December 17, 2001
Puerto Hoppner, Islas de los Estados (Staten Island)
54 degrees 47 minutes South 64 degrees 23 minutes West
Merry Christmas!
We are anchored about 120 miles northeast of Cape Horn on the north coast of the rugged and uninhabited Islas de los Estados, the island that, together with Peninsula Mitre at the toe of Tierra del Fuego, creates the notorious Straits of Le Maire leading to the Beagle Channel. Hawk lies in a small pool, with five lines to trees ashore, behind a small islet in the inner lagoon of Puerto Hoppner. To get here, we entered a narrow gorge in the back of the outer harbor and squeezed through the tiny slot between a large rock in the middle of the channel and the wall of the gorge, no more than thirty feet wide. Except for that channel, this inner anchorage is completely landlocked and surrounded on all sides by 3,000-3,500 foot high glaciated mountains, their peaks and faces eroded by tempestuous Cape Horn gales. A waterfall plunges a thousand feet from a sheer cliff a few miles opposite us into an alpine lake that lies in a bowl behind the shoulder of the slope below. A tangled forest of tortured beech trees and low conifer vegetation hugs these lower slopes, and in the bay itself thousands of mussels cling to every surface exposed at low tide. Steamer ducks, Kelp geese, Imperial cormorants and Magellanic penguins abound, along with a host of other bird species we have not yet managed to identify.
The weather has been warm and pleasant (especially compared to Iceland), with highs in the mid-sixties most days and lows in the fifties overnight. We both find it hard to believe Christmas is fast approaching and that winter has already arrived for our friends and families in the Northern hemisphere. We are only just recovering from our almost non-stop run down the Atlantic from 60 degrees north to 55 degrees south. Since our last update, we have sailed another fifteen hundred miles south along the Argentinean coast, stopping in a handful of anchorages along the way. This coast proved almost as challenging as our passage from the Cape Verdes with weather patterns moving through the Drake passage and the Straits of Le Maire every two to three days, bringing gale force northerly winds followed by gale to storm force southwest winds in quick succession. Ports are few and far between, most accessible only over shallow bars at the mouth of rivers with large tidal ranges and very strong currents. We were fortunate to end up beating to windward only one night, a most unpleasant 12 hours in 30+ knots of true wind sailing 30 degrees off the wind and making good 6 knots into nasty, steep waves. For the rest of the time, we managed to hole up in acceptable anchorages while the southwest winds blew - which they did about one day in three.
Our favorite stop on the trip south was Puerto San Julian, the port 180 miles north of the entrance to the Straits of Magellan where both Magellan and Drake put down mutinies on their circumnavigations (in 1520 and 1578). Punta Gallows (no interpretation needed) was just off our beam. The entrance is very tricky with submerged reefs and rocks and three turns that have to be dead on or you're aground. The entrance was carefully marked with 5 pairs of leading marks, but the sandbars have shifted since the marks were placed, and two of the leading lines now lead over sand bars. Five knots of current through the entrance formed dangerous standing waves when opposed by more than 20 knots of wind. Yet Magellan discovered the sheltered estuary within by coming in under full sail chased by an easterly gale threatening to wreck him on the pitiless Argentinean coast!
Through the narrow channel and down the seven miles of estuary to the town anchorage, we were surrounded by the most beautiful dolphins - Commersons - about half the size of a normal dolphin and wearing a tuxedo of black and white. We also had Magellenic Penguins swimming around the boat, also dressed in black and white, and Imperial Cormorants, the shape of a slender, long-necked goose with a big comb on their heads and a black and white suit. Once anchored, the Prefectura (the officials we have to check in with in every port in Argentina) came out and picked us up in a 20-foot RIB with a big outboard manned by four young guys in international orange survival suits - boy, were they happy to have an excuse to use their toys! The Commerson dolphins particularly enjoyed playing around the RIB as it blasted through the waves. In the Prefectura's office, we asked how many sailboats they'd had visit, and the five officials who were dealing with us looked at each other and finally said, "Ninguna" - "None." They had great fun typing out the eight copies of the clearance and departure forms.
