Update May 4th 2008

The boat is back in the water, finally, after 18 months. I have been staying on her since I left South Africa on April 17th, and until a couple of days ago I was perched high above a boat yard, reaching my boat by ladder.

The pressure is on as the boat needs to set sail on May 17th. This is when John is arriving, and about the latest we can leave it if we are going to get round Iceland and back south again before the weather changes for the worse. But I have not finished consulting, and dont want my last projects before I go on my sabbatical to be done to a quality standard as otherwise I'll be looking at ice-bergs and feeling guilty - working in AIDS is great for getting guilt trips.

So this website is neglected, fundraising is neglected, and all Im doing is consulting and working on the boat. But its great to see progress, already I have fixed up the electrics, and checked the fuel tanks. Now Im strapping the woodstove down with stainless steel brackets and putting in saftey rails and lines all around the boat.

The engine does not work, which is a worry, though the mechanic is working hard to fix it.

Next I have to put unbreakable plastic around all the windows, a measure against the North Atlantic storms. After this, I just need to fit some new winches, water tanks and create extra storage space and then we'll be ready to go and get a mountain of beans and rice to keep us going for the next four months. Im still aiming to get away by May 17th, but this looks like its against the odds right now. If Im still here by May 20th I'll just set sail and fix things on the way - if I can get the engine running that is...

Update May 28th 2008 Week 1.

The last weeks have been non-stop preparations. A thousand things to do, always complicated sequences of tasks where paint has to dry before wood is inserted, before bolts are removed, before measurements are taken before anything can be bought. That kind of thing.

I wore myself right out, just too excited about the trip and too cognisant of my little boats frailties, most of which can be sorted with a good bit of ply wood. My understanding was that I was leaving on Tuesday, but actually John did not arrive till Thursday, which was a disappointment at first, but then auspicious, as I had so much still to do unfinished. John and I set off on Friday morning. It was a beautiful sunny breezy day. We steered out on to the Ij, then through the lock, under the bridge, and out on to the Islemeer. Pleasure boats were out in force, as we made out progress north. It was amazing to be finally underway. John steered, jubilant that Celtic had won the league the previous night, and I lay watching the wake half conscious in the cockpit, finally getting my act together. By day two, we seemed to have things in our stride, and we sailed Northwards again after a few hours of more jobs on the boat, but the subsequent force six identified a few more. The wind was picking up and things were coming out of storage.

After a few hours of sailing very quickly for this old tub, 6 knots, the wind was getting very fresh. Our plan was to sail to Den Helder, but to pass through a lock we had to drop the sails. I went forward to drop the sails, as John motored us into the wind. We were only about a 100 meters from the leeward shore, as we were sailing parallel to the coast, lining up with the lock.

At this point something horrible happened to the boat – though neither John or I were in any danger ourselves. We lost power in the engine. John came out and said the engine had stopped, and I ran in, instantly really worried, knowing that we had just minutes before we hit the lee shore, a line of rocks with waves being swept against it. The engine was utterly frozen, grating horribly as we tried to start it. A rope had wrapped around the propeller. Worse, the sails were half down. We tried to get them back up, but with the boat now turning side on to the wind, this was impossible. And I was losing my cool, as the rocks of the shore were getting closer. We dropped the anchor over, but could only give it a short stretch of chain, as the shore was so close. It just dragged ineffectually in soft mud.

It was a sickening situation. We had no power and were being swept towards the rocks. We put out a radio message to the coast guard but got no response. We then put out a general mayday – which is an embarrassing thing at the best of times. “Calling all ships – we are a vessel about 4 minutes from hitting the rocks.” I then lit a hand flare but could not hold it long, then firing a rocket flare up in the direction of a boat more than 500 meters away – too far to come to our rescue at that point anyway. I was in despair, with my trip just two days in and almost over. I’d tried everything. This boat had been my home, and had been at the centre of my life since Id had her, and was now going to be wrecked against some mundane Dutch dyke. John said try the engine one more time, and that was what I did, ramming it full revs into gear. By some miracle – and now Im wondering if actually it was a miracle – just 15 meters from the lee- shore, in 20 knots of relentless winds, the engine started. It must have shorn through the rope and managed to rotate. I now love that little Ford diesel. Another minute, maximum two, it would have been game over for whisky mac. The coast guard came just a few minutes later, at high speed and with great efficiency.

None of this was a life or death situation, and none really that grave in the scale of things. But any boat owner would understand that being almost jumping distance a rocky lee shore in fresh winds and with no power is just a miserable predicament.

The coast guard showed us into harbour, us limping behind their fast red rib, and as the rope was still round the propellor, we stalled as soon as we were close to a mooring, scratching the boat horribly. But I was converted to every faith simultaneously, and we both felt like we had been given a second chance, after being given a spanking for taking things too casually this far. Later, I donned my goggles, and cut the rope free. It was an arduous task, the rope was stretched extremely tightly against the steel shaft. Down there, under the murky unspeakable water of Den Ouever marina, I felt happy and calm and so so lucky.

Update June 5th 2008 Week 2.

I am writing this from Norway! It took us 80 hours from Texel, in a variety of conditions. So many things happened on the way its hard to even begin to describe them. First of all, the engine broke down. Its radiator cap had rusted through, and popped off. I managed to fix it, but then the fuel system went wrong: (water separator shattered), throwing diesel everywhere and immobilizing us. Then we discovered water was coming in through the stern gland. The rope which had gone into the propeller had somehow loosened the seal around the propellor shaft, meaning we were taking on water. Not much: about 10 liters an hour. We have fixed it as best we can but the boat needs to come out of the water most likely.

