Sailing Coconut Follow the Hind Family on our travels

End of our adventure for now

Sun, 15 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We are heart-broken to tell you all that after an incredible Atlantic Crossing, finishing second in class, and the best few days in Grenada celebrating with our ARC Plus family, Ewan passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on the 12th December. He was in no pain and received the best care to the end. He died where he was happiest, on his boat, on the water, surrounded by his family and friends after an amazing adventure. There are no words right now to express how we all feel. In due course, once we have taken Ewan home, there will be a memorial service and celebration of his far too short, but well lived life.

The boys and I will be heading home for Christmas and after some time with our families and friends will start to work out what the future will look like. We know we will carry on our adventure in the future in some way so that we can live our family dream as Ewan would want, but as yet that way is not clear. So for now at least there will probably not be many updates except for details of his memorial service. We will be creating a memorial page on Facebook and would be honored if you would contribute any pictures, memories or stories you have of him for the boys to have as they grow up.

Next time you see a beautiful sunset, sunrise or sit and admire the vast night sky or the rolling waves, think of Our Big Amazing Wonderful Man and keep him alive with us.

For now, sending all our love to everyone

Sarah, Archie and Fergus xxxx

Arrival in Grenada

Archie and Fergus — Sun, 08 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We made it to Grenada!

We've now sailed 7,100 miles since we left Southampton in May and we've made it to the Caribbean.

We got to Grenada after 13 days at sea, arriving at 08.40 Grenada time on Thursday.

The last couple of days at sea were the most rainy and squally, we had a squall of 39 knots early on the last morning. We finally got some proper sailing in the last couple of hours, reaching in fresh winds with Lauren hand steering us. We reefed for the last couple of miles of sailing to windward to the finish line, then got becalmed and took the reefs out, then the wind came back and we finished very powered up and heeled over!

When we got in we were greeted by some of the ARC+ staff and marina staff. We got rum punch (without Rum for us kids) and a basket of local goodies.

We had a lovely lunch ashore.

One of the best things of the last couple of days has been welcoming our friends in as they arrive. When Revelation got in we greeted them with diet coke and chocolate. When Imi Ola arrived yesterday, we greeted them with hand baked cookies, and when Myrto arrived last night we greeted them with a birthday cake because they arrived on the twin's 8th birthday.

Grenada is very hot and has also been very rainy with a few heavy downpours each day. The marina has a nice little pool so we've done a lot of swimming, we've played roblox with our friends, and chilling out after the crossing. The adults have also been doing some boat jobs. In the next few days we'll go exploring around Grenada a bit more. We're going to do an island tour with our friends on Wednesday.

Not far now!

Tue, 03 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Sorry it's been a few days since the last update, rather rolly conditions don't make staring at a screen the top priority!

After a slow first week, some much more consistent breeze arrived on the 28th and we had a few days of champagne sailing - good progress, steady sailing and sunshine. On Sunday the wind increased along with the sea state and we've now had about 3 days of stronger winds and rolly progress. Unfortunately, it's still not super fast as the wind is up and down. We have to match our sail plan to the stronger winds so end up rather slow when the wind lulls. However, the rest of the fleet are in the same situation and we seem to be doing OK.

We've had a couple of squalls with rain and stronger wind but the black cloud and rain give them away so we can reef in advance. It's forecast to ease a bit but remain fairly fresh and rolly until we finish. With big waves from behind the boat will 'surf' down the bigger ones assisted by gravity, and last night we got a new top boat speed of 15.0 knots!

We currently have 360 miles to go, so our hope is that if the weather plays ball we should arrive in about 48 hours on the afternoon of Thursday 5th, roughly 13 days after leaving Cape Verde.

We've had a couple of sobering reminders of the potential risks of crossing an ocean. While we are sailing in the ARC+ via Cape Verde, the original, and larger, ARC is currently en route from Las Palmas to St Lucia with the main fleet a few hundred miles north east of us. Yesterday morning, one yacht had a Man Overboard an unfortunately, despite searching all day with other vessels assisting, the casualty was not found and the search was stood down in darkness last night.

