Caprice At Sea

	TORPOINT MOSQUITO SAILING CLUB Cruising Section Caprice at Sea

From: Denise & Ian Caprice Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2007 5:24 PM To: website@tmsc.org.uk Subject: Caprice in the Canaries! Hi All Well we made it here, Lanzarote that is. We arrived at 5 mins past midnight on 28th onto the welcome pontoon at Puerto Calero marina, having travelled 675 miles from Sines in Portugal in 5 days & 10 hours (avg speed 5 knots per hr). However the trip turned out to be much more adventurous than it sounds above! Our friend Ray Day arrived in Sines on Wed 21st & he and Ian went off and studied various internet weather forecasting sites (plus Ray had brought satellite downloads of Atlantic weather for the next week). We had already decided we would not go if conditions were unfavourable, mainly due to my (Denise) unusable right hand. The boys decided conditions were ok - up to F6 winds for 1st, couple of days, behind us & then we thought we would be motoring due to lack of wind. How wrong can you get! After first night, we had nearly 4 days of gales, heavy seas, torrential rain, thunder & lightening like you have never seen. One gust registered at 50 plus knots & waves were 5 metres plus. The cockpit was filled with sea water on several occassions & Ian & Ray took lots of water in the face! Due to conditions, they had to keep hourly watches, which was very tiring for them both & didn´t allow for much sleep in between. However, we ate hot meals throughout the passage. Sustained some damage to Caprice, the most annoying being our saloon table/cabinet which went as Ian fell against it, sending it flying off it´s mountings & across the cabin. It had to be lashed down until we could secure it better later. It did though restrict our usage of the saloon. Seas damaged the dodgers, wind generator and ripped our oars off the dinghy. When the table went flying I was unfortunately sat near enough to have it hit against my damaged hand, which had us all worried. I've since found out that I have now got a small break in the upper right of my thumb & am yet again in a splint & p----d off! We couldn't have done this passage without Ray's help and am most grateful to him for his good humour, watchkeeping & galley slave duties. Cheers mate! It is expensive in this marina, so we hope to move off to a cheaper one in the south of the island whlst I give my hand some respite. Once we have done some island sightseeing, we'll go over to Fuertoventura next. The good news is that it is warm and sunny, temps about 73 degrees (21C), so life isn´t all bad. We plan to tour each island, staying until mid March approx, before making our way back to the Algarve, probably via Madeira, and into the Med. Please keep in touch & let us know if you are holidaying in this area. Love Denise & Ian x Caprice From: Denise&Ian Caprice Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2007 3:09 PM Subject: Caprice update Hi folks We are still in the marina at Sines, on southern Atlantic Portugese coast, awaiting the arrival of Ray Day next Wed (21st). Ray is coming to help with the 5-7 day passage down to the Canary Isles, subject to the weather conditions being favourable next week. Most of you know that I (Denise) broke a bone in my right hand several weeks ago whilst in Oporto. I had it operated on & pinned together whilst back in UK. I am still wearing the full splint & cannot use it to hold anything in or hold on. Hence our need for another pair of hands as it puts too much on to Ian when sailing a long passage! We are fairly late to make this crossing & if all else fails, we'll have to stay in the Algarve area for the winter. Sines is a very quiet Portugese only resort, but the marina is excellent and staff friendly. I spent 8 weeks in the Uk with my parents whilst Ian did all the maintenance work on Caprice in Nazare boatyard. He worked very hard as he took the hull back to basic gelcoat, removing years of antifouling! His brother in law then joined him for a week to sail the boat down to here, stopping off in Lisbon area en route. Meanwhile I had the chance to catch up with friends, including a 2 day trip to see Stella in Leigh on Sea. We have now sailed over 5000 miles since buying Caprice 2.5 years ago, nearly 2000 miles this year alone. Yesterday we took a day bus trip inland to Beja, the ancient Roman capital of Portugal. Lovely town, with medieval castle. We had a commemoration lunch whilst there to celebrate the life of our good friend Di Mac, who sadly died recently (it was her funeral yesterday). At 2pm, the time of her memorial service, we toasted her with her favourite tipple, recalling the many happy times spent with her and Pete. That's about all for now. Will let you know whether it is wintering in the Canaries or Portugal, but meanwhile please keep in touch. Love Denise & Ian xx From: Denise & Ian Caprice Sent: 25 September 2007 13:24 Subject: Aug