Dream Over - I think.

The plan is and always was that at the end of August we would take Haku to Port Napoleon near Marseille and sell her. On the 24th we dutifully sailed in with a very sad crew and in particular skipper. A series of rather contemplative songs over the last hour through the bimini speakers ending with Disney's Hakuna Matata brought our long journey to an end.

Over the next few days we emptied and cleaned the boat ready for removal from the water and listed her for sale with Ancasta. We took all our belongings to Karen's in the Dordoigne and the came back to Port Napoleon for our haul out - only to find tht they couldn't lift the boat as she needs to be lifted. Nowhere else nearby can lift and store her so we now need a different solution and possibly a different place from which to sell.

So, is it back to Spain, off to Greece or Turkey? Or is the best place to sell her Fort Lauderdale via the ARC and the Caribbean?

Don't know yet, possibly Port Napoleon can solve the lifting problem perhaps we will move. In any case we can't stay here in the water as there is no space.

In the mean time we are in England gearing up for the new school term and wondering what the near future holds. Is the saga over?

Barcelona by Go Car

The first time we left the Marina in Barcelona my eagle eyed son spotted what he thought was a two person go Cart and immediately wanted a go. The helmeted occupants of these New York Taxi coloured vehicles whizzed past from time to time and when one came close enough we were able to read that it was "Go Car Tours - the talking tour car" which sounded like fun. The next day we booked one of these for two hours and started exploring the streets of Barcelona. Built into the car is a GPS and speakers so it can give you relevant directions and commentary while you drive as well as cracking jokes and embarassing you by whistling at passers by.

We had a great fun afternoon and I added on an extra hour or so in order to go and get my daughter so she could try it too. We saw down-town Barcelona, the Olympic area, Guadi's Sagrada Familia - stopped to do some shopping and then took the Go-Car's rather too exciting secret short cut back to their offices through pedestrian streets, impossibly small gaps, a game of soccer and diners at a pavement cafe.

The only complaint was that the GPS lost signal in the built up streets a couple of times but it did let you know that you had gone wrong and redirected you.

As a first generation these things are great and you can imagine that with a few more features like a "take me straight home" button for when your time is running out it will be even better.

D Day and B Day

I woke up very excited today because Sam our flat coated retriever was arriving from England and Jamie did too because it was her 11th Birthday.

Kim and I have been very worried about Sam coming – will he be seasick, will his claws scratch the hatches or damage the deck and most importantly will he wear his boots? Consequently the day started with me heading off to the local DIY store for vinyl flooring to cover the inside of the boat, Astroturf for Sam to pee on during long passages and clear vinyl sheets to cover the hatches. The flooring worked a treat and as it is cushioned is rather nice on our feet too. The clear vinyl works OK when covered with clear sticky back plastic to hold it around the edge of the hatches – Astroturf I haven’t managed to get yet.

Jamie’s birthday celebrations started last night with dinner at a very good Asian restaurant and continued this morning with present opening (iPod Nano + cover and iTunes voucher, box of chocolates, makeup and a gold plated leaf necklace plus of course the hoard of clothes already received from Gran and Aunts) and a rather nice Sacher Torte from Carefour as her birthday cake. I had planned to take her and Alex to a water park but with having to run errands and lay flooring I decided we would have to put that on hold for a day or two.

After a number of logistical planning phone calls (apparently the 27metre long dog trailer can’t be turned around in anything much less than the length of a football pitch) Sam’s couriers arrived. I met them at the top of the marina and jumped in the cab to show them where we were. As soon as Sam heard my voice he started woofing at me (to be fair, he does have a lot to complain about). He was obviously very pleased to see us all and also fairly hot which we dealt with by hosing him down and making a token effort to clip him with the noddy clippers we bought yesterday.

Our plan was to get him used to his “All terrain non-marking” boots and then take him for a boat ride. The boots worked surprisingly well except that he spent the first little while prancing like a dressage horse. He also seemed quite comfortable on the boat and we were able to keep him on it with the occasional “NO” if he got too near to the steps at the back and appeared to be heading for the water.

A short ride out into the bay, down with the anchor, on with the wetsuit (me) and Sam had his first swim. We have a couple of things for him to retrieve and I came in to get him confident in getting out using the ladder. Unfortunately, although he is losing weight the ladder is a bit tough and at the moment he needs a hand getting out. I think this will get easier with practice and as he loses weight. Sam enjoyed his swim and on the way back started walking confidently around watching what we were doing.

