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Phoenicia Blog

Welcome to the Phoenicia crew blog page. Here you will find a selection of blogs posted by the Captain and Crew onboard the Phoenician Ship Expedition throughout the course of the 20,000 mile voyage.

    Completing the circumnavigation: Phoenicia returns to Syria    
           
    Position Report 269    
    Date: 23rd October 2010    
    Position: The Home coming to Arwad, Syria    
           
    After the amazing celebration in Tripoli, Lebanon, it seemed that in no time at all we were preparing the ship for the final leg of the expedition to Arwad. Naturally there was extra interest in the final leg of the voyage and we had five additional crew members to join us, two of whom had not sailed on the expedition with us before namely Victoria Sadler and Mohamad Osman, as well as former crew members Alice Chutter, Nicholas Swallow and Karim Khwanda. So in total we had 14 crew on board for the final leg which comprised of 2 Syrians, 3 Indonesians, 1 South African, 1 Swede, 1 Brazilian and 6 British.

The distance from Tripoli to Arwad is less than 25 miles and having set out at about 9pm on the 22nd October we were within sight of Arwad by the early hours of the morning of the 23 rd October. We had clearance from the Lebanese Navy and the Syrian coast guard to proceed to Arwad so there were no issues with crossing into Syrian territory and we anchored about 3 miles to the south of Arwad to await the request to proceed to Arwad for the home coming celebrations. In the meantime we quickly cleared immigration and customs formalities with the help of Abdul Kader Sabra’s agency.

Then just after 10am we weighed anchor and proceeded towards Arwad. Gradually more and more fishing boats, coast guard vessels and tugs came out to meet us until there were around 46 vessels! It was at this point that there were so many vessels that one wondered how long it would be before the boats started to collide with each other or worse still, with us. The reception was enthusiastic and waves of chanting broke out as we got nearer and nearer to the island. Marine flares and orange smoke canisters were let off, which made the event even more colourful and noisy. We had a few tricky moments as one of the two coast guard vessels came alongside to deliver the 6 VIPS (including the Governor of Tartous) who would joint us for the last mile of the trip. It seemed to take ages for everyone to get on board but as soon as they were on, we were able once again to head for Arwad’s harbour.

Once in the harbour we made our way to the landing jetty and the chaos began! Spontaneous cheering and chanting greeted us and hundreds of Arwadians, the press and invited guests did their best to jostle for space on the small quay to meet Captain Philip and the crew. In short we were truly mobbed.Various speeches and presentations were made to welcome Phoenicia and her crew back to her home in Arwad. It was undoubtedly the most emotional and heartfelt event in Phoenicia’s life to date. A little later we sailed Phoenicia with a number of VIP’s on board across to Tartous’s new marina. In the evening a superb garla dinner was held for over 200 guests at the Shahin Tower Hotel to celebrate the home coming. The evening included live TV coverage of Syria’s main evening news, where Phoenicia’s home coming was the first news item…apparently it is unprecedented for such an event to be the lead news story.

Then on Monday Phoenicia was sailed back to Arwad and the crew started the difficult job of packing up and preparing her for khaled Hammoud’s dry dock. The docking took place on Tuesday and by Wednesday most of crew’s tasks were completed and it was time to say our farewells to Phoenicia, the other crew members and the many people who had helped us celebrate Phoenicia’s return. It had after all been an incredible 2 year and 2 months adventure covering over 20,000 miles. Thank you for following us. For those interested we plan to announce future plans for Phoenicia in early December.

Thanks also to all who helped in making the home coming possible and in particular:

Mrs Asma Al Assad
The British Syrian Society and their Chairman Dr. Fawaz Akhras
Governor of Tartous Dr. Atef Nadaf
General Director of Ports in Syria General Ghazi Hamdan
Syrian Chamber Shipping, President Abdul Karder Sabra
Mayor of Tartous Eng. Ali Souriti
Mayor of Arwad Mr. Ali Najem
Mr Orwah Bakker & family
And last but not least Osman Shipping and Mr Mohamad Osman and Ms Aziza Osman for all their work on the home coming and for sponsor the sponsoring the excellent gala dinner.

VIEW THE HOMECOMING PHOTO GALERY CLICK HERE

 

   
           
    Returning home: Malta - Lebanon (Tyre, Sidon, Beirut and Tripoli)    
           
    Position Report 268    
    Date: 22nd October 2010    
    Position: Phoenicia home coming Blog-Part one. LEBANON    
           
   
It has been an amazing and hectic home coming for Phoenicia over the last two weeks. Here is a summary of what happened in the Lebanon. With huge thanks to all involved in making the arrangements which are greatly appreciated (see below).

We had originally hoped for the ship to visit Tyre in southern Lebanon but that proved to be too complicated and by the time permission had been granted we had already been asked to sail towards Sidon by the Lebanese Navy. The imminent arrival of Iranian President Ahmadi Nijad and his desire to visit the south of Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold with all its implied security implications, meant we spent some time waiting for a decision to enter Sidon. Finally we were given permission to enter Sidon and berth opposite the “castle in the sea” a famous crusader castle and were then given a tour of the old city and an official reception at the palace of the Bishop of Sidon. At the same time as the start of our tour of the city President Ahmadi Nijad’s motorcade of 15 black limos and 10 outriders roared through Sidon’s high street at some speed and with two Lebanese army helicopters hovering overhead. This created an intense and exciting atmosphere for our visit.

That evening at around 9pm we set sail for Beirut, some 25 miles up the coast and arrived early in the morning of 15th October. Later in the day a reception was held alongside the ship in the main port attended by a representatives of the Ministry of Culture, the Phoenician International Research Centre (www.phoenicia.org) and the Lebanese Cultural Union. Later we moved the ship the Saint George Marina, a new marina close to Beirut’s city centre, that generously helped to sponsor the ship’s berth.

We were then invited to visit Tripoli on 20th October,some 25 miles to the north and equidistant between Beirut and Arwad. As Tripoli played a central co-ordinating role in the emerging political decision making of the three entities of Tripoli, Arwad, and Byblos in ancient times and because it was en route, we gratefully accepted the invitation. Our welcome in Tripoli (or El Mina as the port area is known) was spectacular and some 23 fishing vessels and tugs greeted us on our arrival. As we came alongside some 2000 people greeted our arrival with several hundred children cheering us as loudly as the voice boxes would allow. As soon as we had got along side Phoenicia was enthusiastically covered in Lebanese flags and protected from the crowds trying to get on by the local life guard team. We were then whisked off to a quick reception at the Mayor’s office, followed by a private lunch provided by Mrs Fadila Fattal, the President of Cultural Committee of Tripoli, for the crew and other VIP’s.

That evening we attended a formal reception in the offices of the municipality, which included various presentations and awards and traditional dancing and drumming. After an exciting couple of hours the formalities were concluded, the drummers and dancers escorted the crew back to the ship, whereupon spontaneous dancing broke out on the deck of the ship. And for the next 20 minutes of so the ship rocked to a completely new and ecstatic beat. It was the end of the first day of an incredibly warm and enthusiastic welcome. The next day a slide presentation was made to one of the local schools, whilst other schools sent bus loads (well over 50) of children to visit the ship itself. The crew were treated to a tour of the city and during the evening the captain gave a presentation on the background to the Phoenicia project at the Safadi Foundation theatre that was gratefully received.

The next day (22nd October) the crew were given a tour of the ancient Phoenician ports of Bartroum and Byblos, whilst arrangements were also underway for Phoenicia to leave the Lebanon and head towards Arwad, Syria. At 9pm Phoenicia sailed towards Arwad and could reflect on the most enthusiastic welcome that Phoenicia had ever received. None of these receptions would have been possible without the help of a large number of people and organisations for which many thanks to all involved. In particular we would like to thank:

For the welcome in Sidon and Beirut;
Mr Salim George Khalaf – Phoenicia International Research Centre
Mr George Faddoul
Ms Ibtsam khoury
Mr Kraytem, Director of Beruit Port
Mr Nadim Ghantous, Director, Arab Bank Lebanon.
Captain Wasim, Marina Saint George, Beirut
The Lebanese Cultural Union.

For the welcome in Tripoli
Dr. Keek, the Deputy Mayor
Sponsors: The Safadi Foundation and Azm and Saadeh Organization,
Mr Antoine Menassa, Franco Lebanese Cultural Centre , Paris
Mr Samer Dabliz – for all his assistance, guiding & co-ordination of activities.
Dr Nelly Hussaini from the Lions Club
Mr Mohamad, The Life Guards
The Port Captain, the Harbour Master, and the officers from the Coast Guard , Customs and Immigration.
And for co-ordinating with Phoenicia and all of the above, many thanks to Mohamad Osman, Osman Shipping.
 

VIEW THE TRIPOLI PHOTO GALLERY CLICK HERE
 

   
           
    Position Report 267    
    Date: 16th October 2010    
    Position: Position: Alongside in Beirut    
           
   

Phoenicia's Official Welcome to Beirut, Lebanon

   
   






















Photographs above of Phoenicia's welcome to Beirut -  Georg Faddoul from the Phoenician International Reseach Centre (www.phoenicia.org) presents a plaque to Phoenicia's Captain Philip Beal and representatives from the Mayor of Sidon and the Archbishop of Sidon present an award to Captain Philip Beale on behalf of the Crew of Phoenicia.
 
   
           
    Position Report 259    
    Date: 4th October 2010    
    Position: Our position at 1200 hours was 34.09.73 North, 23.43.94 East    
           
   
We continue to make fair progress and are now some 50 miles south of Crete and heading east. We continue to see quite a lot of shipping. Life aboard Phoenicia is fairly routine at the moment. Rob Foote has settled in well as our latest but one crew member. The other arrival is called Burt and he or she has been making them selves comfortable ever since their arrival yesterday afternoon. Burt of course is a small bird and is quite unlike other bird visitors that we have had on board that usually stay a night and then fly on or indeed die on board due to lack of food and exhaustion.

Burt has found that around the galley is a good supply of cockroaches and other insects and has lost no time in hunting them down. This bodes well for his survival as we have never managed to persuade other bird visitors to eat, not that we had to try in the case of Burt. The other unusual thing about Burt is that he is completely unafraid of us humans and flies around the cabin with impunity. He lands on all manner of objects including the kettle handle, coffee cups and computer laptops as well as on members of the crew. Providing nothing untoward should come of him, it looks like he will be with us until we reach landfall.

Photos below: Rob Foote settled into life onboard and  Dirman tries to tempt Burt with a piece of bread!

 
   
           
    Position Report 258    
    Date: 3rd October 2010    
    Position: Our position at 1200 hours was 34.13.68 North, 22.15.28 East    
           
   

Although the winds are not ideal we continue to make reasonable progress and are now about 50 miles off the south west coast of Crete with less than 700 miles to go to reach the Levant Coast.

Thoughts on Malta

Our visit to Malta was all too brief on account of us having to make the most of getting back to our Phoenician homeland before the winter gales and storms take hold. Nevertheless in spite of having to do some jobs for the ship we had 2-3 days to look around the main island of Malta. Malta of course is so full of history, from Neolithic times to the present, that there would never be enough time to gain a full understanding of the culture and history of the island in such a short time. If you haven't been and are interested in history, then Malta is highly recommended. That said the insights we gained enabled us to paint something of a picture of Malta in ancient times.

In chronological order, it is interesting to note that in the caves at Ghar Dhalam animal remains dating back to 250,000 years ago have been found, showing that in pre-historic times African animals were to be found this far north. And at Hagar Qim on the South East of Malta there is a pre-historic temple and adjacent to is a Neolithic temple known as Mnajdra. These temples have much in common with Stone Henge in the UK and certain features (platforms or altars) are aligned with the sun at certain points of the year such as the summer solstice and equinox. Visiting Hagar Qim is a journey back in time and a few kilometres away are the remains of a Bronze Age settlement where large grain stores of several cubic meters each have been carved out of the rock by hand. These are accessed only from a small round hole (sufficient for a small person to get in) above each of the half a dozen or so grain stores.