Also yesterday, a catamaran on the ARC started leaking, diverted towards Cape Verde but the leak got worse and they ended up abandoning to another ARC yacht. At least in that instance, nobody was hurt.

We're continuing to sail safely and conservatively, wearing lifejackets, clipping on, and looking after the boat. Fingers crossed that the next two days go smoothly and we're enjoying a Rum in Grenada on Thursday evening.

Livin' on a Prayer

Archie and Fergus — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Ooooh we’re half way there!
Today we crossed the half way point, we now have under 1,080 miles to go.
For lunch we had crepes with cheese, bacon and tomato and for pudding we had crepes with honey and lemon.
For the last couple of days we have had better winds and we’ve been making good progress averaging about 7.5 knots and occasionally going faster.

We know that other boats have been catching fish but we haven’t caught any, we have lost three lures that big fish have taken.
We are passing over the mid Atlantic ridge which is a chain of underwater mountains.
A recommendation from Archie. Anyone with kids age about 8 to 10 or 11, they will probably enjoy the Percy Jackson books about a boy who finds out he is half god and goes on lots of adventures.
The weather has been hot and sunny. The waves are now coming mostly from behind us so we are not rolling that much. At night there are loads of stars. Tom and Lauren have been navigating us with the moon, planets and stars.
For our half way dinner we are having chicken curry tonight.

Day 5 Blog

Archie and Fergus — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We have now been at sea for just over four days, this is day 5 of our trip. We hopefully have about 9 days left. We are 1,524 miles from the finish.

We have seen two pods of dolphin, lots and lots of flying fish, and a huge tuna about 4 feet long that followed us in our stern wave, in the shade of the solar panels, for about 3 hours. We saw it jump clear out of the water at one point. Unfortunately it didn’t bite our lure so we still haven’t caught any fish!

We have been sailing along in quite light winds so not going as fast as we would like. I (Fergus) saw 9.7 knots at one point but mostly it has been 6 to 7 knots. Hopefully we will get more wind in a couple of days.

We have been reading our kindles a lot. Mummy and Daddy bought us both new books before the crossing. I (Archie) got a set of five new Percy Jackson books but I have finished four already and will finish the last one today. I might have to read them all again! I (Fergus) got a few new Dog Man books and I’ve read all of them at least twice already!

We’ve been enjoying listening to the homeschool histories podcast. Both of us thought our favourite one was about the Roman gladiators. The Romans would pitch different gladiators against each other like a Pokémon battle. We also liked the one about Cleopatra. The rulers of Egypt were very unimaginative with names, they were all called Ptolemy! Cleopatra had to marry her own little brother- yuck! Cleopatra lived closer to the building of the channel tunnel than the building of the pyramids, they were already ancient history when she was alive.

Tom and Lauren have been practicing navigating us by sextant using the Sun, moon, stars and planets. It takes a lot longer than looking at the GPS!

Tom and Lauren told us about a secret murder game that they play on Prolific. So far Daddy has murdered Tom in the cockpit with a winch handle. We have until the end of the trip to try and do our own murders.

We still haven’t seen many of the other boats but occasionally we see a sail on the horizon for a couple of hours. None of the boats have been very close so far.

On the way to Grenada!

Archie and Fergus — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We have just finished our first day of the Atlantic crossing. The start in Mindelo was quite exciting with lots of boats crossing the line at the same time, some with spinnakers up.

We could see lots of boats until night time, but now we can’t see any. It was a starry night and we slept in the cockpit. There was a bit of no wind when the boat rolled around and made us feel ill, but now the wind is back, the boat is steadier and we’re feeling better. I think we need to get used to being at sea again.

We’ve seen lots of schools of flying fish and some birds. We are trying to catch a fish but haven’t caught anything yet. We now have just under 2,000 miles until we reach Grenada.

We won’t see any land for about two weeks but we’re kind of used to it now. It’s surprising that after starting with 94 boats all going the same way, we can’t see any other boats after just one day.