After dinner on the boat we all got in the dinghy and motored into the marina restaurant and shopping area which is quite crowded. I think Sam sees the dinghy as just another type of car and he just relaxed and lay in the bottom. He must be very tired as he completely ignored all distractions including red Indian street musicians, an animal impersonator and a fully costumed planet of the Apes character.

He is now peacefully asleep in his travel cage. Jamie had a happy birthday and Sam a happy return.

Jamie's Yellowstone Poem

Fir and pine trees making forest of green,
White snow on the ground makes a Christmas dream.
Rhyolite columns way up high,
Snow still falling though summer is nigh.

Mud pools bubbling, glop, glop, glop.
Hot springs steaming, hot, hot, hot.
Geysers erupting through the light and dark.
Yellowstone, the very first National Park.

Elk, marmots, foxes and eagles in the sky.
A bison charging down the hill, nobody knows why.
Canadian geese singing their song, being really loud.
Critter jams along the road where animals stand proud.

Below the ground, pressure builds up, right to the max
Meanwhile above the surface, a Park Ranger chats.
Too much pressure, Old Faithful will now blow.
The most famous geyser in North America, you know.

Tranquillity, peace and harmony.
Excitement, joy and awe.
Serene, calm and beautifully still.
Yet the most moving place that I ever saw.

Yellowstone: Last Day

Once Jamie had been awarded her badge, it was Alex’s turn to be a Young Scientist today. The observations for his task also centered around the hot spring basin at Old Faithful, so off we trotted again. While we had lunch in the fantastic Lodge, the heavens opened and dropped tonnes of white fluffy stuff and we were forced to stay inside (in front of a log fire)till it all went away. So we spent a little time gift shopping. When the weather lifted, Alex finished his work – he thinks geysers are not alive and can provide evidence – was awarded his badge and we celebrated by finishing our time in Yellowstone in the enormous gift shop buying souvenirs of our incredible time here.

Yellowstone: Bears, Wolves and Old Faithful

Heavy snowfall greeted us this morning. Since we have a rental car, trainers, jeans and light raincoats we decided to visit the Bear and Wolf Centre in Yellowstone and wait for the weather to get better.

So we did finally get to see wolves but it’s just not as exciting when you’re not on safari! Jamie and Alex were able to join a group of children and hide treats in the bear enclosure and then watch the bears find them; I took some pictures of wolves. The weather got better and we made our way back into Yellowstone to Old Faithful. On the way we saw a bald eagle in its nest along with a couple of eagles perched on surrounding trees and a herd of bison shaking off the cold of the snow shower by laying down on a steaming hotspot!

At Old Faithful, Jamie and Alex finished their Junior Ranger worksheets and had their badges presented to them in the Visitor Centre. Yellowstone also have Young Scientist packs in addition to the Junior Ranger badges and we decided to do these for the next couple of days. They are, again, incredibly good value learning resources that teach the children good, well founded scientific method. Alex’s had him formulating an hypothesis about whether geysers were alive and then gathering evidence to support his theory. Jamie’s had her observing, gathering evidence and prioritising it to support the hypothesis that there is a volcano under Yellowstone Park. Both were accompanied with an investigation trail and a cool backpack filled with instruments such as laser thermometers and colour wheels to help the young scientists.

We did Jamie’s investigation this afternoon. It did involve walking around the Old Faithful trails which caused some grumbling but was actually extremely enjoyable.

Yellowstone: Canyon

I bet the question most Rangers get asked by far is “where can I see bears/wolves?” Rangers are either dead cagey about it or supremely confident. Some will say, “Well, you know, there’s no guarantee you’ll see bears or wolves” and you come back with, “Yes I know. But where are we most likely to see them? I’ve heard the Lamar Valley is good” and the dialogue continues along the same lines for a few minutes till they might grudgingly say, “Well, you might see something in the Lamar Valley.” Others will get out a map and say, “There are bears here and wolves here. They are best seen in the morning. I saw grizzlies and brown bears two weeks ago.” Who can blame them? The cautious ones don’t want any come back and the confident ones are pretty sure they won’t get any!

