Lat: 13 degrees 15 min N

Long: 059 degrees 33 min W

Frequent readers of our wandering – both geographically and mentally – blogs may be beginning to wonder if we are really doing any sort of studies on the plastic refuse concentrating on our beaches globally. Stories of interesting people, obscure historical references and exciting adventures continually arrive on the website, with only the odd vague reference to garbage, plastics and their destructive effects. Critics could be excused for surmising that we are just sailing and surfing our way around the world but using a green/environmental/ecological message to try and attract attention to ourselves and maybe even secure a some free gear from our sponsors. Well, without some detailed exploration or our website, they would have ample evidence to prove their point. Yet those internet-savvy searchers would have found our page detailing our garbage studies up until South Africa (insert link).

The stories of incredibly friendly and out going people, beautiful beaches, crystalline water and undiscovered paradises all serve as a backdrop to provide contrast to the true polluted nature of our beaches.

For example, take Long Pond Beach, Barbados. Located on the sparsely populated east coast, just north of the infamous Soup Bowls surfing spot, Long Pond is a windswept beach that stretches for mile and miles, complete with all the tropical paradise fixings.

Palm trees, crystal clear water, squeaky white sand and no footprints of others. check.

Imagine a Hollywood movie set of a deserted tropical beach, perhaps with Tom Hanks and Wilson in the movie Castaway as a reference point, and you would have an idea of what Long Pond beach looks like.

Except for the fact that Tom and Wilson’s beach did not seem to have the multicoloured high tide line that we have found on EVERY beach we have visited. So what did we find on Long Pond:

– A toilet seat.

– glow sticks.

– old broken kids toys.

– aerosol containers.

– flip flops.

- 15 pieces of sytrofoam

- A sealed lightbulb

- A bbq scrapper

- 37 plastic bottles

- 85 bottle caps

- 2 forks,

- 2 glow sticks

- 6 flip flops

- 6 plastic buckets

- 59 pieces of fishing line and rope

- 2 lighters filled with lighter fluid

- Wheels from a childs’ toy.

- A knife handle

- Peanut container

- At least 100 random plastic pieces

- Hair mousse container with teeth marks scratched into it

- A toilet seat

- A huge garbage bag

- Plastic shampoo bottle

Remember this was all found on the sandy surface of the beach in just 100m of coastline, on a beach that runs for miles and miles… It is also away from any significant level of population density, on the windward side of Barbados with nothing but.. Africa and Europe upwind. So where did it all come from ? Well, it is a common misconception that most of the garbage on our beaches comes from those dastardly fishermen, container ships and ocean going vessels, when in actuality, 80% of oceanic plastic washes down rivers and creeks from our cities and towns, into the ocean. We are the problem.

The claim that all the garbage has spend months at sea, floating the 3000nm from Africa or Europe seem to be a bit of stretch. Or does it. where else could it come from? It is the end of the dry season here in the Caribbean so no streams, rives, storm water drains were emptying local refuse onto the beach; eliminating one source of pollution. Fisherman and beach users will always be a source of pollution, yet by traveling to an area of deserted beach, we hope to have minimized that local human source. Offshore fishing boats are be a definite source of pollution on Long Pond, but could not account for all the garbage we found.

So where does it all come from ? .. The South East Trade winds and the Northern Equatorial current, running at up to 2 knots, runs slap-bang into Long Pond and will deposit anything and everything moving in its grasp on the beach. Trace the currents and wind back and you find Europe, North and West Africa. As further evidence, the last item of our pollution list, the enclosed plastic shampoo bottle, had no English text on its exterior, only Portuguese. While the bottle may be constructed on PET plastic, which will photodegrade and sink on its own, the PVC screw cap can withstand all the corrosive efforts of the sun and sea, to keep the bottle filled with buoyant air and floating for untold thousands of miles.

