April 2026
Having left St Helena yesterday, the settled conditions continued even with a few spits and spots of rain and a full, bright moon meant good visibility. The whole sail was downwind which meant that it was a fairly comfortable trip even when the cloud, wind, occasional rain and swell built up over the course of the day on the 3rd, peaking overnight with 29kt gusts and settling down again by morning. Apart from a glimpse of a fellow sail boat that left St Helena the same day as them ( SV Sipi) and one far off container ship, they saw no-one else and even wildlife was sparse with just an occasional sighting of Noddy’s, one of whom hitched a lift overnight perched on the security light, and flying fish. The 5th night, into the 5th April, was the most noisy and uncomfortable due to gusts up to 29kts again, but this time it came with prolonged heavy rain, massive wind shifts requiring sail trims and some large, choppy following waves which meant neither Shawn nor Ally got much sleep. As the day went on, conditions did settle a little and they arrive in Clarence Bay, Ascension Island at 16.05. No one is allowed to swim in this bay as notoriously aggressive Galapagos sharks frequent these waters at completely unpredictable times. The island is a “working island” with the largely transient workforce (between 800 and 1100) being contract workers, military personnel and scientists. There are UK and USA military bases here and before it was discovered, the island was uninhabited as it was arid, volcanic and barren.
They remained onboard for the evening, and the following morning they picked up Camilla and Santeri from SY Sipi who arrived around 6 hours before them. They visited the Port Office to clear in and then went on to the Police Station to get their passports stamped where they met a very friendly officer called Steve who gave them lots of information about the island and lent them his book about all the hikes on the island. Being Easter Monday, it was a public holiday and so the tiny town ( Georgetown) was super quiet, but they sat and waited for a bar to open at midday where they enjoyed a drink while chatting about various things before heading back to their yachts. On Tuesday 7th, they were all back ashore hoping to organise a hire car for a couple of days and to visit the Conservation Centre to find out more info about things to do and see. Sadly all the cars were booked up and most hikes require a car to get to the trail head, so they shopped in the small store in Georgetown ( The Chandlery) for an ice cream and then headed to Long Beach. 100’s of turtles nest on the beaches here between January and May and the huge, golden sand beach was just crater after crater with turtle trails all over..it was incredible to see and plans were made to visit one evening during the week to witness the turtles out of the water and laying their eggs. They then walked up a steep volcanic hill to canons and guns half way up. The area was disarmed after WWI, but re-armed with guns taken from ships for WWII. Back in “town”, they bought a drink and went to the small public salt water swimming pool which is free to use, however, the water didn’t look good and with no pump on, they didn’t venture in. Sadly, the whole area was in a poor state of repair which was a real shame. That evening, Camilla and Santeri spent the evening on Imagination, bringing everything required for fish tacos with them. It was a really enjoyable evening.
By Wednesday morning, the fuel ship that had been due in a few days before but developed engine issues, arrived and hooked up to the longest refuelling line in the world, spanning the bay and up to the landing steps/dock. Because of the risk of damaging dinghies etc, a work boat is used to ferry yacht crews to and from shore and so they were all picked up to go ashore. Ally and Shawn walked along to another beach and a very old graveyard before heading back to Long Beach to try and get to Comfortless Cove where the had been told they could swim. Unfortunately, there are no signposts along the black, volcanic dust tracks and as it was so hot, they didn’t make it and decided to head back to town for an ice cream instead, noticing that the swimming pool was closed for cleaning. They went in to see Kitty ( Assistant Harbour Master) in the Port Office on their way back, just to let her know they would clear out on Friday for departure on Sunday, but she issued the clearance there and then to save them from having to go back which was great.
They remained onboard on the 9th with time spent servicing a winch, doing paperwork and emails for their next destination and organising an island tour for Saturday. They woke up to a rather large swell rolling in on the 10th and they knew that this could make going ashore difficult which was the plan once the fuel ship had departed. They got on with making some repairs to the main sail and then they were contacted by Kitty who advised them that the swell was forecast to get even bigger over the weekend and it was inadvisable and dangerous to go ashore. She went on to say that she would notify the Police ( Immigration) to tell them they would be unable to go in and have their passports stamped due to the sea state and told Ally that they could depart at any time. Both she and Shawn were very disappointed, as were Camilla and Santeri on SV Sipi – they all had to cancel their plans for dinner and turtle watching that evening/night and then had to cancel the island tour they had booked for the following day! Instead of leaving on Sunday, both Imagination and Sipi departed on Saturday morning, 11th April.
The 23 day sail saw various changes in conditions, starting off well with the comfortable and easy to manage “fair winds and following seas” that most sailors enjoy. There were several days of very little wind which meant motoring with one engine for hours on end and having flown the spinnaker for over 48 hours, on day 3, it had a catastrophic blow out and so they were unable to use it again. Moving through the ITCZ ( Intertropical Convergence Zone) where the weather systems from the North and South hemispheres meet and compete ( between 6 degrees south and 6 degrees north), they had the expected doldrums, with moody weather conditions, prolonged, torrential rain and episodes of changeable wind speeds and wind directions. There were many clear, starry nights and sunny days with numerous visits from dolphins along the way, which is always a welcome pleasure, 2 or 3 sightings of distant whales and they had Boobies and Noddy’s hitchhiking overnight several times. Almost as soon as they crossed to the Northern Hemisphere, the sargassum weed made an appearance in bigger and bigger clumps.
The crossing wasn’t without it’s problems. As well as the spinnaker tearing on day 3, the windometer stopped working on day 8. This meant they had no wind speed information, and they relied on the boat speed to tell them if sails needed to be reefed in or let out, and they tied strips of plastic to use as tell-tales onto poles along the starboard hull so they had an idea of the wind direction without having to get wet in the rain, looking up to the wind vane at the top of the mast. Next, the bearings in the head sail roller furling started to sieze on day 9, which meant they didn’t want to make too many changes and cause it to sieze up altogether before they got to their destination. Having had to tighten up a couple of grub screws in 2 of the main sail cars two or three times to stop the rods dropping out and therefore the sail detaching from the mast, when they reefed the main sail in on the 29th to try and slow their arrival in Tobago down ( to avoid the notorious any excuse for Immigration to charge overtime fees!), a large tear was noticed late in the day. Rather than repair it then in the rather choppier conditions alongside French Guiana, they decided to drop it completely and deal with it the following day. However, with the sail dropped, they found that they were still sailing at a fair pace with just the headsail, so they decided to finish the journey with just the head sail and repair the main once they had cleared in at Tobago.
At 6am on the morning of Thursday 30th, Shawn shouted for Ally to get up and come and look up into the sky. They both stared up in disbelief, trying to figure out what they were seeing and seemed to take minutes rather than seconds to realise it was a rocket heading up into space just behind them, and within a few more seconds, they saw 4 afterburners separate from the main fuselage. It was an incredible, unexpected and chance sighting of an Ariane 64 rocket carrying satellites for Amazon from French Guiana, with Shawn just happening to look up to the skies at the right time! Wow!