Before we left Mindelo, all the kid boats did chalk drawings of our boat names on the pier.

We’re going quite slowly at the moment because the wind is light but we’re in 15th place out of 94 boats so there must be lots of other boats going slower! Daddy says the forecast is light winds for a few days then getting stronger as we get closer to the Caribbean.

Tom got a Coconut for Coconut before we left and it is now a new mascot for the crossing. Mummy and Tom decided it should be called Wilson.

Here is our menu for the crossing.

We have got more food than this in case it takes longer than expected.

Cape Verde

Tue, 19 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Apologies for the lack of blogs from at sea. What with watches, cooking, boat maintenance, trying to get enough sleep, looking after the boys during the day, doing a bit of home school, downloading and analysing weather forecasts, gybing for unexpected windshifts etc etc, we didn't have much time for blogging!

We had a good trip down from Las Palmas to Mindelo. After a light start we had three days of good breeze and made better speed then expected, then the wind threatened to die out, but we managed to keep sailing to finish on Friday afternoon.

We ended up trading places with some of the same boats throughout the passage, including a boat called "Stargazing" which sailed half a mile behind us at about half way, then was close by a few other times, and eventually we crossed the line about 5 minuted ahead of them. Unfortunately we were pipped on the line by a catamaran that finished about 200m ahead of us after 900 miles!

Everyone did really well on passage, the one disappointment being that we didn't catch any fish - and in fact something stole our lure and line!

It was great to get in on Friday as it meant that by the time most of our friends arrived on Saturday we'd had a good night sleep and a nice dinner ashore.

Cape Verde has been fun, meeting up with other boats, the ARC have laid on a couple of parties, and we had a tour of the island, which included a trip to the highest point for some great views of Mindelo, Sao Vicente and the adjacent islands.

We went to some huge sand dunes, and then to a beach with big waves and people surfing. The kids loved racing the waves!

Other than that we have been mostly near the boat in Mindelo while we do a combination of boat prep, home school, provisioning and exploring locally - beach visits, paddle boarding, playground and a couple of group Ice Cream Shop visits!

It's a shame not to have had time to see more of the Caope Verdes, but also, knowing that Friday is departure day, we're all quite keen to stop preparing and get going!

First report from the Atlantic!

Archie and Fergus — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

On Sunday, everybody left the marina to go to the start. It was really exciting because we knew that now we had to do this! There was loud music and lots of people waving us of with flags.

The Multihulls started first about 15 minutes before the monohulls, but some of the multihulls stayed at the back of the fleet.

There was very little wind and the waves were lumpy, so once we crossed the start line we started motoring (this is a rally, not a race!) and we motored for the first few hours until the wind increased enough to sail. Quite quickly the boats spread out so there weren't many close by.

Once we started sailing the wind picked up quite quickly until we were going pretty well. In the night, Daddy and Lauren poled out the genoa, and we have been sailing like that ever since, with the main reefed on one side and the genoa on the other. It helps catch as much wind as possible when the wind is coming from behind you.

It has been a good trip so far. A couple of people felt slightly ill after the start but now everyone is feeling better.

We have seen some cool wildlife already - a big pod of dolphins, whales breaching out of the water (we don't know what type) and Daddy saw some tuna - but we haven't managed to catch any yet.

The boat is a bit rolly because the waves are quite big and they come from the side a bit, nit straight over the back. The food has been really good so far. Mummy made Chicken Fajitas on Sunday and Pizza yesterday, we had hot dogs for lunch, and today we had ice cream for pudding!

We have been doing some science, taking water samples, doing tests and sending the results.

We have been sailing a bit faster than we expected, so we are hoping to arrive in the Cape Verdes on Friday.

Gran Canaria week 3 and 4

Archie and Fergus — Sun, 10 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We're writing this from sea but we thought we should catch up on our time in Gran Canaria before we write about being at sea.

