Greenwich
to the Dateline
Bluewater Cruising to the Caribbean and
Pacific Islands
Rory Burke & Sandra Burke
ISBN: 0-620-16557X | 9780620165570
340 pages, Size: 168x240 mm
Photographs and diagrams 400+
Price: UK £9.95, US $19.95, SA R50,
AUS: $29.95, NZ: $29.95, HK $115
Published: 2002
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This
is a travelogue of our bluewater
cruising adventure
from the
Greenwich Meridian to
the International Dateline – sit
back with a sundowner and be inspired to
cruise to the Caribbean and Pacific islands.
In this catalogue of rewarding experiences
we describe how we converted our travelling
dreams into a bluewater cruising reality.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Implications of Bluewater
Cruising
Chapter 2: Buying Our Yacht
Chapter 3: Life in Salcombe Car Park
Chapter 4: Shakedown Cruise
Chapter 5: Ireland
Chapter 6: Bay of Biscay
Chapter 7: Portugal
Chapter 8: Gibraltar
Chapter 9: Morocco
Chapter 10: Cadiz
Chapter 11: Canaries
Chapter 12: Atlantic Crossing
Chapter 13: Antigua
Chapter 14: Guadeloupe and Iles des Saintes
Chapter 15: Dominica
Chapter 16: Martinique
Chapter 17: St Lucia
Chapter 18: Bequia, Mustique, Grenadines
Chapter 19: Grenada
Chapter 20: Dutch Antilles ABC's
Chapter 21: San Blas
Chapter 22: Panama Canal
Chapter 23: Ecuador
Chapter 24: Galapagos Islands
Chapter 25: Pacific Ocean
Chapter 26: Marquesas
Chapter 27: Tuamotu Archipelago
Chapter 28: Tahiti and Moorea
Chapter 29: Huahine and Tahaa
Chapter 30: Bora Bora
Chapter 31: Maupihaa
Chapter 32: Suvarow
Chapter 33: American Samoa
Chapter 34: Tonga
Chapter 35: Minerva Reef
Chapter 36: New Zealand
Chapter 37: Sustainable Cruising
Appendix 1: Budget
Appendix 2: Equipment Checklist
Appendix 3: Yacht and Equipment
Appendix 4: Safety Equipment
Appendix 5: Heavy Weather Tactics
Appendix 6: Disaster Prevention
Appendix 7: Toolkit
Appendix 8: Insurance Saga
Appendix 9: Medical Planning
Book List
Index
Authors Note
Greenwich to the Dateline tells the story
of our bluewater cruise from the Greenwich
Meridian in London to the International
Dateline in the South Pacific. This
is a sequel to our previous cruising
book, Managing Your Bluewater Cruise,
which is a preparation guide for those
who want to go cruising. By contrast,
this book is the personal story of
our trip and experiences, together
with a discussion about our yacht and
its equipment.
Originally we
thought cruising round the world would
be
a sailing epic where
we would be pitched against mother
nature and spend long periods alone
at sea -
we were wrong. Bluewater cruising turned
out to be a unique cruising lifestyle
which we shared with many other cruisers
who were also out there doing it!!!
Like a floating village we crossed
the oceans
together, and with SSB radio we kept
in regular contact. And as for lonely,
we have never had such a dynamic social
diary.
We decided to
call our book Greenwich to the Dateline
because while we cruised,
we were constantly referring to Greenwich;
our longitude to Greenwich, our local
hour angle to the Greenwich hour
angle, and our time to GMT for; celestial
navigation, tide tables, cruiser's
SSB nets and the
BBC World service. Like Phileas Fogg
in, Round the World in 80 Days, we
started our journey around the world
from the
Greenwich Meridian. In our case we
stood on the zero degree prime meridian
at
the Royal Observatory at Greenwich,
and later, we sailed across the International
Dateline between American Samoa and
Tonga.
The importance
of Greenwich was established in 1884
when an international
conference
of astronomers met in Washington
DC and agreed to make Greenwich
the prime
meridian
and Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) the "Time
for all the world." On the
other side of the world, 180 degrees
east
and west of the Greenwich Meridian
is the
International Dateline - where
the date changes by one day. When
Phileas
Fogg
travelled from east to west he
gained a day. By contrast, we travelled
from west to east and lost a day!!!
Our
interest in bluewater cruising
evolved from reading about the
adventures of
the modern day pioneering sailors;
Sir Francis Chichester, Sir Alec
Rose, Sir
Chay Blyth, Sir Robin Knox-Johnson
and Bernard Moitessier. But their
circumnavigations sounded like
endurance epics. We felt
there must be a more leisurely
way to
sail around the world and see
all the places of interest along the
route
and, sure enough, we found the
answer when
reading about the cruising adventures
of the Hiscocks, the Smeetons,
Tristan Jones and the father
of
them all,
Joshua Slocum. This seemed the
logical way
to cruise around the world and
like a snail
we could carry our worldly possessions
with us.
This book is the
story of how we converted our travelling
dreams
into a bluewater
cruising reality. First we
discuss
the implications of bluewater
cruising
and
the impact it had on our house,
our possessions and our careers.
Once
we arrived back
in Britain from working in
Cape Town, it took us six months to
find our
perfect yacht, Pacific Voyager
(a Nicholson
35), fit her out in Salcombe
car park, and
conduct sea trials around the
coast of Britain, before departing
from
our home
port of Porthmadog in North
Wales.
We followed a
well-established cruising route from
Ireland
to Spain, Portugal,
Gibraltar and the Canaries,
before making our first ocean
passage
following the
sea route of Chistopher Columbus
to the Caribbean, not in
search of gold
and
spices, but sun and reggae.
After cruising the Caribbean
Islands
we transitted
the Panama Canal to follow
in the footsteps of Charles
Darwin
to
the Galapagos
Archipelago,
where we encountered his
marine iguanas which looked like they
were from
the beginning of time itself.
Then we explored
the Pacific Islands, first
charted by James Cook, while
he was looking
for
Terra Australis Incognita,
meanwhile we were searching
for good snorkelling,
fan coral, and hump-backed
cowries.
Our experiences
with nature were particularly
memorable.
Why did
a shoal of tuna
follow us for three days
to the Canaries? Why
did the sea lions in the
Galapagos play with us?
And why did the
stingrays in
Bora Bora feed from Sandra's
hand? We had never come
this close to
nature before,
not even in the game parks
of Southern Africa. Our
experiences with history
were also memorable. We
never imagined bluewater cruising
would
be an
extension of the History
Channel where we would
cross the paths of so many
influential people: Prince
Henry the Navigator's
School of Navigation at
Sagres, Lord Nelson's famous battle
off Cape Trafalgar,
and Fletcher Christian's
mutiny on the HMS Bounty
off Tonga.
Our last
chapter
outlines how we have now
achieved - Sustainable
Cruising
- through
our
writing and publishing.
And finally the book concludes
with appendices on our
budget, our yacht,
and its equipment
- the sort of information
we were looking for before
we
set off.
If bluewater
cruising is for you, this
could be the most memorable
period of your life.
Rory and Sandra Burke
Bay of Islands
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