Phoenician settlement on the island is significant although nowhere near on the scale of Carthage. In fact it is generally considered that Malta was politically under the influence of Carthage although much of the cultural influences such a pottery items stem from further west, from Phoenician settlements at Gadir, Mogador, Oran and Lixus. The main Phoenician maritime remains have been found at Marsaxlokk Harbour, to the south east of the island, an unusually shaped harbour that would have afforded good protection. Not far from the Harbour was a prominent temple to which mariners would have made offerings before proceeding on their journeys. That Phoenician influence on Malta dates the end of the 8th century BC at least and that it was significant can be deduced from a number of factors. There are a significant number of tombs scattered across Malta and Gozo, with more being found in western Malta than in other areas. Another factor is that even today a high percentage of Maltese words can be traced to Phoenician words. But the absence so far of the discovery of more developed urban institutions like tophets (cemeteries) has led some to conclude that Malta was a transitory Phoenician settlement, there to assist mariners rather than a self sustaining Phoenician settlement in its own right. That would certainly fit with its strategic location in the central Mediterranean and why indeed we visited Malta last week.

 
   
           
    Position Report 256    
    Date: 1st October 2010    
    Position: Our position at 1200 hours was 34.52.86 North, 18.49.34 East    
           
   

Winds remain very light and conditions are what one perceives as typically Mediterranean, that is that we have bright sunshine, hot decks and bright blue seas. We expect these conditions to continue for a day or two until the winds become more varied once again.

Some reflections on Carthage.

Our all too brief visit to Carthage gave us a chance to learn of some of the basics of this bastions of Punic power. As mentioned previously, what impresses upon one most about Carthage is its pure scale. No wonder the Romans could eventually stand the power of Carthage no longer and sadly levelled it to the ground in 146 BC, only to later rebuild it in to a more splendid and prosperous capital.

Arguably the most amazing of the Punic ruins at Carthage and ones which are of most interest to us are the two ports which were adjacent to each other, one a commercial port on the seaward part of the harbour and the second, a military port placed in an inner harbour and accessed only through the basin of the commercial port. Today the outlines of the two ports can still be observed, one oblong lagoon (the commercial port) and the other circular.
The ancient writings of Polybius who was based at Carthage when it was destroyed and Appian, the 2nd Century author of Roman History (who has handed down Polybius's account) described the ports like this:

"The ports of Carthage were laid out in such a way that the ships passed from one to the other; they were entered from the sea through an opening 70 feet (about 21 meters) wide, which was closed with iron chains. The first port for traders had many different moorings. In the middle of the inner port there was an island. Here stood in Punic times a raised structure, from where the admiral of the port could control all the traffic".

According to Appian, compartments (around the island) opened up in the military port to house 220 Punic war triremes and above them were warehouses for equipment. Facing each compartment there rose two columns, which gave the circumference of the port and the island the appearance of a colonnade.

The two large basins had been dug out by hand. The inner basin had a radius of 160 meters and a circumference of 1,020 meters whilst the inner island had a radius of 120 meters and a circumference of 332 meters. The inner basin therefore covered some 6 hectares. Similar acreage was covered by the commercial port which measured about 150 meters wide and 400 meters long.

The depth was according to the descriptions of the time, just 2.5meters, more than sufficient for the shallow hulled war triremes and the merchant galleys like Phoenicia, which has a draft of less than 1.5 meters.

Archaeologists have found the remains of dry docks where the ships were pulled up by ropes and dragged across wooden rollers for repairs and caulking.

In Roman times the ports were repaired and used again for the vital purpose of supplying Rome with grain and olive oil. In fact North Africa was the granary of the Roman empire and Carthage was the collection point for all the African produce. Indeed emperor Commodus set up a "fleet of provisions" specifically to ship foods and wild circus animals to Rome and which was based at Carthage. In return for the privilege of feeding Rome, Carthage obtained special status as a superior city and constructed grandiose monuments and numerous large buildings. By about 900 AD Carthage had been subjugated by Arab control and gradually fell into disrepair.
 
   
           
    Into the Mediterranean: Gibraltar - Tunisia - Malta    
           
    Position Report 251    
    Date: 20th September 2010    
    Position: Our position at 1200 hours was 36.53.5 North, 12.00.06 East    
           
   


Having spent 5 days in Carthage at anchor just outside the small but full harbour of Sidi Bou Said, we left at 10.30 yesterday morning. Due to strong winds earlier in the week, we had put out two anchors to hold our position.

However on weighing anchor we came up with three! The third was a fisherman's anchor with nets attached and two terracotta pots, one with an octopus inside which made for a rather chewy supper. It all made for an interesting start to the leg towards Malta. Our stay in Carthage provided an opportunity to come to terms with the scale of the Phoenicians achievements in building and maintaining Carthage until its fall to the Romans in 140 BC. The size and scale of the city and the numbers involved leaves one in no doubt as to the incredible abilities and ambitions of the Punic empire in the Western Mediterranean.

With reasonably strong north westerly winds blowing, our exit was slightly difficult, as we had two small islands and a headland to clear before we were free of dangers. And about 12 hours after our departure we were free of dangers and able to hoist the main sail. Since leaving we have covered over 80 miles and are now just passing the island of Pantelleria to the south of us - famous for the building of Punic warships in the third and fourth centuries BC. From here it is a relatively small hop of a 130 miles towards Malta.
 

   
           
    Position Report 249    
    Date: 11th September 2010    
    Position: 250 miles to reach Carthage    
           
   


We have had another fair day of progress covering some 65 miles during the period. We now have less than 250 miles to go to reach Carthage and Tunisia.

Winds remain varied but should pick up on Monday and Tuesday. In the meantime we are looking forward to our visit to Carthage - a Phoenician colony with unparallel history and scale, as illustrate in the piece below.

The Origins of Carthage

The origins of Carthage are steeped in many legends, myths and historical accounts as to how the Phoenicians greatest colony was founded. Fortunately the historical accounts by writers such as Diodorus writing in the 1st century BC and the myths and legends have a common theme running through them and as such there is a general consensus as to the Carthage's early history which is as follows.

The colony was started by Elissa (also known as Dido to the local Libyan population of the time) who was from Tyre and sister to Pygmalion who had inherited the throne of Tyre at a very early age. She quarrelled with him and set off with some Tyrian noble men and some of lower ranks to find a distant country.

History records that in 820 BC Mattan 1 left the throne in the hands of his son Pygmalion aged 11 at the time and in the 7th year of his reign in 814 BC, Elissa fled from Tyre to found Carthage. Elissa had been married to her uncle Acherbas, high priest of Heracles (Melcart) and as such was second in rank only to the King of Tyre. Therefore Acherbas was therefore rich and powerful and a direct threat to Pygmalion who ordered his assassination which duly happened. Elissa with a group loyal to her husband fled to Cyprus. Bitias, the Commander of the Tyrian fleet, sided with Elissa and accompanied her on her expedition.

In Cyprus they were joined by the high priest Juno, who insisted that the Temple would be hereditary amongst his family in the new land they were going to. Thus Tyrian aristocracy and the Temple were both instrumental in the founding of Carthage, something which does not appear to have happened in most of the Phoenician settlements through out the Mediterranean. Before setting out the Tyrians collected 80 young girls for sacred prostitution to ensure the continuation of their religion in the West. The expedition headed straight for Carthage where the adjacent Phoenician settlement of Utica supported them and gave them presents.

There they were well received by the indigenous people, whose king Hiarbas gave them free entry to the territory and permitted them to buy as much land as could be covered by an ox hide. Legend has it that the clever Elissa decided to cut an ox hide into this strips and so was able to mark out a hillside for the founding of Carthage. The ancient name for the hill or acropolis at Cathage is "Byrsa" which in Greek means "oxhide".

The native king demanded to marry Elissa (who they called Dido - the wandering one) but in honour of her late husband she refused and committed suicide by throwing herself on a fire. After her sacrifice by fire, her subjects deified her and preserved her cult until the last days of Carthage.

Carthage's important strategic position in the centre of the Mediterranean, its management by Tyrian noblemen and the priesthood meant that unlike other Phoenician settlements, the exercise of political power became an object in its own right as well as the trading, for which Phoenicians are revered.

Ultimately the exercise of political and military power would lead to the Punic wars with the Romans but until then Carthage enjoyed several centuries of growth and prosperity. And culturally they pursued their cultural and religious beliefs with vigour as evidenced by the widespread occurrence of child sacrifices found in Carthage's ruins (tophets).
 

   
           
    Position Report 245    
    Date: 7th September 2010    
    Position: Our position at 1200 hours was 36.17.99 North, 01.43.09 West    
           
   

We have had a good 24 hours during which we have covered some 108 miles. The strong westerly winds which were forecast have duly arrived and we are now sailing in force 8, gale force conditions with winds of between 34-40 knots according to the local securite issued by the coast guard. The seas are quite large at between 5-6 meters with large foaming "horses heads" and bright sunshine.

The winds built gradually overnight and by breakfast time at 0730 hours we were doing close to 7 knots. As the winds were expected to (and indeed did) get stronger, we took the opportunity to get the main sail down before breakfast and hoist our trusted green storm sail which we had prepared yesterday evening. The operation to change sails took about 30 minutes and went smoothly. Even with the storm sail, which about a third of the size of the main sail, we are now making some 6-7 knots. This is testament to the strong winds as we are now out of the main current and heading across to the Algerian coast. Fortunately the winds are so strong that there are few large ships coming towards us and only one or two coming with us and overtaking.

This is just as well as we are relatively constrained, in terms of our course/direction, by the large waves. Fortunately there is plenty of sea room ahead and in any event the strong winds are forecast to drop somewhat later this evening.

                

Meanwhile we have two new crew members on board; Danielle Eubank (above left_ - our exhibition artist from the USA (www.danielleeubank.com) and John Horseman (above right), a keen supported of Phoenicia from the UK.
 

   
           
    Azores - Gibraltar    
           
    Position Report 244    
    Date: 6th September 2010    
    Position: Our position at 1200 hours was 36.17.39 North, 03.54.36 West    
           
   

We had an exciting stay in Gibraltar thanks to the excellent hospitality of the Ocean Village Marina that sponsored our stay and for which we are most grateful. We would also like to thank the many other people who also helped us including Phil Taylor of M H Bland Group who provided an excellent tour of the Rock for Phoenicia's crew.

We are also indebted to the Director of the Gibraltar Museum, Professor Clive Finlayson and his staff for showing us the results of excavations at Goram's Cave, which is believed to have been a shrine where Phoenician ships would have visited before venturing beyond the Pillars of Hercules. All sorts of amazing offerings have been found at the site and the Museum kindly showed us the results of their excavations. There are some other very interesting Phoenician finds in the area which we hope to discuss at a later date. In the meantime there is more about our visit to the Gibraltar Museum at http://www.chronicle.gi/headlines_details.php?id=19900

We left Gibraltar yesterday afternoon having been presented on our departure with plaque from the Rotary Club of Gibraltar. Since then we have been following the easterly setting current that runs to the north east and which has been aiding our progress towards Tunis, enabling us to record some 90 miles over the first 24 hours. Strong westerly winds are forecast tomorrow and all being well our progress should be dramatic. It might be worth looking at the Yellowbrick Tracker as we may turn out to one of our fastest days on record as the winds are forecast to be around 30 knots. Thereafter the progress is likely to be rather more pedestrian!
 

   
           
    Position Report 236    
    Date: 20th August 2010    
    Position: Our position at 1200 hours local time was 41.30.4 North, 12.11.62 West    
           
   

Another long blog to cover the weekend.

Progress continues towards the Portuguese coast as we made another 75 miles over the last 24 hours. The wind continues to push us in a more easterly direction than is ideal but we expect to be able to make a better course towards the south east over the weekend – otherwise we might be on the Portuguese coast for real!


Ancient Atlantic Trade
In the meantime some followers of Phoenicia have asked how much trade was going on between the Phoenicians and settlements on the Atlantic coast during the period. Here is a short summary of the main facts as we currently understand them. Of course each new archaeological dig can change our perception of what was going on but there is already enough evidence to suggest an active and multi-faceted trade before the Common Era.