Well, after a days delay, fixing all this, we finally set off North for the 300 mile stretch across the North Sea, first arcing out east towards Newcastle, England, as that was where the wind was going. Initially the wind was strong, and the waves a little choppy. Stupidly, we lost a winch handle overboard in the waves. And more stupidly, it was the only one we had. By this time we must have been 50 miles from land, too late to turn back, so we continued, working the ropes by hand. Both of us were extremely happy to be finally at sea, heading North to Norway.

Some hours later, the sail came down from the mast. The pulley at the top had sheared through. We swapped ropes around, but now we only had one working pulley at the top of the mast, and it was unable to pull the sail fully up. The next day, maybe 100 miles North of Holland, I went up the mast to try and fix it. But as we had no winch I had to literally climb up, and failed to reach the very top as I was getting catapulted against the rigging. After some drama, we gave up, and anyway the wind died right down, leaving us motoring over an increasingly smooth and amenable ocean. The weather was now amazing. Clear blue skies, superb sun sets, phospherence in the water and a beer every evening as we made our slow progress.

The next hours all kind of blended into a cycle of half-sleep, half-waking watches and resting, as we chugged contentedly past huge gas rigs and other weird drilling installations far away from anywhere, moving up north, around 100 miles west of Denmark.

At one point the engine again stopped, but it quickly restarted, and was probably just because some air was taken into it as I swopped the tanks over.

Then the wind returned. Soon we were sailing at 4 knots – very reasonable for Whisky Mac. Later we were sailing at close to 6 knots. Yet, as we tried to turn the engine on to go into wind to reef the mainsail, it failed to start. What followed was an exercise in John and Tom trying to be calm, and figuring out which wire went where.

The starting relay had apparently gone, meaning that the starter was not turning, and the fuel was shut off. We had to bypass both with various pieces of wire and lots of patience. With the wind building and building we were both extremely relieved when the engine span into life again.

But the wind did not stop building, and soon it was up around 30 knots. We were also just entering the zone below Norway where the charts carry warnings of “dangerous waves”. Also, we could not take the sails down past one reef, as my abortive trip up the mast previously had left a couple of bits of strapping half way up, meaning the ropes could not run down. We flew towards Norway, with a favourable current taking us to 8 knots, and 30 knots of wind on a reefed mainsail, and a small amount of foresail. The waves were battering the side of the boat, but whisky mac did not seem to mind, though the interior of the boat was badly shaken up, with the cooker coming unpinned and the galley starting to become unscrewed.

After a whole day of this, one of us staying down below, holding the shifting furniture, and the other steering above, we made closer to land. We plotted a course to the first bit of shelter, as both of us were exhausted and the boat was feeling battered, running with a mess of cables running from the wheel house down to the motor, and the sails poorly reefed.

The first gap that opened up for us turned out to be a stunningly pretty Norwegian Fjord. As we went around its sheltering headland, and the conditions calmed, we were elated. This was a trip we had been planning for nearly ten years, but which because of John had had health problems and my work had taken me out of Europe, we had only now managed to make it.

The first nights sleep, we both slept an unbroken 12 hours. Since that time we have been resting, fishing and eating, and reparing the boat surrounded by superbly friendly people and amazing scenery, waiting to sail further North to Stavanger and then Bergen. Last night our computer broke down while we were swimming off the side of the boat to get clean, meaning we have no charts. A friendly and extremely generous ex-fisherman, Tommy, lent us a full portfolio, which we will use until we can get the sat-nav back on its feet. Today or tomorrow we will set off again, towards Stavanger, for the next leg of this trip, which already feels like a year long.

Update June 16th. Week 3 and 4

It has been a great couple of weeks. John and I stayed in a variety of superb locations, always by chance. Coming out of one Fjord, about 70 miles South of Stavanger, we were met by big waves, which had us surfing at over 10 knots. A lot of fun once we realised that Whisky Mac actually seems to like that kind of sea. At dawn the next day, we grounded the boat (on soft sand - we could see it coming) trying to get into a harbour without out computer chart-plotter. A few hours previously we had been trying to find our way into other small harbours, but without the computer it was too challenging, the pilot book we have warning us against entering without local knowlege.

Getting the boat fixed up after the crossing from Holland. The computer dying has been tedious. We used it to navigate, and now have had to transfer all the programmes and registrations to another computer. It took an age to do it, and the current computer is also on the blink. John finished his leg of the journey - I dont know how I will actually manage without him. And two friends, Manuel and Gerald took his place. For a while we stayed in Stavanger, getting our boat and computer in order, regularly going off to a beautiful little anchorage a few miles out of town. At anchor we would fish - being unbelievably unsuccessful at catching anything except tiny little creatures not worth cooking. I have spent a lot of time in the engine room, and have finally fixed the starter relay. Merging all the wires into a slightly more coherent system - but its been like learning a new language to me, getting my head around all the switches and connections. Now it all works pretty well, though I need to get another couple of things fixed still, and we are still taking on water through that stern gland.

