Valent

We hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and New Year. We certainly had a different one this year, starting with a Norwegian Christmas Eve celebration on the beach at Bequia, the Grenadines, attended by over a hundred people. This was very well organised with party games and fun swimming races for children and adults, followed by a short Christmas service with some beautiful Christmas carols, including dancing, all in Norwegian of course.

The family boats from the ARC+ rally remained in Bequia over the Christmas period, meeting up for a relaxed Christmas Day lunch on the beach, and a floating party on Boxing Day. We hiked up Peggy’s Peak for a spectacular view looking down over the bay, encountering snakes and a couple of tortoises on our way.

After a few days it was time to move on to Barbados, for a rendezvous with our Bajan crew member Dwight, his wife Kate and their son Jono, who had come out from London to Barbados to join Dwight for Christmas and New Year. They kindly hosted us on New Year’s Eve followed by fireworks and music at their local beach (in front of the exclusive Lone Star Restaurant) – a perfect way to see in the New Year.

We have spent a number of days exploring Barbados, visiting Harrison’s caves, watching monkeys at the wild animal park, and travelling to Bathsheba on the rocky Atlantic side of the island. Kate and Jono joined our crew one day to bring Valent down the coast of Barbados from Port St Charles to Carlisle Bay outside the capital Bridgetown. From our new base in Carlisle Bay we have visited the Barbados Museum and the house where George Washington stayed in 1751. We have also watched horses from the local racecourse enjoying a swim in the sea early in the morning.

We’re staying in Barbados for a few more days before we cross back to the Grenadines to spend a bit longer in the beautiful Tobago Cays nature reserve. After that it will be a sail up to Saint Lucia and we plan to be in Guadeloupe for mid February. We wish everyone a very Happy New Year and we hope that 2024 has got off to a good start for you (albeit a wet one apparently).

We spent a couple of days in Tobago Cays, which is a nature reserve with beautiful clear water, plentiful coral and lots of colourful fish and turtles. We have now arrived in Bequia, in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, where we are celebrating Christmas together with the other ARC+ family boats. On Christmas Eve we are joining a Norwegian Christmas celebration (including a Christmas service) with over 100 people attending, followed by Christmas Day fun and games on the beach with all the family boats.

Valent is ready for Christmas, and although it will feel like a very different Christmas here this year, we realise how fortunate we are to be celebrating in good company in such a beautiful place. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and we hope that you have a wonderful time with friends and family.

We arrived, we saw and we conquered, sorry departed. Valent spent a very enjoyable 2 weeks in Grenada. We have now left and are making our way North to join up with our friends from the ARC+ in Admiralty Bay, Bequia. Port Louis Marina, Grenada was very welcoming. Not only did it differ to UK marinas in the fact that it was warm, but also small farmer’s markets popped up, the wildlife was a lot more exotic and there was a small private beach full of interesting objects and much more inviting than Lee-on-Solent.

During our stay in Grenada we took in an island tour, a short hike to the north of the island and also the cricket. On our hike we were able to pick bananas and nutmegs from the trees, see cacao pods, limes, papaya, roucou (lipstick tree), starfruit and sour cherries. The girls found the sour cherries particularly tasty. These differ from traditional cherries in that they have 4 pips inside instead of the single stone.

Our tour took in a large swathe of the island and included swimming in waterfalls, seeing rum produced in the traditional way (still with a working water wheel), chocolate production, monkeys in the rainforest and a swimming opportunity.

The River Antoine Estate Rum Distillery was established in 1785 and still uses the traditional rum production methods. They use a water wheel to crush the sugar cane. The juice is crudely filtered before being reduced in huge vats to make a syrup. This syrup is transferred by hand to the fermentation drums before being transferred to the distillation pots. After distillation it is transferred to barrels to await bottling, but not before the taster had checked it for alcohol content and taste. The resultant rum is 75% alcohol. This alcohol content is high enough for the product to be labelled explosive. Following a change in aircraft regulations following 9/11 aircraft are no longer permitted to transport spirits with this high an alcohol content. The distillery have therefore developed a second rum at a mere 69% proof that meets the regulations and can now be bought and flown home by tourists. Of course aircraft regulations don’t affect our purchasing choice, but I preferred the smoky taste of the 69% version.

The chocolate production is a mixture of the old and new, with bean sorting done both by hand and machine. Fermentation and drying are done on big trays outside. Unlike the rum production the manufacturing is done using more modern techniques and we were not permitted into the production area. However, the girls were able to taste this product!

The girls have also enjoyed some wonderful swimming and continued their education at the cricket – though Sophie thought it was just an expensive place to go and read.

We’ve now left Grenada, and after a short stopover on Carriacou, we proceeded to Union Island to check into St Vincent & The Grenadines. Once checked in we have moved up to Tobago Cays and plan to stay here a couple of nights before continuing north to Bequia for Christmas.

