I hope my mother doesn't read this

Sometimes at sea and thousands of miles from land I see some things that you wouldn't believe, some of which I feel blessed for seeing and others I wish weren't there. On this passage from Cocos to Mauritius alone I have seen two sharks of decent size. One of which was by chance as I was looking out of the cockpit and saw something going the other way about 8ft long and shark shaped, the other when I was on deck alone and the fishing reel went mad as a few metres of line spun out very suddenly at high speed. Because the lure wasn't far out the back and as I was reeling in I could see what I'm sure was a shark in the wave behind the boat. It took one more bite at the lure then let go and swam off. I think I'm glad it did because having a shark on the back of the boat is really going to upset it and I'm not sure I'd want to go anywhere near it to get the hook out. Next up of things at sea was just today at about 1100 miles from Mauritius and the nearest point of landfall. It is not unusual in the Indian Ocean to come across pirates but they are normally further north and not usually this far out to sea, so when I noticed a boat not very far away I immediately called Bry and Tosh up to have a look. There was a fishing boat about 80ft in length, flying the Indonesian flag and sat at sea anchor. Sights like this can feel a bit unnerving. As we got closer and started to pass this vessel it was apparent that there was no fishing gear on board and the whole boat felt a bit lifeless bar a few young men on the aft deck. From my experience in this area of the world I would put it down to either immigrants in a broken down boat or sat there waiting for a drop from one of the numerous big cargo ships out here of drugs or people. Maybe they were just innocently fishing. We will probably never know and in a way I'm glad that we didn't find out, I just wish these obstacles weren't out here because a boat of that size sat to a sea anchor is not in a position to be able to get out of our way and I'm not sure how well lit at night they would be if at all. 

Paradise

Our passage from Bali was in a beam on swell, rolling the boat but in plenty of wind so much speed the whole way. This would always be my preference over smooth but slower. Our route to the Cocos Islands took us directly through Christmas Island along the way, both of these places are Australian principality so just calling in to Christmas Island for a look around wasn't really an option with having to clear in and then out with customs and immigration although I've heard through other sources that the locals are best described as 'local'. A couple of days further on and an atoll appears over the horizon, always with palm trees as the first sight, we are at the Cocos Islands! It was apparent immediately that this was a special place and our first encounter being the most curious, laid back and show off dolphins we have seen on this voyage so far, with a lot of underwater and above surface displays from them. The main anchorage for yachts is at the north eastern tip behind Direction Island because the rest of the huge lagoon is uncharted and shallow in most places. Upon anchoring we were greeted by more of the local wildlife in the form of a curious turtle and lots of black tip sharks.

Being one of the first boats into the anchorage was definitely a bonus as we got to see it in all of its glory. 

There is a bit of history to go with the islands including the falling out of the founding Australian business partners, one of whom was banished to the duly called Prison Island for 3 months until leaving on a ship. This was a small but great place in itself and a few of us had sundowners there

One of the highlights of a stay was a ferry laid on by Oyster World Rally organisers, Debbie and Eddie, which took us to the International Champagne Festival on West Island. This is the largest island of the group but still with only a few hundred residence and all very friendly. The evening was in the local pub which conveniently for the locals is also the shelter in an event of a cyclone.

October 19 also brought with it Bryony's birthday. Especially after my birthday ten days earlier I know how important it is to have everyone around and have a good time, so with the help of the girls on Lush, Audrey hooked me up with a delicious cake and Lucy did some Cocos themed artwork on one of my crew t shirts which I then got signed by a few people with birthday wishes. The previous evening I had had a fair bit of champagne so the morning of the 19th was less than subtle as I was blowing up balloons with the occasional one bursting in my face. All in all a great success and thanks to everyone involved. Next stop Mauritius

Indonesia

What an amazingly bustling, hectic place full of friendly people. It was in Kupang that we cleared in through customs and obtained our cruising permits allowing us to tour the islands. In kupang there was also the Oyster party which featured most of the top figures in the city to greet us all along with some excellent local food and drink for the evening. Unfortunately I had two mishaps that evening. One at the start when I drove our tender through a mooring line for a small local fishing boat which cut it and the boat drifted off slowly, in my defence the line was about 100 ft long and under water, luckily the boat was recovered quickly. The second was when I got back to Proteus a bit later than Tosh and Bry, walked into the corner of the cockpit table and fell on my right knee twisting it badly. This would put me in a lot of pain and nearly out of action for a week or two. It still isn't fully recovered now three weeks later. Arranged by our top Oyster representative, Debbie was a trip up to the local orphanage. Along with this were many toys to play with including pen and paper. These kids didn't have anything and the boys even had to sleep on the floor! So off to the bed shop on the way to buy mattresses for them to sleep on. It was even apparent that the staff hadn't been paid for months so a donation was made to help them too. There is a bit of corruption in Indonesia and it seems bizarre how the police can afford a new shiny helicopter in comparison!