We set off from Stavanger some days ago, motoring north against northerly winds, though stunningly pretty scenery. The plan was to check out the spectacular fjords further up the West coast of Norway. But, the boat is not interested so much in going that direction, and so the mast almost fell down, as the back main shroud snapped (the wire cable holding the mast from falling forwards). Typically, the engine at this point also refused to start, and before drifting off onto the rocks we had to plunge down into the engine room and touch all the wires together until something happened (my fuel shut off connection had come free again, and the earth cable for the relay had also gone adrift - shoddy workmanship on my part, but Im an AIDS consultant, not a mechanic so what to do?)

We motored to safety to the first anchorage, a couple of kilometers away, and found ourselves in a totally idyllic nature reserve, perfect for playing with rigging, and repainting our red-ribbon on the mainsail. They even had a little barbecue on a wooden platform, just exactly the right size for three unkept men to watch fish jump all around our bait, never once taking the hooks hanging on our lines.

We got the rigging fixed in Horgersund, although it needs tuning still. And last night we sailed through the night to Bergen, once again through superb fjords, in an endless twilight. Manuel attempted to make bread, not quite grasping the concept of yeast, and we are all still suffering as a result. Tomorrow, if Whisky Mac is in a good mood, we will set off for Shetland, 180 miles across the North Sea, where there are currently 15knots of good Southerly winds, but we will not linger, as a depression is raising strong winds just South of Iceland, and moving our way.

Update June 22nd. Week 5

Im writing this from the Shetland Hotel, which must be one of ugliest hotels in the UK.

Shetland has been an inspiration, with some of the most generous people I have ever met. We arrived early on Thursday morning after a 35 hour crossing from Bergen, Norway. We left Bergen on a beautiful afternoon, up a fjord and then turning left through a maze of little islands, hoping to anchor for the night before sailing across to Shetland. On the way, the engine temperature gauge shot up and we took refuge in a very pretty little spot a few miles out of Bergen where a small high Island sat behind us, populated with huge birds with deep bass cries. Very eerie, although my mind was consumed with the engine temperature. The next morning, with the engine cold and the gauge reading very high, it was clear it was another electrical fault, with the sender having coming loose. I fixed it, and we went back to Bergen for a couple of bits of equipment, before again leaving Bergen, and making our way to the open sea.

With the wind southerly, 15 to 20 knots on our port side, the boat crashed forwards through fairly choppy waves. The boat by this time has got everything sufficiently tightly stowed to cope with this with no problem, but it was not a comfortable part of the journey.

In the early hours of the morning, around 12 hours from shore, we were surrounded by low cloud, almost fog, and everything went still. We motored on, and rain started to fall torrentially - giving us very poor visibility, but also flattening the waves and making our passage an aquatic snorkel, with water below, above and around us. Whisky Mac was acting as nautilus and us as amazed travelers, in the little illuminated wheelhouse chugging through a water world none of us had seen before. From nowhere, powerful gusts of winds pounded the boat, and we had to go out on desk to reduce sail and try to get things under control. The furling gear (the thing that winds the front sail into different sizes) jammed and we had to release the front sheet, leaving it flapping so powerfully it felt it would break through our reinforced safety windows. Manuel and I went forwards, with the waves again dramatically rising the bows high into the air, and then crashing down like some kind of fairground white-water ride, we bounced around at the bows of the boat, trying to free the stuck rigging. Both fully harnessed in we played out a little pirate movie scene, with every communication needing to be shouted as wind and water filled the air. It was a dramatic environment, hanging on to ropes and getting totally drenched, and we revelled in our movie star Jonnie Depp roles, until we finally wrestled the rigging around, and my hand got totally amputed in the gears (actually only a slight graze on my index finger, but it seemed bad at the time).

With the mainsail reefed, and the jib down, we ploughed forwards, with the wind slightly too far forward of us to help much, but whisky mac seemed again in her element, and never once seemed in any kind of danger. The following day, the wind moderated, and the next 20 hours or so were much easier, partly also as we were leaving the area of difficult waves around the Norwegian coast. As the next dawn came we came to Shetland. The wind was again rising though, as the next system of low pressure had moved unexpectedly quickly, and we gunned the engine to the island before the winds became uncomfortable. We arrived here in Lerwick in cold thick rainy weather. The visitors harbour was full, as the Bergen-Shetland race was underway, so we sailed round the corner to the private marina.

Here, an ex-fisherman called Robert, owner of a bomb-proof looking motor-boat called Flamer, took us under his wing. I told Robert of the issue with the stern gland, and he and his friend Zander got the boat hoisted out of the water in no time, despite knarly winds. Their generosity was amazing, finding us parts and fixing the stern gland free of charge in just a couple of hours, something I envisaged would take several days. The problem had got much worse since I had dived down to check it in Holland, with the back holding plate having come completely adrift, and hanging loosely off the shaft. If Robert and Zander had not lifted us out of the water, and had it sorted, there was a reasonable chance that we could have been flooded on the next leg of this journey. I have now also replaced the packing on the internal part of the boat, which is a relief.

