sailing – SV Catching üP!

Saint Lucia: A Short Stopover

April 17, 2020April 17, 2020SV Catching Up

In the early hours of the morning Dad woke me up and we quietly raised the anchor on Catching Up. We carefully navigated around the yachts in Bequia and rounded the corner to make way to St Lucia. We already decided to skip the island of St Vincent due to time constraints. What I noticed about these passages that if you stay on the leeward side of the islands (the Western side), you get a much smoother passage.

Shortly after helping dad get going, I went back to sleep for the duration of his shift. 3 hours later I took helm as we were in line with St Vincent. I watched for hours at the isolated spots of lights on the island imagining what it would have looked like during the day. I returned to sleep for 3 more hours as dad came back up.

Caribbean Gem: Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

April 9, 2020April 9, 2020SV Catching Up

After a lovely long month exploring Grenada it was time to sail north to bluer waters. We cleared out in Carriacou and did a short sail (5miles/ 1 hour) to Union Island. Union island is one of the southern most entrance points for the Grenadines. What was was unique about Union Island was the little anchorage was almost a water Roundabout/Traffic Circle. In the centre of the anchorage is a giant circular reef with a channel surrounding it. We found a tiny sandy spot off what’s called roundabout reef and Dad and Dantelle went ashore to clear in. Soon enough they returned to come collect us and take us ashore.

Fernando De Noronha to Grenada: Celebrations, Confused Seas and Close Calls PART 2.

April 15, 2019March 30, 2020SV Catching Up

Most people have heard about piracy attacks off the coast of Somalia but few have heard of Piracy in the Caribbean … and no, I’m not talking about the exploits of Captain Jack Sparrow and his desire to attack the English fleet.

Off the coast of Venezuela near Trinidad and Tobago, there has been an increase in illegal approaches and attempted boarding’s of yachts. Apparently these people just want to steal your possessions either to aid other illegal activities or to make money from sell the goods. Most of these boats come from of Venezuela, where there has been some serious economic and political unrest. For this reason, it was recommended that everyone making passages towards the Caribbean take extra precaution around the waters of Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, which is exactly what we did.

The passage continued to be as bumpy and rocky as ever with the non-stop waves hitting the side of Catching Up. At this point, we had been at sea for about 12 days so it was getting slightly irritating being unable to walk in a straight line without bruising your hip against a counter. We were finally entering the “danger zone” as I like to call it. We sat down and decided that there was no point in going to Tobago or Trinidad and opted to enter at the top end of Grenada at its northerly island called Carriacou. Our new track pushed us North Westerly way above the original reported areas of pirates but it still meant we were about 100 miles off Trinidad and Tobago.

Fernando De Noronha to Grenada: Celebrations, Confused Seas and Close Calls PART 1.

April 14, 2019April 15, 2019SV Catching Up

Firstly, we are so sorry for the missing articles! We have been having a blast cruising up the Caribbean. In between the cocktails, cleaning and exploring islands we have had little time to write. Not to mention the wifi has been less than satisfactory. Anyway heres the next one. Enjoy!!:

Leaving the iconic rock of the Brazilian island behind us, once again we set off on a long passage with one less crew member. Now only having 5 people on board we decided to change our watch schedule to 3 on 6 off. Unfortunately, this watch schedule did not work very well and quickly we returned to the 3 on 9 off watch schedule we were used to. This was at the cost of me losing Dantelle as my watch buddy. Yet again, it was back to the monotony of doing long distance passages. The nights got broken with squalls and the odd container ship that would pass near by. We were warned about possible debris in the sea and the countless fishing boats that hug the coastline up to 100 nautical miles away from land. We opted to sit about 200 miles off the coast. The passage did give us good fortune with a huge current pushing us along Brazil’s coastline. Read more →

Passage: St Helena to Fernando De Noronha, Brazil

February 26, 2019SV Catching Up

The time had finally come to say goodbye to our friend Andre and our new friends the Benjamin’s. On The 30th of December 2018, Catching Up lifted her mooring lines and set off for Brazil. Originally, we were set to travel to Fortaleza, Brazil however, due to the increasing crime rate it was decided that Fernando De Noronha would be a better option. After contacting St Helena radio to inform them of our departure, they quickly responded with a relay message from SV Bahati a fellow Knysna 500Se (hull 88) that was inbound. Malcolm Van Der Merwe was skippering Bahati to Barbados and then onto Florida and held some of our spares. St Helena radio patiently played back and forth to let us know that we needed to wait a few hours so Bahati could catch up and deliver our spares. After going adrift for a few hours, Bahati finally was around the corner and made radio contact. Malcolm carefully positioned Bahati so her bow was on our starboard side and the box was thrown to us and landed on our trampoline. A few short hello’s and a chat later, Catching Up was off to Brazil!

The first day was as usual mixed with excitement and nervousness at the 1500-mile journey lay ahead of us. Our watch schedule would remain the same so soon it was back into the routine of wake up, eat, sleep watch and repeat. The first night moved on very fast and it was time to celebrate the New Year on Catching Up! On-board we set all our clocks to UTC so we have no issues confusing time zones; as such, we commenced our countdown with 10 seconds to go. We had a Cargo Vessel just passing us as the clock ticked over to midnight. Suddenly a faint little voice on the radio popped up and said “Woo happy new year!” and then silence. It was nice just hearing other boats around the area were celebrating as we were, in the dead of night at a shift change. The days continued to blend together with the only other major highlight being the fish we caught.