After Kupang we made our way up and round the North of the islands which is by far the most picturesque route full of beautiful bays, beaches and reefs. This took us round to Rinca in the Komodo reserve, home to many thousands of Komodo dragons. We took a tour along with others from Amelie, Spent, Sulana, Wolfhound, Purusha and Serendipity. This took us a long way round the reserve where we found Water Buffalo and the Komodo dragon. One buffalo was having a bad week and had been bitten by a dragon and was in the long process of slowly dying.

Next along was a trip to Gilli Air, a party island and fun place.  Once more there were a few Oyster yachts here and we had a big dinner ashore and a snorkel in the afternoon to cool off before up early to leave for Bali.

The sail to Bali was brilliant with good breeze, an interesting crossing across one of the busiest shipping straights in the world (not very daunting for anyone who has been across the English Channel on a busy day) and the sight of hundreds of the local, outrigger fishing boats going the opposite direction to us

Now tied up in Bali International Marina. This isn't as glamorous as it may sound and I may have had too higher expectations for the marina after hearing its name but the staff were very friendly and helpful and the bar was good. Bali is by far the most manic place I have ever visited, even more so than Kupang. The absolute highlight being a few of us jumping on new 250cc Kawasaki dirt bikes and heading inland up the mountains. This turned out to be an incredible way to see the island although Tosh and myself with very similar riding experience (neither of us can actually remember the last time we rode a motorbike) really did over sell ourselves to the tour guide and told them that we had ridden thousands of times and it as all good. So we set off and after a few metres were on the beach riding at high speed on the sand and over technical rocky outcrops. At this point it was running through my mind that I was massively inexperienced for this and there was almost certainly a massive crash going to happen imminently. As soon as I had excepted the inevitable I felt a lot easier and just got on with it. The tour took us through rice paddies, dirt tracks, hill sides, public roads and into the centre of Bali about 1000m up. The guides were excellent and encouraged a bit of rowdy behaviour so there was plenty of over and even undertaking, wheel spinning, donuts and wheelies plus a couple of crashes thrown in for good measure

This was some of the most fun I have ever had!

Another trip into Bali and to Kuta where the Bali bombings took place a few years ago. There was no everdince of any blast I could see, just a huge contrast from the inner of the island which was green and luscious to streets of knock off shops and bars and restaurants here, all pleasantly there to the soundtrack of a big ocean swell lapping up the steep beach.

9 October, my birthday. After much trying to persuade Tosh not to leave, I was at sea for the first time on my birthday. This was not the best fun I've had and I've decided to miss it out and do it again somewhere else. 

Mainly uneventful

On the crossing from Darwin to Kupang, Indonesia. There wasn't much to report, the winds were very light and on the nose for most of the way. This is when it's a good time to have a big six cylinder diesel in your boat. Progress was slow going in the aid of saving fuel but we did have a small visitor who stayed for the day

.

The remainder of the journey was much of the same UNTIL KUPANG. If anyone was to ask me if it was advisable to arrive at night I'd have to say no, it's not a good idea... We did. The amount of unlit fishing buoys, nets, platforms and boats is incredible! At least the boats are all single cylinder diesels with no silencers so you can hear them coming. The main source of nav light is a strobing white, red, blue light if they have any at all. WELCOME TO INDONESIA

The bank balance

Sometimes living the life on a yacht is very good for saving money and living frugally. Australia is not the place for this kind of existence! Recently we have spent most of our time on land than sailing which has been great fun at times. This leads me to our time in Darwin, someone told me is the tenth most expensive city in the world to live in. Before leaving the sort of civilisation that Australia offers which is very similar in many ways to home, a few of us decided to have a lot of fun in between working on Proteus. This included watching the Australian Super Bike Series, go karts on an outdoor circuit which have been the best so far, Ed from Crazy Daisy's birthday night out and a couple of nights in Litchfield National Park camping. This was the best bit for me with twelve of us in three 4x4s barbecues, dust track driving, water crossings, getting filthy dirty, swimming under waterfalls, seeing some wildlife and having a few drinks. See here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzJ2_u4WkjA&feature=em-upload_owner. Tipperary marina was also an interesting place to get in and out of with no room for fenders either side going through the lock gates and literally a foot in front and behind once the gates were closed. I'm glad we did it all, now the only area of Australia I haven't visited is the east coast, maybe another year