Now, after six years of dreaming and planning, and after building Hawk for exactly this place and these conditions, we have begun our Patagonian adventure. Puerto Hoppner has proven an excellent place to stop and savor that accomplishment, and to slow ourselves back down to cruising pace after the pressure of miles and seasons that drove us so quickly down the length of the Atlantic. We expect to leave here near the end of the week and make our way to Ushuaia for Christmas, but if the winds don't cooperate and we spend Christmas in this lovely, isolated spot, neither of us will mind in the least.
We wish you all a joyful holiday season, and many blessings in the coming year. Thank you for your kind thoughts and good wishes over the past year!
Beth and Evans
s/v Hawk
October 22, 2001
35 degrees SOUTH 55 degrees West
Punta del Este, Uruguay
Hello everyone!
It has been a very long time since our last Hawk update and in so very many ways the world has changed. We hope that none of you lost friends or family in the attacks on September 11th. We all lost something else, the value of which we won’t know for some time to come.
Since our last update from Iceland, we’ve been without easy communications and mostly underway, sailing some 7,000 nautical miles from 60 degrees north to 35 degrees south. The passage from Iceland to the Canaries was almost uneventful. We snuck out of the Vestmann Islands on the southwest corner of Iceland in front of the first of the fall low pressure systems in the North Atlantic. We forereached for 24 hours several hundred miles off the coast of Ireland in 30 knot headwinds, and otherwise had a fast and easy 14.5 day passage straight south to the Canaries.
We spent a month in the Canaries - longer than we had anticipated but we decided to haul the boat to be sure everything was in decent shape after our grounding in Iceland and before the next 4,500+ miles to Uruguay. We were set to leave on September 11th when we turned on the radio while we were stowing the boat at 9:30 EST. Needless to say, we didn’t go anywhere but spent the day listening to the radio, too stunned to do anything else. We both had much to occupy our thoughts when we did get underway the next day, and it was just as well we had a fast and easy five day, downwind passage to cover the 800 miles to the Cape Verdes.
The Cape Verdes proved a pleasant surprise. An increasing number of boats are spending time in these African islands to avoid the crowds in the Canaries, and a nascent yachting industry is developing. A German yachtie has created a marina of sorts at Mindelo on Sao Vicente off an old tugboat. We found the produce at the local market excellent, people friendly, and officials professional. We enjoyed our five day break there before beginning the 3,600 mile run to Uruguay and only wished we could have spent more time cruising these almost undiscovered islands.
The passage we just completed was the toughest we have ever had on Hawk, and rivals our first passage on Silk for being the toughest ever. It started with three nights in a row of 35-50 knot line squalls with thunder and lightning because the ITCZ was much further north than normal. We then had over 1,000 miles of light headwinds or no winds at all as we battled our way through the doldrums and SW monsoon to the equator. In the middle of that, for a variety of reasons we won’t go into here, our engine got flooded with salt water and seized up and we spent twelve hours straight getting the water out and changing the oil. We only had two oil changes on board and needed at least three to save the engine - so we called a passing freighter and they dropped 30 liters of engine oil over the side with a smoke flare attached! Very exciting and very timely. We got the engine running again in time to use it more than we would have liked to get through the wide band of light and variable winds.
The passage ended with forty-eight hours of 40+ knots and twelve hours of hand steering through 20+ foot breaking waves as we closed with the continental shelf. We achieved a new speed record of 16.9 knots when Evans surfed down the face of a massive breaker with just the storm jib set. We were both more than ready to make landfall after 26 days and 3,800 miles sailed. But Hawk really proved herself in a wide variety of conditions, and we learned a tremendous amount about sailing her in storm conditions.