Back in the water, the propellor shaft no longer leaks, we are no longer in a state of perpetually sinking, pumping, sinking and flooding. However, as I ran the engine to test the new repair, a whole new issue presented itself, with the engine making a wild erratic banging noise. We were totally despondent, it seems like its just one thing after the other. But Zander and Robert again rallied around, and found us one of the island's best engineers, Billy, who came the next day despite a very busy schedule. Annoyingly, the noise had completely stopped when I tried to show him the issue, but he explained the problem in a way that seems to make sense - a temporarily blocked injector - and it put our minds at ease. As a kind of added bonus Billy, completely rewired all my rough repairs, and now all the sensors and warning lights and alarms work again, (the oil pressure switch had gone) meaning that as we start lining up towards Faroe, we will be considerably less likely to have to go diving down in an adrenaline funk, touching wires together and praying to the god of electro magnetism for benevolence.

Robert explained the cause of these late engine crises. Sea water was coming in at such quantities through that dodgy stern gland that it had occasionally hit the engine coupling and had been fired at force across the engine and the electrics. On drying, it had left a thick crust of salt, which would gather more quickly than we could WD40 it off. None of the components peripheral to the engine, particularly the wiring, were designed for that kind of abuse, and so they were all continually failing. The good news is that now we have stopped the flow of water the cause of the problems is now sorted, and hopefully the electrics will do their thing and soon disappear from my consciousness, instead of every singe wire being imprinted on the front lobe of my brain, illuminating brightly from the moment I awake on my damp bunk, to the moment I turn in. The good part of all this is that I can now fix (more or less) the wiring in my sleep, and have done so a couple of times during our longer passages.

Tomorrow we are making getting some last supplies, and are heading north around Shetland, to wait in the Sound for the favourable tide out of here (water flows at up to seven knots I think, faster than our engine) and a final weather forecast. Low pressure causing the current high winds (I think its a force six or seven out there now) is moving towards Norway and slackening its grip, but another big low pressure system west of England is coming up, and by Thursday force six and seven are again probable, with a force eight possible, if we are slow. Its all so tight, that Im going to get a last forecast on Monday afternoon, before making our dash to Faroe.

Update July 12th. Week 6, 7 and 8

Leaving Shetland, and heading North West to Faroe we immediately hit rough seas. We were sailing between two depressions, one just departed, the other soon to arrive, so the sea still carried the memory of the last strong winds. The ride was bumpy for some hours, and later calmed, though we knew we could not hang around as another set of force 7 or force 8 winds were forecast to get to Faroe just a few hours after us. Because of this, we kept the motor on most of the time, though the sail was doing most of the work and we made good progress around 6.5 knots all the way to Faroe. We arrived Sundaroy around 35 hours after leaving Shetland. We at this point felt like true Viking heroes, having sailed our small boat with just the two of us (Gerald had left the boat, Manuel was aboard, and we were picking Ruth up in Torshavn). We were soon bought down to earth, however, when another yacht came into our harbour, skippered by just one women in her late fifties. She had sailed single-handed straight from Scotland, a much longer crossing than ours. Then another yacht, this time a small one, came in with another solo skipper. So we stopped feeling special completely - though none of them had a massive red ribbon on their sail, so we still managed some kind of self-congratulation.

Faroe is beautiful, green mountains reaching straight up from energetic waters, with big striking skies. In our harbour (a town with just a few hundred people) there was going to be salsa night in the fantastic ancient bar with the ambience of an old fashioned Scandinavian lounge. It turned out, however, that they this was just a quiz night, which for some reason they called salsa, yet we were still plied with drinks all night for being in the men’s team, although we understood not one word of their lyrical Faroese.

We left Sundaroy two or three days later. The waters around Faroe are insane. There is a tidal atlas which illustrates how the sea will be at any given time and place, showing ferocious red for where one should not go. Unfortunately, we did not have the tidal atlas, only the pilot book, and we were delayed by an electrical fault meaning we missed the all-important sweet spot between the rough waters.

Leaving that harbour we encountered perverse waters, by far the roughest we had seen. The waves we big, with the memory of force eights that had just departed them, dwarfing the boat, steep, and packed tightly together. Whisky Mac bounced around like a little cork, the front of the boat heaving into the sky, then sea-sawing down with a bang as the next wave came forwards. For a while it was like a fair-ground ride, where one was never too sure if the equipment was actually bolted on, and we provided all the whoops, and white knuckle postures you would expect. Amidst the hilarity of it all there was also a big fat sense of tension, and I for one was wondering if the engine might not come adrift as the propellor was often out of the water, spinning freely above a wave as we nose-dived down. Although it was fun, it was a relief to come though it unscathed. Picking Ruth up the same evening, we downloaded the latest weather information (sitting on a pavement using any wifi we could). The picture that emerged was a tricky one. It is a 50 hour crossing to Iceland. In 55 hours were were expecting force sevens. In 65 hours there were force eights forecast, and then after this a whole load of knarly low-pressure, bunched up like a knot moving up the coast of Scotland and forecasting severe gales for the coming week. So, do we wait a week and hope for better weather, or do we make a dash for it? We went for it.

Leaving the Faroes was beautiful, with epic skies, sunsets and views. Everyone was in high-spirits, though I was tired, Manuel had flu and Ruth was intensely sea-sick, and we motor-sailed out on easy waters for the next 30 hours. Whisky Mac was running beautifully. Everything now working nicely after all the faults that plagued the earlier part of the trips. At some point in the timeless cycle of short sleeping shifts, the snow-capped mountains of Iceland appeared on the horizon, though they were still 60 miles north west of us. Around the same time, the wind also started to fill in, and the seas became quite rough. Around Iceland the coast shelves up under the water in an erratic mess of contours, with all kinds of banks and troughs. This creates difficult and contradictory seas, and as the wind was now over twenty knots we were starting to have a tough time. Ruth was out of action, lying in the front berths where she must have been being tossed around with the banging of the boat. Manuel’s flu was getting more serious – it felt like we should have a red cross on the sail of our hospital ship, not a red-ribbon.

