SEA BEAR IN THE SOUTH ATLANTIC

Peter Passano

(Flying Fish 2002/1carried the story of Peter's qualifying passage from New Zealand to the Falkland Islands, for which he was awarded the Qualifier's Mug even though it took place back in 1995. However neither he nor his 39ft cutter Sea Bear have swallowed the anchor since then.

After a visit to the UK in summer 2001, they set off south via Spain, Portugal and the Canaries - where Cino Bendinelli joined for the passage to Brazil - after which Peter 'went quiet' for several months. This, it transpired, is because there is no handy e-mail terminal in South Georgia...)

Sea Bear sails to South Georgia

Brazil's coast offers some very interesting cruising, but since my super buddy and shipmate Cino Bendinelli left, I had no one to share it with. My 72nd birthday was coming up in a couple of weeks so I decided to splurge and treat myself to a super birthday present - a cruise to South Georgia. I had long wanted to visit this remote and unique island and here was the perfect opportunity.

My departure was delayed a couple of days waiting for minor repairs to a couple of sails. By the time they were finished, the weather didn't look too good with a depression coming up the Atlantic. I left anyway. I wanted to get to South Georgia by the end of January and it was 2600 miles due south. I left on the morning of Saturday 5 January and had light airs from the northeast to south the rest of that day. On Sunday the weather couldn't seem to make up it's mind. It was slow going but I resisted motoring. It felt good to be back at sea and I was in no hurry. Lots of sail changing as a series of squalls with thunder and lightning came through after dark. Then the wind went southwest (offshore) and freshened. It brought millions of insects - flying beetles, moths and dragonflies. They were exhausted and apparently attracted by Sea Bear's lights, so they settled down for a rest. They were everywhere, on deck and below.

The next 24 hours were wild as the depression went through. Wind from every point of the compass and from slatting calms to force 7 (30 knots) kept me very busy. I added them up and found I made 31 sail changes in 34 hours! And on Sea Bear a sail change involves more than just a few turns on a furling winch. We do things the old fashioned way dig the new sail bag out of the lazarette, drag it forward, drop the old sail, hank on the new, re-lead the sheets, and set the sail. Working alone the whole operation can take the better part of an hour, with many trips back and forth from cockpit to foredeck. By midnight Sunday I was beginning to wonder why I was torturing myself this way, but the very next day I started the longest sustained stretch of easy and pleasant sailing I think I've ever had. For a week I hardly touched anything. I sailed 1000 miles, with daily runs of 130 to 150 miles, in remarkably steady force 34 southeasterly breezes.

I couldn't see the island at first because of low cloud hanging over the mountains, but it cleared as we approached Cape Saunders and I had a beautiful view of the Allerdice Range, including Mount Paget (more than 9000ft) and Sugertop (more than 7000ft). As we neared Larsen Point the magnificent Nordenskjold Glacier at the head of Cumberland East Bay came into view. Lots of fur seals and penguins in the water, but no sign of human habitation whatsoever.

The first sign I saw was a white cross on a hill behind Hope Point as we entered King Edward Cove a memorial to Ernest Shackleton followed immediately by the dilapidated buildings of the abandoned whaling station at the head of the cove. I handed sail and motored in, calling the harbour master on VHF Channel 16 as I entered. A very pleasant voice answered immediately and commented that they were expecting Sea Bear any day (I had faxed a request for permission to visit South Georgia to the government authority in Port Stanley, Falkland Islands just prior to leaving Brazil). The harbour master suggested I come alongside the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) wharf at King Edward Point and clear in. There was a New Zealand charter boat Braveheart at anchor, and two other sailing yachts tied alongside over at Grytviken. One I recognised as Tim and Pauline Carr's Falmouth Quay Punt Curlew.

The harbour master / marine officer took my lines as I came alongside and then came aboard and went through the drill. Pat was very efficient, thorough and informative. He took a lot of time explaining some of the unique features of the island and the rules and practices that the government requires visitors to abide by in an effort to preserve and protect the flora and fauna. When we were finished, Pat invited me to join him and his wife Sarah for tea in their lovely new apartment at the top of the beach overlooking King Edward Cove. A colony of King Penguins reside outside their front window and give the impression of Park Avenue doormen standing around on the sidewalk on a winter day.

Sea Bear in South Georgia

To give an idea of the remoteness of South Georgia, if you head southeast from Atlanta you fly over Florida, Cuba, Jamaica, Columbia, Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay and then 1500 miles of open ocean before arriving at South Georgia ... 5825 miles from Atlanta. And you'll need your mittens.