Punta del Este is a resort town serving the wealthy Argentineans. It boasts beautiful white sand beaches, palm trees, a quaint colonial old town and modern high rises. This is off season, so the town feels oversized for the inhabitants - two-thirds of the restaurants and hotels are closed and whenever we’ve eaten out we’ve been the only patrons. It feels a bit like Cape Cod in the off season, if Cape Cod had a smallish city on it. Though it’s the equivalent of early April, it’s warm and pleasant. No need for the diesel heater yet! We came here because North Sails recommended shipping our new suit of 3DL sails here instead of Argentina, and we’re glad we did because it’s a great place to recover from a difficult passage.
We have both been grateful for the time and money invested into Spanish. No one speaks English at all, and we’ve had quite the adventure dealing with mechanics (we wanted someone to go over the engine after the passage), autopilot repair agents, shippers, etc. But everyone is very patient and seems to enjoy the guessing game of what the crazy Americans are trying to say now.
We hope this finds all of you happy and healthy. We hope to be able to return to more regular Hawk updates now, but if you don’t hear from us for a bit it’s because we’re still figuring out the communications systems down here!
Best wishes,
Beth and Evans
s/v Hawk
July 6, 2001
Reykjavik, Iceland
64 degrees 09 minutes North 21 degrees 57 minutes West
Hello everyone -
We've been a bit out of touch as cell phone connections have been iffy along the north coast of Iceland. But now we're tied up on the visitor's dock in Reykjavik, one of six visiting yachts - the first time we've seen another cruising boat since leaving the south coast of Ireland in early April.
Our first few weeks in Iceland proved more challenging than we had bargained for, including two major blizzards and a too-close encounter with some rocks in an isolated fjord on the east coast. Luckily Hawk shrugged that off, though we did have a diver take a look at the rudder and keel in Akureyri, the largest town on the north coast, when we got there. He took a videotape of the bottom and showed us how minimal the damage really was - I'm not sure we would have believed him otherwise.
After that, things started to improve, culminating in an absolutely magical experience on midsummer when we watched the sun scribe a huge arc through the sky and just kiss the horizon to the north while we sailed along on the Arctic Circle. When Evans got Beth up for her watch about twenty minutes before "sunset/sunrise", the sun lay just above the horizon due north of us, its long, golden rays painting everything with an almost unearthly glow.
We had passed the northernmost point of Iceland, called the Horn, less than an hour before and were making our way along the twenty-mile long, shallowly indented coastline at the northern end of the uninhabited peninsula of Hornstrandir. A series of steep sea cliffs well over a thousand feet high glowed rose, copper and gold in the wash of the midnight sun with the thinnest cast of green from the grass that clung tenaciously to the outcroppings. Seabirds rested on the water in large flocks, wheeled overhead and dove to rise with a flash of water from their wings, or swooped and glided several miles away in front of the cliff. Through the binoculars, these furthest birds appeared like a blizzard of snowflakes drifting down across the red and black face.
The sun grew more and more intense as it approached the horizon, turning from yellow to a blinding orange that left us blinking spots whenever we glanced at it. The cliffs glowed a deeper and deeper red in its evanescent light, and the seawater became black and opaque. Eventually the sun touched down and grew fat, then it seemed to simply hover there for about half an hour. We kept taking quick glances, unable to avoid the feeling time had stopped and might never start again. After forty minutes we could perceive a tiny separation at the horizon as the sun heaved itself skyward once again.
That magical time still stands as if stationary in our minds. The birds, the cliffs, the light, the oily surface of the sea, the mist from our breath all combine into a powerful memory, a defining moment of our voyaging. An incredible experience - everything we had hardly dared to hope and it will be one of those memories, like rounding the Cape of Good Hope, that will live on in our imagination long after we end our sailing adventures.
To magical midsummer memories!
Beth and Evans
s/v Hawk
May 24, 2001
62 degrees North, 6 degrees 45 minutes West
Torshavn, Faroes
Hello everyone!
We have spent three weeks in the Faroes after an easy two-day passage from Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides. We had the most incredible experience here the other night, which I wanted to share with all of you.