news from Ian & Denise Hi to all Currently anchored off Portosin marina, in Ria Muros, West Spain, awaiting nr gales to blow through. All is well with us and only about 1 week behind where we wanted to be at this stage. I'm delaying my visit home until mid-Sept, when cheaper to travel and we hope to have the boat layed up out of the water for 4 weeks until mid-Oct (will get me out of anti-fouling!) in either Nazaire or Cascais, just north of Lisbon. Have had some very hot weather (30+) and for once, fair winds! What has so far been great about the Spanish leg of our trip is not having to pay for moorings. Out of 47 days in Spain we've only been in a marina for 7 nights, elsewhere either anchoring or on free mooring buoys. This NW/West side of Spain, with the large Rias (like sea lochs) are wonderful to explore & like mini cruising grounds in their own right. Also, very often even at this peak time, we have a lovely anchorage to ourselves. We survived the Coast of Death and have now passed the Earth's End (i.e. Cape Finistierre - the Romans named it Finis Terre). Lots of large dolphin groups, not only on passage but around the moored boats in anchorages - always a lovely sight. Coming across some serious cruising/liveaboard yachts now, from all over the world (probably several are heading south to join the ARC (a large group crossing over the Atlantic in November). A few Brits, but we still haven't had any chance to socialise with anyone since leaving Rob and Av in June, so lovely when we get phone calls from friends and family, to talk with someone other each other! We stayed at Sada (near La Coruna) on the N coast for 4 days, as we were rudely awoken at 6am one morning by the wind generator parting company with the bracket on which it sits. No damage done to the generator, but the bracket welds had broken (the Vice-Commodore will be getting our warranty claim!) and required strengthening and rewelding - at a cost of 120 euros! Took a bus into La Coruna for a look around and to visit the Torre de Hercules, the oldest working roman lighthouse. We've found chandleries very hard to find in Spain - have needed a repair kit for our bilge pump and cannot get anywhere (Ian has done a Heath Robinson rubber glove temp repair). Favourite spots have been Rias Cedeira and Vivero on N coast, both very scenic and Ria Camarinas & Muros on the W coast. We took a 2 hr bus trip (again very cheap) from Muros to the city of Santiago di Compostela. This was one of my "must see's" and it didn't disappoint, as the old city is beautiful and the Cathedral is just fantastic. Very big and ornate exterior, some of which dates back to 11th century and which contains the bones of St James. You may know that it is at the end of a famous walk known as the Pilgrim's Way. We then treated ourselves to an evening meal in Muros - calamari and sardines! Ian painted his rusty bike (donated by Rob) a lovely shade of grey bilge paint and has rediscovered how much he enjoys the cycling. We've had a few long walks, but does´nt seem to stop me getting fatter! Glad to hear that the weather has improved in UK. Although my car is now sold, so will have to "bus it" when I return, I do hope to catch up with some of you. Hope those of you with boats are getting some good sailing in and our non-sailing friends are having a good summer hols. Missing you all, but not quite enough not to continue south. Love Denise & Ian x Caprice From: Denise & Ian Caprice Sent: 25 September 2007 13:21 Subject: Latest news Hi all This will be a shrtih email as having to be typed using my left and only some of you already know that unfortunatelt I (Denise) had a fall in the street whilst in Oporto just over 2 weeks ago. Besides usual cuts & grazes and banging head, I bent my right thumb back when I landed. Although it swelled up badly, I assumed it was a bad sprain as could still move it. We then did a hundred mile passage (nearly all motoring as little wind) to Nazare where we had our lift-out arranged. On arrival, the manager;'s wife is an ex nurse & she looked at it but didn't think broken, so I carried on strapping it up and climbing up/down the ladder to the boat (lift-out went well). I got a plane frm Lisbon to UK on 13th, as planned, to visit my family for 3 weeks. However hand got worse and finally I had it checked only to find I have a broken bone between thumb and hand! It was operated on last Fri - it has 2 pins holding together and was put in plaster. Going to be about 4-6 weeks before the pins can be removed, so my visit home has extended! Ian is carrying on with the maintenance work - scraped all old anti-foul off back to gel coat. He is hoping his son (Simon) may be able to join him in proceeding down to the Algarve one she goes back in water, about mid-Oct. Missing him!! Anyhow I'm at Saltash until end of Oct approx, so hope to see some of you. We still hope to get to Canaries if weather ok when I return. Denise x