Historically most commentators believed that the Phoenicians’ Atlantic trade was really an extension of the trade from Carthage, such was the scale, success and proximity of Carthage to the Atlantic. Over recent years that view has been revised as it has become clear that the Phoenician merchants of Gadir (modern day Cadiz on the Iberian Peninsula), on the back of their huge wealth and power derived from the Andalusian silver trade (See last weekends’ blog), were responsible for much of the Atlantic trade.

This Atlantic trade can be divided into two parts, the African and non-African trade.
Classical sources mention that the Gaditanians sailed throughout the Mediterranean and the Atlantic coast and that beyond the Straits of Gibraltar were a host of Tyrian colonies that subsequently became uninhabited and ruined (Strabo). It was recorded that the Phoenicians of Gadir used to sail for 4 days beyond the Pillars of Hercules to a place (probably the Canary Islands) which abounded with tuna and that they fished off the coast of Mauritania in their small “hippoi”. Their trade in Atlantic tuna was a significant one.

On the Moroccan Atlantic coast their most important settlement (as evidenced by the acropolis) was at Lixus at the mouth of the river Loukkos, which provided a sheltered harbour and access to one of the larger navigable rivers to the interior. From here the Phoenicians has access to gold, copper and lead deposits from the Atlas Mountains as well as ivory and deposits of salt from the Sahara. The Phoenicians in turn traded their wares such as amphorae, red-glazed plates and bowls, bottles and large four-handled urns known as “pithoi”.
Most of these finds have been dated to the 7th and 8th century BC. Analysis of this pottery clearly shows its origin to be from the Gaditanian Bay, thus rendering these Atlantic colonies part of the cultural and trading province of Gadir.
Another small settlement of note was Mogador, some 1000km from Gadir. It was sporadically settled by the Phoenicians who exchanged their merchandise for hides and ivory. It may be that Mogador was the island off Africa referred to in the Periplus of the Pseudo –Scilax (P112) and known as Cerne.

“Beyond the island of Cerne it is impossible to sail because of the shallowness of the sea, the mud and the algae. The traders are Phoenician. When they arrive at the island of Cerne, they anchor their cargo ships [gauloi] and set up stalls in Cerne but after they have unloaded their cargo from their ships, they carry it in small boats to the mainland. The Africans are found on the mainland. It is with these same Africans that they trade. The Phoenicians sell their wares in exchange for the skins of gazelles, lions and leopards and also for the skins and tusks of elephants and domestic animals. The Phoenician traders bring them unguents, Egyptian stone, attic dishes, and “coes”, These Africans eat meat, drink milk and make wine in abundance from their own vines, although the Phoenicians bring it as well. The Africans also have a great city to which the Phoenicians also sail”.

Whether Mogador is Cerne or not (others place it in current day Libya), a key characteristic of the pottery of Mogador is that it is marked with a stamp of ownership that ties it back to Gadir. There are other small settlements on the Moroccan coast that also acted as suppliers to the Phoenician trading network. Some suggest that Phoenician contacts and settlements reached as far as Senegal to the south and possibly as far as the Cameroons but to date there is no hard evidence to support such a hypothesis.

On the Iberian Peninsula the scale of Atlantic trade activities was greatest as Gadir where there was metallurgy on an industrial scale primarily for the exploitation of silver (see the previous blog for 13th August 2010). A similar metallurgical trade was based at Huelva and Phoenician trade for ore was also undertaken with numerous towns along the Portuguese coast as far as Santa Olaia, some 350 kms north of Lisbon.

History also records that the Phoenicians traded in tin with the “Cassiterides” or tin islands. The late George Rawlinson in his book, Phoenicia, History of a Civilisation, put it like this:

“ Phoenician ships from Gadir braved the perils of the open ocean, and coasting along the western shores of Spain and Gaul and without (apparently) making settlements, crossed the mouth of the English Channel from Ushant to the Scilly Isles, and conveyed thither a body of colonists who established an emporium. The attraction which drew them was the mineral wealth of the islands and of the neighbouring Cornish coast, which may have become known to them through the Gauls of the opposite continent. It is reasonable to suppose that the Phoenicians both worked the mines and smelted the ores. They certainly drew from this quarter those copious supplies of tin and lead, which they imported into Greece and Asia and from which they derived so large a profit. They called the islands …the Cassiterides or Tin Islands and related of the inhabitants that they:

“were clad in black cloaks and tunics reaching to the feet, with girdles around their waists” and that they” walked with staves and were bearded like goats; that they subsisted by means of their cattle, and for the most part led a wandering life””.


As we know only too well, once you are sailing in the Atlantic and you understand the rotational nature of the winds and currents it would not have been too difficult for the Phoenicians to have traded with the Cornish (we are currently nearer to the UK than to the Mediterranean!). And whilst Phoenician coins have been found in the UK, to date there hasn’t been the quantity of Phoenician artefacts that have been found, say, by comparison, with settlements on the Iberian coast. Hopefully more evidence will be forth coming to enhance our understanding of this element of Phoenician trade.

 

   
           
    Position Report 231    
    Date: 13th August 2010    
    Position: Our position at 1200 hours local time was 44.33.11 North, 20.33.90 West.    
           
   

.
The winds have turned to the north east and east and as a result we made only 43 miles over the 24 hour period. Winds look set to continue in this fashion for the next 2-3 days, so we are taking the "opportunity" to head north. By Monday the prevailing north and north westerly winds are forecast to return and hopefully we will be able to make a big push towards the Portuguese coast and Gibraltar.

The Azores Question

Whilst we are bobbing up and down in the Atlantic and taking the weather in the spirit of true sailors, one or two people have been asking me why are you out in the middle of the Atlantic anyway? Surely the Phoenicians would have rowed around Africa in their small coastal boats and would never have found the Azores even if they had wanted to.

When I answer these questions some of the recipients are rather surprised by the depth of information available which at least makes them think again about the likelihood of the Phoenicians coming to the Azores. Here is a summary of some of the points I make. For the full version I'm afraid you will have to wait for my book: Phoenicia- Sailing close to the Wind, which
is planned for publication next year.

First of all let's talk about Phoenician boats and then about the early history of the Azores, which almost certainly didn't start with the Portuguese discovering the islands in the 1430's.

To think that the Phoenicians only had small coastal craft is to hugely underestimate the scale of their trading and colonialist activities. They did of course have small coastal craft such as vessels for rivers and harbours. These were known as "hippoi" because of the horses head carved on
the prow of the vessels. They were typically rowed although some of these vessels had sails as well. But they need not concern us too much as they were just like the harbour and pilots boats we see today - a means of getting to the larger ships and taking relatively small amounts of freight too and fro.

However we know from texts from Ugarit in Syria that even in Canaanite times (before 1200 BC), that some merchant ships had a cargo capacity of up to 400 tons and that during the 1st century BC the normal capacity of freighters was between 100 and 500 tons. The Egyptian envoy to Tyre,
Wen-Amon, noted that the Phoenician merchant fleets could number up to 50 ships and that the King of Byblos and ship owner Urkatel possessed such a fleet.

Doubtless they needed such fleets to export their wares to amongst other places the Iberian peninsula and return with ships loaded to the gunnels with silver and gold.

Diordorus writing in the 1st century BC notes, as do other authors like Strabo and Atenaios, that:

"Of Iberia, it seems appropriate to mention its silver mines since this is the richest country in that metal. Which brings large incomes to the exploiters. As in the Pyrenees, there were many leafy woods; the shepherds had set fire to them, it is said, a long time before, so that the woodlands
had been burning throughout the sierra. After burning for many days, the fire also scorched the surface of the ground, which gave rise to the name of the Pyrenees, used to designate these mountains. Much silver trickled away from the fiery ground and as they melted, the silver bearing ores formed countless rivulets of pure silver. The natives did not know how to exploit it but once the Phoenicians heard of the affair, they bought the silver in exchange for objects of negligible value. The Phoenicians took the silver to Greece, to Asia and to all other countries then known, thus obtaining great riches. It is said that such was the cupidity of the traders that they
replaced their lead anchors of their ships with silver ones after there was no more room for silver in the vessels and there was still a great quantity of the metal left over. This commercial traffic was long the source of a great increase in the power of the Phoenicians, who founded many colonies, some in Sicily and neighbouring islands and some in Libya (Africa), Sardinia and Iberia".

As Maria Eugenia Aubet a leading authority on the Phoenicians, says in her book Phoenicians and the West;

"the traffic in silver ore.implies a high degree of co-ordination between mine and wharf and the existence of an authority to centralise and coordinate those services. Given the chief beneficiary was Tyre, we are bound to think as the classical sources (Diorodurus 5.35.5) insinuate, that
Gadir (Cadiz) was acting under the orders from Tyre by way of powerful commercial agents installed in the west. Only so does Posidonius' observation that there were in Gadir great transport ships, commissioned by rich traders of the place (Strabo 2:3,4) and operating in safety under the protection of Melqart, make sense. Thanks to them, Tyre was able to supply the great centres of the Aegean and Assyria with silver"

The Phoenician settlement and explosion of trade in Iberia to which the above is just a part, commenced in haste during the 8th and 7th centuries BC. Thus by the time of the Phoenician's circumnavigation of Africa a century or so later, it should be obvious that the Phoenicians would have undertaken such an exercise in well prepared merchants galleys, albeit with the ability to be rowed for manoeuvrability, rather than coastal craft.

Given the choice of rowing up the West coast of Africa or sailing by way of the mid Atlantic, surely it is human nature to opt for the one with the least physical activity? Sailing by the way of the Azores would surely have been their preferred option. They were not afraid to venture out of the sight of land. They had pioneered the art of astro-navigation, discovered the pole star and were happy to voyage for weeks or months at a time.

But did they know the Azores existed? Although popular history relates to the fact that the islands were uninhabited when one of Prince Henry the Navigator's sea captains discovered them by accident in the 1430's. However the truth may be a little less straight forward than that they were uninhabited as the earliest Portuguese account of their arrival had this to say:

"on the summit of a mountain they call The Raven [Corvo] is a statute of a man seated upon a horse; his head is uncovered and he is bald, his left hand rests upon his horse, his right hand points towards the West. The statute is set firmly on a stone base carved out of rock. At the bottom are inscriptions in a writing which we could not understand".

There could be other claimants for the erection of this statute but as the Phoencians had settled on the Canary Islands and had other colonies down the West African coast, like the Portuguese 1500 years later, they surely have a strong claim to have erected the statute. But the Phoenician Azores story doesn't start and end here.

The following is part of an article the original of which is in Portuguese and has been kindly translated for me by Ms Carla Cook.

"Although this matter has not been much talked about in the Azores, at least in recent years, it is still a subject that raises the experts' attention worldwide, considering the implications of such a finding to the history of navigations in the Atlantic. Besides the coins, it is said that a mysterious equestrian statue was found in Corvo. Its track was lost when the king ordered that it would be broken and taken to Lisbon.


Johann Frans Podolyn's article

The first scientific review about these coins was written by Johann Frans Podolyn, a Swedish numismatic who published the news in the "Göteborgske Wetenskap og Witterhets Samlingar (1778, vol. I, p. 106). It was entitled "Some Annotations to the Voyages of the Ancient, Derived from Several Carthaginian coins which were found on one of the Azores' Islands". In this article, the author states that in 1749, after several days of stormy seas from the West, uncovering part of the foundations of a ruined stoned building near a beach in Corvo, a broken black clay vase was discovered, containing a great number of unknown coins. These coins were taken to a convent (most likely the Franciscan convent of São Boaventura in Santa Cruz das Flores) and there distributed among some of the interested personalities living on the island.


Some of those coins were then sent to Lisbon and later forwarded to Father Enrique Flórez de Setién y Huidobro (*1701 - ?1773), of Santo Agostinho's Order, in Madrid. Father Flórez was a well known Spanish historian and numismatist, at the time he was actually the most well known Iberian numismatist.The exact number of coins that were in the vase as well as the number that
was sent to Lisbon is not known. However, Father Flórez received 9 coins, which he described and studied: two Punic gold coins, five Punic copper coins and two Cyrenaic? copper coins. Father Flórez gave the coins to Podolyn when the latter visited Madrid in 1761, telling him that the coins  "represented all the types that had been found in Corvo" and that they were the best preserved in the collection.


