We have had very pleasant sailing since departing Teneriffe and managed to avoid the lee of the island by sailing due south for the first 12 hours, and then regaining o rhumbline to Mindelo Cp Verde

We have engaged “Peter” the Aires wind vane to save on power, so now all the solar is going into the fridge and freezer. Due to our course the solar panels are in the shade for 4 hours a day so we are not getting the solar we would normally get into the system.

Wind is from the NE at 12kts, giving us a True wind angle of 160*, so it is perfect sailing conditions with Sunday Island rolling gently in the swell and averaging just under 6kts and making 140nm over the past 24hrs with very little effort. I considered get the spinnaker out today, but when we are making 6kts and not racing, we decided to keep it in the bag.

There are few other boats out here in the Atlantic ocean. We have seen a few other yachts sailing south on AIS, but have not had the pleasure of a visual sighting. The yacht Tiger Lilly is presently 8nm ahead of us on the same rhumb line and we are slowly closing her. With any luck we can overtake close enought to say Hi on the VHF.

Most of the day has been spent reading and playing cards with the kids. Emilie did an hours school work this morning but given it is the first day at sea the crew are a bit dozy at times, unless they are runnign about the cabin playing with stuffed penguins who seem to have taken up nesting in various places around the boat.

At 1700 our fising line went zing and we landed a nice 5-6kg Mahi (Male). The Mahi put up a very good fight to the end, but died with our blessing. The kids love to watch the fish being caught and cleaned and its a good opportunity for a biology lesson. Dinner tonight is baked Mahi with potato’s. We are defiantly not on sailors rashions of hard tack biscuts, only the best meals on Sudnay Island.

Another beautiful day sailing with the wind from astern. The wind is alternating between 050*T and 080*T allowing us to meander down our rhumb line towards Mindelo Cp Verde Islands.

We have passed a few other yachts and catamarans of similar size at a distance along the way. It is nice to observe that we are sailing faster than the other 14m vessels.

This morning started with another Mahi, slightly smaller than yesterday but good for dinner all the same. Late afernoon soon after gettng the spinnaker down another big fish on the line but it got away. At the time we were sailing at 7kts so perhaps a bit fast to land it. No doubt the lucky fish will have a sore mouth for a few days.

This afternoon we hoisted the Spinnaker for the first time on this voyage. The spinnaker is a cruising chute, designed to be stable and easy to manage. Because of its small size (for a spinnaker) we found it only gave us a fraction more speed than the No1 Genoa and also a fraction more stress. So this evening the spinnaker stored and the G1 poled out.

Over the past 24 hours we made 154nm, so we are ahead of schedule and if the conditions remain we will arrive in Mindelo in 4 days.

Tenerife was a great stopover and we enjoyed discovering the beautiful city of Santa Cruz. We found everybody to be relaxed but very efficient and friendly.

Last week we hired a car for a couple of days and enjoyed touring the mountains and coastline. We especially enjoyed visiting the Teide national park and volcano. We enjoyed hiking in the the Anaga national park and a beautiful lunch in a mountain bar / cafe that was excellent food and only €38 to feed the family.

We enjoyed a visit to the northern coast of the island and watched the Atlantic swell crashing into the coastline at Taganana

We visited the peaceful town of Port De La Cruz enjoying an ice cream and stroll along the fort and the not so peaceful Playa De las Americas. Everywhere we went we were pleased by the beauty of the islsnd

We had a few small jobs to do in the stopover including replacing a few halyards and sheets with some brand new ones gifted by some friends from their trimaran. We installed A new “GN Espace Ocean Chef” four burner oven that is larger than a regular yacht oven and will make any chef weak at the knees. We also modified our storage arrangements to fit all the food and spares for the next few months.

Our provisioning was an epic adventure and Emilie organised for the fruit and veg to be delivered to the boat at the marina. I’m amazed all the food fits onboard, but it’s all snug and secure and looking at the boat you would not think we are going sailing for 30 days across the Atlantic.

