Xmas photos

The Wind Belle Chrstmas Tree

Lobby for Christmas Eve

Xmass morning.

The three Belles in Aunty Amandas Xmass present.

No not the tooth Fairy, but still very cute.

Santa Meets the tooth Fairy on Wind Belle

Santa meets the Tooth Fairy.

The was great excitement in the lead up to Christmas on Wind Belle as well as a huge concern over whether Santa would find us, and how would he deliver the stockings. Also Tallulah had her first wobbly tooth, and boy was it wobbled. Come Christmas eve and guess who's tooth came out, which created a few hysterics in case either the tooth fairy or Santa didn’t come. But guess what, they both came and they met in Talluluh’s cabin in the middle of the night!!!

Christmas was spent in Bequia which is part of St Vincent and the Grenadines. We were anchored about 200 ft off Princess Margret beach, (apparently she used to swim here as Mystique is nearby.) Bequia is a lovely place (Sophie and my favourite in the Caribbean) completely unspoilt by development, and feels like the true Caribbean. Boat boys come out to the anchored boats and offer you bread, fresh fish, ice, laundry services (we tried it and our laundry did come back to our surprise !!) and Ganja.

On Christmas eve we went to church for an impromptu carol concert, with all the other boaties. A local guy banged away at the key board on a very out of tune Piano, while various people sung Carols in flip flops,shorts, sun dresses and looked out of the church door to the blue sea in the bay. Funnily enough there was no vicar or real locals.

For Christmas eve dinner we got a lobster off one of the local boat boy’s. it was a whopper at 5 lbs, and cost us £20. Only problem was it was hard to find a pot big enough to boil it, and it wouldn’t fit on the BBQ. In the end we managed to cook it and it was delicious.

Christmas morning arrived and we had to pinch ourselves as we looked out of the window onto the golden sands and the mouthwash blue water. The girls meanwhile got stuck into the stocking, as Santa had luckily found us, and were busy examining the notes left by the tooth Fairy and Santa.

So what do you get for girls on a boat. Well, Imy got a DS gameboy, Tallulah got roller blades,and proceeded to roller blade all over the boat, and Sienna got a bicycle, which she also rode around the cabin and cockpit. (As you guessed neither the bike or the roller blades could be used at the beach as there is no path just sand.)

For Christmas Lunch we had the team from Sun Set Sam over and Graine and Sophie slaved in the Galley to produce a full turkey lunch with all the trimmings, including Christmas pudding and crackers. There is nothing quite like the old traditions of eating too much and drinking too much, followed up by a swim to the beach, instead of the sleep in front of the the Queens speech and Wizzard of Oz rerun on TV.

Thanks to all those who gave the girls presents, their thank yous are in the post.

ARC Crossing.

Broken rigging found the night before the off.
The Start.
Half way wine from Villa Bochella
A wopper at last.
It also rained. Rollo at the wheel during a squall.

ARC Team

Jim, Rollo, Jonathon and Tom, enjoy a well deserved drink on in Rodney Bay St Lucia after 15 days, 20 hours and 10 minutes at sea.