The Archipelago of Fernando De Noronha lies about 340km due east from mainland Brazil. Rising steeply out of the ocean depths, these 21 volcanic islands are the direct result of an oceanic hot spot. A hot spot is a localized area of intense magmatic/volcanic activity just below the earth’s crust. When the heat becomes too intense, the hot spot will break through the earth’s crust and spout magma and lava into our oceans creating an island in the process. Once the pressure has been released, the lava will cool and once again choke the gap in the earth’s crust, allowing the island to cool and become stable. As the oceanic tectonic plates move, this process will be repeated creating a chain of islands making the movement of the plate over the centuries. Look at the Hawaiian Islands as a perfect example.

The beauty and unique fauna and flora of Fernando de Noronha inspired the Brazilian government to declare it a National Marine Park in 1988. In 2001, UNESCO furthered the protected status by declaring the islands a World Heritage Site. Each year the number of visitors to the island is heavily regulated with never more than 500 allowed on the island and each is required to pay a daily fee to help maintain the facilities on the island. Not all of the island is park, but the local inhabitants have created their own set of rules to keep their island paradise just that … paradise. They live on approximately 50% of the main island, but it has been designated that only 30% of their section may be developed. The effect of this legislation has made it impossible for any large hotel chains or resort developments that plague paradisical islands the world over. Instead, visitors stay in local “posadas” or guest-houses with the owners. Small and unassuming these lodgings do not cover the coast and tower over the best beaches on the island, but are rather located up in the hills and everyone is forced to walk to the beach through the endemic flora. Beautiful …

The local park administration has been extremely welcoming to the OceanGybe team. Over the past few days, we have been wandering waist-deep through the only island-based mangrove in the South Atlantic, walking kilometers of empty beach picking up garbage with paying volunteers (!), tagging hawksbill and green turtles, and learning about all the conservation efforts on-going in the archipelago. One of the major players in the conservation efforts on the island is the TAMAR Project, as mentioned in the last blog, and they are the most organized, efficient and forward-thinking conservation group I have come across. Their motive is to save and protect turtles, turtle breeding areas, and beaches on which turtles lay eggs. They currently protect 1,100km of Brazilian coastline under the supervision of 22 research stations. They perform all the necessary scientific research to investigate the effects of turtle decline worldwide, including mapping migratory paths, breeding patterns, effects of human occupation, etc and have created co-operative links with almost every major environmental group worldwide to ensure they stay current and up-to-date. However, the difference that struck me about the TAMAR project, was not their research but the methods by which they gain traction within the community.

Traditionally, turtle meat was a form of sustenance to the local population of Fernando (much like the rest of the world) and fishermen would hunt the turtles and their eggs to put food on the table. When TAMAR came to the islands to protect the turtles, one would expect there to be huge clashes and conflict over the new protected status of the turtles. However, TAMAR strives to create a community-run program and does not just tell fisherman not to catch turtles but rather creates other jobs for them within the program so they can assist in the protection of the marine habitat and also still generate incoming. Look it up online at www.projectotamar.org.br. According to the experts, one of the most significant causes of turtle deaths is due to misidentification of plastic bags as jellyfish, ie a food source, by turtles.

The OceanGybe team feels honoured to be allowed to stay on the island, and each morning as we head out for an early morning surf in the vividly blue crystalline water, we are accompanied by spinner dolphins and turtles curious to see what this humans are up to today.

Thought we’d give a quick update of what we’ve been up to since dropping the anchor in Porto Santo Antonio 7 days ago. Usual Khulula goes conspicuously dark once we’ve reach a port, especially when there are waves near by. Well, you’ll be happy to know that we’ve found some of said trans-ocean energy transfer features located on the beaches of Noronha. For the surfers out there, the waves here err on the side of as ‘straight hander close-outs’, but heck, after a month at sea, who’s complaining? Not us.

More importantly though we’ve met with a few of the local marine biologists and researchers on the island and learned a whole bunch about the different projects going on here. Firstly the TAMAR project, Brazil’s turtle conservation group, has an active station here. Last night we attended a presentation given by Luciana Brondizio on the 5 species of turtles that are native to Brazil. We learned that they have tracked turtle’s migration routes from the coast of Brazil to Africa, the Caribbean, Europe all the way to Australia. This explains our encounter with the turtle on the passage here from St. Helena!