Eventually on Monday just after day break Valent crept across the finish line under sail. Valent successfully crossed the Atlantic Ocean, from Las Palmas, Gran Canaria via Mindelo, Cape Verde. Our total distance was around 3,000nm and we completed the trip without recourse to our main engine for propulsion. This may have been rather a mistake as 5 mins of engine at the end would have seen us finish nearly 2 hours earlier – but a sense of pride drove us, however misguided it may have been. We had sailed to 0.1nm (200yd) from the finish line when the wind finally stopped. Finally the tracker agreed that we had crossed the line, (though we thought we had a couple of times before), not helped by the fact that the tracker took 40 mins to update while we kept trying to finish again!

We were welcomed at Port Louis Marina by an enthusiastic and smiley welcoming committee complete with a large colourful banner. After our 17 days at sea it was quite a shock to find a lump of land in the way, lots of boats and a multitude of people. After successfully parking in our cosy spot, managing not to hit any super yachts we were greeted with Rum Punch. Following that with some beer and a bacon&egg sarnie (using the last of our UK bacon specifically saved for this occasion) quickly revived the crew.

The crossing itself was fairly uneventful. The conditions were kind, wind rarely above 15kts and we only had a couple of squalls towards the end. We spent about half the trip sailing with just the Bora parasailor up and it proved a very versatile and comfortable sail.

Fishing was increasingly good and we managed to land 6 Amberjack, 2 Tuna, 2 Dorado and a Wahoo (on the last day). The freezer is now well stocked with fish. We ate well on the trip and never had recourse to any tinned meals. We still have 4 or 5 meals in the freezer and I’m sure that they will prove useful at a later date.

We only had minor breakages and these were in general due to carelessness (tiredness?). The most annoying of these is the damage to the VHF command mic, hopefully this may just need a new socket and not a complete new remote handset. We require a new forward navigation light and one of the horseshoe rings has disintegrated. Other jobs include redoing the breather on the grey water tank, fitting a better door hook to an internal door to stop the annoying rattle and fit all the engine parts that Ann (Mike’s wife) kindly brought out from the UK with her.

All that is left for us to do is to get used to being tied alongside, get to know Grenada and then explore the Caribbean and its unique atmosphere. As part of that we have tickets for the T20 cricket later next week, West Indies vs England playing here on Grenada.

With heartfelt thanks to Neil, Mike & Dwight for joining the crew and making the crossing so enjoyable for Lucy & myself.

So another week has gone by. We have completed 2 full weeks at sea and can almost smell the welcoming aromas of Grenada and the Caribbean. At the time of writing we have passed below Barbados and are currently north of Tobago. I expect to sight land around 02:00 on 4 Dec and we expect to finish around first light.

In the last week we have had some great sailing, initially under the Bora, and then as the wind became stronger and more gusty reverting to a conventional white sails plan. Our last 10 days have averaged around 150nm per day which is what we would have expected for the total trip. We also had the fastest boat in the ARC sail past us a couple of days ago and had a very cordial chat on the VHF. Berencice Cube is a 90ft Swan (so about twice the size of Valent) and was travelling in race mode, so big sails and around 7 people up on watch and going twice as fast as us (and that was slow for them). Our sunsets have also started to improve as we get further west and find less squall activity.

Events of the last week include fixing the generator, doing more work with the sextant and getting better at catching fish. Last weekend the generator ceased to function correctly. After doing all of the basic stuff (change fuel filter, air filter, check oil and cooling system) the generator would still not run correctly, cutting out after around 10 mins. Further work and investigation (trying different things) lead to checking all of the relay switches. I decided that the fuel pump relay switch looked old and less than perfect so popped a new on in. Result. The generator now runs and charges the batteries.

During the week I did some more sun sights and 1 evening fixed our position using the stars and Jupiter. After dealing with some basic arithmetic errors (e.g. I somehow did 36 – 26.2 = 15.8!) I achieved a good result putting us within 5 miles of our GPS position. It was enjoyable to start shooting the stars again, Deneb and Vega were just as bright and easy to identify as I remember from my previous days of astro-navigation (a long time ago).

The fish have started to bite with greater regularity. We lost a large Dorado (also known as Mahi mahi or Dolphin fish) which broke the swivel, but have subsequently landed 2 decent sized ones today. 2 days ago we got a 10kg yellow fin tuna. Big enough to produce 15 generous steaks and leave a big bag of the rest for making tuna tartare and probably a pasta dish.

Tonight we will be eating tuna again, I am going to use up the last of my fresh ingredients to do a version of a Rick Stein recipe – char-grilled tuna on a warm salad of green beans, garlic & tomato. Perhaps do some soy & lime noodles to go with it. Lunch will be breaded dorado wraps served with a lemon garlic mayo & capers.

All being well breakfast will be alongside tomorrow morning. I have specially reserved the best bacon and half a dozen eggs to ensure monster butties to celebrate. The beer is also chilling and maybe something fizzy as well.