During our Ranger Orientation, we decided our best bet was to get to the Lamar Valley (north east of the park) by about 7 in the morning and while that wasn’t possible most of the time because of road closures, it would be possible on Saturday morning because the weekend traffic would mean the road wasn’t closed overnight. I duly roused the kids from comfortable sleep at 5:45 and we were on the road by 6.

By 6:35, we found the road was still closed and we had two options. Wait here till 8 when it opened and get to the Lamar Valley by about 9, 9:30 or drive the other way round the park and get there around the same time. Imagine how happy the kids were...

Still, the views around the lake were great, we crossed the Continental Divide twice and went through the snowline and given that we were passing the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and were too late for early morning feeding of wolves or bears, we drove the South Rim of said Canyon and walked to Artist Point.

Wow!

It’s easy to see why this is one of the most photographed views in Yellowstone. Dramatic canyon walls shot through with the reds, browns and greens of minerals and a thundering 93 metre waterfall fringed by green lush forests and watched over by ospreys and eagles. Geologically the Canyon is here because water has eroded the softer rocks and cracks in the lava river bed faster than their harder counterparts and melt water from glaciation has carved the walls. I was so impressed that I drove round the north rim too.

Then to the visitor centre for breakfast and a bit of larnin’.

From Canyon, we went north over Dunraven Pass – which was fortuitous because after today the Pass was closed due to heavy snowfall. Then onto Tower Falls at which point we’d branch right towards the northeast entrance of the park and the Lamar Valley. The kids were on big mammal watching duty since if I’m doing it we tend to end up off the road. I was of the opinion that we had got up so early to see bears and wolves and that that’s what we were going to see.

Just before Tower Falls we hit a major critter jam and stopped. The word was “Bear”! “I knew it,” I thought triumphantly, “I’ve even got binoculars!” But all we could see was an elk pacing continuously and looking in one particular direction. Eventually we pieced together from other members of the critter jam that the bear was behind a particular pine tree (the bottom right tree of an N shape) eating the elk’s calf. And we did get to see the bear in profile as it moved its head to and fro. It was a very sad picture.

We moved on to Lamar, stopping in Tower Falls for a rest and an ice cream. Just outside Tower was a fabulous display of rhyolite columns. A little further on, a coyote ran behind the car and disappeared into the pasture. We saw herds of elk and bison. A significant critter jam got us all excited but it was for a badger, for which you needed higher power binoculars than we had. A fox showed up for a photoshoot. We saw some pronghorns. A quick stop by the side of the road revealed a skeleton picked clean by scavengers. But no wolves, not one. It’s a funny thing but if I wasn’t dog tired from over 100 miles of driving already and if it hadn’t been getting too late to get back for a Ranger-led walk, we’d have just kept driving and driving looking for wolves – we did get very focused.

Back to Tower and another critter jam. We stopped again, and were rewarded with a longhorn sheep. Just beyond Tower Falls, we stopped to see if the bear was still there. It wasn’t but the elk mother was – walking around the spot, stopping and looking at it and presenting a picture of forlorn hopelessness. This stop made us too late for the Canyon Walk – so we decided to go on our own. Actually, I decided. You wouldn’t believe the grumbling I had to endure because I wanted a walk after about 130 miles on the road. I finally gave in and drove us back to West Yellowstone for a well-earned dinner.

Was it worth it? Yes.

Yellowstone: Mammoth Springs

Mammoth Springs was our next destination. This route took us back through Madison to the Artist’s Paintpot and towards the north entrance of the park.

Artist’s Paintpot involved a bit of a walk uphill and this is where we noticed we were 8,000 feet above sea level! As the name suggests, the mud pools here have the colours and consistency of artist’s paint – but are so acidic they would eat the brush. They are full of Archaea which metabolise sulphur and water into sulphuric acid that has a lower pH than battery acid.

Driving north, I saw out of the corner of my eye, a huge brown shape barrelling downhill. Initially I thought it was a bear on the rampage – no such luck. It was a huge bison all on his own – there was no visible reason for his urgent solo stampede. By dint of hard braking on both our parts, we managed to miss each other by a couple of inches. He would most certainly have totalled the car.
Then we encountered a critter jam. It was a big one so quite likely worth stopping. As we joined the group of observers we could see nothing except grass leading down to a piece of woodland, but the general excitement level was very high. The word was that there were bears in the trees! We didn’t have binoculars but during the 15 to 20 minutes we watched the trees (I am convinced that the wild life watches us watching them in amusement) we did see two large shapes with bear like heads that looked like they might be foraging. On day 2 in Yellowstone we reckoned we could claim to have seen bears.