In his article, joined by some pictures of the coins, Podolyn says that they are not rare - except for the ones made of gold - but the place where they were found is indeed remarkable, for History does not recall any Phoenician presence in the Azores, though it is possible to link this presence to the famous equestrian statue and to the inscription that would have been found
in Corvo at the time of the early settlement.

Studies made afterwards

After the publication of Podolyn's article and drawings, several scholars talked about the discovery and its consequences on the History of the Navigation on the Atlantic. Stechow-Münich, Richard Hennig, Jenkins and Lewis (Numisma, 1962)'s were the most celebrated studies. They concluded that the findings of the coins was truthful, for at the time there was not enough knowledge to select a group of coins arising from such a short period (aprox. 340 to 320 B.C)".


That any such coins should be found at all is quite remarkable. After all most ships that have visited the islands like Cook's Santa Maria voyaging to the new world, to name just one explorer to visit the islands, left no evidence of their visit at all. Does it prove that the Phoenicians came to
the Azores? Not yet. Does it make it more likely that the islands were known in ancient times and before the Portuguese arrived? Yes, certainly.

 

   
           
    Position Report 222    
    Date: 4th August 2010    
    Position: Position at 1200 hours local time was 40.22.1 North, 28.35.5 West.    
           
   


We have made reasonable progress over our first full 24 hours at sea and have covered some 68 miles to 1200 hrs local time today. The winds have varied from 12 to 20 knots and have been from the north east and are now veering to the south east. The waves are about 1-2 meters high. Therefore our plan to head north to pick up the westerly wind on the northern side of the Azores High remains in tact.

With lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, eggs and meat, there has been some excellent meals produced in the galley with Daniel leading the proceedings. The fishing lines have yet to go out (sorry Peter - missing your expertise already) but will do shortly.

One of the Indonesian crew members Abdul Aziz doubles up as the ships photographer and has taken some shots of recent crew members who have sailed, or are sailing, onboard Phoenicia. Randy Getty helped us sail from Flores to Horta in the Azores and Edward Sadler (who at 19 is our youngest crew member to date) joined us in Horta to continue the rest of the voyage. It is great to have them onboard!

      
Randy Getty (crew Azores)                               Edward Sadler (crew Azores-Syria)
 

   
           
    Position Report 221    
    Date: 3rd August 2010    
    Position: 1200 hours local time was 39.12.12 North, 28.23.97 West.    
           
   


We departed Horta late yesterday afternoon and headed north to take up where we left off from before arriving in the Azores. We had a very pleasant stay in Horta and would like to thank the many people who assisted us. In particular we would like to thank Mr Luis Prieto Ferreira and Horta Marina for generously sponsoring our visit. We would also like to thank Chris Beer and Carla Cooke for their assistance with our visit.

We have three additional crew members on board. Two who have rejoined (Yuri and Niklas) and one who is new to the expedition- Edward Sadler from the UK. Peter Hickman has returned to South Africa and Randy Getty has returned to the United States. So our total complement is now 10. Our plan for getting towards Gibraltar is to get to the northern side of the Azores High so that we can move more easily to the east before starting our passage down the Portuguese coast. It is going to take several days and it may look like we are heading towards the UK but it appears our plan is the only viable way to get to the Portuguese coast in a square rigged vessel, at least at this time of year.
 

   
           
    The longest leg: Sailing the Atlantic Ocean (St. Helena to Azores) with profiles of the crew    
           
    Position Report 218    
    Date: 12th July 2010    
    Position: Our position at 1200 hours was 39.47.80 north, 31.46.9 West.    
           
   

Having a whale of a time!

We have had an interesting day or two even if we didn't manage to see the football world cup final. We have made good progress towards the Azores and are now just 40 miles from the Lajes, the entry port for the island of Flores.

Whilst we had intended to head direct for Horta, as we are so close to Flores it seems prudent to make landfall there before heading on to Horta which is some 130 miles to the east. God willing we will be in Flores by lunchtime tomorrow and from there we will make our way to Horta to pick up our new crew members.

Generally conditions have been overcast with a light drizzle from time to time and a northerly wind- not pleasant but not too bad either. Meanwhile our big event yesterday was a close encounter with a sperm whale-too close an encounter to be sure. One minute the boat rolled as we surfed over quite a large wave, the next we had a young 7 meter long sperm whale beside us and less than a boat length away. Then something strange happened. The whale started to violently thrash around in the water as if it was very agitated or shocked at seeing Phoenicia alongside it. Although its back looked fine there is a possibility that its tail was caught by the barnacles on our keel as we approached it although we never heard any knock against the ship as such. We then noticed a brown patch around the whale as if it had defecated- something they apparently do when in shock. This all happened very quickly but not before Aziz had time to get his camera and get some shots of it thrashing around and ultimately diving some 100-200 meters astern of us. And it was through the picture of its tail that we were able to identify that it was a sperm whale.

  
It certainly made for an exciting encounter. That and the prospect of a landfall in the not too distant future has meant that there has been a bit of a buzz on board.

P.S We have just sighted land, the small island of Corvo to the north of Flores.

Our position at 1200 hours was 39.47.80 north, 31.46.9 West.

 

   
           
    Position Report 217    
    Date: Weekend Blog 10-11th July 2010    
    Position:      
           
   
As we make our way towards the Azores which appears to be getting closer by the day -it is time to do another profile on one of the crew members who is helping to sail Phoenicia on this historic voyage. It is the turn of Daniel Hallstrom to be profiled.

Daniel is 27 and was born in North Carolina, USA. He joined Phoenicia is November in Mayotte with his long-term girl friend Alice Palmer ( crew member on Phoenicia from Mayotte to St Helena and now back in the real world. Hello Alice-hope it is going well.). Daniel has more varied interests and passions than most people manage to pack into their lives. At school he got interested in maps and geography which led him to do a BA degree in municipal and regional planning leading to a job where he was the first town planner for a small town in North Carolina. After a couple of years the "small town" part of his work became a bit limiting and he decided to see part of the world (and a lot of the world's salt water) through participating in Phoenicia. He has a strong taste for the outdoors and the wilderness, regularly going hiking, kayaking and also has a wish to do some off the beaten track climbing. No wonder he fits into the Phoenicia culture on board ship.

He is also something of a literary specialist and on board Phoenicia writes page after page of often very profound poems about happenings in every day life. In his note book these are often illustrated with rather amusing sketches of cartoon type characters. For Daniel writing is an important part of his persona and he is part way though writing a book on a fictional character he has developed. Another dimension is his acting and theatrical ability. He can often be heard whilst he is at the helm singing along with some rock or pop tune or coming up with a theatrical way to wake the on coming watch. Today he impersonated a DJ giving a report and then invited the listeners to come up on deck and see for themselves and get some dinner too.

Another part of Daniel's character is his easy going nature and sense of fair play. When suggesting recently that it might be a good idea if we should each have our own 2 litre water bottles to share our daily rations, he was quick to say that if we didn't want to go down that route he wouldn't object even though the previous water system was causing him some discomfort, when it ran out before the allotted time for the new jerry can of water to be opened.

Finally Daniel spends some of his time thinking about what entrepreneurial activity he might pursue on his return to the US. Needless to say he has been given plenty of thinking time of late and has been able to read one or two business books as well.
 

   
           
    Position Report 216    
    Date: 9th July 2010    
    Position: Our position at 1200 hours was: 40.04.32 North, 35.25.90 West.    
           
   


We have made another good days progress with 95 miles under our belts over the 24 hour period. We are now experiencing wind from the north and north west which is pushing us towards the south east which we expect to last for about a day and will then hopefully give way to more westerly winds for the next period thereafter.

During the last 24 hours the wildlife scene has changed dramatically. Having been largely absent for the last 3 weeks, the greater shearwaters are back in large numbers. We have also witnessed vast numbers of sardines being hunted down by bonita and tuna with the greater shearwaters never far from the incredible scenes of splashing and fish of all kinds taking to the air.
The frenzied splashing activity alone creates a considerable noise as the hunting groups pass us by. And with luck we have managed to capture some of this on film too.

All of this and our approach towards the island of Flores does indeed make one wonder if the Phoenicians had discovered the Azores. There is an account of Carthaginian coins being discovered on Flores in the 1700's but the story cannot be authenticated although some believe it to be true. And indeed many introductions to the Azores start with the fact that "it was known in
Ancient times" and others state that the Phoenicians discovered them although it was uninhabited when Prince Henry the Navigator re-discovered them in 1435. How the connection between the Azores and the Phoenicians has been made in these accounts is unclear but perhaps the next quotation gives us a clue or is it referring to some other land mass to the West? America perhaps?

The quote below is from Diodorus Siculus, A Greek from Sicily (Siculus =
the Sicilian) living in the first century BC writes in his fifth book:

But now that we have discussed what relates to the islands which lie
within the Pillars of Heracles, we shall give an account of those which are
in the ocean. For there lies out in the deep off Libya [=Africa] an island
of considerable size, and situated as it is in the ocean it is distant from
Libya a voyage of a number of days to the west. Its land is fruitful, much
of it being mountainous and not a little being a level plain of surpassing
beauty. 2 Through it flow navigable rivers which are used for irrigation,
and the island contains many parks planted with trees of every variety and
gardens in great multitudes which are traversed by streams of sweet water;
on it also are private villas of costly construction, and throughout the
gardens banqueting houses have been constructed in a setting of flowers, and
in them the inhabitants pass their time during the summer season, since the
land supplies in abundance everything which contributes to enjoyment and
luxury. 3 The mountainous part of the island is covered with dense thickets
of great extent and with fruit-trees of every variety, and, inviting men to
life among the mountains, it has cozy glens and springs in great number. In
a word, this island is well supplied with springs of sweet water which not
only makes the use of it enjoyable for those who pass their life there but
also contribute to the health and vigour of their bodies. 4 There is also
excellent hunting of every manner of beast and wild animal, and the
inhabitants, being well supplied with this game at their feasts, lack of
nothing which pertains to luxury and extravagance; for in fact the sea which
washes the shore of the island contains a multitude of fish, since the
character of the ocean is such that it abounds throughout its extent with
fish of every variety. 5 And, speaking generally, the climate of the island
is so altogether mild that it produces in abundance the fruits of the trees
and the other seasonal fruits for the larger part of the year, so that it
would appear that the island, because of its exceptional felicity, were a
dwelling-place of a race of gods and not of men.
20 In ancient times this island remained undiscovered because of its
distance from the entire inhabited world, but it was discovered at a later
period for the following reason. The Phoenicians, who from ancient times on
made voyages continually for purposes of trade, planted many colonies
throughout Libya and not a few as well in the western parts of Europe. And
since their ventures turned out according to their expectations, they
amassed great wealth and essayed to voyage beyond the Pillars of Heracles
into the sea which men call the ocean. 2 And, first of all, upon the Strait
itself by the Pillars they founded a city on the shores of Europe, and since
the land formed a peninsula they called the city Gadeira [Cadiz]; . 3 The
Phoenicians, then, while exploring the coast outside the Pillars for the
reasons we have stated and while sailing along the shore of Libya, were
driven by strong winds a great distance out into the ocean. And after being
storm-tossed for many days they were carried ashore on the island we
mentioned above, and when they had observed its felicity and nature they
caused it to be known to all men. 4 Consequently the Tyrrhenians, at the
time when they were masters of the sea, purposed to dispatch a colony to it;
but the Carthaginians prevented their doing so, partly out of concern lest
many inhabitants of Carthage should remove there because of the excellence
of the island, and partly in order to have ready in it a place in which to
seek refuge against an incalculable turn of fortune, in case some total
disaster should overtake Carthage. For it was their thought that, since they
were masters of the sea, they would thus be able to move, households and
all, to an island which was unknown to their conquerors.



