscures the radar and we’re left staring at the screen, staring and hoping we can pick out the solid contact of ice through the shifting contact of rain. All of it a first for us. All of it an experience we’ll be happy to leave behind.
South Georgia’s now two days astern of us. We spent a night in Rosita Harbor and another in Blue whale harbor. Two nights nuzzled up to the base of imperviously steep sided mountains, surrounded by birds, penguins and a veritable carpet of seals. The habitants didn’t fail to entertain. Didn’t expect to have seals talking to us, sniffing at the boat, giving it good swift solidity tests with their flippers. Didn’t expect to look out and see penguins floating nearby staring at Tawodi as if she were the mother ship. Didn’t expect the penguins, once land locked, to be fastened to one spot as if their penguin butts had been glued down. We also didn’t expect South Georgia to be so filthy rich in life and yet so untenable for men. A body would have to be very fond of freezing rain, tussock, kelp and a life of extreme exposure. Peaks chewing at the clouds, glaciers rolling into the ocean and the island’s creatures wallowing about in layers of blubber, not the place for a person to set up happy home-making but still the kind of place it’s hard to not stare at, awe struck. Worth the visit and worth leaving behind to those better suited to its environment.
We’ve had our fill of cold and ice for a while- still have a few more miles of icebergs but we’re looking forward to waving goodbye to them. We’re looking forward to the simple pleasure of only having to wear one layer of clothing. It’ll be a fine day when going outside doesn’t require a supreme force of will, resignation along with two sweaters, jacket, hat, gloves, boots and foul-weather bibs.53.03 S 33.02 W 2500 miles southwest of Cape Town

An anguish of clothing; that’s what this place requires, that and a radar. We’re climbing north with the icebergs, marching along with city block sized ice-cubes. It’s disconcerting company to be keeping. Eerie wedges of white bobbing along the ocean leaving behind a deadly trail of snappily sharp ice-droppings. Fog tends to obscure our eyes and then rain obscures the radar and we’re left staring at the screen, staring and hoping we can pick out the solid contact of ice through the shifting contact of rain. All of it a first for us. All of it an experience we’ll be happy to leave behind.
South Georgia’s now two days astern of us. We spent a night in Rosita Harbor and another in Blue whale harbor. Two nights nuzzled up to the base of imperviously steep sided mountains, surrounded by birds, penguins and a veritable carpet of seals. The habitants didn’t fail to entertain. Didn’t expect to have seals talking to us, sniffing at the boat, giving it good swift solidity tests with their flippers. Didn’t expect to look out and see penguins floating nearby staring at Tawodi as if she were the mother ship. Didn’t expect the penguins, once land locked, to be fastened to one spot as if their penguin butts had been glued down. We also didn’t expect South Georgia to be so filthy rich in life and yet so untenable for men. A body would have to be very fond of freezing rain, tussock, kelp and a life of extreme exposure. Peaks chewing at the clouds, glaciers rolling into the ocean and the island’s creatures wallowing about in layers of blubber, not the place for a person to set up happy home-making but still the kind of place it’s hard to not stare at, awe struck. Worth the visit and worth leaving behind to those better suited to its environment.

We’ve had our fill of cold and ice for a while- still have a few more miles of icebergs but we’re looking forward to waving goodbye to them. We’re looking forward to the simple pleasure of only having to wear one layer of clothing. It’ll be a fine day when going outside doesn’t require a supreme force of will, resignation along with two sweaters, jacket, hat, gloves, boots and foul-weather bibs.

55.00 S 44.26 W 230 miles west of South Georgia Island.
Misery, like Dante’s Inferno, has levels. Fortunately we’re, like Dante, merely tourists in the land of Miserable. Icy condensation slicks all the walls and windows on Tawodi. It drips off the aluminum hatch frames and slides across the headliner leaving a track as if snails had taken to inching across our overhead. Outside it’s 38 degrees and the water’s 34.