A little while later I saw a movement by the side of the road, pulled over and we watched a little mammal climb around some obsidian streaked rocks. We took photos so we could ask a Ranger what it was. It was a Yellow Bellied Marmot. Cool!

Onto Mammoth. I’m not attempting to describe the scenery because it’s beyond words but the route into Mammoth is just extraordinary. Hopeless to try and capture it with our happy snappy camera L. Mammoth is famous for its extensive travertine (limestone) formations. These cover a hillside with terraces and limestone features which grow and change almost as you watch in contrast to other thermal areas of the Park. The boardwalk trail takes you up to the top of the hillside via the best views and most interesting features. Although it may seem tame that most of our walking took place on boardwalks it’s actually pretty essential in the thermal basins – it’s easy to damage the springs and pools or yourself and even the savvy wildlife have been known to fall into a hot spring and cook. We were rewarded for our exertions by the sight of two snakes back at the bottom of the hill.
Back at West Yellowstone, we bought a pair of binoculars.

West Yellowstone: Rodeo

--

We went to the first rodeo of the season! It started at 8pm and it wasn’t very warm but it was great fun. The Rodeo is held every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night during June, July and August. Competitors’ points are added up over the whole summer and a season-winner for each event is declared at the end.

We saw the traditional bucking broncos and bucking bulls along with calf wrangling, steer wrangling, racing around barrels and a pairs event that saw one rider lassoing the front legs of a steer and the other the back. It was a really exciting event. Around 3 of the dozen competitors in the bucking bronco event stayed on long enough to score (8 seconds). Not one stayed on the bulls for long enough to score. Two of the young cow girls were absolutely amazing in the wrangling and barrel racing event beating a lot of experienced male counterparts. And the athletes (horses and bulls) were well trained to give maximum “bang per buck”.

We loved it: we loved whooping along with our American cousins and holding our breath when the bulls were released; we loved the kids’ calf scrambling event which Alex very nearly won; and we loved the small town, wild west atmosphere. This was a professionally run event, with very talented contenders but it was raw, rough and very real.

The kids wanted to go back the next night!

Sadly it was a bit dark for our camera and the photos don’t capture the Wild West spirit of the event.

Yellowstone: Madison and Old Faithful

-

Yellowstone is a big park (2.2 million acres/3,000 sq miles) and a visit takes some planning. Our first day was an orientation in West Yellowstone, a visit to the Junior Ranger station at Madison to get the Junior Ranger packs, a Ranger led walk at Black Sand Basin and a visit to Old Faithful. This kept us in the south west area of the park and kept the driving down to around 50 miles.

After our Orientation Talk – involving animal puppets and other exciting props – we had a good idea of where to visit and what to look for. In a nutshell, geology and wildlife*.

Just after we entered the Park, we saw our first critter jam. A critter jam is a collection of cars pulled up at the side of the road indicating the presence of a critter. This one signalled an Elk strolling through the Madison river. We were so excited! A real Elk! By the time we’d reached the Madison Ranger Station, we’d seen a bald eagle, a herd of elk and a herd of bison. We wouldn’t have stopped for just one Elk anymore!

The Junior Ranger activity was a talk about herbivores and carnivores and the food chain in the Park to a backdrop of the herds of elk and bison Alex, the walking animal encyclopaedia, found the questions a tinsy bit easy which took the Ranger back a bit. We got our Junior Ranger packs, investigated the Ranger tables and moved onto the Black Sand Basin walk via Firehole Falls and lunch.

Our poor Black Sand Basin Ranger was a Yellowstone novice and carried a guide book around with him. It was our first walk around geothermal features and we found out about the rocks we could see: rhyolite (slow moving lava that’s cooled slowly and forms fantastic columns) and black obsidian (lava that’s cooled very quickly and becomes the black sand) and sinter (silica mineral dissolved out of the rhyolite by the hot springs): the cyanobacteria that lives in the hot pools and gives them their red, brown, green or blue colours: the lodge pine which thrives in the nutrient poor rhyolite soil and has evolved like many of the trees and plants to thrive where there are frequent forest fires.