Today we went along with a masters student from the mainland to collect water samples from the mangrove here on Noronha. Amazingly this is the only island mangrove in the South Atlantic. We had a great time wading chest-deep through the brackish water learning about the trees, crabs, frogs and other life that inhabits the ‘swamp’… until we had a run-in with tiny red biting ants. I’m a tough guy and all, but wow, that was painful. I had to make a mad dash for the ocean for relief. It was little comfort when Carol, our guide, assured me that the pain only lasted a few hours. She hikes through the mangrove everyday doing research. Now we know why she put long pants on just before we started.

Tomorrow we’re off on a “4 hour” beach hike to one of the remotes beaches on the island. The plan is to do a study of the plastic pollution on this beach as it faces the prevailing winds and currents. Incidentally, the environmental director of the park area told us that a refrigerator washed up on this stretch of coast not long ago!

Combine that with a few more waves and some good old chilling out, and our schedule is packed!

Welcome to sailing in the tropics when the wind dies. When wind doesn’t have the sufficient strength to keep the main sail and genoa full of air, every time the boat rolls with the swell, the wind spills out of the sails and everything goes quiet. Everyone awake waits…. a second or two passes….. WHACK, FLAP, WHACK and the wind fills the sails again and they slam back into place. Repeat all night. Turn the air temperature in the boat to about 32ºC and remove all good ventilation sources. Flogging is the technical term for this sort of sailing. I think I almost would rather be flogged …

Imagine how positive one is when you’re awakened at 3am to this situation. It is tough to suppress all the joy your feel.

Normally in this situation, we would have rolled in all the sails, turned on the iron wind (aka motor) and started chugging along our course at a decent speed. However, we’re currently about 850nm from land and only have enough gas for about 250nm. So we’re forced to conserve.

The other joyful side effect of this noise is the fact that we’re hardly moving anywhere. If we continued to move at the fantastic boat speeds we achieved last night, our crossing from St Helena to Fernando de Noronha would take us only 38 days. Then you really have to start wondering about water and food.

The saving grace of this situation is the spinnaker. As soon as day dawned enough for us to see our sails and rigging, we hoisted our symmetrical spinnaker and started hand steering the boat as best we could. Much better, until the day draws to a close, because we can’t use this sail at night since it requires two people to be awake at all times.

Most cruisers have a cruising spinnaker, DRS, asymmetrical spinnaker, or gennaker (all the same thing – just different names) which you can use night and day in these sorts of conditions without fear of getting yourself in all sorts of trouble if the wind picks up. We don’t have one of these sails, but are on the lookout/search for one.
If you are reading this blog and just wondering what you are going to do with that old gennaker/DRS on the boat, in the shed, under the work desk, in the loft, please wait no longer! Contact us and maybe you will let us borrow it for a while?

Praying for the wind to build, but not too much (Murphy hears these things!).

Frequent blog followers will be privy to our search for a mystical barrelling right hand point break on St Helena Island, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. When we arrived after 12 days at sea, we almost fell over ourselves getting off the boat, into a rental car, Sitka boards on the roof, Globe sandals on, Livity hats on and driving to the beach.

Lets back up a bit, so why did we think there would be waves on St Helena? Generally, in order for there to be waves on a certain island, there are a few prerequisites: swell exposure, favorable bathymetry and lack of wind exposure. There are huge amounts of other factors that come into play but these are the most basic ones.

Well, St Helena sits in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean with an interrupted swell exposure to both Northern and Southern Hemisphere swells. Low-pressure systems forming off Terra Del Fuego, Patagonia are infamous for their strong winds and huge swells. These systems slowly move eastwards around the Southern Ocean, and are responsible for most of the ocean swell in the entire Southern Hemisphere. The rough, tempestuous seas in the actual storm slowly begin to organize themselves as they move away from the creation area (the low pressure). Generally, much of the swell in the South Atlantic ocean travels in a North East direction, referred to as a South West swell (where it comes from). The further the waves travel, the longer the period of the swell (time between each wave crest) and it slowly decreases in size. In the case of St Helena, the swells have almost 4000km to organize themselves into a perfectly groomed long period ground swell. There are no land masses between their generation area and St Helena to cause the swell to bend, refract or generally deteriorate. Prerequisite number 1: Swell exposure, check.