ARC crossing

This is a copy of our blog from the arc web pages.
Wind Belle is a Catana 471 catamaran. All summer I have been sailing it in the med with Sophie and the three girls aboard, Imogen 7 Tallulah, 5 and Sienna 3. We have had a great time and you can read about our adventures at Pudswindbelle.blogspot.com. However for the Atlantic crossing we chose to let the women fly, so on board we have Jim Hartley the girls grand father , Dr Tom Trevelyan, and Rollo Piper all of whom like myself are ex International fourteen sailors and currently sail out of Itchenor sailing club at Chichester harbour. The three crew are all grandfathers, so instead of it being a lads boat its a bit of a "Grand lads" boat. So this is the story so far.
23 Nov excitement is building, we finally have our rig checked at 5.30 pm by Jerry the rigger. What a bummer we have found two strands broken on the support to the cross beam, this basically supports the forestay and stops the bat buckling up front. It is rated to 22 tonnes. I visit the riggers who doubt they have time or the strength of wire to fix it. Gand lads and myself very disappointed and down beat.
24 Nov.
Visit rigger again and see boss man, who thinks he can fix it if we do all the rigging work and pay him lots of money. Not that we are experts at rigging but we take it apart, standing back in case the whole rig falls down.
5.30 pm and our friendly rigger has not returned yet, and the start is at 13.00 tomorrow.
7 pm its getting dark but we are putting the last bolt in place, it looks like we will make the start after all.Yippee.
25th Nov. Start of the ARC.
Wake up with a marching band along the dock, and locals coming around to look at the boats.
We leave the harbour to join the other 240 plus boats milling around for the start, which is quite a sight. And finally we are off, well actually we are three minutes late for the line, thanks to some very unusually conservative sailing from me. What a good sight all the boats going down wind in about 20 knots of wind.
First squall arrives one hour in 36 knots, Jim is steering its raining but we get up to 16.4 knots!!!!!
2pm DR Tom who has carefully put together our medical kit, is the first to use it when he is cutting the cucumber.
4pm see first Dolphin, swimming along with us at 10 knots.
6pm most of us are feeling a little sea sick, its still blowing 20 plus, and we are going well.
Midnight, full moon and I am on watch when a pod of dolphins come and swim alongside in the moon light.
26 Nov 1pm next day
Our daily run is 215 nm. Not bad going. We listen to the radio schedule and feel quite good about where we are compared to the other boats.
28th Nov
Its my birthday, I got some great cards from the girls but it is not the same fun without them here. On the plus side we had a school of Dolphins came and swam at the bow for an hour or so. We all stood on the bows and watched them in amazement, as they leaped about our bow. I also saw a turtle out here in the middle of the ocean, about 20 ft from the boat. In the evening we tucked into the FoieGras that the girls Left on board as a surpise present. Amazingly all hands forgot their sea sickness for about the ten minutes it took to eat it.
29th Nov.
We are still making good progress, one report from the UK said we were the 15th boat, out of 240, just imagine where we would be if we had a spinny!!!! Jim must have an iron stomach. He cooked bacon and fried eggs this morning. We put it on our plates looked at it and decided to feed the fish with out chewing it first.
30th Nov.
We have got to 30 west, so are now about 1/3 the way there.
I am finally well enough to bake bread. So far we have eaten non of the provisions that we bought for the crossing except a bit of fruit.Of course we are fishing but I think we are going too fast to cast anything, our avg speed is about 8 knots and every time we get a bight either the fish gets away or we loose our fishing lure, generally both happen at the same time. Dr Tom today has shown that he is very good at not just humans but boats too. Our generator started to over heat as we made water and then it cut out. Tom's face looked rather anxious, as Jim and I ummed and uhhered... You see with out the generator we would not be able to make water or electricity to power our batteries , steering and nav stuff. Tom became chief bush or should I say ocean mechanic and went into the engine compartment to have a little fiddle. I was rather worried he might try to sink us. Low and behold one hour later when Tom emerged with a pile of gunk in his hand. The gunk had been blocking the water intake to the genny which was then over heating.The generator is now working and Tom is starting to relax, so much so that he cooked dinner.
1 Dec.
Our big genoa wouldn't furl last night at about mid night in a gust of wind, all hands on deck to try to pull it down, but then suddenly it just fell down, as the clip at the top of the halyard had come un-done. So far nobody has dared to climb the mast and we all have renued respect for Ellen.
