22020/1020/1 ® TThehe JJournalournal ooff tthehe OOceancean CCruisingruising ClubClub 1 “I am not afraid of storms for I am learning to sail my ship.” —Louisa May Alcott 2 OCC FOUNDED 1954 offi cers COMMODORE Simon Currin VICE COMMODORES Daria Blackwell Paul Furniss REAR COMMODORES Jenny Crickmore-Thompson Zdenka Griswold REGIONAL REAR COMMODORES GREAT BRITAIN Beth & Bone Bushnell IRELAND Alex Blackwell NORTH WEST EUROPE Hans Hansell NORTH EAST USA Dick & Moira Bentzel SOUTH EAST USA Bill & Lydia Strickland WEST COAST NORTH AMERICA Ian Grant HAWAII, CALIFORNIA & MEXICO Rick Whiting NORTH EAST AUSTRALIA Nick Halsey SOUTH EAST AUSTRALIA Paul & Lynn Furniss SPECIALIST (TECHNICAL) Frank Hatfull ROVING REAR COMMODORES Nicky & Reg Barker, Suzanne & David Chappell, Guy Chester, Andrew Curtain, Fergus Dunipace & Jenevora Swann, Ernie Godshalk, Bill Heaton & Grace Arnison, Alistair Hill, Barry Kennedy, Stuart & Anne Letton, Pam McBrayne & Denis Moonan, Sarah & Phil Tadd, Gareth Thomas, Sue & Andy Warman PAST COMMODORES 1954-1960 Humphrey Barton 1994-1998 Tony Vasey 1960-1968 Tim Heywood 1998-2002 Mike Pocock 1968-1975 Brian Stewart 2002-2006 Alan Taylor 1975-1982 Peter Carter-Ruck 2006-2009 Martin Thomas 1982-1988 John Foot 2009-2012 Bill McLaren 1988-1994 Mary Barton 2012-2016 John Franklin 2016-2019 Anne Hammick SECRETARY Rachelle Turk Westbourne House, 4 Vicarage Hill Dartmouth, Devon TQ6 9EW, UK Tel: (UK) +44 20 7099 2678 Tel: (USA) +1 844 696 4480 e-mail: [email protected] EDITOR, FLYING FISH Anne Hammick Tel: +44 1326 212857 e-mail: [email protected] OCC ADVERTISING Details page 252 OCC WEBSITE www.oceancruisingclub.org 1 CONTENTS PAGE Editorial 3 The 2019 Awards 4 Sailing the South Coast of Newfoundland 27 Jan Steenmeijer From the galley of ... 37 Daria Blackwell, Louise Evans (also on pages 112 & 177) & Anne Hammick Crossing the Pond 39 Sarah McKernan & ...Emily O’Carroll Circumnavigation around the... Southern Ocean’s Five Great Capes 47 Jeanne Socrates The Journey Home from Iberia 63 Daria Blackwell Medical Preparedness for Ocean Cruising 75 Dr Maria Forbes Zora One Year On 84 Rhys Walters In the wake of Bernard Moitessier 93 John Franklin A Tale of Two Bandits 107 Stuart & Anne Letton Cruising Greece’s Cyclades Islands 115 Mike & Helen Norris Sending Submissions to Flying Fish 130 Our Friend Lorenzo and the... Rescue that Never Happened 132 Toby Peyton-Jones Book Reviews 138 The Voyages of Pirate, West Aegean, The Boundless Sea, Corsica & North Sardinia, Adriatic Pilot, Erebus: The Story of a Ship An Ocean’s Learning Curve 147 Dan Stroud Bermuda to England in 1969, Part 2 159 John Robshaw A Western Mediterranean Cruise 165 Phil & Norma Heaton Cérès through the Russian... Inland Waterways, Part 4 179 Thierry J-L Courvoisier Japan, The Next Cruising Frontier, Part 1 190 Kirk R Patterson Tam O’Shanter to the Azores in 2018/19 203 Neil Hegarty 2019, A Summer of Southerlies 210 Iain Simpson Travels with Traversay III 222 Mary Anne Unrau Obituaries and Appreciations 234 Advertisers in Flying Fish 251 Advertising Rates and Deadlines 252 HEALTH WARNING The information in this publication is not to be used for navigation. It is largely anecdotal, while the views expressed are those of the individual contributors and are not necessarily shared nor endorsed by the OCC or its members. The material in this journal may be inaccurate or out-of-date – you rely upon it at your own risk. 2 Welcome to an exceptionally fat Flying Fish – other than the 2014/1 issue marking the Club’s 60th anniversary the thickest we’ve ever seen. It was clear by mid- March that it was putting on weight, and as a fatter Fish means increased printing and postage costs I checked with Commodore Simon Currin and Treasurer Charles Griffiths that this would be okay. The former replied that, ‘In these times of Social Distancing the prospect of a fat Flying Fish will be a consolation for many, so fine with me. I suspect that not many cruising accounts will be generated this summer!’. Knowing how many members are making a dash for home after having their cruising plans curtailed I’m not so sure about his second sentence, and equally time in lock-down may encourage some to dig out their log books and write about cruises made in previous years (there’s no time limit). As always I welcome all and any submissions – see page 130 for the practicalities. I gather Jeremy Firth anticipates a possible dearth of items for the September Newsletter, and shorter pieces (under 1000 words) should be sent direct to him at [email protected] ahead of his 20th July deadline. Returning to the current Fish, a further effect of its obesity was the amount of work it generated for my amazing proof-readers. They received their first thick envelope, or virtual