Bathymetry is nothing more than a fancy word for underwater topography. Bathymetry describes the ocean floor elevations, the contours of reefs, the rapid rise and fall of oceanic seamounts, etc. In order for a decent surf break to exist, numerous factors must come all work constructively to create a rideable wave. In the very, very basic sense, you need a curved section of reef/beach /coral for the wave to run along. The orientation of this section of reef will define what swell direction is required for it to break. The slope up to the reef cannot be too steep or too shallow, it must be just right … This section is worthy of it’s own blog, so stay turned for that at a later date, but back to the case at hand. St Helena rises like a tower straight out of the South Atlantic, generally not a good bathymetrical case … Fortunately, according to our charts there were several bays with decreased seafloor slopes that showed some potential. Prerequisite number 2: Favorable Bathymetry, hmmm … well, not perfect but has possibilities.

Lack of Onshore wind exposure: Hmmm… there are two bays on the northern side of St Helena which would have perfect offshore winds 24 hours a day, 10 months of the year. However, the bays with the best bathymetrical possibilities were situated right in the teeth of the trade winds. Oh well, we were more than ready to surf any waves. Prerequisite number 3: Lack of Wind Exposure, less than average situation.

Looking back at our checklist, we have one positive (swell exposure), one maybe (bathymetry) and one bad (wind exposure). The next and maybe most important factor to take into play is the surfer. He/she will sometimes disregard all signs pointing to no surf potential, and waste endless hours of everyday searching for surf that doesn’t exist, at great personal cost, both financially and with regard to relations with his/her significant other. In the case of St Helena, the surfer effect was at an all time high and we were going to find surf no matter what anyone told us.

First step, ask the very official looking Customs agent, if he knows of anywhere to surf on the island. He replies, “No surf on St Helena.” First thought appearing in surfer’s mind, is that he is lying and trying to protect his surf spot from overcrowding seeing as St Helena is only 4000km from nowhere and doesn’t have an airport. Next, ask Immigration official, Port Control officer, Tourism Agency employees, store-keepers, and random pedestrians if there is any surf on the island. All of them trying to protect their secret by saying “no”, but surfer is not deterred.

Finally surfer must take matters into his own hands. He rents a car and gets an accurate map of the island highlights, detailing Napoleons grave site, a waterfall, and all the ancient castles on the island, but no contours, road types, or distances. Off he sets to the other side of the island, waving at all the friendly islanders, smugly smiling to himself secure in the knowledge that soon he/she will soon be riding the waves that all the islanders have worked so hard to protect. After getting lost on many of the unmarked circuitous “roads” on the island, he/she finally begins descending into the bay with the perfect barrelling right hand point break. Along some dusty, dirt roads with definite evidence of other vehicles (probably the guys who got there early for the dawn patrol, he muses), he arrives.

There is no surf on St Helena. Trust me …

Why not ? Surfing is one of those nature-based activities which requires the participants become attuned and aware of natures cycles. It is not played on a concrete court, a dirt field, in an enclosed box of a room, or any other manufactured landscape. The ever changing moods of the ocean ensure the participants to move within the natural rhythms of natures’ movements. Surfers are required to become almost obsessively aware of the changing of tides, seasons, dominant wind patterns and the cyclical nature of global weather phenomenon. In order to perform at even a basic level, participants are required to keep in a constant high level of fitness. You breathe fresh air, you are immersed in clean ocean water (we hope) and when you are done, and you walk away from the beach, waves will continue to break uninterrupted and there will be no sign left from your recreation other than a line of wet footprints on the sand and rocks.