So why was I so drawn to South Georgia? I think my attraction to this remote and rugged island started with Alfred Lansing's book Endurance, telling of Ernest Shackleton's attempt to cross the South Polar icecap in 1916. The highlight of the adventure was his trip from Elephant Island to South Georgia in the lifeboat James Caird, and then his 36-hour overland trek from King Haakon Bay on the southwest side of the island to the Norwegian whaling station at Stromness on the northeast coast. It was a remarkable feat by an extraordinary man. Then a few years ago Tim and Pauline Carr produced their book Antarctic Oasis, a wonderful description of the island and its flora and fauna, illustrated with Tim's beautiful photographs.

I arrived 26 January and lay alongside the BAS wharf overnight. After talking to Tim Carr I decided to move over to Grytviken, where Sea Bear lay alongside Harpoon Jetty just astern of the half sunken whaler Albatross. It was right in front of the Whaling Museum and the Carrs' comfortable house. After I had made Sea Bear secure, Tim asked me if I was interested in hiking over the hill to Maiviken Bay on Cumberland West Bay. He assured me that it was an easy hike and a good opportunity to see penguins, seals and many of the birds that nest on the island. I jumped at the chance to be guided by an expert.

It was a beautiful day, warm and sunny with no wind at all. It couldn't have been more perfect, and the wildlife is amazing. The animals are very fearless and you can get quite close without disturbing them. We saw hundreds of penguins (kings, gentoos and macaronis) as well as black-browed and grey-headed albatross, petrels, skuas and arctic terns. There are thousands of fur seals, whose population is increasing to such an extent that they are infringing on the habitat of some of the other animals. The fur seal is quite aggressive and will attack and bite, but if you clap your hands it will stop and back off. The elephant seals are huge, weighing several tons, but just seem to lie around in the tussock grass like the world's biggest couch potatoes. Many of the seals and penguins were moulting in January and spent most of the time ashore.

The next day a medium-sized cruise ship arrived carrying 122 passengers, mostly American. After coming ashore and visiting the museum, the whaling station, Shackleton's grave and the church (which had been pre-fabricated in Norway), the ship went round to Fortuna Bay and put a group ashore to walk the last four miles of Shackleton's trek to Stromness. Geoff Green, the expedition leader, was kind enough to let me accompany the group. It was rainy and blowing and one part of the hike was pretty steep, but it was nice to meet a number of interesting people. We saw a lot more of the animal life including a herd of reindeer (the Norwegians introduced reindeer to South Georgia years ago). At Stromness the ship picked us up and returned us to Grytviken.

A yacht named Joshua from Squid Tickle (I love that name) in Newfoundland was also in Grytviken. The owner and his wife were doing scientific survey work and had been there for some time, and while I was there the charter boat Pelagic owned by Skip Novak arrived. After a few more days taking in the sights I sailed around to the east and overnighted at Cobbler's Cove. The next day I went into Ocean Harbour, where an old iron three-master lays on the south shore, and I was able to climb aboard and have a look around. However exploring around by oneself is, in my opinion, a bit dangerous. The water is very cold, and if you fell in or injured yourself ashore you could be in a serious predicament. The weather is hostile and can change very quickly in particular the wind can come up very strongly and if you are ashore, you may not be able to get back to your boat. The wise people take full kit ashore (sleeping bag, stove etc) in case they have to spend the night. Most places have no shelter, but there are huts in some of the anchorages.

Sea Bear goes for a 'growler'

After a week in South Georgia the weather seemed reasonable and I decided to leave for Cape Town. The first three days' sailing were tough, with winds of up to 50 knots from the northwest. My strategy had been to sail due north to cross 'Iceberg Alley' as soon as possible, but due to the strength and direction of the wind I was forced northeast more than I wanted, which kept me in the ice. The problem with ice is one must be on deck all the time. Radar picks up icebergs very nicely but doesn't see the 'bergie bits' and 'growlers' that are constantly calving off the bergs as they melt in the above-freezing water. In my opinion the only safe thing to do after dark, is to heave-to and drift with the ice, so although I was sailing fast during daylight, as I had to heave-to for eight or ten hours every night my overall daily progress was slower than usual.

One mistake I made was not being adequately prepared clothing-wise for this kind of sailing. I had been able to run my diesel heater the whole time I was in South Georgia, but couldn't seem to keep it lit under sail. My single set of warm clothes got wet, naturally, and I couldn't dry anything out. The only solution was to climb into my sleeping bag with the wet stuff on and let my body heat dry it a bit a miserable existence. I was particularly ill-prepared in the glove department. I had a pair of neoprene diving gloves but they just got wet and stayed wet. I kept a sink filled with warm sea water, and would come below periodically and soak my hands in it with the gloves still on.