equivalent, in mid-February and the final one in the first week of May – five batches in all, spread over nearly three months. Not once did anyone let me down or return their proofs after the requested date, so a round of applause, please, for David, Nicky, Allan, Anthea, Tony, Fay, Brian and Harvey. Any remaining errors are purely my own! Many non-liveaboard members will have been cruising vicariously during lock- down, so if you’ve read a book recently which you think other members would also enjoy how about reviewing it for Flying Fish? It doesn’t have to be newly published, but it does have to be non-fiction (except in very special cases), in print and preferably available from Amazon or other major outlets – and, needless to say, to have boats or the sea as its raison d’être. Drop me a line at [email protected] before starting work though, as it may have been reviewed in a previous issue or a fellow member may already have suggested it. Still on the subject of books, a note which I’d have put at the end of the Review section had there been space. Flying Fish often carries reviews of cruising guides, a fair few of them written by OCC members. All cruising guides are heavily dependent on user feedback, particularly for updates and corrections between editions, and this is greatly appreciated by both publishers and individual authors. For titles published by Imray Laurie Norie & Wilson send your input (text and photos) to [email protected] for onward transmission to authors, for other publishers consult their website. Finally the usual reminder – the ABSOLUTE DEADLINE for submissions to Flying Fish 2020/2 is Thursday 1st October, but I anticipate a busy autumn (sorry, antipodeans!) so if you can manage mid-September I’d really appreciate it. Thank you! Cover photo: Jan and Corrie Steenmeijer’s Koopmans 45 Livingstone sailing from Santa Marta, Bonaire to Cartagena, Colombia – see ‘Sailing the South Coast of Newfoundland’, page 27. Photo Rob Heijmerink 3 THE 2019 AWARDS As members will be aware, for the first time in its 66-year history our Club was unable to hold an Annual Dinner at which to present the 2019 Awards. This was to have taken place in Annapolis, Maryland on 18th April and organisers Bill and Lydia Strickland, aided by numerous others, had put a vast amount of time and effort into its organisation prior to cancellation on 12th March due to the Covid-19 pandemic. At the time of writing it is hoped that the 2021 AGM and Annual Dinner will take place in Annapolis, with the intended 2021 location in Cumbria deferred until 2022. In the meantime award winners’ plaques are being sent to them by mail, together with an invitation to attend the 2021 Annual Dinner. Thanks are due to Eoin Robson, chair of the Awards Sub-committee, for receiving the award nominations and overseeing the judging panel. Further details of the history and criteria for each award, together with information about how to submit a nomination online, will be found at https://oceancruisingclub.org/Awards. THE DAVID WALLIS TROPHY Presented by the family of David Wallis, Founding Editor of Flying Fish, and first awarded in 1991, this silver salver recognises the ‘most outstanding, valuable or enjoyable contribution’ to that year’s issues. The winner is decided by vote among the Flying Fish Editorial Sub-committee. As always there was divergent opinion among the Flying Fish Editorial Sub- committee, but nearly everyone included Helena Klocke in their shortlist for her articles SAILING PARADISE: Crossing the Caribbean Sea in Flying Fish 2019/1 and CROSSING THE PACIFIC: Colón to Tahiti in Flying Fish 2019/2. Among the praise for her articles were Helena in San Cristobal, Galapagos ‘She communicates the excitement of discovering it all – and does it scarily well in a second (or maybe tenth) language’, ‘She reminds me of the thrill of my first ocean passages – I hope she has the chance to do more in the future and tell us about them’, and ‘She just sounded as if she was having so much fun!’. Helena received assistance from the OCC Youth Sponsorship Programme and typifies the kind of young person it was set up to support. After leaving 4 Kiwa in French Polynesia high school in Germany in 2017 she spent a year in Italy as an au pair before preparing, in March 2019, to join New Zealand member James Joll aboard his Lagoon 450S catamaran Kiwa in Saint Martin. Together with a crew which included her mother, she remained aboard until landfall in Tahiti two months later – what she describes as ‘the most amazing, intense but also most peaceful time of my life (so far)’. Kiwa and her crew crossed the Caribbean Sea, transited the Panama Canal, and called in at the Galapagos islands, the Marquesas and the Tuamotu archipelago on their way to Tahiti.