THE SAGA CONTINUES ...

Reverend Bob Shepton

(Being the further adventures of Dodo's Delight and her crew as they continue their circumnavigation.)

After our return to the Falklands from Antarctica with half a mast the next few weeks were quite stressful, organising the new mast and insurance, renewals and replacements and some new gear we had found we needed anyway. Without the support and indefatigable efforts of our Trustees back in UK, and Chris Smith in particular, we would never have succeeded so quickly, not to mention the RAF agreeing to freight the whole mast and rigging out on the Tri-Star, albeit at a price! And then there was all the practical help and hospitality of people like Carl and Dianne Freeman, who should be Port Officers for the Falklands for any ocean going yacht club as they do the job out of natural kindness and interest anyway.

At the same time there was the tension of a decision to be made. What do we do now -- which way should we go? In this I was greatly encouraged by the positive attitude and sound advice of Jerome and Sally Poncet who returned to Stanley at this time from South Georgia in Damien II, and who after twenty years or more of sailing down there are the acknowledged experts on Antarctic sailing (for a while when Phillipe Poupon, resting from Fleury Michon's breaking up, and Christine arrived in their cruising boat, there was quite an unusually French enclave at the Town Pier!). Jerome in particular assured me that the Antarctic would still be open well into April, and even into May some years, and that April could be a good month to round the Horn. "Sometimes more gales, but less severe"!

So eventually, at 1200 on Thursday 17 March, with half a sheep hanging from the gantry (no need for a freezer here!) we slipped our lines from the Town Pier. We spent some time sailing up and down tuning the new rigging and servicing the sheet winches which chose this moment to demand attention, before putting out again into Drake Passage. Our abiding memory of this third crossing must be one of frustration, due to lack of wind! We were trying to save the diesel as much as possible for the high pressure of Antarctica, so we kept wallowing and waiting for wind. We were a crew member short on this leg as one lad had decided to return home from the Falklands, so we spent some time trying to adjust the Aries when we were sailing. This had kindly been lent to us and we had used it successfully before, but for some reason had trouble with it this time -- perhaps it was the light airs. Eventually we gave up and reverted to an old Autohelm I had brought along just in case. It got progressively colder, but this time we had a cabin heater which the skipper even lit occasionally. Altogether, with some use of the engine, the crossing took seven days and five hours, only one hour shorter than coming back the other way with half a mast!

The entry into Antarctica through English Strait more than made up for it in terms of interest. By now the wind was blowing, and we tacked inside the Asses Ears to save time and distance and wondered whether all the rocks were shown on the chart. But the cartographers and surveyors who had made the Admiralty charts in days gone-by had got it right, and those rather violent swirls and eddies were tidal effects and not rocks. And that is a whale following us and blowing, and not another rock? So with a huge swell from astern and wind and tide from forrard, we swept sedately through the narrows past the headland of Fort William once again. They were surprised and delighted to see us again at Arturo Prat, and imagine our surprise when eventually on landing we came round the corner and there was our mast! Or rather the top half of our old mast set in concrete as a sign post to Valparaiso, Base Marsh etc, with `Trozo del mastil de Dodo's Delight 1994' at the bottom. "You are part of the history of Arturo Prat now" -- a kindly touch (I think).

They topped up our diesel and water, led us into their glacial pool -- slap into the submerged rock as before, of course -- entertained us right royally and kept us up late on our second night, but we managed to get away early in the morning for Deception Island. On this passage we encountered a first for all of us -- sailing in a fierce snow blizzard. Certainly I had never seen the decks, and sails, so plastered and deep in snow before. Luckily we had brought our ski goggles. A big following sea built and Neptune's Bellows, that narrow cleft forming the entrance to the huge volcanic crater that is Deception Island, did not look in benign mood. We continued to run under a small headsail in rather disturbed water with spray mounting the cliffs to starboard, but all was well and once through we turned sharply to starboard into Whalers' Bay and anchored close inshore at the far end in volcanic sand, for a very breezy night.