The winds got stronger and stronger. At around 30 knots, we took all the headsail down and still flew along just with the reefed main. In confused waves, water barrelled over the bows of the boat. No longer just white spray, green water catapaulted over the boat, sometimes blown so hard that it never even got into the cock-pit. We were glad of our plastic safety glass over the windows, and the boat handled superbly, though the pressure of the water over the fixings was forcing damp in to every possible recess, and our hydraulic steering was getting a pounding with the cross action of the wind.

As the hours rolled slowly on through the spray and mist, the mountains of Iceland’s Eastern Fjords grew steadily more spectacular. This is a wild place, with sheer cliffs, snow caps, dark skies, and puffins and every other kind of sea-bird. I for one had a sense of disbelief, we arrived at the tiny harbour of Djupovador, jubliant, and with everything in one piece less than 50 hours after leaving Faroe. All the storage lessons painfully learnt by John and I, some 1000 miles back, had paid off, and the boat is finally truly sea-worthy. We were just in time to see the last of the European cup final where Manuel’s team beat the Germans, though we were both so tired it was hard to be completely celebratory.

In the days that have followed, all the forecast weather came in, dominating the TV news here as gales pulled at Icelanders having their summer breaks on the Southern shores. Safe in our Fjord, we have caught cod, Manuel catching an enormous one, bigger than the boat itself. Rain has lashed steadily over the boat, and low temperatures, 5 – 10 degrees, and wet air is making everything damp. Ruth and I fixed the steering, (I needed to bleed the system) and after a few days she made her departure back to the UK. After various airport transfers and long bus journeys, Diana arrived and we are still here together in Dupivigour.

We are now organising the boat to start sailing around the East and North coast. We have collected enough drift wood to power the stove nicely, and Diana and I are defeating the cold and damp, lining up to get our red-ribbon up to the arctic circle in the coming days – its really unbelievable actually – though less so than Manuel catching that last cod.

Update August 1st. Week 9,10 and 11

We took a couple of days getting to Seydisfjordur – everywhere we stopped getting inspected by customs, I think because the boat was looking so scruffy. The passage North to Seydisfjordur was exhilarating, running downwind at seven knots until overpowered by strong winds and magnificent swell on the stern. Reefing in, we sailed on after some drama as I struggled to get to pole off the foresail with Diana getting a crash course in how to keep the boat steady into the wind. That passage was memorable to Diana and I in many ways with a great motion against the waves, taking us past sheer and inaccessible islands, drifting by fast on the beam as we were powered past.

Seydisfjordur was a cheerful little town where we stayed 3 or 4 days, waiting for some more gales to pass by. Our berth there was uncomfortable, with waves gathering in the fjord and bashing the boat around, though our friend Glenn, on the yacht La Gaillard which we first met in Faroe, taught me a trick with a plank that stopped the Whisky Mac getting too grazed against the crude berth I’d found. Diana and I found it hard to push forwards, as each place we found ourselves already seemed perfect, but Glenn persuaded us to move forwards to the North and West. Needing to get three hundred odd miles in only a week or two, we decided to make a couple of long passages, from Seydisfjordur to Grimsey (170 miles), and from Siglufjordur round to Hornvik (80 miles), on the wild North West coast. Getting to Grimsay took about 35 hours, with a fairly irrate sea the whole way, and we did several hours above the arctic circle which seemed momentus in a quiet kind of way – our big red ribbon mainsail and the whole arctic for AIDS mission reaching some kind of closure.

On the way there were many black and white dolphins, but in the final hours we were too cold and tired to appreciate much. At some point the autopilot blew, and that made our progress much harder. Later, just outside Grimsay in strong winds the roller reefing jammed. I went up forward to fix it, and immediately found my hands burning with the cold as Diana steered us steadily away from the rocks. The furling gear needed dimantling, but the conditions were too difficult to do it, and it was as much as I could do just to gather the sail up around roughly with ropes to get us to harbour - with the wind chill it must have been below freezing. My strength was going and I was soon to come down with a flu that lasted for some days, clinging to a hot water bottle for hours at a time to get warm while the ever-strong Diana did everything on the boat to keep things going.

Just before I became truly bed ridden, we did manage to go for a little hike where we found a man hunting for puffins. He was a nice guy, and came and gave us a couple of puffins to cook. It was a moral dilemma, but we ended up cooking them, trying to forget the cute little birdy origins of the casserole, which was not very tasty, and totally tough. Like sinewy liver. Horrible, though apparently I over cooked them. Im not condoning killing puffins, which are obviously way too cute, though if you do, just sear them both sides quickly in your frying pan, don’t pressure cook them. I hope no one else gives us dead puffin, though we have also since twice been given whale meat, which is even more morally dubious, probably deeply wrong – and totally delicious.

Also on Grimsey we caught a huge catfish, almost by mistake as I left my rod overboard having tossed an inedible dead fish back in the water. The catfish, a monstrous looking thing with big yellow fangs must have taken the dead fish as bait. Once it took my hook we ran around the pier like confused children and had to ask some local fishermen what it was. They gave it the green-light for cooking but it was a grisly job of axe work to kill it. Turned out delicious, and we ate heartily from it the next couple of days.

