It was a balmy summers evening in Bermuda and Lolly and I were enjoying an after dinner drink with David Lewis. We had just told David about the boat we had made an offer on when he said “Don’t do it – don’t buy the boat - come sailing with me around the world on the Blue Water Rally. So in December 2003 David, Clair Milner (David’s significant other) Lolly and I sailed David’s Condor, a J160 to Antigua to meet the rally boats when they arrived there from Gibraltar and the Canary Islands.
After Christmas we picked up Dr. Colin Couper in Aruba then sailed to Sepibenega a small key in the San Blas Islands in Panama where the Rally had set up its headquarters. The Cuna Indians were friendly, generous and gracious people. Canoes would visit the boats bringing fruit and vegetables from the farms on the mainland while others would bring coconuts or fish for us to buy. Enterprising youngsters would sometimes approach shyly and invite us to take their pictures – for a dollar!
It is difficult to visit the San Blas area and not get hooked on molas, the beautiful embroidered art of the Cuna Indians. After a couple of weeks our cabin was filled with molas and Lolly was accused of trying to corner the market. We enjoyed the peace and quiet of the islands and had a great tour of Rio Esadi on the mainland. The Rally had organized a rendezvous in Portobello on the coast just 20 miles from Colon so we left the San Blas to join modern civilization where there were roads and noisy trucks and cars. Colin had to leave us here and so missed out on the ‘excitement’ of the Panama Canal passage.
Each yacht was required to have a skipper and four line handlers and each had to carry a Canal pilot. At dawn we rafted with Nademia (a Warrior 38) to port and Gee Whiz (a Scanyacht 39) to starboard under the watchful eye of a huge crocodile. The locks took a bit of line-handling coordination but we passed safely into Gatun Lake, the pilot took us the short route through the islands and we went under the Bridge of the Americas just after noon and so passed into the Pacific Ocean. Lolly and I returned overland to Colon to help Brian and Jill Newton bring New Crusader through and it was more enjoyable the second time in part because we knew what to expect.
Panama City was quite a contrast to Colon with a vibrant business community and numerous shops and hotels. Our time there coincided with Carnival and a rollicking good time was had by all. Lolly and I together with Brian and Jill Newton escaped on a fascinating day’s expedition up the Chagares River to an Indian settlement at Embera Drua.
On the 29th February we set off on the 800 mile leg to the Galapagos and had our first experience with the twice daily Rally radio net on SSB. The morning net is used to record positions and weather while the evening net is more of an opportunity to report problems, warnings of weather and to have a chat with the other boats.
The Galapagos certainly lived up to my expectations as a marine biologist and the naturalists on board the mini cruise ship Expedition that we were on for four days were well trained and knowledgeable. The Galapagos is unique as there is no other place on earth where all in one afternoon you can swim with reef fish, sharks, flightless cormorants, penguins, iguanas and sea lions then go ashore and walk among row upon row of marine iguanas basking in the sun or among families of sea lions with mothers nursing their young.
Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz was a charming small town that surprisingly was well stocked with most things that a visiting yacht would need including fuel, propane, fresh fruit, fresh baked bread and vegetables and a selection of tinned foods. It was also well stocked with tee shirts and other tourist items, and a number of good restaurants.
On the 19th of March we left for the 3,000 mile passage to Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas. I was concerned that the long trip would be tedious but found it was anything but. There were always things to fix, sails to trim, or reef or take down, cooking, cleaning and eating, fishing and preparing the fish, reading, writing and just watching the flying fish, whales, dolphins, and seabirds and enjoying the scenery both in the day time and at night.
At dawn on the 7th April, Nuku Hiva appeared out of the mist, dark green and craggy. We motored into Taiohae bay and dropped anchor 18 ˝ days after leaving the Galapagos. We spent the next two months cruising French Polynesia and I was amazed at how different the islands were and how these differences were reflected in the lives of the people on the islands. The Marquesas are high thickly forested islands with little reef development and little development of tourism in comparison with the Tuamotu and Society groups of islands. The Tuamotus are low, flat islands while the Societies are high islands with well developed fringing reefs many forming keys or ‘motus’.