Two nights ago, we boarded the 100-foot gaff-rigged schooner, Nordlysid (Northern Lights) with a group of about thirty people. We were all dressed in multiple layers and foul weather gear against the low 50-degree temperatures and steady drizzle. Birgir, Nordlysid's skipper and our friend, handled the six-foot long tiller (about as big around as a fence post), as he guided her away from the dock and out into the open harbor. There a large hard-bottomed inflatable and a traditional local fishing boat were tied astern, and we set out for Nolsoy, the island just a few miles from Torshavn harbor. Visibility was so poor, we couldn't see the island until we were within a half mile of it, and then the low cliffs of the northern side appeared as no more than a shadow in the mist.
We motored around to the east side of Nolsoy, and into a small bight among the cliffs where sea caves opened black maws at the base of the sheer rock faces. A series of boxes and bags were handed down to the skipper in the small traditional boat and then a dozen other people climbed into the twenty-foot boat, all of us wearing awkward life preservers at the insistence of the Nordlysid's crew. We bumped and jostled against one another and the boat swayed alarmingly at the shifting load as the skipper motored us into a sea cave through an opening only a few feet higher than the roof of the boat's small wheelhouse.
Once inside, the cave opened up a bit, and we found ourselves in an asymmetrical oval chamber about 150 feet from end to end and 50 feet across. We could see the Nordlysid silhouetted against the mouth of the cave, but it took a long time for my eyes to adjust so I could see the far corners of our rocky amphitheater. The water swooshed and huffed, wheezed and whooshed, breathing in half breaths and large sighs, creating its own rhythm. As I got my bearings, the group aboard started to open the boxes and bags. The rigid dinghy puttered into the cave with us, a dozen people sitting on its large inner tubes. Suddenly, a liquid note sounded into the darkness and reverberated in the stony space, its voice fuller and richer and deeper than in any concert hall. Light from the cave mouth glinted golden off a brass saxophone held to the mouth of a sandy-haired musician dressed in an orange survival suit. The concert had begun - "cave music" they call it.
They played with the sound of the ocean sighing, using its rhythms to measure theirs. Percussion provided counterpoint to the saxophone's sweet golden voice - one fellow played a large drum lying in the bottom of the boat; it's resonant pulse felt like the beating of the heart of the earth itself. Another shook a string of mollusk shells to create a rattling sound, a long hiss ending in a whisper or a sharp chattering snap to punctuate key phrases or accentuate the sound of the swell against the rocks. He also used a drumstick on the boat's engine compartment, gunwales and oars, a staccato beat of higher notes harmonizing with the rest. And then, another sound, one I couldn't place at first. A warbling, soprano note... A golden-haired woman raised her voice in an undulating wave, sweet as the saxophone. It filled the cave and reverberated until she was harmonizing with her own echo. The music had no origin but filled the cave from end to end, surrounding us, liquid as the water beneath the boat, a living thing in the cave with us, filling me with an indescribable euphoria.
Shortly after the music started, I had realized the cockpit of the boat wouldn't hold everybody while the musicians played. I had worked my way around the wheelhouse of the boat and now kneeled on the bow, leaning on the wheelhouse roof, looking down into the cockpit on the musicians. A young man knelt next to me recording the concert with a large, foam-covered microphone. The boat and the dinghy nearby rotated slowly around the cave, moved by the unseen currents of the water swirling in and ebbing out. Every once in a while, one of the men at the back of the boat would use an oar to push off the roof or side of the cave to keep us away from the rocky walls. At the farthest end of the oval of the cave, the cave mouth disappeared completely, leaving us in darkness except for a small riding light shining into the cockpit. Then we'd wheel slowly around the dinghy and come back into the light from the mouth of the cave, and the saxophone would drip gold and the singer's hair would turn platinum and pale, slack jawed faces enraptured by the music would emerge from the darkness one by one like ghosts.
The dinghy left after the first set, discharging the first load of passengers and then returning with the second. Evans sat among this group and I watched his face as he listened to this music made three-dimensional by the space we occupied. They played for about an hour and a half, until the cold of the cave had seeped into all of our bones and the moisture dripping off the ceiling had glazed their instruments with a fine sheen. The saxophone player kept up a melody as we left the cave, and in that moment of transition the instrument's sinuous call went from full-throated and omnipresent to small and localized; devolving back to the instrument itself, dwindling into a tiny, tinny voice dwarfed and mocked by the high cliffs above us. We emerged blinking at the still bright light outside, the music welling within us.