Siglufjordur was another great town, and again we found it hard to leave. From there we made a passage to Hornvik on the uninhabited North West coast of Iceland, just a few miles south of the arctic circle. The wind was good, and we motor-sailed at full speed, though with the autopilot out of action it was far to steer by hand.

Entering Hornvik, one of the most remote harbours of Iceland, was truly dramatic. Coming in, we had big following waves crashing into the waters trying to exit the fjord in the opposite direction. The results were spectacular sets of monster waves surfing us down into the fjord. With our canoe stern, the waves just picked the back of the boat up and passed effortlessly beneath us and we got little water in the cock-pit, but looking out of the rear window of the wheel house took our breath away. These waves just seemed too big to be ok. Even harder to accept was the fact that ahead they seemed to race to the end of the fjord and break in spectacular crests of white breakers. We seemed to be going up the creek towards some kind of white water demise. Happily, although the waves were breaking, the energy seemed to be dissipated into the calmer waters of the inner fjord, and we passed into quiter waters unscathed. Once at anchor, and probably a little intoxicated not only with celebratory whisky but with over-steering fatigue caused by a dodgy autopilot, I started to think the whole episode was deeply comic. Thinking about those waves I had honestly no idea how we were going to get out of that fjord which did seem funny but laughing about it out loud did nothing to help Diana, who was starting to think about her imminent and long flight home.

Hornvik was stunningly wild and beautiful. We went for a hike up the mountain covered in wild flowers, and it seemed again painful to leave, though we were both relieved to find the conditions had totally changed and our exit was easy, and the following passage short and pleasant.

We arrived in Isafjordur with mixed feelings. I was happy that I had got Diana to her flight on time, but we were both sad to be leaving each other.

My parents arrived just as Diana left. I tried to take them up a fjord to view a glacier, showing off my improved arctic-honed sailing skills. I quickly managed to strand the whole family on glacial mud, whilst taking a short-cut on the dingy, and we ended wading through literally freezing water trying first to get to shore, and with that plan abandoned, just to get safely back afloat. After that it took a while to thaw our feet out, and we were all less inclined to take to the dingy. The memory of my parents with their boots round their necks fighting for the frozen shore is painful one, worse given it was actually the day of their fortieth wedding anniversary. But we probably looked pretty funny to any onlookers.

My parents departed, and now Lucy and Morag, my new crew have arrived, and for the last days we have been painting and varnishing the boat. Whisky Mac is looking more respectable finally, though I doubt it will last long. The question that has been on my mind these last weeks is whether we can get to Greenland across the Denmark Strait. We have a few things against us, our hull is fiberglass, not steel, which means we are more vulnerable to ice. We do not have radar to spot ice-bergs in the fog that besets the coasts round here. And we don’t have a rifle which is apparently important, infact a legal obligation, as a precaution against polar-bears. Some people have warned against this passage, and I started to think it may not be possible. There will be no settlements for over a hundred miles of where we will be landing, and no VHF radio coverage, and no facilities or hope for assistance. The coast is largely uncharted, and according to those that have been there the charts that there are can be many miles out. The most experienced yacht for this area, Aurora, uses hiking charts to navigate when close to shore, because apparently the marine charts depth soundings are unreliable anyway.

However, here in Isafjordur a crossing to East Greenland seems far more viable. There are two or three other yachts about to make the passage so we will be in company. I have found someone who has all the charts (yacht Aurora). Apparently if we bang our two woks together the polar bears, scarce anyway, will be put off attacking us, and failing that we can shoot rocket flares at them. And in relation to the radar for the ice….both Lucy and Morag have very hi-tech sailing outfits so I figure they can sit up front in fog and yell if they see anything. So now we are Greenland bound, weather permitting, though if the weather is even faintly dodgy Im not going to risk it.

The last yacht, Nina 2, that tried for the East Coast of Greenland was nearly caught in ice, spending 24 hours getting out of one dense patch of floating bergy bits, and had a close encounter with a polar bear that was swimming in the water. They failed to get into Scoresbysund because of the ice, but according to the latest ice reports the coast south of that is almost clear, except for bigger isolated icebergs which we can easily avoid. So South of Scoresbysund, to 68 degrees North is where we are heading.

August 10th Week 12 and 13

Greenland did not happen… My crew mutinied (in a sweet and amicable kind of a way) and then Whisky Mac followed suit.

The situation was frustrating. We waited in Isafjordur for a week because another yacht was setting out with better kit and experience and they would accompany us. At the end of this week the other yacht changed their plans. This was bad news. It again meant we would be without easy assistance or communication if anything should go wrong. If our engine stopped, or anything on the boat failed, we would effectively be stranded amongst the ice and fog, unable to communicate and hoping for a favourable wind. Further, the ice reports changed, showing that the safe harbour we were heading for was possibly blocked. So Lucy’s and Morag’s choice not to come across the Strait, seen in that light, was reasonable.