From Nuku Hiva we went to Rangiroa in the Tuamotus and then on to the Society Islands where we visited Tahiti, Moorea, Huahine, Tahaa, Raiatea and Bora Bora. A longtime friend, Steve Caldwell, joined us in Papeete to see the Society Islands and to SCUBA dive. Of these Islands, Moorea and Huahine were our favorites possibly because we did more snorkeling and exploring there.
We were ‘model’ tourists in Moorea attending folkloric shows, feeding sharks and sting rays and buying black pearls for an anniversary present. In Huahine we anchored behind a motu over a sandy bottom in12 feet of the clearest water I have ever seen. We enjoyed swimming, snorkeling, exploring the island and having beach barbeques each evening at the invitation of Augusta, the eldest son of the Chief. Steve left us here taking a ‘puddle jumper’ to Tahiti to catch his international flight home.
Unfortunately while at Bora Bora we managed to burn out some wires on the auxiliary generator and felt we had no alternative but to back-track to the boat yard at Raiatea for repairs. The yard’s solution was to cut a hole in the cockpit floor and lift the generator out for their electricians to work on in the shop. Instead David and I rigged a lift on the boom, hoisted the generator to clear its bed, rotated it in the engine room and David fixed the burned wires on the back end.
We were now well behind the rest of the fleet, so we made directly for Tonga some 1,400 miles to the west. Weather on the way was mixed with 25 to 30 knots some days (we made 427 miles in 48 hours at one stage) while others found us motoring and wishing for just a little of the heavy weather. We arrived at Vava’u in the Kingdom of Tonga at dawn on the 21st June and motored into the fjord-like harbor greeted by hundreds of tropic birds that were nesting on the high cliffs and islets.
We daily went ashore to the shops, the fresh produce market and to oversee the printing of “S/V Condor” tee shirts at Tropical Tease a business run by Cindy Russell-Hardin who had had been sailing around the world with her husband but decided to stay awhile in Vava’u. .
Certainly one of the highlights of our stay in Tonga was attending Leslie York’s birthday party at la Paella Restaurant on Tapana Island. Getting there (and back) involved a taxi ride, wading across shallow sand flats to a waiting dinghy then short boat ride to the restaurant – all in the rain. It was worth it, the paella was terrific the music and flamenco dancing entertaining and all performed by the owner (and chef) of the restaurant and his wife.
At our next stop at the Savu Savu Yacht Club on Vanua Levu in Fiji we were entertained each evening and provided with an afternoon of traditional Fijian dancing, a kava ceremony and a Fijian feast of suckling pig and fish wrapped in banana leaves and cooked over hot rocks.
We made an overnight sail across the straits known as Bligh Water to the Musket Cove Yacht Club on the Island of Malolo Leilei to learn that Lolly and I had become grandparents (for the fifth time). Musket Cove was wonderful, the staff were helpful and the facilities were fantastic for in addition to electricity and water on the dock, we had the use of the beaches, pool, TV room, restaurants, small but well stocked grocery and general goods store, Hobie cats, wind surfers, kayaks, the Rata Nemani Island Bar and the adjacent barbeque pits that were daily stocked with wood.
David and Claire got married as did Benno and Margrite from Doctor Bird (an Amel 53); the latter couple opted for a traditional Fijian wedding, complete with sulu for Benno and a fancy sari for Margrit all made from Tapas cloth. The Schneider’s and Lewis’s held a joint reception in the evening at Dick’s Place Bistro Bar and Restaurant that the staff had especially decorated for the occasion.
We had crew changes at Musket cove when Matthew and Shelagh who had sailed in Fiji with us returned home; Lolly returned to Bermuda to help our daughter with the new baby and would join the crew again in Australia; and another Bermudian, Doug DeCouto, joined us for the 1,800 mile leg from Fiji to Cairns.
On the way to Cairns we caught just enough fish to have fresh tuna every couple of days but we did miss the fresh bread that Lolly would bake on the long trips. On the morning of the 6th August dawn broke to reveal the high mountainous coastline of Queensland and before noon we were alongside at Marlin Marina where Customs Officers and Environmental Health representatives cleared us into the country.