The last couple of weeks were busier than the first as Mummy and Daddy had more to do to get ready for the start of the ARC+. We had things to fix and prepare on the boat, food to buy and pack, and various events that ARC+ arranged for everyone.

On Sunday 27th October, we went for a drive with Mimi into the mountains, but it got rainy as we got higher, so we turned around and went to the town of Teror. It was much busier this time and there was a market happening with lots of stalls. We got some churros and hot chocolate and visited the church.

In the afternoon we played football on the beach with loads of other boat kids.

That evening was Mimi's last so we went for dinner at a restaurant in the marina.

Mimi went home on Monday and we were sad that she had to leave.

Most of that week we did home school or boat jobs in the mornings and went to the beach or chilled out in the afternoon. On Thursday it was halloween. All the kid boats did trick or treating on our pontoon. I (Archie) went as a pumpkin headless horseman and Fergus went as a Mummy. We got loads of candy and later on we watched a movie.

On Sunday 3rd there was an ppening ceremony and crew parade for the ARC+. We walked around the marina with loud bands drumming and we hoisted flags for all the nationalities taking part in the ARC+.

That afternoon we thought we could re-use our tickets to visit the aquarium but it turned out we couldn't, so instead we went to the Crocodile Park and Zoo. It gives a home to exotic animals that have been taken from people who tried to sell them or have them as pets. We saw crocodiles, snakes, tortoises, cimpanzees, a bengal tiger, and lots of birds. My (Fergus) favourite was the yellow and while anaconda. My (Archie) favourite was the bengal tiger.

Last week we had kids club on 4 days. We did watersports like sailing, kayakign and paddleboarding. We got pulled around on the paddleboard by a speed boat!

On Wednesday, there was a costume party for the ARC+ boats. We made our own costuimes, I (Fergus) went as a giant red squid and Archie went as a jellyfish. For mine we made red paper tube and hat, cut the shapes, drew a big eye and made tentacles. For Archie's he got an umbrella, wool for tentacles, and a string of lights.

Tom and Lauren, our crew for the ARC+, arrived that afternoon and managed to make costumes as well.

On Thursday, after kids club we did liferaft drills in the swimming pool. The adults tried it first and then all the kids got in together. There were about 14 kids in a 6 man liferaft!

On Friday, the adults went for a training sail while we did kids club, and then we went shopping with Mummy for our fresh food. We had already bought all our dried food before. On Saturday, the adults did lots of last jobs to get the boat ready to go.

Finally on Sunday, we left to sail to the Cape Verde islands, but we'll write about that in our next blog.

Off we go!

Sat, 09 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This SHOULD be two blogs by Archie and Fergus about weeks 3 and 4 in Gran Canaria, but they haven't written anything yet - we've all been rather busy! We'll try and get an update written over the next few days.

The main news is that we leave tomorrow for our first leg of the Atlantic Crossing, from Gran Canaria to Mindelo in the Cape Verde Islands. It's just under 900 miles, it should take us about 6 days, so we expect to arrive somtime on Saturday 16th. We're sailing with the ARC+ rally so as well as the usual tracking, you'll be able to follow us with the rest of the fleet on the ARC website.

https://www.worldcruising.com/arc_plus/eventfleetviewer.aspx

We've been joined by our extra crew for the crossing, Lauren and Tom, we've done a training sail, found some problems, fixed the problems, bought loads of food, stowed it away, and we're pretty much ready to go.

The boys were in Kids Club this week as part of the rally which they enjoyed, and they got to try getting into a liferaft (in a swimming pool!)

After a couple of weeks of managing to combine work on the boat with sightseeing, the last couple of weeks have been increasingly busy in the lead up to the start, but it's been fun meeting all the other crews (and their kids, being on the kid boat pontoon)

The rally have put on some good socials and seminars,

and we're feeling excited about the crossing.

The weather forecast is looking pretty good - light winds at the start and the first day or so but then increasing to some nice 15-20 knot trade winds for mpst of the passage and getting a bit lighter again towards the end. We'll report back on how accurate that is!

I'll try and add some pictures to this blog when we have some more time.