Cairns to Darwin passage

From leaving Cairns, Queensland to Darwin, Northern Territory it has been a varied trip and as I type this about 50 nautical miles out from Darwin we are sat in 2 knots of wind, flat seas, amazing sunshine without a cloud in the sky but it hasn't always been like this. Initially for the first couple of days out of Cairns it was very lumpy, cold and windy, a complete contrast to now. For the first few hundred miles coming up the coast from Cairns pilotage is good fun and keeps you on your toes as it is necessary to weave through channels in the reef some of which are shared with cargo ships and fishing boats which at times can get quite skinny with breaking waves over a reef a few metres out to one side and a 290 metre ship to the other. Further up the coast towards the most northern point of Australia the earth starts to change into a more deep red colour, there are a lot more aboriginal settlements and 4x4s along tracks and beaches for the experience. We have caught a massive fish that was about 5ft6 and over 50kgs with big teeth and generally dangerous looking but we have no idea what it is! Also reeled in has been a blue tuna which we consumed in no time at all. There have been many sightings of giant sea turtles and also some very big sea snakes out in the Torres Straits and Van Dieman Gulf, where we are now. We have gone past about four other Oysters now that the wind has dropped out through are careful selection of sails (the big cruising chute) and now the wind has gone almost altogether being on a larger boat pays dividends by having a higher cruising speed and range under motor. This is now the final stint into Darwin and we are hot on the heels of Babe. Lets see who gets in first.

Back with the pack

The sail from the Whitsunday islands to cairns was a welcome break after the race week. This part of Australia is really where you can see a change in the coast beginning to happen and ports becoming more few and far between. The other change was in the weather and the first time for a while that the waterproofs and boots came out for warmth and dryness as the wind built and with it the seas which occasionally landed in the cockpit of the boat, under headsail alone we made some serious progress putting us in Cairns in no time at all. Always a welcoming sight are our friends from the Oyster World Rally fleet and some of the boats remained in port when we arrived, others had already left for Darwin. Not much seemed to have changed in Cairns since my last visit although it was nice to sit still for a few days in civilisation whilst we worked on Proteus giving her some tlc including a new screen at the starboard cockpit pedestal. We did pick up a Holden Commodore as a hire car not just because of its big engine and rear wheel drive but to go up the mountains and into the Table lands. In one day I saw platypus, ostrich, kangaroos, a tortoise, a tank, v2 flying bomb and a Morris Minor (a rare sight in oz). Time again to make a move we traditionally were the last to leave port.

Hamilton Island Race Week

Now this is one of the big ones on the calendar. In a few days leading up to the start of the race week and the return of Tim and Bryony, jack and myself have been super busy transforming proteus from a luxury cruising yacht to a slick racing machine (you can take that last part slightly loosely but we've definitely made a marked improvement). Hamilton Island Race Week pulls in some serious boats with the likes of Wild Oats, Bob Oatley's 90 footer, a lot of TP52s and various other racers down through cruisers and classics with an overall entry list of 150 plus boats. Proteus is in the cruising division 1 along side some other racy metal that I wonder what is doing in the same class as us but unphased and in very light airs, sometimes starting races in 2 knots of wind we went for it with the permanent core crew and a couple of extras including Tammy who was recommended to me by the marina manager and Anthony who is the publisher and director of Ocean magazine which I have read a few times back on the other side of the globe. The whole team pulled together amazingly well and made some good tactical calls with the help of some local knowledge combined with our many thousands of miles of experience and managed to gently caress Proteus and her large 50 ton weight forward with some constant and precise trimming of sails through the water and the race fleet to bring in some good results whilst surrounded by the picturesque Whitsunday islands. The conclusion was a few trophies for the days racing and an overall 2nd place. For such a big completion as HIRW this is an incredible result and a credit to the crew and also to the boat. Now back to cruising and on to catch up with the rest of the oyster fleet

 

THEY'VE LEFT ME IN CHARGE!!!