As part of the OceanGybe Expedition, we have been extremely fortunate to be able to pass along this love, passion, healthy addiction to many others as part of the Sitka Surfing Outreach Initiative. Sitka Surfboards kindly provided us with 9 surfboards to distribute along our voyage to persons who have not been fortunate enough to have a surfboard available to them so they too can enjoy the stoke of surfing. An incredible step on their behalf to give something back to the sport that has given all of us so much.

So where to distribute 9 surfboards ? And how to make sure that they do end up getting used and cared for ? How to maximize their impact on the local youth and population?

We decided to break the boards up into two donation packages; one for the Indian Ocean and one for the Atlantic Ocean.

In the Indian Ocean, there are a multitude of small barely inhabited tropical atolls with some basic surf. On one such island we found the perfect location to donate the first set of boards. The local elementary (primary) school on the island is the main focal point for all the youth on the island, they organize events and try to keep the kids up with goings on in the rest of the world. As this school, they had been trying to run a small surf school at the local mushy beach break but the problem of getting enough boards was presenting a huge obstacle. The perfect opportunity for us to donate the first 4 Sitka surfboards. After giving a brief presentation about our trip, oceanic garbage and it’s destructive forces; we handed these four boards over to the principal of the school to use for there surfing program. To say the kids were ecstatic would be a gross under-statement, these boards would allow them to become like Jack or Kelly or another of their heroes.

So now, these 4 Sitka surfboards are carefully stored in an open air shack right on the beach front, available for any kid to come and use at any time (as long as they have cleared it by the school). The school sees to basic surfing training and passes along a message of ocean conservation to all the kids through their PE/PT classes. Such is the nature of this island, that the kids can leave their boardshorts, bikini’s, wax, sunscreen, leashes and all other paraphernalia at the shack with no locks, and just ride their bikes down there after school each day and have everything ready for them. What better place for these Sitka boards to be able to pass along the stoke of riding waves and playing in our incredible oceans?

Thanks to Sitka Surfboards for providing these boards to donate, and all the private individuals who replied to our facebook and website posting asking for fins to put in the boards. Your donations have gone along way to spread the stoke of surfing all over the world. We will be posting pictures and a short movie clip about this donation on www.oceangybe.com, www.sitkasurfboards.com and The Surfer’s Path website in the near future.

Longitude: 004 deg 09′E

The icy South Atlantic lapped against Khulula’s hull during the entirety of our Cape Town retrofit. Water temperatures of 14ºC dissuaded even the most hardy of us from going for a quick swim. If there was boat work that required underwater assistance, wetsuits were pulled out and long periods were spend standing on the edge of the dock, looking over the edge of your toes at the languid waters, trying to decided whether there wasn’t ANY other way.

The frigid Benguela Current travels directly from the ice caps of the Antarctic north towards Cape Town. The current moves up the west coast of Africa at a brisk 1-2 knots and its waters are often shrouded in fog, due to the extreme contrast between it’s cold waters and the intensely hot deserts along the west coast of Southern Africa.

It is into this current that Khulula sailed a week ago. Generally, when leaving South Africa en route to Brazil and the tropics, one will wait for a period of calm weather (hypothetically, because it is always windy in Cape Town – it blew 40-50 knots in the marina frequently) and ride the current north until it begins to warm and take on a south-easterly bent. At this point, one can safely assume you have reached the tropics and the trade winds will begin to appear.

Well, the crack crew of Khulula has managed to find a 0.5 – 1 knot counter current to sail against and frequent 25-35 knot winds. It is because of this fine example of precision navigation that I may loose the bet as to our arrival date in St Helena and have to buy the crew ice cream.

St Helena is one of only a few central Atlantic islands and is an almost forgotten outpost of the British Empire. It lies about 1700nm NW of Cape Town and 1800nm E of Brazil, making it a perfect stop-over on the Atlantic pond crossing. First discovered by the Portuguese in 1502, it was not settled until 1516 when a Portuguese deserter jumped ship there and stayed for the next 30 years! As with many other places on the route to the East Indian and Spice Islands, it became a heavily contested island with the English, Dutch, French and Portuguese all fighting for it’s useful strategic position.