This morning the kids helped me wash the boat down while Emile secured down below, we then cleared customs, paid the marina and headed 5nm south to Radazul to top up our fuel.

We are now sailing to Mindelo in the Cp Verde Islands. 13-15 kts of wind from astern, making 6kts with Genoa poled out and the Aires wind vane steering there is not much left to do but fish, relax and entertain the kids.

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Track our position. If the link does not work cut and paste into your browser https://cms.winlink.org:444/maps/positionreports.aspx?callsign=vk7hew

One of the most common questions we are asked while cruising with kids concerns education.

We plan to cruise for two to five years, and want the kids back in normal school before they reach high school to develop friendships with other kids their own age.

We must ensure the kids are on the same level or perhaps more advanced when they are re integrated back into normal life.

We try to do two or three hours of school five days a week in port and at sea. “Weekends” are days taken off when it’s rough or when it suits our program.

Schooling is not easy for any of us and it takes a lot of effort to enforce the basics of education. Emilie and I must go back in time to remember how hard it is to remember the difference between b’s or d’s, p’s, q’s and 9’s and the basics of grammar (which I am not very good at and you will probably find lots of grammatical errors in this blog!)

Regular school creates a routine for the kids and we find that if we give them two or three hours of our full attention in the morning results in them being more independent for the remainder of the day.

Daily school classes focus on reading, writing, spelling and maths. We touch on other subjects during school hours but science, geography, languages and social studies are part of the general days learning. Emilie and I try to share the education responsibility equally, but I must admit that Emilie takes the leading role when I have maintenance or navigation to take care of. We found Twinkle to be an excellent resource for curriculum’s and learning activities. http://www.twinkl.com

Today I woke up to Issy fully awake and dressed, asking “how does electricity move along a wire?” I opened my eyes and began to murmur somthing about atoms and their electrons…. An hour later, with my morning coffee charging my own electrons, we sat down and started our normal school day of phonetics, vowels, then two times tables, followed by a science lesson on Atoms, protons, neutrons, electrons, conductivity, dis-similar metals and magnets. Concluding in making batteries out of bits and bobs onboard. It was very hard to demonstrate magnesium on an Aluminium yacht with no magnetic material onboard, but we managed to find a pair of scissor and a coin that were magnetic (copper coin found in search no longer onboard Aluminium yacht – lesson in galvanic action to follow!)

Later in the day we were touring Tenerife in the hire car and spotted a wind and solar farm. We were privileged to be able to walk right under a wind turbine. I did some work in 2012 building wind farms in Denmark so it was fun sharing my knowledge with the kids.

We try to involve the kids with navigation and passage planning, a every day example of maths and geography. It takes a bit longer but it is fun to break down the calculations into segments easy enough for the kids to calculate distance and time.

Max and Issy were gifted a Tony box, a little speaker with figurines that you place on top and they tell a story. Many of our figurines are about nature, space and animals and we are all becoming quite knowledgeable from this fun audible encyclopedia. Max and Issy are becoming walking encyclopedias of marine life and space!

We plan to depart Tenerife early next week to sail towards Cp Verde then onto the Caribbean, and we are excited to learn about new countries and cultures.

Lanzarote was a fantastic stopover and we found it a lot more developed than our last visit 10 years ago. We decided to hire a car to do some touring, including visiting a few wineries, tool shops, beaches and friends.

We had a wonderful time catching up with old friends, the kids especially enjoyed hanging out with kids their own age.

We made a lot of new friends too, including a few other Aussie couples sailing their yachts.

Yesterday the weather looked good for a sail west so after a visit to a friends yacht container for some new halyards, a play on the beach and lunch onboard we raised anchor and sailed to Tenerife.

View our position here:

https://cms.winlink.org:444/maps/positionreports.aspx?callsign=vk7hew

Sunday Island anchored at Francesca beach Isla Graciosa at 2230 on 30th October 2022. Emilie and I enjoyed a nice glass gif wine before retreating below for some well earned rest.