It has been holiday time on board Proteus, first mine which was amazing to be back with my family, friends and beautiful fiancée, then tosh and Bryony off for a couple of well deserved weeks. These are all exciting times with the build up to Hamilton Island Race Week that we are entered in and with the arrival of Chris and Denise's friends, John and Jill who were with us for 7 days. So down to business and my first time in close quarters handling of proteus myself and jack got to busy with me as stand in skipper and jack as hostess. The weather was fantastic with very light winds so limited sailing but excellent snorkelling and amazing beaches the tour of the Whitsunday islands was on. All was great as we had a hump back whale with its calf swim under the stern of the boat within touching distance and were able to have the sensation of seeing and hearing them breathe and dive. Also many sea turtles, coral and reef fish about. I always have a strange feeling of remembrance in Australia as I try and piece together my memory from the places I visited nearly 9 years ago. We ventured into Whitehaven beach, luncheon bay, butterfly bay, hayman island, Nara inlet and Cid harbour. John and Jill who have never done much sailing had a great time and saw more natural sights in the space of a week than most people may ever do, it's nice to be reminded of how lucky I am.

I've been a bit lax of recent

My blogging has been a bit slow coming over the past couple of months due to the appalling Internet but I see it as a luxury anyway so not a problem. Proteus has charged about and everyone has had a fantastic time including having the pleasure of the company of David Glen, the editor of yachting world who has been writing an article about the Oyster World Rally. Unfortunately I have broken yet another camera in a similar fashion to the first one. Both through death by water ingress. The good news is I have just a few hours ago purchased a new one in Heathrow airport so we are good to go again. I'm currently sat at the airport in Abu Dhabi waiting to fly on to Sydney and ultimately mackay to catch up with proteus and the rest of the fleet after taking a holiday back in England and spending a lot of time with my fiancée, Alice and the rest of my family which has been fantastic. I've also spent a bit of time on my both my cars which even though I haven't driven one of them for 3 years and the other for 10 months have consumed a fair chunk of money. The flight I've just had was 7 hours and my next one is 14 hours roughly with a smaller 2 hour flight to top it all off. I'm looking forward to getting back on the boat and cracking on with some sailing but it is always sad to say goodbye to family and friends. I'll try to get on the case some more with some good pictures and text to go with

Bora Bora with the Bloody Mary's party

I'm now in areas with very limited Internet so photographs are hard to attach and upload but I wish I could put some on that we took of the huge breaking waves on the outer reef on our arrival to Bora Bora! Finding the passage through the reef was easy as it was the only patch that wasn't exploding into white spray at a great height. Once through the passage we were once more protected from the vast Pacific Ocean and in tranquil waters again. The favourable option was to take a mooring at Mai Kai marina which is essentially a wall to tie against or on a buoy. Not to be put off though the restaurant there was brilliant for food, atmosphere and most evenings there was a fantastic band to listen or dance to. After a night at Mai Kai we moved inside the reef to an anchorage outside of the Hilton hotel where Bryony and Tim stayed ashore for a couple of nights and I stepped up the pace on board with some servicing and polishing.

Normality resumes

The pearl regatta is over, we've collected all of our heavy gear and now it is time to relax and take it all in. We have upped anchor after the final party, left the motu (island) where it all concluded and headed around Tahaa. On route to our next anchorage we pass our first sighted pearl farm and drop the hook outside what is said to be the highest acclaimed hotel in the French Polynesia. It certainly looks fantastic although I couldn't afford to stay there at over €1000 a night so instead we opt to go for a snorkel through a narrow pass between two motus. To get there you have to leave the tender in the shallow waters and go overland to the seaward side of the pass, enter the water and let the current do the rest. What happened next was an unbelievable sight and an absolute maze of coral garden that was simply infested with all varieties of reef fish that were very curious of human presence and would come right up to your mask for a better look. The whole tour took about 15 minutes of drifting in water warmer than a bath until we were propelled out of the end of the pass and back towards the tender. With not much left to do the evening took us all to the hotel. I tied up the tender on a crescent shaped pontoon that swept towards the hotel and up to the bar for cocktails and to admire the geckos on the ceiling. Before leaving the following morning I took the tender with Bryony, Chris and Denise to the pearl farm to spend some money on black pearls that are famous in this part of the world. it also turned out to be a very educational stop as we learnt about the production of the pearl and its origin from the missisipi river. Next stop, Bora Bora