Last night we also saw the lights of another boat, and radioed them up to find out they are a 73 foot xyacht, I am not quite sure what they made of our little catamaran bobbing along with them.At first light we found a rather unlucky flying fish on deck. You imagine you have the whole Atlantic ocean to fly in and you end up on a boat. Bummer. Anyway we put said fish on Rollos pillow for when he woke up.
Graine has mobilized the Itchenor weather gurus for us and we now have access to the Noaa forcast. It was great that so many people were able to offer help.
Wind is 20 knots directly behind us waves about 10 ft and boat speed is 8-9.5 knots. yesterdays daily run was 197nm.
21.38N 33.35.W Puds
3 DEC.
We have reached half way!!!!! 40 w. 163 nm today.
4th Dec.
70 year old man climbers mast mid Atlantic.
A couple of days ago we lost the genny halyard up the mast. Well today we decided was the day to go and collect it, however the volunteer list was a little short. Dr Tom decided after a little try that he might get hurt, so we left it to the old man on the boat to go up. So Grandpa Jim went up and now joins the Ellen Mcartha mid atlantic 17 m high club.
Today we have no wind, can you believe it. We looked at all the charts and they say we should be in 15-20 knots. We are struggling to go more than 2.5 knots. What a bummer. We now face the prospect of the other boats catching us up as they ride up on the new wind. So in effect we are being punished for being too fast. At least on the bright side we thought we might catch a fish, but a very big one came and took my best lure, biting clean through the line.
As it is light winds we had a BBQ dinner. Which in itself is quite an achievement mid Atlantic, firstly because we managed not to set the boat on fire, secondly because I managed not to drop any of the steaks into the sea and thirdly because I managed to cook the steaks medium rare.
Can you believe it we switched on the engine tonight as we were going no where fast. Ended up doing 8 plus hours of motoring mid Atlantic. This wasn't in the blurb.
18.28N 42.48W 1083 nm to go. 130nm miles days run.
Puds
5th Dec.
Fish. Finally we managed to land a fish and it was a whopper!!! It measured 87cm long, and was only subdued after pouring half a bottle of rum down its gills. It is a dorado, which are a beautiful colour when they first get out of the water, but this rapidly fades. Any way there is huge relief on board and we are looking forward to it for supper. Does anybody have a good way of cooking it. Answers on a post card.
PS We are now in wind, about 15 knots dead behind and so we are moving at 7.5 knots wing on wing. At mid day we were 18.03N 44.4W. 997nm miles to go.
Ate fish last night it was wonderful.
6th DEC. Raw Like Sushi.
For lunch we had Sushimi, Dr Tom was not quite sure he liked it , but the rest of us really enjoyed it. We tried some with Lime juice and coriander but this was not as nice as classic wasabi and soy. It is lucky we like it because today we caught another bigger fish, same make, but this one was 95 cm. It put up a good fight as we tried to land it going 7 knots down wind, luckily Rollo managed to get it in the net. I am not sure who then put up more of a fight Jim or the fish. You see we have run out of rum to knock the fish out with so I was going to use Jim's whisky, which upset him a great deal. However the fish enjoyed the wee dram and soon went to sleep. So instead of bangers and mash tonight we have more fish. I am not sure we will put the line out tomorrow...
Other news is that we have less than 750 nm to run as of 8pm, and we are romping along at 8.5 knots.
Current position 17.01N 43.2W.
8th Dec. 40knots to 2 knots
Woke up this morning to good solid breeze then saw a very big black cloud on the horizon. We put 2 reefs in the main and rolled the jib to the second reefing point, just in time for the wind to come howling in at we guess about 35-40 knots. As we have no wind instruments or direction, we have to use tell tells, but this puff was big enough to blow the few remaining scraps of hair on Rollo's head flat. Rollo manfully stayed at the wheel as we surged down wind and down waves at 12 knots with both reefs in (it was poring with rain so the rest of us stood inside the conservatory). Then the wind dropped to nothing and we ended up shaking out the reefs going only 2 knots. Finally we had to resort to motoring using only one engine to save fuel and we ended up motoring for 12 hours.
9th Fishing gods.
Put the line in and caught another fish, within half an hour. Ate it for sushi and then saved some in the freezer for the girls. Unfortunately we keep getting the same type of fish and what we really want is a Tuna, so we have probably come to the end of our fishing as there is no point catching these beautiful creatures unless you are going to eat them. Also found a flying fish on deck which we froze for the girls to look at when we get to St Lucia.