Everybody was awake and ready to explore early the next morning and we launched the Walker bay to row into shore. Our aim was to hike up the nearby extinct volcano however the kids were enjoying running about the beach and exploring rock pools for us to leave.

After lunch we pumped up the Zodiac and went for a nice snorkeling amongst the nearby rocky shoreline.

The next day we hiked up the volcano and enjoyed some spectacular views, then Em s as nd the kids hung out at the beach while I walked into town to get some supplies. When I returned to the beach it had become the No 1 tourist destination for the island so we packed up and returned to Sunday island for some snorkeling.

That evening we met some other Aussies and kiwi‘s from four different yachts in the bay for a few sundowners and a bbq.

It is interesting to see how much the type of yachts have changed as we have become more remote. In our bay alone there were three other Aluminium yachts with lifting center boards. All the yachts surrounding us are well equipped like us with wind vane steering and cruising rigs.

Today we are sailing to Playa Blanca in the South of Lanzarote. It’s great to be exploring this rocky volcanic coastline that is so absent of trees it was used to film Planet of the Apes.

I have added a few photos to my blogs written during the passage if you wish to look back in our blogs over the past week.

View our position here:

https://cms.winlink.org:444/maps/positionreports.aspx?callsign=vk7hew

28.10.22
Without the engine purring along we would have been becalmed today. We are motoring through glassy seas at 5kts towards Lanzarote. Occasionally wind will fill in from the SE at up to 8 kts, making for some amount of brief sailing. Since the work done on the engine this morning it is running well without any sign of problems. Though due to the delays of repair we only made 108nm today.

Teaching the kids how we danced in the 80’s

This morning we caught a good sized Atlantic Bonito Tuna which put up a good fight. This was our biggest fish landed to date, greatly assisted by our new rig and gaff.

The afternoon was so calm that we found ourselves motoring amongst a school of Albacore Tuna. The water was so clear that we could see hundreds of fish swimming alongside beside us. We remained on deck watching the show for at least an hour.

Issy has decided to make her own video’s of the voyage, and hopefully we can compile these into a bit of a video about life onboard Sunday Island.

Check out our position, course, speed and weather at:
http://cms.winlink.org:444/maps/positionreports.aspx?callsign=vk7hew

29.10.22
Sunday Island continues make her way to Lanzarote in light winds. The forecasted winds from the north have been less than expected, with only 8-10 kts of wind from astern, rather than the 15kts we hoped for in this part of the voyage.

All well onboard. The weather has been calm allowing for a few hours of school every morning. In the afternoon the kids are decorating the boat for Halloween cutting spiders and mice from paper and using ribbon to make cobwebs. Occasionally when we allow it Max has been enjoying watching nature documentary’s. His favourite focuses on the Adele Penguins in Antarctica.

We did not catch a fish yesterday despite changing lewars a few times. The fishing boats and nets have also disappeared since we got south of Cape Gihr.

Presently we are making 5kts towards a small island to the north of Lanzarote. We expect to anchor tonight, but still hopeful the wind will increase from astern so we can arrive in to the anchorage in daylight.

As forecasted light winds have been experienced on the passage so far so we have been motor sailing for the majority of the way. Trying to sail in 4kts winds gives us a speed of about 3kts and is no good for fishing. Motoring alone gives us a speed of about 4.5kts when cruising at low revs, but with the sails up we average about 5-6kts giving us a good boost. in speed and a perfect trawling speed.

In between wind lulls we have had some good sailing. We now have replaced the Yankee headsail with the big Genoa, and occasionally put up the Code Zero for extra power.

Our daily schedule is as follows. Rich does the 12-6 watch and Emilie does the 6-12. The kids sleep all night (hopefully). In the morning after breakfast Rich go’s to sleep, and Emilie does school with the kids. Before lunch there are radio skeds to do and other jobs around the boat. The afternoon is filled with projects with the kids such as science projects, reading book and playing Uno.