Our final stop for the day was Old Faithful. Here the kids had to time one of its eruptions and use the data to predict the time of the next. If the current eruption is less than 2.5 minutes, the next eruption should happen about 65 minutes after its start: if it’s more than 2.5 minutes, you’ve got a 90 minute wait. Our prediction was 4:16; the Rangers’ was 4:15 and it actually started at 4:14. How cool is that!

*Geologically, Yellowstone sits on top of a “hot spot”. This is an area of light, hot rock closer to the earth’s surface than usual that produces the incredible hot springs, geysers and mud pools as well as the odd volcanic eruption. The last super eruption, around 630,000 years ago is estimated to have produced 60 times more material than the Krakatau eruption and 1,000 times Mount St Helens. The dust and ash covered around 2/3 of the US mainland and the explosion was so violent that it was followed by the collapse of the earth’s crust into a bowl shaped crater called a caldera (Spanish for cauldron) that is 30-45 miles across. The region is by no means stable now: there has been a number of smaller volcanic lava flows, and the roads are in constant need of repair because of earthquakes and the caldera floor’s constant movement – currently upwards at about 3 inches a year.

Ecologically, the variety of Yellowstone’s animal species is now similar to that of 2,000 years ago – but it almost wasn’t. By the end of the 19th century, America’s last remaining herd of bison roamed Yellowstone Park and their numbers had dwindled to 50 by 1898 and 23 by 1902. Although Yellowstone was declared a national park in 1872, no one enforced its conservation until the Cavalry was despatched to run the Park in 1886 which they did for 30 years till the National Park Service took over in 1918. Even then the policy regarding wildlife has changed direction like a pinball: there was a time when bears were encouraged to eat the hotels’ garbage and special viewing places were set up for tourists, now you aren’t allowed within 100 yards of a bear or wolf and feeding them is definitely not allowed.

Idaho Falls – West Yellowstone

This was a relaxed day. The hotel in Idaho Falls has a great pool and the kids met some other kids which we always try to take advantage of, so we didn’t start the journey to Yellowstone till lunchtime.

Mountains soon dominated the scenery: snow clad mountains! After the flatness of the Bahamas and Florida, here was some 3D landscape! with snow!

The hotel that was to be “home” for the next week was easily found because West Yellowstone’s downtown is approximately 2 blocks by 2 blocks – even I couldn’t get lost. We arrived in time to see an IMAX presentation on Yellowstone, wander round the gift shop, “provision” and get our bearings in town.

Yellowstone

It may seem a bit odd to visit Yellowstone in the middle of a sailing trip around the Caribbean and Bahamas, but it made sense in a lot of ways to continue exploring the US while Chris was sailing back to Europe and you couldn’t have much more of a contrast to the rest of our trip than Yellowstone.

A big contrast was the temperature. When I’d researched what clothes to pack, I’d looked at the current daily temperatures and been pleasantly surprised at the high thirties, shocked at the forties and had a dawning realisation by the fifties that we were talking Farenheit. It’s cold up there and we found out when we were planning our visit that many of the Ranger-led activities weren’t scheduled to start till we got there in early June – and were in fact postponed because of the weather.

And then there was the substitution of green forest for blue sea, enormously high, snow clad peaks for white sand beaches, and large mammals for smaller fish.

But the underlying themes are the same: what an incredible and beautiful world we live in, how diverse, complex and fragile the ecosystems and how privileged we’ve been to see even such a small part of it.

St Augustine to Gibraltar: Day 0

As skipper one of your primary goals is to gain the confidence and trust of your new crew. So it’s not a good idea to run out of gas as you bring them back from the airport. Fortunately a passing cabbie took us to a gas station and then to another one that had gas containers and back to the first to use the ATM so she could be paid and so the gas guy could try to sell me one of the twenty gas containers he had since found. To be fair I had filled up the tank that morning and being from the UK didn’t realise how quickly one of Detroit’s finest could lay waste to half a fossilised forest.

Pub grub tonight and a last couple of pints for the crew before we set off. If you want to read the blog of this journey, click the link here or at the top left of this page: http://chrishorsemantransat2.blogspot.com

Believe it or not! A Ghost Tour

One of St Augustine’s attractions is Ripley’s Believe it or Not. We’d not bothered because we’d been to one in Los Angeles and were fairly busy. But we did decide to take their Ghost Tour.