With grateful thanks to Franz Fuhrer for his assistance with the above quotation and discussions about the land in question.

Our position at 1200 hours was: 40.04.32 North, 35.25.90 West.
 

   
           
    Position Report 205    
    Date: 28th June 2010    
    Position Our position at 1200 hours was: 35.49.05 North, 46.24.20 West.    
           
   

We have had a busy 24 hours on board Phoenicia. The wind has picked up nicely and we continue to make progress.

Over night we encountered two ships (one which came fairly close- at about 2 miles) and had one reasonably heavy down pour of rain that lasted about half an hour when Steff was on the helm. We then encountered a large super tanker this morning and a yacht called Sophia. The yacht came to check us out - you don't often see vessels like ours out on the ocean waves. Over the radio we then met Carl and Rachel who explained they are on their way to Norway ( we
suspect from their email address that we exchanged later that they have a website called www.sophiagoestonorway.blogspot.com They kindly asked us if we needed anything as they were not long out of Bermuda. Pride prevented us for asking for anything although we had recently run out of cooking oil and are low on a few other items.

A few minutes later they were alongside us and threw us a bag of goodies. Imagine our surprise when we found a bag of pop corn, a bottle of olive oil and some luxurious coconut cookies and sachets of Italian roast coffee. They could never have guessed that half the crew were desperate for oil to fry some tuna. It was a blessing in disguise and one can only think that sometimes the world works in mysterious ways. We returned the favour by attaching a bottle of Delheim's best rose wine to a heaving line which Rachel recovered moments later. We found out they are also heading for Horta in the Azores but of course they will be there long before we arrive. Hopefully we will have the pleasure of meeting them there. We waved each other goodbye and within an hour or two Sophia was out of sight. Phoenicia is alone again and we have the ocean around us all to ourselves.

Except that is for our shoal of a hundred or so tuna that have accompanied us from the equator. Before lunch we witnessed the largest individual tuna we have yet to see at about 5 foot long and at least a foot wide - quite an incredible size. Also yesterday evening we were visited by a shoal of dolphins that were hunting aggressively and making a lot of splashes! It was a joy to see them and traditionally a sign of good luck.

Their display only lasted some 10 or so minutes and then they too were soon out of sight.
 
   
           
    Position Report 204    
    Date: 27th June 2010    
    Position Our position at 1200 hours was: 34.37.0 North, 47.21.9 West.    
           
   
We have had another slightly better 24 hours and made just over 50 miles over the 24 hour period, although the real improvement came late yesterday evening. We are now averaging between 2.5 to 3 knots and the Azores is now just over 930 miles away.

The water rationing by 2 litre containers seems to be working well- everyone seems to have plenty apart from Peter -who has nearly finished his but will have to wait until dinner for fresh supplies.

Now for our next crew member profile - that of Steff as she is known, although more correctly as Stephanie Edwards (pictured below)

Steff is our youngest crew member on board at 25. She is also the only female crew member currently on the ship and joined in November in Mayotte and plans to see the voyage through until Syria.

You could say that Steph is in some ways your English rose type of girl with dark wavy hair and hazel eyes. After school she took a gap year and worked for some of that time in a care home for the elderly. She then went to Nottingham University to read Ancient history focussing on the Greeks and Romans but the course didn't include much about the Phoenicians! After that she worked for a well known publisher in Cambridge for a couple of years before she decided to run away to sea and join Phoenicia.

On the recent leg since St Helena she has managed to put up with the other 7 male crew members without batting an eye lid. Suffice is to say she is very laid back and nothing seems to ruffle her feathers. She has also managed to put up with Peter's constant yachtmaster babble (as they are on the same watch with Dirman and he prepares for some exams) which would probably have driven anyone else insane. Undoubtedly she is the most able of the cooks on board and even keeps her own ingredients to make special dishes- such as cakes and cookies which she treats us to from time to time. Best not to get on her wrong side then! Hopefully when she sees the Roman ruins in Carthage, Alexandria and Syria she will judge the adventure to have been well worth making.
 
   
           
    Position Report 200    
    Date: 23rd June 2010    
    Position Our position at 1200 hours was:32.20.6 North, 40.09.9 West.    
           
   
We have had another 24 hours of slow going progress but have at least managed to reduce our miles to the Azores down to about 1,000 miles. We continue to believe that better winds are just over the horizon!

Now for our next crew member profile, that of the other watch leader, Sulhan (pictured left). On official documents his name is spelt Julhan but is usually pronounced and spelt with an S.

Sulhan is in his late 40's according to his passport although some might say he looks a little older. He is married and has three children and one grandson. He lives on the island of Pagerunan Kecil (the same as Dirman) in the Kangean Islands north of Bali and has pretty much always lived there.

By trade he is a motor boat captain and has sailed literally hundreds of thousands of miles across Indonesia on various assignments. He has also sailed on traditional Indonesian ships including the Borobudur ship (see below). He is very agile and strong and always happy to go aloft to make repairs to the mast and sails, even if conditions would put off others from venturing forth. On board Phoenicia he looks after the rigging and advises on such matters as well as thoughts on the conditions, the best sailing strategy and leading the anchoring or berthing party. He has an uncanny knack with predicting the weather conditions and is undoubtedly our most experienced sailor.

He doesn't speak a lot of English but probably understands more than he lets on. He seems to laugh at our silly jokes- so must understand quite a bit. He has a mischievous look about him much of the time and although he is the smallest crew member he wears the longest shorts on the ship. He is a very devout Muslim and spends much of his time praying and chanting verses from the Koran. He also likes the odd smoke but in his case the cigarettes ran out a few weeks ago but so far no with-drawl symptoms and he remains happy and cheerful.

Apart from his family and grand son his proudest moment is probably the honour of the State Medal he received from President Megawati of Indonesia for Services to Culture for his role in the 12,000 mile Borobudur Ship Expedition in 2003-2004.(www.borobudurshipexpedition.com). In his spare time he likes to fish and to play chess at which he is arguably the best on the ship. On the island of Pagerunan Kecil, he is an expert in their traditional "kick boxing" type of martial art and often wins such competitions.
 
   
           
    Position Report 199    
    Date: 22nd June 2010    
    Position Our position at 1200 hours was 31.54.0 North, 49.21.4 West.    
           
   
We have had another slow day in our office-some 40 miles made over the last
24 hours and have nearly reached 32 degrees North. Since midnight the winds have freshened slightly and over the next couple of days we expect that progress to continue as we Azrrrrrrrrrr !!! (as Dirman puts it ) our way towards the Azores.

The slightly fresher winds have raised spirits on board (not that they were ever down) and there is quite a bit of talk about the first things to do in Horta, Azores once we get there. Apart from mentions of watching some world cup football, the list revolves around eating and drinking -especially junk and fatty foods - like burgers, steaks, cheese and ice cream -all the unhealthy but nice things we don't have on board! Anyway our bodies are going to be saved for a while yet it would seem.
 
   
           
    Position Report 198    
    Date: 21st June 2010    
    Position Our position at 1200 hours was 31.15.9 North, 49.30.8 West.    
           
   
Position Report 21st June 2010- two months at sea and towards the Americas!

Conditions remain much the same (although we did have a rainy period that lasted a couple of hours during the early morning) and we achieved just under 50 miles over the last 24 hours.

Our position of a few weeks ago reminds us of the quote below claimed to be found on a stone around 1872 near João Pessoa in northern Brazil. We would have posted it earlier but some of those following the blog and who worry unnecessarily about our every move might have thought we were actually going to make landfall in Brazil, the Caribbean or America and may have worried themselves even more! Now we are heading where we always thought the winds would take us, it is interesting to speculate whether the Phoenicians got to the Americas. The quote below, although considered a forgery by some experts, and our Atlantic voyage certainly gives credibility to the possibility of the Phoenicians reaching the Americas.

"We are sons of Canaan from Sidon, the city of the king. Commerce has cast us on this distant shore, a land of mountains. We set [sacrificed] a youth for the exalted gods and goddesses in the nineteenth year of Hiram, our mighty king. We embarked from Ezion-geber into the Red Sea and voyaged with ten ships. We were at sea together for two years around the land belonging to Ham [Africa] but we were separated by a storm [lit., 'from the hand of Baal'] and we were no longer with our companions. So we have come here, twelve men and three women, on a . shore which I, The Admiral, control. But auspiciously may the exalted gods and goddesses favour us."

We have had a number of recent emails on the subject of the Phoenicians voyaging to the Americas as it seems our voyage is stirring up the debate that has raged for over a century as to whether the Phoenicians could have reached the Americas. With many thanks to those who have contacted us including Franz Führer.
 
   
           
    Position Report 195    
    Date: 18th June 2010    
    Position Our position at 1200 hours was: 29.31.2 North, 50.35.2 West.    
           
    Indeed the lighter winds did come, progress slowed and we made just 39 miles over the last 24 hours. The wind has strengthened a little this morning. We are on the edge of a high pressure system, the barometer has been rising and there is not a cloud in sight. The sea is pretty calm, some deep blue rolling waves of just a meter or so high and we are meandering along at just over 2 knots. The number of tuna around the boat appears to have diminished significantly over recent days. We are not sure if this is because we keep taking 4 away each day! (well over 200 since Ascension Island) or because there are fewer around at our current latitude of almost 30 degrees North.

Therefore it is taking a little longer to catch our daily requirement.

Meanwhile our next crew member profile is that of Clinton Clements (photograph below)

Clinton just turned 31 a few weeks back on board ship. He is a strong and imposing 6 footer from South Africa. He has one brother, two sisters and parents who live in the UK.

By trade he is a cowboy- yes - a real cowboy that backs and rears horses, and has mastered the art of cattle handling from the saddle. He has honed his ranching and equine skills in the Americas (Uruguay, Mexico and Canada) and worked for a leading show jumping family in the UK. There is little he doesn't know about equine management but he is also intensely practical and accomplished at leather work and makes his own bridles, saddles, bags and jackets or whatever he desires. From this you will gather that it follows he is good at stitching and rope work and has led and helped out on many a repair - patching our sails with an efficient and quick technique. He is also intensely interested in and knowledgeable about the forna and flora of the African bush and can imitate many of the sounds of animals from the bush. In fact he does this quite a lot on board. Prior to leaving for Phoenicia he was working at the Schotia private game reserve (www.schotia.com) near Port Elizabeth in South Africa. In fact it was through the generosity of the owners of the game reserve, the Bean family, who had invited the Phoenicia crew to experience an amazing Safari with them (for which many thanks again), that we met Clinton.

It didn't take a great deal of work for Clinton to become accepted as a crew member and he joined from Port Elizabeth. He harbours an interest in Viking voyages and an ambition of participating in one. Whether he will still have this interest after voyaging with Phoenicia remains to be seen!
 

   
           
    Position Report 193    
    Date: 16th June 2010    
    Position Our position at 1200 hours was: 28.22.50 North, 51.52.6 West.    
           
   

Since yesterday winds have improved a little more and we now have a gentle breeze directly astern of us. Our main sail is centred and as high as we can get it up the yard which allows us maximum use of the sail area, rather than having the foot of the sail furled. So over the 24 period we made some 76 miles towards the North East.

Now for the second profile of a crew member - Peter Hickman, his background, skills and how he is coping with Phoenicia's longest leg at sea.

Peter, who is quite a character, is a member of Dirman's watch. See photograph of Peter below.

Peter is South African, in his mid 40's and married to Vanessa (Crew member from Cape Town to St Helena). They have three sons, the elder two of which are currently running Peter's metal recycling business near Richards Bay.

It is Peter's first time outside of Africa and so far all he has seen has been two small Atlantic Islands (St. Helena and Ascension Island) and tens of thousands of square miles of ocean- as we have travelled some 7000 miles since Cape Town. Hopefully he well get to see some of the more interesting things that Europe has to offer as we enter the Mediterranean and see its present and past splendours.

It seems that Peter tends to do things either quickly or in large quantities and this includes eating, drinking and talking. On the latter point, he is rarely quiet for long as he is never short of anything to say, and if he is not talking he is asking a question!