We hope all of you are enjoying your own sea music.
Beth and Evans
April 27, 2001
54 degrees 12 minutes North, 10 degrees 05 minutes West
Blacksod Bay, Mullet Peninsula Co. Mayo, Ireland
Hello everyone!
We're sitting in Blacksod Bay, a huge, empty sandy bay with half a dozen anchorages in its various arms. Mullet Peninsula - ten miles long and no more than 100 feet high - forms the western side of the bay and offers what shelter exists. In contrast to the mountain ranges of Connemara, this land seems open and bleak and flat - fields of peat bog, without a single tree to be seen. Houses dot the shore, and a few farms with cattle grazing on the bog, but all of them seem small and toylike under the big sky in a big bay.
We arrived here two days ago after a magnificent 45-mile sail from Killary Harbor, touted as the only fjord in Ireland, around Achill Head and under what are supposed to be the highest sea cliffs in all of Europe. Achill Head felt more like a corner than any we've rounded in Ireland, yet on the map and the charts it doesn't really look that way. The point on the westernmost corner of the island stands proud of the island which stands proud of the mainland, so rounding it in haze that cut visibility to a couple of miles made it feel as if we were rounding the tip of a continent - all we could see were the cliffs on either side of the point and way back in the distance the vague outlines of the mountain range we'd left behind when we left Killary. As we approached from the south, the mile and a half of sheer cliffs along the coast just before the point slowly revealed themselves from the haze. They appeared first as blue-gray smudges on the horizon, then their outlines hardened into dark lines. As we sailed closer, the blue-gray area began to develop ridges and contours and subtle changes in color. When we were finally within a half mile or so, the cliffs towered over us, looking like the gnarly toes on the feet of some mythic beast cut off at the ankles. Gorges and ravines separated saddleback ridges and canted plateaus, and ended in rounded toes complete with toenails of shattered rocks at the base of each ridge.
We rounded the head, where three miles of cliffs rose to 2,500 feet sheer from the sea. On this face, the ridges or rock plunging down from the top of the cliff and separated by ravines and gorges were truncated about halfway down in flat faces of shattered rock. A huge rock slide about halfway along the sheer wall must have been a hundred yards wide, a gray waterfall of scree and loose rocks starting as a narrow line at the top and widening until it met the sea in a broad band. Unlike the Cliffs of Moher (near Galway which we didn't get to see), these are not "stacks" - horizontal slabs of rock one atop the other - but totally chaotic upthrusts and landslides and fractured surfaces. We sailed under the cliffs, at close-hauled in 20 knots of apparent wind, heeled over about 20 degrees, bounced around by the swell that raced past us and crashed spectacularly on the cliff faces, spray flying over the windward bow and the occasional rainbow flashing in the water tossed up to leeward...
As the last of the cliffs receded into the haze, Evans grinned at me and said, "You see? I take you to all the best places!"
We're now getting close to the northwest corner of Ireland, and the clock has started ticking on our short summer season. We finally sat down and did some serious planning, working backwards from when we want to arrive in Chile - and decided we need to leave sometime in the next ten days for the Faroe Islands. Once we leave this coast, we'll be out of cell phone range, and we're not yet sure whether our cell phone will work in the Faroes or whether we'll be limited to cyber cafes. In any case, we'll be back in touch when we're able, and in the meantime, enjoy the spring. We know it has been a long time coming for many of you this year, but hopefully the time has come to start putting the boats back in the water.
Here's to sailing adventures - wherever we can find them!
Beth and Evans
s/v Hawk
Blacksod Bay, Co. Mayo, Ireland
March 28, 2001
51 degrees 26 minutes North, 10 degrees 45 minutes West
Crookhaven, Co. Cork, Ireland
Hello everyone!