We much enjoyed exploring the old British base and whaling station next morning, and that was where the skipper discovered he could run faster and further than a pursuing fur seal. But then the fur seal was not in a panic! Later we moved on and were suitably impressed with the anchorage in Telefon Bay, a small round sea filled crater formed by the eruption of 1969. The next morning the temperature was still -6C and the anemometer was still frozen solid from the previous snow storm, but we motored out into a clear sunny day -- one of the few we enjoyed in our stay in Antarctica, in spite of continuous high pressure. What sailing we were able to do that day took us to the east of Trinity Island, with the unforgettable experience of motoring through runs of brash ice and past icebergs big and small, in the clear moonlit night. Eventually we found a pleasant anchorage in an inlet by a penguin rookery on the north shore of Chionos Island, just off Trinity. We will pass over the fact that until the morning the skipper thought he was behind Awl Point on Trinity Island -- very confusing these lumps of rock and ice all mixed up in the moonlight! Not that it made any difference of course.

There was a lovely moment in the half light of dawn next morning when all the penguins queued up on the rocky shore, dived into the water in quick succession, and swam out to sea past both sides of the boat with that strange leaping action they have in the water. Then a moment of concern when a big iceberg astern suddenly took off on the spring tide and sailed past, not so very far from the boat. There seemed to be quite a lot of ice around, generally brought up from the south on the prevailing wind, but there was also a lot of clear water as we made our way past the dramatic ice cliffs to starboard and down the channel between the two islands, and then on towards the Gerlache Strait. We encountered an extensive field of brash, bergy bits and bergs off Cape Herschel which required careful attention as we threaded our way through the leads, and another even denser and more extensive field off Hughes Bay. Here there was another unforgettable experience when a huge nuclear submarine of a humpback whale swam towards the boat and dived under just short of us.

At this time of year there is darkness of course, and as there was cloud and no moon we had to anchor because of the ice, so made our way over to Murray Harbour. The ice and snow seemed to have advanced and covered the island in the subsidiary inlet that Jerome had recommended to us, so we went into the main harbour past a big grounded berg in the entrance. This is a circular rocky amphitheatre and ridiculously deep, but we managed to find depth for an anchor and moor in an inlet just inside the entrance to port. We put pitons into the rocks (I knew that old climbing gear would come in handy sometime) by some seals who did not chase us this time, and hammered stakes cut from angle-iron from the rubbish tip at Stanley into the snow. We kept an anchor watch, and were intrigued when most of the ice in the harbour suddenly took off on the spring tide and sailed out past us. We had to fend off some bits, but fortunately we were out of the main line of fire.

Next morning we climbed the nearby mountain slope and took the inevitable pictures, before motoring the comparatively short distance to Foyn Harbour. Here we sought out and moored up against the wreck of an old whaling ship, and it proved one of our best anchorages. We motored round in the dinghy to a nearby island to examine some old wooden whaling dories we had spotted drawn up on the snow. Reminiscent perhaps of Moby Dick and Captains Courageous, but these were thickly planked and decked all over. We wondered how they had been propelled as there seemed no place for mast or oars? It was here also that we collected pure melt-water from an ice cave in the cliff opposite the boat, streaming from the roof with its own small stalagmite and stalactite. It was a bit scary, as these glacial ice cliffs do move and one day it will collapse, but they only move very slowly and it was delicious water.

After a peaceful night (without an anchor watch) there was sufficient wind next day to sail and we tacked down the Gerlache Strait avoiding ice where necessary. That night we had to invent an anchorage for ourselves beside a small promontory and the inevitable penguin rookery, on the east side of Lion Island. We had lines ashore as well as anchors out, which was fine until a growler came round the corner on the current and got between us and the shore. It kept sailing back towards us on a reverse eddy and a busy night was spent fending off -- even after it had grounded, as then the boat kept veering towards it. Finally the skipper hauled in on a side anchor, which just about kept us off.

The lads were a bit concerned next morning when we were `pursued' down the Neumayer Channel by five killer whales, but they looked pretty benign to me, almost showing off as they rose out of the water with an apparently supercilious grin on their faces. Even so, I was glad they didn't decide to play with the boat. There was quite a lot of ice again, especially in the dog-leg of the channel, but the sun came out and the mountains sparkled and shone. As there was still mist over Port Lockroy we went into Dorian Bay to stay in the sun, and were suitably impressed with the narrow, shallow entrance up against the small ice cliff of the shore. We visited the empty but well maintained British hut ashore and generally enjoyed a great day exploring in the sunshine, followed by another peaceful night.