During the trip he has immersed himself in a number RYA books for the Yachtmaster's course which he hopes to complete in the not too distant. When he is not doing another job he is usually to be found intensely studying some element of navigation or yacht safety. He has two main passions in life, apart from his family. One is sailing where he a member of the Zululand Yacht Club at Richards Bay (where he met Phoenicia and talked his way on board!). He has also spent longer than can be remembered rebuilding a yacht for himself, which, now virtually complete will be launched on his return to South Africa. His other passion is fishing. In fact this activity for Peter borders on an obsession! Fortunately for Phoenicia he bought most of his fishing tackle with him including two rods, reels and endless supplies of lures and line. As a result our fishing successes have been transformed and rarely a day goes by when no fish are caught. Recently the supply of fish has been so plentiful that they are caught to order, depending on what the cook's of the day require.

During the trip he seems to have managed to give up smoking- something hopefully he can maintain once the temptations on shore are in front of him.

His favourite words seem to be "that's lekker" meaning "that's nice, sweet". He is undoubtedly enjoying the expedition.
 

   
           
    Position Report 192    
    Date: 15th June 2010    
    Position Position at 1200 hours 27.30.2 North, 52.53.3 West.    
           
   

Wind conditions have improved further over the last 24 hours and we have managed some 60 miles towards the North East over the period. Last evening we experienced a local depression with some large black rain clouds and associated winds. Fortunately they didn't last for too long and eventually gave way to a reasonably consistent south westerly wind that has given us just over 3 knots since then. So to sum up, progress remains fairly slow but we are making progress and have less than 1400 miles to the Azores.

Now for the first crew member profile, their background, skills and how they are coping with Phoenicia's longest leg at sea.

We will start with Dirman (pictured below) as he is one of the two watch leaders, the other being Sulhan. Dirman's proper name is Sudirman but he is always known as Dirman. He is in his mid thirties and is a ship's carpenter by trade. He is married with two children of school age. He is originally from the island of Madura in Indonesia but now lives on the island of Pagerunan Kecil where he met his wife through his work. Pagerunan Kecil is a small island (part of the Kangean Islands) some 60 miles north of Bali.

On board ship Dirman is the ship's carpenter and engineer/mechanic. In fact if any things need fixing, Dirman usually has the knowledge to fix it.
He is always smiling and positive, in spite of all the things which are forever breaking down that he has to fix. Fortunately he is blessed with a rare knack of being able to make things work that don't want to.

He is quite a devout Muslim and it seems the more so as the longer our voyage take. He smokes a bit and is the only crew member still to have cigarettes on board after our 50 + days at sea. He keeps the number of cigarettes he actually has left as a bit of secret - it has been about 5 or 6 for the last 10 days!

He doesn't speak a lot of English but enough to get by. His favourite saying is "May be yes, may be no". His proudest achievement apart from his family, is probably the honour of the State Medal he received from President Megawati of Indonesia for Services to Culture for his role in the 12,000 mile Borobudur Ship Expedition in 2003-2004.(www.borobudurshipexpedition.com). In his spare time he likes to fish and to play chess at which he annoyingly good at.

In short, he in an invaluable member of the team and we are lucky to have him on board.
 
   
           
    Position Report 179    
    Date: 2nd June 2010    
    Position Our position at 1200 hours 2nd June was 18.28.0 North, 50.04.50 West.    
           
   
Blog & photographs from Steph Edwards (Crew from UK)


Sunset at sea                              Clinton & Daniel exercising on deck with the help of Peter!

I always thought this leg would be an interesting part of the voyage, a different kind of challenge to, say, the Cape leg. It was hard for me to imagine such a long time at sea and how to deal with it. Fortunately we knew it was going to be a good 2 months or more and so were adequately mentally prepared. Fortunate too that our crew is genial and good-natured and relaxed, and everyone gets along well - I can imagine that if it wasn't so, then the boat would quickly turn to a floating prison! The most difficult point so far was probably 2-3 weeks in, the point in which we would be coming to the end of a normal leg, which also coincided with directionless bobbing in the Doldrums, and the beginning of the end of some of the foodstuffs. The excitement of passing the Equator had been and gone. It was difficult to contemplate another 60 or more days or at that point.

Thankfully it quickly passed and we all seemed to settle in for the long haul, and now watch rolls into watch until, before you know it, weeks have gone by. Occasionally there there is a flurry of activity and we do something to the sail or the bilge pump, but mostly the days are the same, with a slight variation in: conditions and course, topics of conversation, fish-and-rice recipes, reading material. I think most of us are enjoying having so much time just to think and plan and read and be, this is the kind of time to yourself that you just don't get in 'normal life'.

The merry-go-round of reading material is getting a bit thin on the ground; fresh books are often devoured by two at a time, one on each watch, reading whilst the other is asleep. The few magazines we have on board have picked through been cover to cover, several times. Sometimes when we're feeling a bit too relaxed we will attempt some exercise - ongoing plans to devise a skipping routine are constantly skuppered by the deck-sweeping mainsail rendered impotent by a lack of wind, or inconvenient lurching of the boat in lumpy swells.

After so long at sea I'm beginning to forget what land looks, smells and feels like underfoot, it's almost as if it never existed; it feels further away than the sea does when you're stuck in the office over Winter. Our memories and the books we have on board seem like the only links to land. We still have another good few weeks to go, and I'm taking the approach that if I ever see land again it will be a pleasant surprise, but for now I'm just enjoying bobbing along in our funny little wooden home on the sea, with the sealife and birds (and occasional shark) for our neighbours, our constant escort of fish that we pillage daily for lunch and dinner, and the crest of waves and the shifting shapes and colours of the sky for our landscape.

Philip has promised us a beer when we're finally pointing in the right direction. I'm hoping that we get to the Azores before England get knocked out of the World Cup (if I could have one luxury item it might well be a newspaper, it's strange to be away from the news during big events like the election and the run up to the World Cup). I'm also looking forward to how good freshly laundered clothes are going to smell - clothing and particularly bedding takes on a curious scent after a few weeks in the heat on Phoenicia, a unique blend of rancid sweat, grease, fish, diesel, salt and pine tar. On a bad day the result in my bunk is something resembling a damp mule!

To sum up we made just 30.2 miles over the last 24 hours.
 
   
           
    Position Report 153    
    Date: 6th May 2010    
    Message: A night to remember or a night to forget!    
   


 
Another image from yesterday - Peter swims out to observe the vistiting Whale Shark
 

   
    We start our first evening watch at 2000 hours after supper and one of the three on watch takes the helm for an hour each, this process is repeated until the 6 hours of the watch are completed. The fourth member of the watch is sleeping or “on holiday” as we call it because they are on Mother watch and get a night’s rest before waking early to prepare breakfast and the other meals of the day alongside cleaning and washing up duties. Last night’s watch was nothing unusual – a few small rain clouds and their contents but nothing more than that. At 0145 the next watch was called and came on duty by 0200 hours. Twenty minutes later a large storm cloud that had apparently been lurking all evening hit the ship with strong winds. Within a few minutes the ship was doing 6 knots and getting difficult to control.

Aziz was on the helm asking for another helmsman to help control the ship’s heading. The main need though was to get the main sail furled which was not easy in 25-35 knots of wind. It was then the moment for the call to have “all hands on deck” was shouted below. Peter cries out does that mean me? Yes it does *** came the reply.

With ever stronger winds and surging waves Aziz calls for everyone to have life jackets on, but no one is listening. Everyone is trying to get the ship under control and to pull on the brailing lines to furl the sail whilst Sulhan is shouting that he needs to release the sheet before this can happen! As the heavy rain lashes down on deck, the sail is gradually furled to less than a meter below the yard. The speed through the water falls away and before not too long we are doing 2 knots but in heavy rain. We are out of the worst of the danger now but there is no time to loose, the bilge is full of water and diesel fire pump ( the electric one failed a day or so ago and we have yet to be able to repair it) is started and used to empty the bilge within about 20 minutes.

After that the extra hands that came to help gradually go off to their bunks leaving Aziz, Philip and Daniel to continue the watch.

Just as tranquillity had arrived a ship is spotted on the port side that looks like it is going to cross ahead of us. Then within minutes we spot another ship on our starboard side and we are not sure where it is going but it is a long way off for now. We check the radar and the AIS and get a fix on the first ship. It is called Ken and is heading for Russia and will cross 4 miles in front of us. No need to worry about that and the other ship is crossing the other way some 10 miles off and we never see it again. What is the chance of having two ships cross us within minutes of each other when we haven’t seen another ship for a couple of days?

The wind is now light and from the north and pushing us to the south west- not at all what we want to get out of the doldrums. After a while we get fed up with going backwards and brace the yard as hard over as we can on the starboard tack and try and sail as close to the wind as we can. The wind is veering to the east and gradually we are able to sail from to the north west, having been only able to sail to the south west and west at best. It is now time to wake up the two crew on mother watch, in this case Steff and Sulhan. Surprisingly Steff is already awake and up (she likes her sleep) and on a mission to cook scones for breakfast. Apart from the scones, breakfast is a fairly simple affair of cereal and left overs from last night’s supper (fish, noodles and rice).

The watches change. Aziz, Philip and Daniel have breakfast and then head for their bunks for some much needed sleep to get over a night to forget. They will be back on watch at 12 noon. Meanwhile Peter is on the helm and the new watch begins. Clinton dangles the fishing rod over the side and within a minute has a fair size yellow-fin tuna onboard. Within 15 minutes he has 6 which is more than enough for our daily requirement. Dirman is on the prowl for fixing things and turns his hand to the generator that has been running poorly of late as if being starved of diesel. He takes off and cleans the filter which is full of dirty muck but the improvement isn't what he had hoped for. Next step is to fit a new filter which does work. He then moves on to the electric bilge pump but that stubbornly refused to pump after having been taken apart. One for more thinking.

Meanwhile back to yesterday's whale shark- Photo above:Peter swims out to get a better view! What did they say: Curiosity killed the cat!
 
   
           
    Position Report 152    
    Date: 5th May 2010    
    Location: .1200 hrs GMT was 3°31.8 North, 25°40.5 West.    
    Message: A Whale Shark visits Phoenicia    
   

 


Just as things were getting a little predictable and boring along comes a whale shark to brighten things up! It was a really incredible moment to see this massive blundering fish, which lives on plankton, approach Phoenicia,.

We estimate it was about 6 meters long and nearly two meters wide at its head. It looked rather ugly and just as one imagines a sea monster. It came alongside the ship very slowly and touched our starboard rudder and then circles the ship several times. Several of the crew got into the sea with goggles to get a better view of this amazing creature. The first photo shows it alongside our safety rope and the other, is a close up of its head with various pilot fish around it.

The visit lasted about 45 minutes, until it rubbed on our port rudder and then swam underneath the ship, at which point we thought better of encouraging it rub against us any more. Putting on the diesel generator seemed to cause the end of its interest in us which was something of a relief for the skipper.

In the evening we had quite a heavy rain squall but afterwards that gave way to a midnight rainbow reflecting off the moonlight, something quite rare and that few of us had seen before. We made slightly better progress over the last 24 hours and covered some 52.4 miles mainly toward the West. Our position at 1200 hrs GMT was 3°31.8 North, 25°40.5 West.
 

   
           
    Position Report 145    
    Date: 28th April 2010    
    Location: 00.23.9 North, 021.23.2 West.    
    Message: Back in the Northern Hemisphere!    
   


After five and a half months we are back in the northern hemisphere. Having crossed the equator going south on the 14th November 2009 we are delighted to have crossed back again at 0140 GMT this morning 28th April 2010 .The crossing the line ceremony took place for the first timers under sail to cross the equator which were Clinton, Daniel, Peter and Steph.

Following the ceremony where King Neptune was performed by Dirman we celebrated with a bottle of Delheim's Grand Reserve 2004 - which had been given to the expedition to celebrate the occasion. The significance of the 2004 date was the year expedition was conceived- so 6 years in the making and excellent wine too! Our position at 1800 hours GMT is 00.23.9 North, 021.23.2 West.