But I was seeing things in a different light. The water was flat calm. A ridge of high-pressure meant it would stay like that for days. Whisky Mac had been given such a thorough shakedown getting this far that she now seemed unstoppable. Professional ice yacht Aurora was sailing into the vicinity and we had agreed to stay in contact (at least when we were within the limited range of our radio). We now had an emergency satellite positioning device which could probably get us assistance if we were really in trouble. And, most importantly, the world of floating ice, mist and pristine wilderness of Greenland was so close we could almost smell it. We had got above the arctic circle already, so I had achieved that goal, but I still wanted to get to that truly icy sea-scape.

I did encourage Lucy and Morag to make their own minds up, pretty sure they would either come with me or I could do the crossing single handed if need be. However, once they opted to stay in Iceland I spoke to other local sailors and worked out a single handed crossing would not have been viable. It would mean arriving in ice, and fog follows ice, 35 hours after departing – just when I would be at my most exhausted with sleep not an option. “You can sail anywhere in the world single handed, but not in ice” the most experienced local professional skipper told me.

So, unhappy for the first time in weeks, I went back to my crew, Morag and Lucy, and persuaded them to make a 48 hour excursion across the Strait. We would probably not see ice, and certainly not Greenland, but it was the best I could manage. So the following day we anchored up a superbly beautiful fjord, just round the corner from where our crossing must begin. After a cheerful evening, our storm windows attached and everything made fast, we set off out of the fjord, cruising down the flat and promising waters. Suddenly there was a terrific grating sound and the boat lurched. I looked astern and a seal was directly behind us, looking at us quizzically. Had we run over it? The depth gauge was suddenly low, but still showing some meters of water below us. Again came the scraping noise, deep and ominous, and the boat heaved and shuddered its bows into the air. At this point Lucy and Morag were down below. After some seconds of bewildered staring at each other, we realised that we had grounded. The depth gauge was wrong (actually I think I had poorly installed it so it was, facing too far sideways and not enough down). The tide was going out so we quickly tried to motor off the shingle bank, but there was no budging us.

This was a bad moment. I had read stories of boats grounding, falling on their sides as the tide had gone out and then flooding as the tide had come back. I had no idea what would happen if Whisky Mac dried out totally. Would she fall on her side on this soft ground and then be unsalvageable as the tide flooded back in? We cut stilts quickly and I jumped into the fjord and started to try and prop the boat up. It was no good, and I saw we were in more danger of damaging the boat with various bits of rough wood stabbing at her side. So anxious and miserable I watched over the hours as she fell on her side. I did manage to get fenders under her, and we put all our valuables in dry bags waiting for the worst to happen.

The worst did not happen at all. These Colvic Watsons seem to be designed for idiot accidents like this one. She just lay on her side, only slightly beyond what one would normally sail on close-reached, and we moved around our funny angled world increasingly cheerfully. It was a humiliating experience though. The water ebbed away from our little moraine shingle bank completely, leaving Whisky Mac totally dry and elevated a couple of feet in the air

From the summer houses on the opposite shore we had been spotted listing drunkenly on the shingle bank and a very pleasant man came out in a rib to check if we were OK. But through him, the whole fjord network got to hear of the comedy of the British boat sticking up into the air. The QE2 was passing by Isafjordur that day on her final voyage to Dubai where she was to be run as a floating casino hotel. Soon tourist boats coming out of Isafjordor port were making their way to see us as part of their little day-trips. I actually think that Whisky Mac’s only encounter with the greatest modern passager liner was as she stuck her portly into the arctic air and the crew hanging out to one side.

Whisky Mac’s angle of poise was obstinate. She had dug her heels in and looked unbudgeable. Still filled with the fear of what might happen when the tide returned, I called our 48 hour mission north off. Three crucial women had rejected the Greenland mission and I felt beaten. Also my fragile male ego would be even more battered entering Isafjordur with celebrity idiot status, widely photographed and now well known to that little boating fraternity.

So, for the first time since leaving Amsterdam which seemed so long long ago we were heading south. For months the goal of getting north with my red-ribbon on Whisky Mac had filled my thoughts and dreams. Now I was going home. It was a profound shift. This trip had taken every ounce of my energy and I had been totally focused on making the journey, step by step, through all of the little dramas and challenges that had marked the way. Now I was again focusing on life outside of this adventure.

The tide came back in with absolutely no problem to the boat, gently refloating us with hardly a wobble, helped along by a couple of friendly locals with tow-ropes.

August 25th, Week 14 and 15

Off we went. We sailed south to Patricksfjordur, on the bottom part of the North West fjords of Iceland. I was pretty miserable at this point, bitterly disappointed at not going to Iceland although it was probably a sound decision in the circumstances. Leaving the boat in the care of Lucy and Morag I headed up into the mountains with a tent, hiking up over the peninsula which would give me a view South towards Reykavik.

It was a great moment of reflection. I was dimly aware of the huge AIDS conference that was happening around that time in Mexico. It was the first one I had missed for eight years. Those working in international public health, particularly those working on AIDS which has become, literally a multi-billion dollar industry, negotiate a complex world. On the one hand there is the humanitarian component of the work, involving whatever constellations of meanings and ideologies that keep a person trying to do good. And on the other hand there is the meaner world of organisational success and personal career progression. These worlds need not be in opposition and some organisations flourish and grow and their staff get well rewarded for genuinely useful work. But often it is more complex, with organisations succeeding financially on the basis of the ambitions and business savy of their personnel, not from any long-term public health outcome. Finding your way as a professional in that world is difficult and whichever way you choose there will always be powerful, often highly emotive voices, to tell you that you have gone wrong. Meanwhile everyday, thousands of people die of AIDS, thousands of others contract HIV and many of those struggling with the virus are asking, understandably, what on earth are all these salaried professionals doing with their time?