The voyage has been going well, with the exception of a small engine problem at 2am. The engine started revving up and down and I assumed it was a fuel problem, most likely with the governor. Starting from basics I checked the fuel system, found a loose bleed screw on the governor and by 0630 I had the engine going again. I love the old Perkins 4236 as it is a traditional engine and easy to work on and fault find. I don’t have to worry about possible electrical issues etc, its just air, fuel and the ignition switch.

We are motoring again now and expect the wind to fill in from the west today, and then back around to the NW through the day.

Check out our position, course, speed and weather at:
http://cms.winlink.org:444/maps/positionreports.aspx?callsign=vk7hew

Sunday Island is sailing in the Atlantic Ocean on our way to the Canary Islands!

We experienced a perfect execution of Gibraltar Straits yesterday, creeping along the shore to stay out of the tide until reaching Tarifa, then crossing to the south just as the tide turned and racing along at 8 kts with full sail

Once clear of the Traffic Separation Scheme, and south of the straits the wind began to drop off so we hoisted our code zero and glided effortlessly along into the Atlantic Swells. For Emilie and I it was a huge sense of achievement to be finally crossing oceans again. For the kids it was just another day at home as they did their crafts, read books and played with Leggo.

Whilst in Gibraltar I walked the entire island searching for a good fishing tackle shop and was rewarded with a pokey little shop, so crammed with fishing tackle that there was barely enough room for two people in the shop. I was rewarded with the purchase of a new Kona rod, Okuma 50II trawling reel and some great tackle. Proving Max’s Australian origin, Max had been asking to set “C’mon Dad, can we set up the big rig”, so once clear of the TSS, we set it up and started trawling.

At 1700, coinciding with the wake of our ol’ mate Marty (Family friend in Palma) when everybody was paying their respects in Palma the rod went Ziiinnngggg and we began to reel in our first tuna for the voyage. Marty loved fishing so I thought it was a fitting tribute!

Just after dinner on our first night we were joined with a pod of 50 dolphins who surrounded Sunday Island and escorted her towards Lanzarote, displaying some fantastic flips and giving us all a fantastic show. We have been searching a good set of books to identify dolphins, whales, sea birds and fish and we would love any recommendations for the set to order.

With lee cloths up the children went to bed in the forward cabin, and I went to bed aft while Emilie took the first of the night watches.

Check out our noon position, course, speed and weather at:
http://cms.winlink.org:444/maps/positionreports.aspx?callsign=vk7hew

This morning at 0700 it was still dark outside, and while everybody slept I began making final preparations to sail. At 0745 we called the Marina, let go lines, motored into Gibraltar harbour, then motored our way between all the cargo ships to the entrance of the harbour.

As we approached Punta del Carnero the sun began to rise, and the wind began to freshen. We hoisted the sails and began sailing into Gibraltar Strait.

High water was scheduled at 0630, so we sailed up the shoreline to keep out of the flooding tide, and make best use of the 2kt counter current up the shoreline.

We passed Tarifa at 1300, watching Incat 039 Tarifa Ferry take off from the terminal and overtake us at 35 kts. By now the tide was beginning to turn and the water around us boiled as we surged forward at 8.5kts. At 1400 we altered course of 240 towards the Canary Islands. We could not have asked for a more delightful and safe passage through Gibraltar Straits.

We are expecting light winds for the 600nm passage to CanaryLanzarote, which are not ideal, however due to the repeating low pressures in the Atlantic the northerly winds along the African coast have not settled. There was a potential window in 10 days time, however we did not want to delay our departure for the Canary Islands for that long. So we will drift our way along the coast and should arrive in the Canaries in about 6 days.

Our passage plan from Canaries to the Caribbean relies on the NE trades settling in and a good flow can already be observed so by mid November the trades should be well established in the right location for our passage. Our passage from Canaries to Antigua will take about 30 days. Our aim is to be in Antigua before Christmas and we should arrive Mid December, which is outside the Hurricane season.

Check out our noon position, course, speed and weather at:

http://cms.winlink.org:444/maps/positionreports.aspx?callsign=vk7hew