 

We have been keeping in touch with our friends at the Delheim wine estate in Stellenbosch and were delighted to hear that the Delheim team have been celebrating the crossing with us. See the photograph below which was sent to us from South Africa. We hope you will all raise your glasses to toast our arrival in the Northern Hemisphere!
 


Daniel, Peter, Philip, Clinton & Steph celebrate     The Delheim staff celebrate the crossing in
the crossing onboard Phoenicia                            Stellenbosch, South Africa     
        

 

     

Delheim 2004 Grand Reserve    The crew enjoy a glass of wine onboard Phoenicia
 

   
           
    Position Report 144    
    Date: 27th April 2010    
    Location: Our position is 00.20.0 South,20.37.9 West.    
    Message: Blog 27th April 2010 from Captain Philip Beale    
   

 

Ascension Island Report

Ascension Island is one of those remote volcanic islands that somehow ended up as British Territory, and lies some 700 miles to the north west of Saint Helena. For the last couple of hundred years it has been used by sailing ships heading north as an important port of call for water and provisions.


There is even a forest of fir tress planted to provide sailing ships with spare masts. Today Ascension is primarily a communications centre and military base for the Royal Air Force and the US Air Force as well as the communications centre for the BBC (who transmit all their African programmes from Ascension) and a base to the European Space Agency.

Up to 1000 people live on the island at any one time, many from Saint Helena. The majority of those on the island are contractors for the military bases and BBC with only a few serving military personnel on the island as such. It is said that the NASA moon landing in 1969 was controlled from Ascension and then relayed to Houston, USA.

We approached Ascension Island from the south west on the evening of Saturday 18th April. From around 30 miles we could make out the bright lights of the airfield which is large relative to the size of the island as if necessary it could land the space shuttle. We had brailed Phoenicia up so that we could anchor in the morning off George Town which we duly did. Several of the locals saw us come in under sail and word spread that "Vasco de Gama" must have been visiting the island as few ships under sail make it to Ascension Island these days.

We spend three days on the island and managed to visit most of the important sites, including the island's Green Mountain, the military bases and to generally explore the amazing volcanic scenery and pristine white sand beaches. We visited the old NASA Headquarters on the island- now a derelict building used by the local scout group!

The highlight for most of us was to visit Long Beach after dark to witness 4 large green turtles laying their eggs and at the same time seeing baby turtles emerging from sand covered nests to make their way into the sea. The adult turtles we saw were about 5 foot long and about 2 foot high, whilst the young were anything from just 2-6 inches. For most of us it was a surreal experience and one that we will treasure for years to come, as it remains a rare experience to find such an isolated spot where nature has been allowed to continue without interference from mankind. The turtles though, even on Ascension, are protected from hunting and everything is done to try to ensure they are not disturbed during the breeding season that lasts from December until June, thereafter the adults make their way back to Brazil.

During our stay the Island's Administrator and the Harbour Master visited Phoenicia as well as a number of others from the island. All too soon our visit to this enchanting island was over and it was time to weigh anchor and hoist our sail.

Since then we have sailed nearly 600 miles are now within 30 miles of the equator. Alas it will be nightfall before when reach the equator so it is doubtful we will actually see the line itself.
Our position is 00.20.0 South,20.37.9 West.
 

   
           
    Position Report 138    
    Date: 21st April 2010    
    Location: 7.57.9 south, 14.29.6 West.    
    Message: Departure Blog from Captain Philip Beale    
   


After an all too brief a visit to this unique island, we set sail shortly after 1600 hours GMT.

We are headed north west for our longest and potentially most challenging leg of the expedition that may take between 35 and 55 days to complete navigating around the West African coast- an area of the Atlantic that was known about in ancient times. More to follow over the next few weeks plus a report on our visit to Ascension. Our position at 1700 hours GMT was 7.57.9 south, 14.29.6 West
 

   
           
    Position Report 136    
    Date: 15th April 2010    
    Location: Our position is 11.15.16 South, 10.49.3 West.    
    Message: Blog from Captain Philip Beale    
   


Temperature rising.

Although yesterday it rained quite a lot, today has been notable for the increase in temperature which is now nearly 30 degrees centigrade. It remains cloudy and humid and therefore crew members are doing all they can to avoid the muggy conditions. There is definitely an increase in showers being taken compared with a week or two ago!
 

With the moratorium on fishing as we have surplus supplies, we have been getting round to do some other jobs on board. We have just serviced the Whale hand bilge pump, which is now back in working order. The repairs to the generator tank were partially successful - but more needs to be done there to completely stop the leak.


Clinton is making a leather bag in the shape of a ship from a large piece of cow hide.
Apparently, for the lucky owner, it will last a life time. We will post a photo when it is ready.
Meanwhile we are less than 300 miles from Ascension Island having recorded another 100 mile run over the last 24 hours to 1200 hours GMT.

 

Whilst we were in St Helena I did a telephone interview with Sir Robin Knox Johnson for BBC Radio Solent in the UK. I have been informed this will be played on the H20 Show tomorrow evening (Friday 16th April) between 7-8pm UK summer time. For those interested in listening (whether you are in the UK or abroad) you can look up http://www.bbc.co.uk/hampshire/local_radio/h2o_show/index.shtml where I believe you will find a link to listen online.
 

   
           
    From Cape Town to St Helena    
           
    Position Report 134    
    Date: 13th April 2010    
   


Blog and photographs from Steph Edwards (Core crew from UK)

It was thoroughly British weather that greeted us as we sailed in to St Helena - cold, grey and drizzly. If you've never heard of St Helena - which I hadn't before I signed up this voyage - it's a tiny speck in the middle of the South Atlantic with the status of British Overseas Territory. It has no airport and a population of around 3500, spread out between Jamestown and small villages in the rest of the island.

 

    
1. Arriving to British Weather in St Helena       2. Phoenicia at Anchor in St Helena

It's the kind of place where everybody knows each other's name and stops for a chat walking down the street, we were very quickly marked out as the people from 'that crazy wooden boat'. There are no mobile phones on this island and if somebody wants to get hold of you they will ring around or send somebody to fetch you. On our first day there several of us were quickly despatched from the bar to do an interview with the local independent radio station. The locals are very friendly, hospitable and entertaining although it does take a while to get used to the accent.
 

3. Daniel, Peter, Philip radio interview     4&5. Scenes from the High Street, St Helena


Many thanks to the Director of Tourism Pam who very kindly organised tours of the island for all of the crew, and to our tour guide . We visited Napoleon's residences during his time on the island, and Jonathan, perhaps the oldest surviving tortoise of its kind, at Plantation House, as well as seeing some very beautiful views whilst driving around. There are 699 steps from the fort down to Jamestown, and luckily for me the tour stopped at the top saving my legs from walking up, although some of our more energetic crew members had been up the day before. Jamestown itself is small and distinctly laid back, except for the scrum at 9am on a Thursday morning when the farmers bring their produce down to sell. A combination of plentiful diseases and a strange tax situation means that relatively little agriculture is done on the island, and little of the produce brought to market, and there is much reliance on the Royal Mail Ship for supplies. The small island community seems to function around the arrival of the RMS St Helena every few weeks, which - apart from the odd yacht and cruise liner - is the island's only connection with the wider world as it plies its route between Cape Town, St Helena, Ascension Island and occasionally the UK.

 


6. Spectacular scenery in St Helena                 7. Black dot far out is Phoenicia at anchor
                                                                         (view from the fort above Jamestown)

Provisioning, gas, diesel and water refills were sorted out and left plenty of time for relaxing. We had our fill of bacon rolls, lamb chops, internet access and mosquito bites at Ann's Place, where we found a Borobudur postcard from Philip's last trip to the island (which he doesn't remember putting there!). Some of us sampled the local nightlife on Friday and Saturday, which was definitely an interesting experience and gave us a completely different insight into island life. We met a lot of both locals and expats, young and old, during our time there who acquainted us with the frustrations of living on St Helena as well as the highlights. The water was beautifully warms so lots of swimming and jumping and fishing was done at anchor, and the freezer is now packed full of mackerel. The Yacht Club very generously hosted us lunch on our last day, thanks to Sandy for arranging this and for the huge helpings of plo (and also for the recipe which will be tested out on mother watch in due course), and to Tony for the drinks.
 

 

Weighing anchor on Sunday sharply reminded us what hard work felt like, but we quickly turned around, got the sail up and were off, leaving St Helena behind us. Catch of the day definitely goes to Clinton who landed a monster dorado - over 30 kilos. See photo of Clinton to the left. Now that there are only 8 of us this should keep us going for a good few days!


Sailing has been reasonable over the last 24 hours and we have made 96 miles.

     

8. Clinton with a huge dorado                           9. Napoleon's tomb in St Helena
 

   
           
    Position Report 125    
    Date: 29th March 2010    
    Location: Position at 1500 hours GMT 25.15.2 South,09.05.1 East.    
    Message: Blog & photographs from Steph Edwards (Core crew from UK)    
   


We've been at sea long enough now to get into the rhythm of the watch system and develop our own little routines. In this kind of weather especially (overcast, murky and not that warm), most of off-watch time is spent sleeping. There's nothing like a cold 6 hour night watch to make you appreciate a kip during the day! Thankfully it's no longer go-to-sleep-in-all-the-clothes-you-own cold at night, just wrap-up-warm-in-a-few-layers chilly. Much time in the South African ports was spent waterproofing and improving our chosen bunks, adorning them with plastic and sheeting and curtains and pockets and blankets. My own bunk is now such a cosy little nest that the rest of the crew worried they'd never manage to get me out of it again.

For most of the day, as half of the crew are asleep apart from a few loiterers doing their laundry or reading, all is quiet but for the gentle whirr of the wind generator, the slosh of the swells rolling past, the cosy purr of the gas heating the kettle for hot drinks, Phoenicia's own particular creaks and groans, and occasionally the sound of Clinton going through his repertoire of animal imitations (it's very Noah's Ark) or Yuri playing tunes on his recorder. Now that we're in the trades there's only the odd bit of sail tweaking to do as the wind direction is fairly consistent, there's nothing broken to fix at the moment (touch wood) and we haven't seen any other boats for days; it's quite hypnotic being on the helm in such conditions, and it's interesting what kind of thoughts pop into your head.

Sometimes there is a beautiful sky or the odd bit of marine life to entertain us - two big sharks, and a rainbow to accompany our breakfast being the most recent highlights. Crew members can often be spotted staring into the distance lost in their own thoughts, and several of us are becoming prodigious readers - I've finished four books in three days. The most popular spot for these activities is sitting on the spare yard on the starboard side which tends to serve as the smoking bench as it is usually seems to be downwind.

Everyone tends to bring a few fiction books with them so there's an interesting variety in the crew library down below, ranging from sailing stories to essays about Islam to crime to trashy historical romance.

Occasionally we'll put our serious faces on and study the sailing books. We also now have a Learn Indonesian CD-Rom on board (thanks to Daniel's parents) so that we can find new words to make jokes with. The 4pm-dinner period seems to be the most sociable time of day. This is when the games will come out, everyone grabs their cameras for the sunsets and hangs around in the galley reading, writing, fixing things and waiting for the occasional happy hour, cakes, popcorn or dinner.
 
   
           
    Position Report 119    
    Date: 23rd March 2010    
    Location:

031° 26.928S, 016° 37.635E

   
    Message:      
     
Day 3 and we are heading northwards up the coast with a light southerly breeze, clear blue skies, a greenish Atlantic sea and bright sunshine that is keeping the cold away. There is plenty of bird life around us too. Overnight we had winds of around 20 knots and with the Benguela current we occasionally hit 7+ knots. The waves were 4-5 meters at high at time and for much of the night we had two people on the helm, as Phoenicia started to get a little too frisky at times for one helmsman to control. As a result we have made a creditable 116 miles over the last 24 hours. Right now (1200 hours GMT) we have slowed to just below 4 knots and are heading towards the coast to pick up a little more current and we will then stay at around 40 miles off the coast for the next couple of days until we reach about 26 degrees south when we will head north-west towards St Helena which is about a 1000 miles off the coast.