After three days I was only 350 miles northeast of South Georgia when around mid-day the wind backed into the southwest and moderated to 2025 knots, though the sea was pretty rough and there were lots of whitecaps. In the afternoon the ice seemed to thin out dramatically. I was over 100 miles north of where I'd seen my first ice on my way south. About 1600 I passed an iceberg and it was the only one in sight. Visibility was excellent. At 1800 there was no ice in sight except that last berg on the horizon behind me.

Then it happened. I had gone below to warm up and enter the log. I was only below for ten minutes and was starting up the companionway when BLAM, we hit ice. Sea Bear had perfectly T-boned a 'growler' about the size of an 18-wheel trailer-truck. She was trying to sail right over the top of it. I let all the sheets fly and slowly we slid around one end of it, the foredeck covered with big chunks of ice. I had a good look around the horizon and there wasn't another piece of ice in sight.

Sea Bear has a short, tubular bowsprit made of two 2" (50mm) steel pipes, with a 3/8" (10mm) 1x19 bobstay running from the end of the sprit to the stem at the waterline. The whole construction is massive. As my ex boat partner Bob Van Blaricom used to say when we were building Sea Bear, "too big doesn't break". Well it didn't break, but it came close to it. When we hit the ice at 6∙5 knots Bear rode up on it and then slid back. Now the bow sprit, instead of a hairpin shape, looked like a New York pretzel, and because it had bent upwards the fore and aft rigging had gone slack. I tightened it as much as the turnbuckles (bottlescrews) would allow, but it was still not right. The most serious damage was that the bobstay was stranded. At least four out of the 19 strands were broken 21% but the exact extent of the damage was impossible to tell from on deck. I was lucky the mast and the whole rig hadn't come down around my ears. The only positive aspect of the accident was that I was able to fill the icebox with bits of the bergie.

I still had 2650 miles to go to Cape Town, 20% further than a normal Atlantic crossing I'd just have to be very conservative and not set too much sail on the forestay. At that point I hove-to for the night. I had been up since 0400 but still didn't sleep too well thinking about what lay ahead of me. I was anxious to get north to get out of the strong winds and the cold. Also, when I got out of the ice I could sail through the night. So far, I had hove-to on five nights and lost 49 hours of sailing time.

When I finally got above 43°S a strange thing happened. I was sailing like gang busters before a force 6 westerly when all of a sudden the wind quit completely. Just like that one minute lots of wind and the next minute, nothing. It was like I'd sailed into a coat closet and someone had shut the door. The calm lasted for ten days during which I either sailed very slowly or motored. Apparently the South Atlantic high was much further south than normal.

On Sunday 3 March I reached Cape Town after 26 days and 3020 miles. I was never so relieved to reach port as this time. I found two other yachts at the Royal Cape Yacht Club that had also hit ice in the same general area. An American in a 35ft aluminium sloop had hit ice at night and destroyed his roller-furling headsail gear. A Japanese hit a berg, also at night, and broke one of his spreaders as well as sustaining damage to his fibreglass hull. Both were hauled out for repairs when I arrived. Fortunately Cape Town is a good place to get work done on a yacht everything is available, the only hitch being that it takes time. The exchange rate is favourable and prices are low. An excellent hamburger is $1 and a pint of beer 88 cents. Looks like I'll be here until mid April...

TAILPIECE : Sea Bear heads for home

In fact it was nine weeks and well into May before Sea Bear was ready to sail north with her new 'nose job'. Peter and new crew Catherine enjoyed a "slow but very pleasant passage" to St Helena, followed by a "long but happy trip with zero sailing breeze for the last 1000 miles" north to Bermuda, arriving on 1 July. Sea Bear had covered 6233 miles during 48 days at sea, including one period of eight days in which she covered 1278 miles, an average of nearly 6·7 knots. Peter, who clearly has the knack of picking good crew, added that: "Catherine, my crew, who heretofore had never spent a night at sea, was great. She never complained, never got sick, never missed a watch, never got bored and seemed to love every minute of the trip. She did all the cooking and produced delicious meals all the way".

Sea Bear finally arrived home on 14 July, six days out of Bermuda, and anchored in Chandler's Cove on Chebeague Island, itself in Casco Bay, Maine, where Peter had spent many happy hours sailing as a boy. She had left the States 13 months previously, taking her departure from Cape Henry, Virginia, and sailed a total of 21,500 miles in that time, visiting the Azores, Ireland, England, Spain, Portugal, the Canaries, Brazil, South Georgia, South Africa, St Helena and Bermuda.

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