We collected at the “museum” and were issued with a disposable camera and electronic ghost detectors (actual EMF meters) so that we could detect and take pictures of the supernatural events we were about to witness.

We were led by a lady and gentleman dressed in Gothic clothes who spoke really slowly and spookily. The man made lame Daddy quality jokes. They narrated the tour through the streets of St Augustine as night fell telling tales of murder, massacre, and betrayal. We visited the “oldest house” where a wife waits for her husband each night, a park where children play as ghostly orbs in the trees, and a cemetery that was once outside the city walls where yellow fever claimed the lives of many. We were told of the practice of putting string connected to bells on the fingers of corpses as they were laid in their coffins so that if they weren’t really dead once they were underground, they could let people on the surface know! As we went we took photos and checked the em meter -- no ghosts around that night...

Our final stop was the museum itself. Here our guides left us claiming that it was more than their pay packet was worth to enter the museum at night. A new guide took over and led us through the rooms of what was once a chic hotel where a double murder might have taken place and been covered up. If you haven’t been to a Ripley’s museum, imagine rooms stuffed with oddities, human and animal: tallest, shortest, fattest, ugliest. Think of the old fashioned “freak shows” and you’ll see why it was such a good place to scare people in the dark.

We survived and although we haven’t had the photos developed yet, we’re fairly confident that we won’t see ghostly orbs in the trees, on the stairs, above our heads!

St Augustine

St Augustine is a pretty town. It’s one of the first European settlements on North America and was strategic to North America and the Caribbean so it has a rich and long history of piracy and conflict with native Americans.

It also has a microbrewery right next to the municipal marina.
We had just gone through another storm, so it was fairly rough and we went through some good waves entering the harbour. Inside was calmer and while we were waiting for a bridge to open, we watched some dolphins who were hunting for their dinner. I have another fine collection of photos showing “sea where there was once a dolphin”. These didn’t play or approach the boat and the harbour master said that this was normal – they just weren’t interested in humans.

We were in St Augustine to prepare for Chris’s departure on the Trans-Atlantic back to Gibraltar. He had a crew arriving on the 31st and 1st and we had to do all the boat preparation and checks, provision, washing, packing ... and replace our radio which had been fried in the storm.

West Palm Beach to St Augustine

I had the best night watch ever on this trip. My watch was around 12-4 in the morning and took us past Cape Canaveral. Although we’d been experiencing heavy thunderstorms since Fort Lauderdale, the night sky was as clear as crystal and the light pollution from the Florida shore was much less than expected. Usually it’s hard to fill a 4 hour night watch but this was incredible.

The launch pads and the huge Vehicle Assembly Building of the Kennedy Space Center were lit up like 3 enormous Christmas trees and through the binoculars you could clearly see the details of the launch pads, the gantries and supports and struts. We’ve visited Space Center before: once with the kids on a tour which conveys some idea of the scale of the facility and once in a light aircraft which NASA traffic control allowed us to fly above the shuttle landing runway (pre 9/11). Surprisingly, sailing up the coast quite some distance off shore, brought home how big it really is -- we were in sight of the buildings for at least two hours as they continuously moved in relation to each other. There were many aspects of Floridian/US civilisation and culture that we found depressing in contrast to island living, but the magnificence of the engineering and the achievement of the space program is truly awe-inspiring and for that, you do need the infrastructure and investment that a nation like the US can provide.

I have been fascinated by stars and space since my Dad took me up to Harefield Common to identify the Plough and Orion when I was about 7 or 8. He would have loved seeing the fabulous clear skies where it’s difficult to identify constellations because of the number of bright stars rather than the light pollution we have in the UK. Jamie had been given a simple stargazing book by one of her friends at school and I used it that night to great effect to identify constellations that are too dim in the UK and to try and extend my tiny repertoire. Usually I sit huddled at the helm on night watch, but conditions and motivation were such that I walked round and round the boat with book and torch until I was dropping.

One of the wonderful aspects of this trip is that it gives you the opportunity to construct your perfect world: I’d live near a Bahamian beach that backed on to mountains, with a perfect clear night sky every night and access to Waitrose...