10th Dec. 150 miles to go.
We are currently at 14.40N and 58.31W. we have a good breeze. We are starting to see other boats on the horizon, and this gets our competitive juices flowing. So far we have burnt all the opposition we can see. You can take the 14 sailor out of a 14 but you can't take their competitiveness out of any boat.

We are Off on the ARC

Wind Belle will be on the ARC for the next 18 to 20 days. Track us on

Worldcruising.com

Gib to Canaries

We left Gib in a good 15-20 knots with a tide going 1-2 knots under us in the right way. After a summer of no current it was funny to be back in the tidal area. Jim Sophie's dad was on board to help with the 700 nautical mile trip, which we estimated would take us 5 days ( the same time Jim had taken in his Swan 42 some 10 earlier.) It turned out that we had good winds for the first three days.
I had flue, Sophie looked after the children and Jim made himself very useful. Jim and I did the watches at night, but Sophie would pop her head every now and then to tell us we had too much sail up or that we were going too fast. One of the things we found was that the boat makes allot of noise when waves hit the middle of it underneath. It sounds a bit like a car back firing, but you only hear it if you are inside, outside, you just enjoy the sail.
Any way for the first ten hours we averaged about 9 knots (much to Sophie chagrin) later we slowed down a bit. The girls were great, doing their school lessons and playing the whole time, without a hint of sea sickness. For you interest we also sailed the whole leg with a vase of lilies on the saloon table, which just show how little we healed.
On our trip we crossed with a french Catamaran, it then disappeared off on the opposite gybe into the distance. About 36 hours later we crossed with the same cat, and even had to alter course so we didn't hit them. Amazing after after sailing that far, to be going exactly the same speed.
On the last day we ran out of wind, so we put the engine on to get us into the port. We arrived in 4 days and 6 hours which was a day fast than Jim's previous effort. ( I think that being an old stalwart of the royal cruising club he had always previously regarded Catamarans as floating caravans, but even he was a little bit impressed.) When you get within sight of land at Las Palmas Grand Canaries, you find that the marina is in a huge port with an oil rig moored at the entrance, then you see a very busy container terminal, finally you see in the corner of the port a tiny looking marina, which is actually quite big. Behind the marina is a main road dual carriageway, and to the left is a little man made beach, however it doesn't look like the place to take the family and kids for four weeks.
But apparently a bit like a strip show, the place slowly reveal her charms. First and foremost these are the people who are moored next to you. Having sailed around the med with lots of people on holiday we are now with people who are doing longer trips and who have the same goals. Secondly they are all very different, different ages , nationalities, boats, and goals.
The girls are a great way to make friends when not screaming at each other, so on Halloween night they dressed up: Tallulah as a Water witch, Imy as a pirate, and Sienna as a flying fish. (sea photo).
They went along the dock and nearly every boat had prepared a huge amount of treats and the girls used their water pistols to enforce the odd trick.
Being tucked up in a marina with shore power and water is a luxury after our summer of almost non stop anchoring, Finally you can go to sleep without worrying about the weather tomorrow or the ability of the generator to be able to power the water maker etc. Sophie has been able to run the washing machine non stop so our boat generally looks like it is covered in bunting.
In addition we have the use of the sailing club in the marina for 20 euros a week, and it has a huge pool, good bar snacks and a wifi area. The girls have been in the pool every day. During this time Sienna has been growing in her confidence to swim and has managed to swim the length of the pool (20 m plus) by herself without arm bands. Its now her party trick and she shows anybody who will watch her, and quite few people watch her every time she goes near the edge in case she sinks.
We are slowly getting ready for the crossing doing odd jobs, and getting things like the life raft serviced. This is a really painful cost as you hope that you will never use the bloody thing, but if you need it you want it to work. So hopefully a lot of money for nothing! We also had the B&G instrument man aboard as we had problem with our depth reading. In Palma a very expensive technician came on board for 4 hrs and couldn't get it going, here the man was on board for 3 minutes when he realised the issue and fixed it, Much to my embarrassment well actually Sophie's as she had been fiddling with it and set our keel depth to 400 meters, which explained why we always got a zero reading except when out in the deepest ocean.