TPRX2013

Proteus has been entered into the annual Tahiti Pearl Regatta! Preparations have been made, new spinnaker, dinghy gone from the foredeck, second anchor and 100m of chain gone, a bit more muscle in the borrowed form of Jack on holiday from Sulana and off from Tahiti to Raiatea over 100 miles away where the regatta is actually taking place! I've seen so much traditional Polynesian dancing that I don't want to see anymore for at least a year but the evenings entertainment at whichever nearby island we finished the day at was excellent even if it didn't necessarily improve my performance the next day. Proteus excelled herself in all ranges of weather much to everyone's surprise after many comments like 'we'll be waiting in the bar for you' and we brought in a couple of first placed results. I feel like we could have done better overall after some of the race fleet missed marks and used their engines without declaring but the race commity seemed more occupied in the parties than the racing. Nether the less we had a great time, learnt a lot about what we can do with the boat out of normal cruising circumstances and got some awesome photographs of us underway. The fun and success we had has opened up a whole new world for Proteus unbeknowingly and now a new genoa is being ordered and Denise and Chris are very keen to do the Hamilton Island race week in Australia which will certainly be stepping it up a notch.

Back to having fun

I haven't written in a while due to being completely preoccupied with ocean passages, amazing sights, great sailing and the odd party. The sail from the Galapagos seems a very long time ago and was generally very light airs mixed with large lightning storms towards the later part which probably had a large part to play with us losing our wind instrument information which we have now fixed with a $3000 new part. We flew into Nuka Hiva in the Marquesas for 12 hours just to take on fuel as we had used a fair amount in the light airs just to make up time. It was a great surprise to find the Oyster 54, Babe with Paul and Trish who were now behind the main fleet due to heading home for a couple of weeks. This encounter helped build beaten moral massively especially as they held off leaving that day and we all headed to the local hotel and had a fantastic steak for dinner, much needed after 16 days at sea and rubbish, chewy steak back in the Galapagos. Nuka Hiva looked amazing but no time to rest we set off for the Tuamotos in convoy with Babe which made very good speed in the lighter sailing airs. On the approach to the largest settlement, Rangiroa, there was a huge squall with no visibility and lots more lightning all around us which is very unnerving with 90ft of carbon fibre mast above you. This brought on the need for Tosh to put on his rubber soled shoes and when clear enough we aimed for the very narrow pass into the lagoon within the atolls. It is such an incredible contrast to go from being in thousands of meters of depth, rough seas and strong winds to the calm, tranquil environment in a lagoon surrounded by coral atolls. Our arrival here was very welcoming as we had caught up with the bulk of the Oyster fleet after such a long time. The hotel ashore of where we anchored was one of the best I have ever seen so we enjoyed a few beers whilst watching small sharks forming bait balls of fish and occasionally sighting a target and darting into the bait for a feed. Unfortunately the restaurant was full but Alan, Will and Jack kindly took us in and fed us on board Sulana. Next morning we sprung up early and had a quick snorkel at the coral 'aquarium' inside the pass to Rangiroa. THERE WERE FISH AND SHARKS ALL OVER THE PLACE! This was all great and very exciting but Tahiti was beckoning so we had to get going. All of the crew had a lot of work and catching up to do around the boat after so many miles at sea and in preparation of Chris and Denise arriving once more although we still had time for an amazing party put on by Oyster which involved a lot of Polynesian dancers and fire jugglers. We now have a new cruising chute delivered from NZ ready to be used in the Tahiti Pearl Regatta. Lovely

THERE'S BITS EVERYWHERE!!!

We have onboard three men who speak Spanish but little English and three English people who speak little Spanish but all seems to be going well, I suspect due to the relationship that we have made with our main mechanic over the past couple of weeks. All parts are now present and correct and with any luck this will be my final blog entry for some time given that the engine and gearbox will run fine in the next few hours. The bad news is that we are now approximately three weeks behind the front of the fleet and we will be forced to miss out the Marquases and point at Tahiti instead to make up lost time and to meet the boss. It has been a big drama that at times seemed never ending and although moral has taken a bit of a battering at times everyone has stayed friends with no real falling outs. This of course has been aided by the sheer amount of cake that Bryony made of the many bananas that we had for the crossing but had ripened too soon. Onwards to Tahiti

Still here

It didn't go to plan. The engine is still in pieces, even more so. It transpires that the head has been leaking due to being warped. We didn't do a bad job in panama when replacing the head gasket but didn't have access to all the services we needed such as getting the head checked and skimmed before the canal transit. So the cylinder head is now on it's way to Guayaquil on the main land to get a skim. This has put us back another few days and time is now getting very short and I can't help but get the feeling that the general mood on board is slightly less jovial than usual. On the plus side we have time to get on with more daily tasks such as polishing and generally making things shiny and well functioning. Tosh and I went for a sneaky dive on the pretence of cleaning and inspecting the hull if the rangers asked what we were up to. The bottom of the boat gets a lot of growth very quickly being parked here. It was an interesting dive with a lot of swell trying to sweep us around, away and into the boat with my dive watch beeping as a warning I was coming up too quickly due to the amount of movement in the water. Whilst giving the hull a scrub we were followed by a lot of curious puffer fish that had a very easy meal on the algae that we were knocking off. We even had a white tip shark come by for a look.