Cairns is very much a “tourist town” but it is also the most pedestrian-friendly city I have ever visited. It is a young person’s town with lots of backpackers, restaurants, internet cafes, shops and malls. There are also ample things for the older set like museums art galleries, a fine botanical garden and movie theatres.
We hauled Condor at Norship Marine to have the bottom done, and the generator, which had died on the way from Fiji, rebuilt. I met Lolly on her arrival in Sydney and spent several days exploring the city before taking the night train to Melbourne to meet up with friends from university days.
It was a fun and relaxing time and we did the usual tourist things in Melbourne and Sydney. When we got back to Cairns, David and Claire flew to Sydney for their holiday. While Condor was stuck in Cairns Lolly and I visited the Atherton Tablelands just to the west of Cairns and flew to Alice Springs to join a camping tour of Ululru (Ayres Rock), Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) and King’s Canyon. The spring flowers were a treat; we saw a dingo; were confronted by a herd of brumbies and saw more wild camels than kangaroos but the scenery was undeniably spectacular.
Back in Cairns the generator was reinstalled; Clair flew to Darwin for the Rally briefing on the Indonesia leg while David, Lolly and I took Condor the 1,400 miles around the top to Cullen Bay Marina at Darwin. Actually we had to get inspected and sanitized before we could enter the tidal lock into the marina. We picked up our visas, did a bit of shopping and on the morning of the 12th of October we were going out through the lock on our way to Kupang to clear into Indonesia.
From Kupang we sailed directly to the port of Benoa on the southern tip of Bali and went alongside the floating dock at the ‘Royal Bali Yacht Club’ which was to be our home for the next two weeks.
Together with Brian and Jill Newton and Peter Goldsmith (St. Barbara) we went on a four day tour of Ubud, the volcano at Batur, the coast at Pekutatan and to the driver’s uncle’s farm on the hills above the Pulukan River. We got back to the marina to find that the sail training ship Concordia had arrived with seven young Bermudians on board and it was great to swap sea stories with them.
Leaving Bali we paired with New Crusader for the 950 mile sail to the Nongsa Point Marina on Batam Island to officially clear out of Indonesia. On the 11th November we crossed the Singapore Straits, which are reputedly the busiest shipping lanes in the world, then threaded our way through the hundreds of ships anchored off the Singapore waterfront to the Republic of Singapore Yacht Club next to the West Coast Ferry Terminus.
Facilities at the Yacht club were first rate with two restaurants, a large pool, games rooms, exercise rooms, library, children’s play room and an attached small hotel. We had a great time doing all the ‘tourist’ things with our daughter Jill, her husband and two children (5 and 7 years old) who stayed nearly two weeks with us in a suite at the Yacht Club.
From Singapore we sailed up the Malaccan Straits to the Island of Langkawi off the coast of northern Malaysia and from there we went on to visit some of the islands in Thailand on the way to Phuket. We stopped at Ko Muk which is a beautiful small island with shear cliffs rising from the sea to their forested tops. We explored the ‘hong’ or cave that opened into a magical, totally enclosed lagoon with beach and lush forested steep hills behind. There were butterflies everywhere and just as Lolly and I were leaving the beach a flock of raucous but beautiful hornbills flew in.
The next morning we stopped at Phi Phi Don to help organize a venue for the Rally Christmas lunch and we were lucky to get the Jungle Bar and Restaurant on the north beach of the island to host us. From here we sailed over to the Yacht Haven Marina where we berthed for the duration of our time in Phuket.
Phuket is an interesting mix of modern and ancient. There are more than a dozen Buddhist temples, including the famous Wat Phra Nang Samg or temple of the reclining Buda; active rubber plantations with their herds of water buffalo; bicycles and ‘tuck tucks’ buzzing in and out of cars and trucks and huge multistoried shopping malls with deluxe movie theatres.
David and Claire decided to spend Christmas in a hotel at Kata Beach so Lolly and I teamed up with Peter Goldsmith to spend the holidays on board St. Barbara at Phi Phi Don. We had a good time snorkeling until chased by a sea snake; a wonderful Christmas Rally luncheon at the Jungle Bar and the next day (Boxing Day for Bermudians and “Brits”) we went snorkeling on Phi Phi Le with Alistair and Carolyn Roberts off Nademia.