Famous as Napoleon Bonaparte’s place of exile from 1815 until his death in 1821, St Helena is often described as a fortress with only one decent anchorage, known funnily enough, as “The Anchorage”. The island can only be reached by sailboat, cruise ship or the mail ship from London and while the airport is reputedly going to be completed in 2012, no one is holding their breath. The island population is approximately 5000 and are a mix of Portuguese, Dutch, English, Malay, Goanese, Madagascan, East Indian, African, Chinese, Boer, and a few American whalers. Luckily, English is the dominant language.

Given it’s location directly in the path of the Benguela and South Atlantic currents, we are hoping that we will once again be able to find conclusive evidence of plastic migration via our oceans. If we can find garbage of South African and Namibian origin, it will show how the pollution from these continental countries has effected an island far far from their shores.

While researching St Helena, we were drawn to the fact that is sits slap bang in the middle of the Atlantic and should be exposed to both northern and southern hemisphere swell regimes. There have got to be waves, but we have found next to no evidence or printed material about it. Just one random blog entry talking about a perfect barrelling point break … no more than those four words “Perfect barrelling point break”. Well, as soon as my feet touch solid ground on the island, I have one sure goal, to unlock the secrets of St Helena’s swell potential.

Latitude: 12 deg 05′ S
Longitude: 96 deg 53′ E

Cocos (Keeling) Islands group is an isolated cluster of islands approximately 2000 km due west of Bali, featuring two main atolls: South and North Keeling. The first recorded sighting was by Captain William Keeling of the East Indian Company in 1609, but remained uninhabited until Englishman William Hare arrived in 1825. Hare and John Clunies-Ross were the first two permanent residents of the islands, however due to conflicts between the two, Clunies-Ross was the only resident in 1831, when he was given possession of the atolls by the British Government.

Labourers were brought in from Africa, China, Indonesia, Borneo and Malacca to help develop the coconut plantations in an effort to boost the copra trade. Copra, an export from many island nations, is the dried “meat” of the coconut and is used in many different industries. In 1978, The Australian Government purchased the Clunies-Ross interests in the islands, and on 6 April 1984, the Cocos community choose to integrate with Australia.

South Keeling Atoll consists of 26 islands all loosely connected around the edges of a crescent -shaped atoll. Of all the islands, only three are regularly visited; West Island, Home Island and Direction Island. Home Island, the original island where Clunies-Ross lived day-to-day, is now home to the Malay population of the Shire of Cocos and follows a strict Muslim regime of no alcohol or pork. On West Island, is home to the Caucasian Australian Population, where almost everything available in mainland Australia can be found. The third island, Direction Island, is where all yachts are required to anchor is a pristine uninhabited paradise. Startling white coral sand beaches, brilliantly clear water with myriads of tropical fish swimming around the coral gardens just off the beach. Visiting yachties and the Shire have built a barbeque pit, a club house, fresh water tanks and a phone on the island, making it a perfect place to swim to off the boat and relax in the sun, while relaxing after a passage.

North Keeling is a marine reserve situated approximately 24 km north of the South Atoll. Completely uninhabited and with numerous restrictions on visitors, including not allowing boats to even anchor off the island, allows the local fauna, flora and marine life to live completely undisturbed. North Keeling also supports a completely natural forest, is home to thousands of seabirds and is a breeding ground to Green turtles. All in all, a true undisturbed Indian Ocean paradise… except for one thing: These two atolls are downwind and down current from one of the worst polluters on this planet, Indonesia.

Imagine walking down an absolutely perfect beach and seeing a bright red hermit crab crawling over the white sand beach toward the water, but instead of a shell, it’s home is a used photograph film canister. Such is life in Cocos. The leeward (non-windy) side of the islands are picture perfect but wander over to the windward side and be prepared to find a garbage dump big enough to rival a small town. And remember this island is uninhabited. The SE trade winds which power Khulula and allow us to cross oceans, blow directly from the Indonesian Archipelago to Cocos Keeling. The Equatorial South Indian Current, which runs at 1 – 2 knots, follows exactly the same path.