The Lemaire Channel certainly was impressive, with mountains on either side and the comparatively narrow passage. More humpbacks sleeping on the surface and plenty of ice on the approach, and then a great big iceberg grounded slap in the middle of the narrows. We took the starboard side and managed to squeeze between the iceberg and the sheer cliff, taking pictures as we went. Then more fields of ice on the other side, and as the anchorage at Peterman Island looked full of small bergs we called up Faraday Base on the VHF. They advised us of the best approach, but we missed French Channel in the confusion of ice and snowy islands and so pressed on down the Penola Channel. Finally we were pushing our

way through brash with no leads at all, with the lads poling from the bows in the Meek Channel to the Base, before breaking through thin sea-ice with the boat and making a hole in it with the anchor to moor in Stella Creek. The boat wasn't going anywhere that night!

For some reason Mohican haircuts seemed to predominate amongst the lads of Faraday, but they were kind and helped us as much as they were permitted, and perhaps a little more besides. We spent Easter Sunday there, and two days later found ourselves pushing through more brash out into Drake Passage once again. We went a little further south (to 6515'.32S) just for the sake of it -- I rather wish we had gone further still as it was clear out to sea -- but then dutifully turned north-west. We passed Cape Horn 490 miles to starboard in Lat 64S on 6 April, and rounded the Horn fully eleven days later when we reached 50S. Jerome was right -- it was not the severity of the gales that stick in the mind but their frequency. The course became rather wavy navy from 60S onwards as we followed the winds in the depressions that spin across the Southern Ocean and down the coast of South America.

A pattern established itself: a night and day of gale and strong wind, a night of lesser wind, a day and night of gale and stronger winds, intermission, gale ... right through the 50s, the 40s, and even to a lesser extent into the 30s. Being lazy we developed a technique of simply taking down the mainsail when it got too strong and close reaching under the No 3 on its inner forestay, rather than transferring the main-halyard to the trysail and attaching sheets, even though it was already rigged in its track. When the wind was that strong we didn't feel like staying on deck longer than necessary, and the trysail was in any case not very effective with the wind before the mast. It was all rather wearying, but one force 9 was from astern and there was nothing too severe, and we even had to motor for 2 1/2 days through the centre of a high before finally reaching Easter Island on the night of 8-9 May.

We could still not anchor as it was dark and windy, and as our only chart was the map in Thor Heyerdahl's book we hove-to offshore. When beating up for Hangaroa next morning a Danish ship radioed to say that the anchorage was dangerous in those winds and to follow him. We eventually anchored in Vinapu Bay, round the corner on the southern shore, 3788 miles and thirty-four days out from Antarctica.

So now we have been to Isla da Pascua with its debated history, mysterious moais (statues) and murderous anchorages; to Pitcairn with its luscious free fruit and mutinous, magnificent inhabitants (all fifty-one of them); and Papeete with its charm and mega monolithical monetary prices! We have also been on the wind for some two thousand miles when, according to the weather charts, the wind should have been south-east and abaft the beam ... but, perhaps I'll be allowed to tell you about all that at a later date?

(Only briefly at this stage, I'm afraid! Not long before going to press Bob wrote from Darwin, Australia. From Tahiti and its capital, Papeete, Dodo's Delight had enjoyed following winds to Bora Bora and thence to Fiji, calling first at Suva and then Lautoka. Then 4 1/2 days of strong winds blew them to Port Vila, Vanuatu -- `an earthly paradise' -- and on to Ambryn Island and Espiritu Santo. Another eight days saw them passing Papua New Guinea and entering the Torres Strait, where they enjoyed `beautiful sailing in a strong breeze ... past green and sandy islands fringed by turquoise coral sea', then out into the Arafura Sea. And so finally to Darwin, where Dodo was lifted out `for a bit of work and TLC to keep her going for the next half...').

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