The tsunami hit while we were in the water snorkeling but we and our sail boats all survived and for that we are thankful. St Barbara had slipped her anchor but was rescued by Dick York so we spent the night offshore and returned the next morning to look for anchors and Lolly went ashore with Dr. Elizabeth Walker and her family to help on the Island. Later they returned shattered physically and emotionally after assisting numerous tourists and locals who still needed medical help but also counseling for shock. Conditions on the Island were gruesome with wrecked buildings, rotting food and bodies, many still uncovered lying where they had been washed under the bushes. After we returned to Phuket Lolly and I took the opportunity to get away from the coast for a while and spent three days in Chaing Mai in the mountains. We both arrived back at Phuket relaxed and in a much more positive frame of mind. Lolly left Phuket on the 11th January 2005 to return to Bermuda and the next morning Condor left the marina bound for Cochin the new Rally way point because the seaport and marina at Galle in Sri Lanka had been badly damaged.
We picked our way across the Andaman Sea, dodging floating trees and other large pieces of debris during the day and keeping our fingers crossed at night. In the Indian Ocean we went south around a tropical storm, dodged more tree trunks south of Sri Lanka then, because we were so far south, put into Male the Capital of the Maldives.
Because of the threat of piracy in the Gulf of Aden, the Rally had split the fleet into three groups of boats according to size and relative speed capability. We met up with the other boats in our group on the 6th February on schedule and with virtually no wind, we motored to Djibouti where we anchored off the ‘Yacht Club’ now run as a Military base.
On the 14th February we entered the Red Sea through the narrow Straits of Babel Mandeb with 15 foot seas and 20 to 30 knots of wind over the stern. The wind stayed with us for a day then dropped to almost nothing and we motor-sailed nearly the whole way to Hurghada in Egypt, cleared Customs then motored through the reef to the Abu Tig Marina in El Gouna an all inclusive gated tourist development in the desert 20 miles north of Hurghada.
I flew home to Bermuda and spent two lovely weeks with Lolly, our daughter Susan and her family and met my six month old granddaughter for the first time. On the way back to the boat I met our son James in Cairo where we toured the Museum, Pyramids, and Sphinx; joined the Rally tour to Luxor and the Valley of the Kings and received enough history of ancient civilizations to last me for quite some time. A highlight of the tour was an afternoon cruise up the Nile in an ancient Felucca with tea being served by the crew. We returned to El Gouna and James flew home to Dublin where he is working.
At Suez we were split into two groups to go through the Canal with each group having a Pilot. After being delayed by sand storms the transit was done in two parts, the first as far as Ishmalia then on the 5th of April the northern section to Port Said where we dropped the pilot, put up our sails and entered the Mediterranean doing eight and a half knots towards Crete. After spending the last year and a half sailing in the tropics, it was absolutely incredible to see the snow covered mountains on Crete. We berthed at the marina at Aghios Nikolaos at the eastern end of the Island and it was a pleasant change from the dusty deserts of Africa.
The Rally officially ended in Crete after we had a great tour of the eastern end of the Island, a couple of dock parties and a farewell dinner complete with traditional Greek dances. It was a wrench to say goodbye to so many who had become friends over the past 18 months and with whom we had shared so many experiences. Fortunately this drama was softened somewhat as three other of the Rally boats were also headed to Bodrum on the south coast of Turkey. I said my goodbyes to David and Claire in Bodrum and on the 2nd of May flew to Istanbul to meet Lolly for the start of our month-long tour of Turkey. In July we completed our world tour by flying back to Bermuda via the U.K. and Ireland.
Footnote:
The J160 proved to be a joy to sail short handed with its small jib (on roller with a soft luff) and large mainsail with two deep slab reefs controlled from the cockpit. Condor was easy to handle both on and off the wind and she gave us a good turn of speed under most conditions. Below, she is comfortable and has the best galley of any boat I have ever sailed.
The Blue Water Rally helped us through travel formalities, managed to get us berths at many of our stops, organized social events with host clubs, provided us with a schedule that completed the rally in only 22 months and, most importantly, provided us with 15 to 20 companion boats crewed by like minded people who became good friends.