In parts of Indonesia, the intertidal zone (the area of beach between high and low tide) is the community garbage dump. At low tide, everyone in the village wanders out onto the reef flats and nonchalantly deposits their garbage in this area. As the tide comes up, this garbage is slowly drawn offshore and out of their minds. Out of sight, out of mind. They repeat this procedure until all garbage is removed from village !

The residents of Cocos are the unfortunate recipients of this lack of understanding of natural processes. Their beaches are covered with every imaginable plastic, rubber, mass manufactured piece of JUNK ever produced.

What can they do about it ? Possibly periodically clean up the beaches ? They don’t have the facilities to deal with all of Indonesia’s garbage and the task would be never ending until the problem is solved at the source. The chances of getting the Indonesian government to instituting a country-wide recycling awareness campaign is as likely as China become CO2 neutral country, i.e. no chance. Realistically, they have far more pressing problems like basic health care, sanitary systems and having enough food for dinner each night.

This example is a very graphic demonstration of how our actions can affect people and wildlife far beyond our daily comprehension. We need to begin to think beyond our shores and start to think of the world more as a small community, where every action has a equal and opposite reaction. As an example, Canadian students should to be taught more about the global village and become aware that our neighbours are not only Alaska and the lower 48 states of the US but also Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Tahiti, Tonga and all the other nations that we share the Pacific Ocean with. Our actions affect these peoples and their actions affect us. This sort of global geography, not based solely on continental landmasses but also oceans, should be instituted worldwide, because if we cannot visualize the connections we share with each other, how can we persuade people to care ? And that is the first step…

Latitude: 28 deg 43′S
Longitude: 34 deg 57′E

When planning our longer voyages, we tend to try and ensure that no-ones birthday will occur at sea. Why? Because the sea is an unruly mistress and seems to take unnecessary amounts of pleasure in disrupting occasions at exactly the most inopportune time. For example when serving food, or making drinks, one can almost be assured of an untimely roll and slide. So it is better to just not give her the chance to play her games. Unfortunately, for me, this time we had no choice, it was time to get to South Africa and we had to go… just have to chance this notoriously bad weather passage. I was less than enthused by the idea.

I woke this morning at 6:30am, a little confused. My shift started 30 mins ago… wonder why Hugh didn’t wake me up ? He was contently sitting in the cockpit, drinking tea, chatting with Guy. The sun was high, not a cloud to be seen and Khulula was rolling in the most comfortable manner. Maybe he didn’t notice the time ? Nope, on the stove were the beginnings of a yummy breakfast. Tea is made and Ryan is suddenly awake too despite only going to bed a couple hours ago.

Actions stations ! First a bottle of chilled champagne appears from nowhere (I should know I scour this boat frequently looking for stashed and forgotten goodies), mixed with orange juice and we have a fantastic sipping drink while breakfast of herbed potatoes, poached eggs, cheese, tomato, fresh bread and sautéed hot dogs is prepared ! A nice leisurely breakfast is followed by a a couple gifts. WHAT ? Gifts out here ? Yes. A fantastic card from Mom and Pop Robertson and a couple CD’s from John Middleton (do a google search – excellent stuff). The boys however went out of their way and surprised me with a premium 18 year old bottle of Scotch. Nothing but the best ! I have stashed it away till we get to Durban, where there are giant supplies of ice and numerous reasons to celebrate (My birthday, 10 000nm in one year, arrival in South Africa,…)

Our e-mail was filled with good wishes from family and friends, apparently some thought had gone into this day by Ryan and Hugh, because all these things don’t just happen. So what may have seemed like a mediocre way to celebrate my 27th year, turned into the most incredible way to celebrate. My only goals for today, are to write in my diary, drink tea, relax and listen to good music. Bring on the next year of adventures, epic surf, and good times.

Thanks to Ryan, Hugh and Guy for stepping up to make this such an incredible day. Thanks to our mother ocean from sending sentries of dolphins and whales yesterday to start off the excitement.