We've left our winter berth and are underway once again. It feels wonderful to be swinging at anchor each night and exploring new harbors each day. We're now about 50 miles down the coast, near the southwest corner of Ireland, in a small harbor called Crookhaven. Fastnet Rock stands six miles to the south, easily visible from the harbor entrance, and Mizen Head, where we turn north up the west coast of Ireland, lies less than five miles to the WSW.
This narrow harbor with its sleepy village consisting of O'Sullivan's, a post office/store/pub all in one, and a few hotels for summer tourists once served as the transition point between the "Deep Water" men and the coastal pilots who would skipper the sailing ships for up to six months - to Dublin or Liverpool or Bristol and back. Crookhaven had agents from every big shipping company who would have instructions as to where each cargo was to go, as the cargo would have been sold while it was enroute. It's hard to picture a dozen Indiamen at anchor in this harbor, no more than 500 yards wide and about two miles long, though only half of that has water enough for us let alone an oceangoing clipper ship. What a sight it would have been! Not surprisingly, piracy was a major economic activity along this coast, and two high square towers at the entrance were designed to keep watch for pirates and privateers.
We found Crookhaven, and Baltimore before it, still in winter hibernation - the season doesn't get underway here until June. Those we meet ashore are friendly and talkative, interested in where we've come from and where we're going - and how we make our money along the way. "Living off the interest, are ye?" the wizened fisherman or the publican asks with a wink. "Starving artists, more like," I say and they crack a long, slow smile, completely unconvinced.
Baltimore, our stop before this one, still functions as a fishing village, though hardly an Irish one. The French and Spanish trawlers have always fished this corner of Ireland and beyond, and it seems as if at some point they decided to move their families up here as well. Over the VHF comes a lively mix of Irish-accented French and Spanish and French- and Spanish-accented English. For half an hour yesterday morning, one returning trawlerman visited with each member of his family - his wife, his mother, his teenage son and what sounded like a three-year old child - in rapid and idiosyncratic French on the VHF channel we listen to for weather. Evans most admired the Fastnet Falcon, a 70-foot oceangoing tug that was away from the dock far more often than it was on it, and whose skipper was continually in need of three-day weather forecasts when trying to decide where to take his most recent tow. A constant six- to ten-foot swell assaults this coast, so sailing is difficult in anything less than 15 knots of apparent wind. That same swell must make towing anything of any size a challenge, and on Sunday the Fastnet Falcon reported breaking a towline out off the west coast.
Despite the meager living the sea now provides, this whole area is undergoing an economic boom thanks to the tourist and holiday trades. Ashore, construction of new cottages and bungalows proceeds apace, and in Baltimore the holiday homes are now supposed to outnumber the permanent residences. Given a winter population of less than 200 and the dozens of new homes we saw recently completed or in the process of being built, that doesn't seem unlikely. Here in Crookhaven, winter population 30, Public Notices have been put up on almost every small, protected piece of land asking for public comment on the building of everything from B&Bs to "self-catering accommodations" to luxury houses for the wealthy to visit for the two fine months of every year.
The winters here must be fierce indeed. Almost every house is tucked under a ridge or small hill protecting it from the southwest, and the branches of the stunted trees stream northeastward and look like hair teased out by a blow dryer. It's still early spring here, and only the low pine bushes of gorse are flowering, though the small yellow blossoms offer a bright counterpoint to the faded green of last summer's grass. In contrast to Kinsale and Cork, where daffodils rioted in every garden, only a few shelter here in the hollows near warm stone walls, out of the unfriendly winds.
We've been fortunate with the weather, having left on a window of, according to Evans' and the Kinsale harbormaster's assessment, ten days of stable easterly winds. We made our westing on those easterlies, though they were at times light forcing us to motor in the large, sloppy swell. Now, eight days later, we're getting some light westerlies, with the promise of stronger westerlies tonight. But we're at the corner where it no longer matters if the winds remember that SW is supposed to be "prevailing" - once round Mizen Head those winds will be just aft of the beam and we can ride them north to Bantry Bay, our next planned stopping point.