I certainly needed this trip to get some arctic winds through me to clarify my views on how best to negotiate this landscape. Coming back from my hike I felt ready to go back to that world, surer of how to make my contribution, and to get back to my lovely Diana in the little apartment she has found us in Cape Town.

From Patricksfjordur we sailed south, directly to the Westmann Isles, south of Iceland and our final port before making longest crossing so far, this time directly to Scotland. There we lay on a volcano, still warm from its last eruption, looking at the worlds youngest Island that had risen from the sea just a couple of decades previously.

We were already tired at Westmann, having sailed through two nights already, so we were set on staying for a few days. But the wind charts suggested otherwise. From Westmann Isles to Stornaway, Outer Hebridies is around 530 miles. This was significantly longer than I had ever sailed, let alone skippered, and out of reach of even our heftly fuel tanks (240 liters). It was also a crossing of one of the trickiest oceans of the world, with systems of low pressure constantly whirling across carrying front after front of heavy weather. Leaving immediately would give us 3 days of wind behind us, which would get us within motoring distance. If we waited much longer we would have a low pressure system to contend with which was fronted by 40 knots of wind (that is touching a force 10 gale) and generally a whole load of wind right against us.

So we left immediately, motoring out for around 12 hours, then motor-sailing, then just sailing. But I was not to go home with a sense of anti-climax, and the weather rounded on us accordingly. The wind forecast to be behind us quickly came to be infront of us. After a couple of days of sailing we were out of range of navtex, our means of receiving weather information. Navtex does not work North West of the Scottish Coast, which is an embarrassment I think to a sailing nation when all its European maritime neighbours are doing their bit to beam crucial information out to those out at sea.

We were completely in the dark about what the weather was going to do, the barometer was steady, there were few clues in the clouds that we could understand, so we kept motoring South East towards Scotland, using our valuable fuel and hoping at any point the wind would swing round again. The wind against us was picking up, over 30 knots one dark night (so strange, and quite scary, to see dark again). We would not have enough fuel to make it if this continued. But sailing seemed futile. The boat’s strong points are not in her upwind sailing ability, its like trying to sail a heavy lorry up a steep hill. We had a choice, either sail to the Faroes or go down to Ireland, many days later. Around sixty hours from Iceland we were getting Navtex information from Ireland, forecasting severe gales and strong winds all apparently moving north towards us. Things were looking a little bit bleak, though my crew were cheered by the fact there had been a couple of ships passing by. Those ships would pick us out of a liferaft, but they would not save Whisky Mac, so I felt less secure (could I really leave her in a wild storm alone – Im beyond rational on this now).

For many hours we experimented with different sailing directions, and different combinations of low-powered motor-sailing but the wind remained on the nose, and we were averaging just around four knots. In a way it was a very poetic situation, completely abandoned to the elements in a little ship and not knowing what was going to happen to us. It was great also to be so beholden to the sails, a motor sailor rarely truly relies on sails in this way.

Eighty hours in, and three quarters of the way through our fuel we made radio contact with an oil ship, coming from the North Sea oil fields and on their way to Canada. We asked them for a forecast and then had a very friendly conversation with their officer on watch. He envied us our solitude and the romance of small boat sailing. We envied him his showers and dry beds.

According to him we were expecting variable winds, but variable winds in this case seemed to mean consistently from the South East, the exact direction we were heading. Gales were constantly in the background, moving towards us.

Eventually the wind veered around enough for us to usefully sail against it, and we started to make good progress. Five days from Iceland we started to pick up the coastguard’s weather forecasts, and some garbled Navtex messages. We were safe, though the final twenty miles was over a boisterous sea with a force seven on our side and the Isle of Lewis forming a rather knarly lee shore.

We arrived in Stornoway five and a half days after our departure from Westmann, once again totally exhausted. Lucy and Morag barely rested an instant before leaving the boat in favour of a guesthouse on the opposite side of the island. They are two lovely and competent sailors, and I was sorry to see them go, especially now they both looked again so radiant, newly bathed and shiny after the dank showerless days of our crossing. They let me use the bath in their guesthouse too which meant more than I can sensibly describe here after the days of diving soaped up into the chilly Denmark Strait and North Atlantic.

Since that time I have been resting, fixing things, and sailing very slowly south. Im now here on the Isle of Skye, with my good friend Czerina on board. We have been here in Carbost, home of Talisker whisky, for the last three days as gales have been blowing out on the sea beyond. Once the wind settles we will again be off, picking up John so I can end as I began, and also his family. From there I think I will sail up the Caledonian Canal and leave Whisky Mac near Inverness. It will not be easy to leave the boat, it is my favourite space in the world, wherever she is moored. Sitting inside the boat now, with the wood-stove lit, and the oil lamps glowing, I do get worried that I may be loving an inanimate ovject too much. But she certainly has looked after us well, and the red-ribbon sail will be seen sailing around Europe (and beyond?) for some years to come.

This trip is coming to an end. I don’t anticipate any more radical adventures (although you never know), and so this will be my last entry on this website until I have learnt how we can spend the small amount of money raised for home-based care. If you sponsored me, then thanks so much and I hope you enjoyed reading this log. For me it has been the trip of a lifetime.