Quote:
Originally Posted by brookiesailor
Beautiful pictures.
We are discussing our options and how to get to port Williams by November. An idea is to head north to Finland, do the fjords in May and the work our way south and west to the canaries, then over to Brazil, Argentina, Faulklins and then onto port Williams by November. It would be a bit of a hurried pace but I have to look at that closer. There is the hurricane belt to consider so we will have to determine the best place to make the crossing.
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Hi brookiesailor,
You probably meant
Norway instead of Finland, right ? ;-) Unless you were speaking about
Iceland, where there are some fjords too.
Anyways, first of all be aware that to be there in May, and supposing you leave from the US, implies a very tough North
Atlantic crossing very early in the season. Have a look at the
current thread about the
Azores being a bad year and the very bad storm that hit several
boats.
Second, Norway is a great
destination. You might want to spend the whole of summer there ! We sailed it up to the Lofoten archipelago and back and enjoyed it immensely, but it's a long coastline. Don't be fooled into thinking it's a box you can tick in a week ! Plus sailing the fjords is actually tricky : you don't actually "sail" the fjords, you will probably have to
motor in them and look for the very rare
anchorages if you go into the deep ones. Most people sail the "skjaergard", that is the whole maze of waterways just along the coast, which is also made up of fjords (these just being sounds or bodies of
water, just not the very steep-to fjords usually referred to).
Working your way down
Europe, you might want to visit
Scotland and
Ireland as well, and both of these require time on your hands. Actually, we did all of this early on in our trip in order to test the boat and the crew, in order to be sure we could handle the cold, the remoteness, the weather, etc. It was a great
school to start with before going on to something even more challenging like Patagonia. If you suffer
gear failure in
Scotland, while serious, things are still going to be immensely easier than in the deep South of
South America !
Have a look at this of you would like to :
https://vimeo.com/belleisle/europe-n
Now, from Western
Europe to the Canaries to Brazil to Argentina is sure feasible in a few months, but that would be nearly non-stop ! Why not, it all depends on how big a boat you have, how long passages you're ready to make, and how much time you've got. But if you feel it's a bit tight, it will surely be !
Why not spend a whole long summer in NW Europe, and then sail down the Brittany, Galician and Portuguese coasts in October, November and December, go on to the Canaries into the New Year (
https://vimeo.com/belleisle/galicia-portugal-canarias), the Cape Verdes and/or Senegal thereafter, and then hop to Brazil say by April or May. Brazil's got a huge coastline too. It will probably take you 3 months (the duration of your visa) to sail down to Uruguay, which you will reach by September or so, have time to visit the Rio de la Plata and go dancing a little tango in Buenos Aires. And then you'll have good 2 months to sail down the exposed Argentine coast. Well, there you have it, it almost seems you've been rushing through it all, but it took you 18 months, not a crazy 6 ! We've done this whole
route, feel free to ask if you want more
advice.
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