After 4,000 miles in 31 days under sail from St. Helena in the Picton Castle all hands enjoyed their time ashore on the tranquil island of Carriacou. A small island only 6 miles long with maybe 8,000 residents and little tourism, yet plenty to do and see. Hilly but low and pretty dry, it’s pretty sweet at […]
Captain’s Log – Grenada and North Bound Once Again Read More »
Land Ho! Last week, after 31 days across the South Atlantic from St Helena and over 4,000 nautical miles of bowling tradewinds and rolling tropical seas, the Barque Picton Castle sailed around Gun Point into the harbour at Hillsborough, Carriacou, part of the nation of Grenada in the southern eastern Caribbean. Before that by a few hours,
250 miles to go to the Windward Isles and it feels like a grand Caribbean tradewind morning. Indeed it does! A month at sea from St Helena and racing for harbour. Dawn finds our barque romping along at 6.5 knots off the mouth of the Orinoco River, Venezuela, bound for the southern Windward Islands of
May 16, 2024; 136 miles off Georgetown, Guyana, South America At 0400 a starry night overhead, for a change. With no moon the sky reveals all the stars it can. The Milky Way is directly overhead, its broad band swathing the sky from horizon to horizon. The northern end lays a point forward of the
May 15, 2024, 0647. The Picton Castle is about 105 miles north of Paramaribo, Suriname. At 07-41N / 055-02W and 480 miles from Grenada. It has been raining and squalling all night. Big squalls pushing us along at up to almost 10 knots at times. Royals, flying jib and spanker are in. Such sail handling has become
0430 May 9, 2024: Picton Castle at 0 degrees – 44 minutes South and 045 degrees – 15 minutes West, about 100 miles off the coast of Brazil. Steering northwesterly in an ENE breeze. Small seas. On the recent 12-4 watch just now ended, the winds shifted from ESE to ENE. Now we are braced up on
The circumperambulating Barque Picton Castle sailed dramatically out of sweet sunny SE tradewinds a few days ago and into the InterTropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ hereafter). For a couple days we had squalls every hour or so, and squalls with some good push in them as well. Got her going over 9 knots at times under
It’s all pretty sweet here with perfect tradewind conditions in the Picton Castle, 300 miles east of Recife on the Atlantic hump of Brazil. We were making westing, light winds fine on port quarter giving us about 4.8 to 5.5 knots. We wore ship to starboard tack here this morning to make a more northwesterly
April 26, 2024 Another beautiful night at sea under sail. The moon is still pretty full but waning, lighting up the masts, sails and deck, making it all so easy for us to see at night. The star-gazers are waiting for the moon to be gone so the sky can dazzle with stars. The southern
At 0400 (that’s 4 AM) the moon has set allowing the stars of the Milky Way to shine sharply against the black night sky. No moon, and no city light pollution out here. The wind backs and veers a point now and then having the watch officer to adjust course to keep these breezes fine