Two days east of the Beagle Channel, calm weather was replaced by crumpling, rolling seas, perpetually wet skies and 40 knot winds. Our world is gray, cold and threatening. Every chart, every book warns of ice, ice big enough to see along with ice difficult to discern. Ice we don’t want to hit but when sailing in a place packed with ghosts and saddled with a history overflowing with misery it’s hard to take our complaints too far. We have radar, charts, spare socks, blankets, fresh water. We have cookies.

And if we want to visit Miserable, it waits just outside our companion way hatch. Outside, the place that Shackleton and his men, coming from Elephant Island to South Georgia, had. We spend little time out there and we spend it swathed in insulating, high-tech fabrics. We spend it knowing that there’s an inside available to us at all times. To cross this water in a jury-rigged, skinned over, wooden life boat, navigating by sextant in an environment usually shrouded in clouds is almost unimaginable. It leaves a body hugging their fleecy blankets, kissing their radar, praising their Sailing Directions and thanking God for their vast stores of wool sweaters.

As we get closer to the block of rock made famous by the inestimable Shackleton, we also get closer to the 234th anniversary of Captain James Cooks’ landing and claiming of the island. Cook and the Resolution were voyaging round the globe in search of the ’southern continent.’ After landing, sailing east and subsequently discovering South Georgia to be no more than an island, Cook wrote: “though I still have hopes of discovering a Continent….I must Confess the disappointment I now met with did not affect me much, for to judge of the bulk by the sample, it would not be worth the discovery.” Cook and the Resolution sailed away and came across more islands. Whereas South Georgia was not worth the discovery, the further ones, the South Sandwich Islands, got the distinction of possessing “the most horrible coast in the World.”

We will not be visiting those bits of rock but we will suffer the anxiety of ice for the chance to see some of the tens of thousands of Penguins that inhabit South Georgia. It’s not easy to understand the draw these creatures have. They’re flightless, cold bound birds, eating, pooping and breeding. Perhaps it’s their movie-star status or it could be the appearance of being perpetually clothed in formal wear. Perhaps it’s simply that they manage to infuse waddling with dignity. Not an easy task. Whatever the allure, once we get our fill of penguins we’re north-east bound. Northeast bound and hopefully leaving Misery behind with all of her ghosts and her ice.

55.06 S 65.34 W 964 miles west of South Georgia Island
We rounded Cape Horn in 2008 and we’re leaving the Beagle Channel and Ushuaia in 2009.

About Ushuaia, the word ‘pretty’ wouldn’t lend itself to the southern most city in the World. Planted between the shock of the Andes and the cold of the Beagle Channel, it may suffer from too much scenery and too diverse a history. A decimated native population that Darwin once considered the ‘Missing Link.’ A prison town. An army and navy outpost. A tax haven and now a tourist venue besotted with cruise ships and backcountry trekkers. The city is now a marvel of souvenir shops, restaurants and travel agents strung up and down the precipitous roads of the city center. Paved streets run abruptly into dirt, poverty nestles right up to the edge of resort wealth, public art crumbles into flakes of concrete, city planning and safe construction practices seem more a novelty than a necessity.

Too many surfaces are iced with graffiti. The looping spray jobs run from simple tagging to quaint demands regarding legalizing marijuana to the vileness of swastikas. But, still, kids are laughing and the dogs are healthy, there’s an army of sanitation workers forever collecting litter, the cabbies emote friendliness without overcharging and the steak dinner’s may be the best around. Ushuaia comes out as a place that’s difficult to like or dislike- a place with a postcard backdrop and a social climate just filthy and rich enough to be fascinating.

Between there and the Atlantic Ocean we spent a night at anchor off Isla Picton. Our most peaceful evening aboard so far. Thirty minutes after pulling up the hook we were back into 40 knot winds, nosing our way toward a new ocean and all that it may offer. We want to make a brief stop off South Georgia Island to stare at the penguins and then move on to Cape Town, South Africa. Until then we’re battened down, sailing under a reefed main and keeping the rear end of Tawodi calm and focused with the help of our favorite drogue.