We're grateful for the fact that, at least so far, Ireland has not had a major outbreak of foot and mouth, and seems to be treating the whole thing much more seriously than the British. All sporting events, including sailing regattas, have been cancelled for the last month, and our progress down the coast has been carefully monitored by the officials who want to make sure they catch any English or French boats entering Irish waters. We chatted at length yesterday with the "Harbormaster at large" who covers this part of the coast. He's a worried man, as he feels the safety of Ireland's primarily agricultural economy rests, at least in part, in his hands. We were hopeful the whole thing would be over before we reached the north coast of Ireland, but we've become increasingly pessimistic that the outbreak will be contained in either England or Scotland within that time.
In any event, we're both well and happy and hoping this message finds you the same. Having left Kinsale, we'll be less in touch than we have been, as we'll be checking e-mail when we have good phone signals, which may mean once a week or so. But we will respond eventually...
Here's to anticipating summer breezes and warm sailing!
Beth and Evans
s/v Hawk
February 28, 2001
51 degrees 42 minutes North, 8 degrees 31 minutes West
Kinsale, Co. Cork, Ireland
Hello everyone!
Winter is drawing to a close, at least here in Ireland, and all three of us are eager to get underway once again. With the exception of a twenty-minute blizzard two days ago thanks to an intense low pressure system that came roaring down out of Iceland, the weather has been positively spring-like. We've even begun having high pressure systems again after not seeing any from mid-September until early January. The green leaves of daffodils and crocuses have pushed through the soil in every garden, and we've shed layers until we're routinely wearing only a light jacket ashore. Out on the water is a different matter, though, as the water temperatures have not yet begun to rebound from winter lows. Still, we've been out sailing several times and found it quite comfortable with three layers of clothes and the protection of our hard dodger.
While we enjoyed a few of the long, lazy days reading and studying Spanish we envisioned last fall, after Christmas these gave way to quite a bit of traveling. We spent a week in London around the London boat show, and both of us got a good dose of the big city - and a good dose of germs. It took us several weeks to recover, and we realized how long it has been since we've been in crowds and exposed to some serious colds and flu. Beth traveled back to London twice more to give slide shows and talks promoting "Following Seas," her second book that the UK publisher Adlard Coles brought out in the fall. Beth also returned to the States to spend some time with her father after he had hip replacement surgery. He's doing very well, though the six weeks non-weight bearing restriction has tested his patience to the limits.
During Beth's last trip to London last week, Evans painted the bottom. Hawk was hauled out a few hours after she left, and splashed again a few hours before she got back. Evans put on lots of layers, enough so we hope we won't have to haul in Chile, and he changed our prop in hopes of improving our motoring performance. Beth was grateful to avoid living on the hard, painting the bottom and the cussing that accompanied both – but she owes Evans big time for all his hard work. Our recut main came back from the sailmaker last week, and we've re-run all the halyards we'd taken down for the winter. We went sailing this weekend to brush the cobwebs off and try everything out and came back in 20 knots of wind with Hawk close reaching at 8.5 knots.
Today we rented a car with Klaus and Maria, the German couple who wintered over in the marina with us, and tomorrow we begin provisioning. Over the course of the winter, we've eaten all but a dozen cans of soups and fruit, and every plastic container is empty. We intend to fill the boat to avoid spending money in the Faroes and Iceland, so we'll make several trips to the store and buy several hundred pounds of supplies. After that, we'll be ready to start moving again…
We intend to explore this area a bit more while we wait for spring to settle in, and then start slowly up the west coast of Ireland. We'll sail when the highs fill in bringing several days of light winds and good (though cold) weather, then hunker down when we see another gale on the way. There are plenty of snug harbors from her to the southwestern corner of Ireland, and then up the first half of the west coast. We'll just be changing the view out the portlights and the walks ashore every few days.
We hope you all had a good winter and are looking forward to the spring, to getting boats back in the water, and to sailing!
Fair winds,
Beth and Evans
s/v Hawk