In an effort to turn this into a bit of a two way flow of information, I’m going to start by posting answers to a few of the common questions we hear from folks about the trip. Things like “What do you eat?” “How do you update your website [infrequently] from the middle of the ocean?” “Do you sleep at night? Or sail” And please feel free to fire us off an email if you have any other questions at all about the trip. See the Contact page for our addresses.

Often we’re asked what sort of technology we have aboard. And by technology, I mean modern technology. The sails and compass are invaluable, but what do we have a board that you might not expect? Like a printer/scanner. Lets break it down into categories of Communication, Navigation, Documentation and Safety. In this installment I’ll talk a bit about the technology we have aboard for communication.

As you already know, our laptop computer is one of the most important pieces of technology we have aboard. Not too surprising really, but it fits into all the categories above; serving as the hub for all the periphery devices. However, its two primary functions are receiving weather information and emails over the HF radio, and running our charting program, CMAP, which combined the GPS give us our position on the globe and in relation to any reefs and other navigational hazards (like sirens, for instance).

But before we get into the complicated stuff with the computer, lets start with basic communication. Most importantly is the VHF (Very High Frequency) radio. Most every boat is equipped with one of these. For short-range communication, less than 25 miles, it is the standard. When arriving at a new port we call customs and immigration on the VHF radio, when a large tanker ship passes close to us, we hail them on channel 16 to ask them to kindly not run over us. Once the ‘transmit’ button of our VHF radio jammed “ON”. The next day we learned from another cruising boat that we had been broadcasting the conversations from our cockpit to all the surrounding boats for the whole evening. Oops.

Now 25 miles isn’t that far. Our link to a world farther a field is our HF (High Frequency) or HAM radio. We use the HF radio to get weather information, send and receive emails, and speak to other boats as well as people ashore. So the first function is speaking with other boats and shore stations. On our way down to New Zealand we spoke to Ron Kolody in Vancouver and Peter Dei in California, over 6000km’s away. At the moment as we sail towards South Africa we speak with 2 land-base HAM radio operators in that country daily, as well as a number of other boats making the same passage.

Along with voice, the HF radio can also transmit data, aka email. Email using an HF radio? Yup! Pretty nifty, huh? Simply type a text email on the laptop, and our handy modem converts it to squeaks and squelches, similar to those noises that come out of a fax machine (once referred to as the urban mating call). The radio broadcasts these to a land-based radio station, which relays the emails to the in-ter-web and the intended recipients email addresses. Broadcasting data over radio waves in this manner is slow and can be temperamental; it can depend on the time of day, the distance to the shore station, ionospheric conditions (you’ll have to look that one up on your own) and even solar flares. But mostly it works.

Not only does email let us communicate with folks back home on a daily basis, we also send out blogs and get weather information via email. Blogs? With the invaluable and tireless help of Thea Robertson and Jess Sprowson, our website gets updated even while we’re in the middle of an ocean. After typing our missives on the laptop (which hopefully hasn’t been taken out by a wave or black magic) we send them off to Thea and Jess via email, over our HF radio (see above). These two faithfully upload our often longwinded ramblings to oceangybe.com for you read. Simple as that.

And weather: also over email. To get wind and weather predictions, the tool we most often consult is called a GRIB file, which again we receive over email. A GRIB is a computer-generated prediction of weather conditions that can be received over email. We send an email request to an automated (and free) service, asking for wind, wave and pressure conditions in our area of the ocean for a given time period, say, the next 72 hours. Moments later we receive an email with that information we requested. This is presented in a nice, easy to read overlay on a map of our area. It can be less accurate than a weather forecast made by an actual meteorologist, but is very valuable none-the-less.

The other common weather forecast we receive over the HF radio is a weather fax. This is a more traditional synoptic chart, vetted by a meteorologist. To receive these, we simply tune our radio and modem to a given frequency at a certain time of day, and a nifty program on the laptop decodes the urban mating call. Displayed is a map of high pressures, low pressures and frontal systems.

So there you have it, communication = radio’s and laptops.