A day of fixing

The engineer came back today with the hydraulic gearbox pump. Not a new one but our one that had been rebuilt with new parts. Everything seems well so far and the plan is for some more sea trials later and to leave in the morning on our voyage. Another point that we noticed last night is that the water maker was not producing as much water as it should be. Having water maker issues before a 3000 mile leg is bad news as running out of fresh water can cause huge problems. This we discovered after a bit of poking around was caused by a faulty start relay on the high pressure pump causing the start capacitor to stay active whilst the pump is running. We have now removed the start capacitor from the circuit and all is fine for now. Bryony is now reprovisioning the boat with fresh produce and we are refuelled and good to go. With any luck my next update will be in two to three weeks time after a successful and relaxing ocean crossing.

Sitting waiting

The latest is that we are sat here waiting for an update on what's going to happen. We know that we need a new gearbox oil pump which has to come from the nearest mainland, Ecuador. We will find out Monday and hopefully get the new pumped shipped and fitted within a couple of days. In the mean time there are worst places to be stranded and my Spanish is improving rapidly.

News

The latest is that the gear box went back in this morning after being completely disassembled, cleaned, new bearings, oil, etc. we had everything running for a while and when all looked to be good we once more upped anchor and then all ok ish, revs begin to build as the gearbox slowly disengages and the engine comes off load. This is able to happen because it is a hydraulic box that applies pressure to a series of friction plates and when the pressure fails the plates disengage. We are still waiting for the mechanic to return after we diagnosed the oil pump to be faulty and hopefully not completely knackered

It's not fantastic

We left......... and then immediately came back. I had lifted the anchor and we were momentarily driving ahead when tosh (our skipper) called to drop the anchor again. Our gearbox problems have progressed past the oil cooler to now effect the gearbox not giving us drive. We've done all of the checks possible but now it is coming out with the help of a short Ecuadorean. Hopefully we will be able to leave soon!

G-laps to marquases

Come tomorrow morning we will be setting sail again in the direction of the marquases. It is going to be approximately 3200 nautical miles to the next stop and depending on the wind we get may take up to three weeks but hopefully a lot less. Chris and Denise have returned to Spain for the Easter holidays so it just the three of us plus one other along for the trip. It has been amazing in the Galapagos but now time for the next adventure

The Galapagos

Proteus has been in the Galapagos for about ten days now after a five day passage from las perlas. The crossing brought us three days of really good wind which propelled us along at a great rate then onto two days of motoring to arrive and be greeted by the sea lions in San cristobal. They are incredibly playful and curious and most mornings are to be found on the bathing platform at the stern of the boat or in people's dinghies if they are left in the water. We even had one in the cockpit of proteus one afternoon.
We have spent four days moving through the islands which is not normally permitted but we had a guide to show us the sights and some fantastic snorkelling including swimming with hammerhead, white tip and black tip sharks, sting rays, sea lions and all manner of different species of fish in 30 degree water. It has been a fantastic experience that has unfortunately concluded in Santa Cruz with more engine problems in the form of a failed engine gearbox oil cooler which is causing water to get into the oil. This would not normally be a problem but these parts are hard to come by here and the closest replacement is in Miami where I may shortly be if the engineers here can't fix ours. This is not great news considering the next leg is in the region of 3200 nautical miles and will almost certainly involve using the engine a lot

San Jose, las perlas

San Jose delivered as per rumour and had a great array of wildlife and a stunningly placed hotel where we landed the tender for lunch. I'll let the pictures explain

More pearl islands

We have been through most of the las perlas now. Yesterday took us sailing past Isla Chapera where the tv series Survivor was filmed, then beyond through some tiny cuts past Isla del rey where we anchored for the night. A trigger fish was caught by tosh on a hand line in the space of about 5 minutes. There are a lot of fish here and pelicans to catch them too! The next morning we left, through out the fishing line and 20 minutes later there was a spotted barracuda biting the end, which was eaten later this evening. We are now anchored by the small village on Isla pedro Gonzales. It is a very basic place with a lot of dogs and chickens roaming the narrow poured concrete streets between very plain and uniform buildings. We will be off again in the morning to anchor off San Jose where there is a rumour of a hotel and restaurant.