We will therefore cut the corner and avoid going into the territorial waters of Angola and Nigeria etc- where there is little to be gained from sailing there from our point of view. More interesting to us and those interested in Phoenician history will be our passage around the bulge of West Africa from Senegal to the Straits of Gibraltar, where north easterly currents and winds prevail and its an open question as to how the Phoenicians would have managed to get back into the Mediterranean against such headwinds. Our guess is that it was only possible by going to the west of the Azores and then heading east with the prevailing winds. Which, if true, leads one to suspect that the original discovers of the Azores were the Phoenicians rather than the Portuguese. Importantly there is a reference in ancient history to an island beyond the Pillars of Hercules in the first century BC, when Diodorus of Sicily wrote:

”In the deep off Africa is an island of considerable size. fruitful, much of
it mountainous. Through it flow navigable rivers. The Phoenicians had
discovered it by accident after having planted many colonies throughout
Africa”.

Whilst some have taken this as evidence of that the Phoenicians discovered America, is it more likely to have been a reference to the Azores? Over the next few months we will see just how close to the West African coast a Phoenician ships could have sailed.
 

   
           
    Around the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Town, South Africa    
           
    Position Report 113    
    Date: 3rd March 2010    
    Location:

Phoenicia sails into the Atlantic

   
    Message:      
     
We have had an amazing or should that read “breath-taking” sail over the last 24 hours covering some 150 miles-a record for Phoenicia. We have experienced gale force winds and powerful seas with waves that we estimate are at least 6-7 meters high. Such was the swell over night that in order to keep a good lookout we have had to climb onto the cabin roof to pick up the shipping traffic heading our way.

And at times we have had to have three people on the helm in order to keep our course. Not that we have great steerage options with large braking waves on our starboard quarter and making between 6-7 knots. We have had the occasional breaking wave on deck, so the weather boards are up to prevent the water coming into the cabin. Fortunately nobody has been washed off their feet by the waves but we have all had a good cold water soaking. Going to the heads is a rather traumatic experience whilst the ship battle with the surging waves, where one sort of takes ones life and puts in the hands of Dirman’s carpentry…fortunately he repaired the heads on leaving Port Elizabeth where it had come off rather worse for ware during our docking.

In the early hours of the morning we passed the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope as Phoenicia sailed into the Atlantic Ocean for the first time- surely our halfway point of the expedition? We are now some 17 miles to the south west of Cape Point and heading north. We can see the rugged and dramatic outline of the Cape and the ridge of Table Mountain to the north. We expect our current pace of 5-6 knots to slow as we approach the lee of Table Mountain but at the moment the wind and waves are showing little let up in their ferocity. Most of us will be pleased not to endure too many periods like the last 24 hours but the crew remain upbeat at the prospect of rounding the Cape in a Phoenician vessel and heading towards Cape Town.
 
   
           
    Position Report 112    
    Date: 2nd March 2010    
    Location:

Our position at noon was:35.16.5 South, 20.44.2 East.

   
    Message:  An action packed day    
   
We have had an action packed 24 hours since our last blog. At that time progress was slow but by 10pm the wind had backed to the south east, the sail was reset and in no time we were sailing at over 5 knots. The wind increased during the night as we made our way past some oil and gas platforms in the Agulhas Bank. These would have been easy to negotiate had it not been for the on coming shipping lane that was adjacent to the platforms. Still we passed by uneventfully and under control, unlike our previous experience with oil platforms in the Red Sea in September 2008.

Still the expected wind from the south east had arrived and touched between 15-25 knots and before no time we were making over 6 knots.

Then at 4.30am we had a spectacular- well that is if you like watching your purple and white main sail divide into two pieces before your eyes. It happened in an instance and to the amazement of those on watch. A weak seem just ripped apart before our eyes. There was just enough light to see what had happened and within no time there was a call for “all hands on deck”. The first problem was getting the sail down in the strong winds. To aid this process we furled the sail up with the brailing lines as hard as we could and tried as quickly as possible to lower the yard. With 15 crew members on board this happened pretty quickly.

We then brought our storm sail up from below and attached it to a shortened yard, that we have stowed alongside the cabin, and then re-rigged the tacks, braces and sheets. Unfortunately one of the sheets got twisted, so the hoisting of the storm sail was not as smooth at it should have been and flapped violently until we brought it under control and corrected the problem with the sheet. Apart from that the whole operation ran smoothly, which was just as well because by the time we had finished some 45 minutes later we were close to the edge of the shipping lane with two ships appearing out of the mist and rather too close for comfort. The storm sail handled well and we were able to resume our course all be it at a slower speed of between 4-5 knots.

During the day Len attended to a couple of mechanical issues which had been bugging us. Then before lunch Dirman started pulling in the first of three fish. His second was another huge 15kg yellow-fin tuna similar to that of a couple of days ago. Plans are afoot to put the fish to good use - including making sushi and drying some fish on the cabin roof.

One thing is for sure – we are not going to be short of fish and memories of our approach to the Cape of Good Hope which we are likely to pass tomorrow evening, as we are currently approaching Cape Agulhas and 115 miles from the Cape.

Our position at midnight was; 35.11.15 South, 21.51.1 East.

Our position at noon was:35.16.5 South, 20.44.2 East.

 
   
           
    Position Report 106    
    Date: 23rd February 2010    
    Location:

33.12.14South, 27.53.20 East

   
    Message:      
   
Leaving East London

We had hoped to leave the quiet confines of East London yesterday but events got the better of us. First a fuel problem with the engine due to a new filter and then one of the crew, Tony Lambdon, from New Zealand who is on an assignment as a sports coach in East London, was on his way back to the ship when he was caught in a car accident. Fortunately Tony wasn't hurt but was nonetheless shook up and decided it would be better to rejoin us further down the coast. And with some doubts about the weather we postponed sailing until first thing this morning. We left Latimer's Landing at East London at 06:30 hours and made our way down the channel in light drizzle and mist.

Some 50 meters before the breakwater our engine cut out but within a minute our anchor was over the side and we were secure. Interestingly we were at a spot opposite where all the C Class Mercedes Benz are made and shipped all over the world -which is probably the only thing that East London is known for. Apart from that it is a quiet town with two yacht clubs on River Buffalo, that made us very welcome. We bled the engine once again and after waiting for a few minutes to confirm everything was in order we weighed anchor and were on our way. Shortly afterwards the yacht Sea Witch, followed us out of the harbour and was headed for Cape Town. Our ambitions are rather more modest, as we head some 120 miles along the coast towards Port Elizabeth. Sea Witch soon disappeared from sight in the morning mist.

As at 1200 hours local time we are already off the coast by about 6 miles and doing some 6 knots. Our position is 33.12.14South 27.53.20 East. We are experiencing light winds from the south east but expect much stronger winds tomorrow morning from the north east. Phoenicia may well see some white-knuckle sailing tomorrow.

 
   
           
    From Durban to East London, South Africa    
           
    Position Report 104    
    Date: 20th February 2010    
    Location:

Enroute to East London

   
    Message:      
   
We have had a challenging but positive 24 hours. Yesterday we had to cope with the coastal low that was passing through our route that produced south and south westerly winds that pushed us off our track. We furled the main in order reduce our speed and for a while we hove-to quite effectively. Then towards the afternoon the seas became bigger and we were already off the coast by 30 miles, so decided to change tack and head north. However because of the south westerly running Agulhas current we lost relatively little grounds- a few miles at the most. However we didn't make much ground either and as of yesterday evening we had some 180 miles to run to get to East London with only 40 hours before the weather is forecast to turn against us and meaning we would be pushed back up the coast towards Durban. Fortunately we benefited from an offshore breeze and the current and made modest progress until the wind turned for us at about 9 am this morning. Since then the wind has increased steadily and we have been fortunate with the current, which combined are giving us around 8 knots- a speed which many of us never thought Phoenicia would do. But there may be more to come as the winds are expected to strengthen further tonight. Will Phoenicia see double figures on this passage towards East London.

We have had a few happenings on board too. A couple of electrical failures - the compass and tri-colour lights on the mast both failed yesterday evening.

Len as "Mr fix it" managed to fix the compass light - a wire had worn out on a connection. The navigation light can't be fixed as it is likely the answer lies at the top of the mast and no-one fancies going up there in big seas with waves of about 7 meters high rocking Phoenicia from side to side.

Still we have two sets of navigation lights - and the second set remains operational.

The other event we have had is another tear in the sail. Whilst we had had the sail repaired in Richards Bay - unfortunately one seem was missed in the stitching. That of course split open today and as the winds increased the split widened to about two meters. We lowered the sail and whilst still sailing eventually managed to carry out some repairs. The effort at times resembled a rugby scrum with several strong crew members trying to hold the sail on the deck whilst Peter and Dirman did their best to apply the stitches. So far it is holding up well and we are enjoying sailing along at 8 knots, even if we are all a bit tired.

 

   
           
    Position Report 103    
    Date: 19th February 2010    
    Location:

31.16.6 South, 30.45.5 East

   
    Message:      
    A Time of First: Blog from Crew member Daniel Hallstrom

After Phoenicia's exceptional reception at the Zululand Yacht Club in Richards Bay and fit in between the numerous social functions, the crew was able to get a fair amount of needed work done. It was only possible to accomplish all that was because of the ever present generosity of the friends met in Richards Bay. Amongst the helping hands was Len Helfrich, a very knowledgeable fixit man and adventurer. After spending time aboard Phoenicia offering some much appreciated help with engine repairs and maintenance, it wasn't long before he agreed to join the expedition to Durban and thus, Phoenicia received her first African crew member. And in fact during our stay in Richards Bay, two new African crew members were welcomed aboard; the second being Peter Hickman. After spending a few nights engaging Phoenicia's various crew members in conversation and discussing the voyage, Peter's excitement and imagination were running high, but he did not act right away. Waiting until the last moment, he asked and was welcomed at ten o'clock at night the evening before our set departure date, after our last Zululand braai. Sure enough he showed up on time with a bag packed, fishing gear in hand, and a smile on his face, thus making Peter Phoenicia's most last minute sign on. During our time there we also got to greet Karim Khwanda. Karim has travelled from Damascus, Syria to join Phoenicia to Cape Town. His enthusiasm, awe, and raw energy were a refresher for all. And his arrival marked Phoenicia's most recent Syrian crew member.

With our new crew in tact we set out of Richards Bay to Durban and said goodbye to all of the new friends of Richards Bay. It was a clear day and the wind was strong. We found the desired current rather quickly and very soon started making rapid progress towards Durban. Arriving in less than a day, this sail was the shortest of Phoenicia's life. The wind was still blowing upon our arrival of the Durban harbour and we were still moving.

With the sail almost completely reefed, we were doing five or more knots.

With Steph and Daniel both working the helm, we were guiding Phoenicia into the busy port nicely. After entering the channel, a large cargo ship appeared from behind, pushing us over to the far starboard side of the channel. With the strong winds, it was difficult to overcome the starboard drift and Phoenicia had a little tango with a green buoy. The incident sent the ship's crew into a frenzy. Indonesian instructions were being shouted to an incomprehensible work force, while others were pulling, climbing, jumping, pushing, and valiantly battling with the buoy. With the added help of the Point Yacht Club and the Durban Marina staff and an NSRI volunteer Phoenicia escaped only having suffered very minor damage to the toilet facilities. She did manage to leave her pine tar mark on the obstruction. From there, we were guided into the port to our docking place.

Crew members' reactions to Durban might have been somewhat like our entrance into the harbour. A little shocked at first, but soon thereafter, settling into the big city. Durban is very developed and has a definite 'big city' feel to it. Crew members were promptly warned by yacht club personnel about crime and safety issues in the city. On high alert, crew members were a bit apprehensive of the towering buildings and busy streets at first.

However, going around the Cape is a matter of getting the right winds and the right weather. So, we had to wait for the right winds and weather in Durban and it wasn't long before crew members were figuring out the safer places and times to walk and explore the city.

Durban has a wonderful botanical gardens that some crew members found to be relaxing and beautiful. And what kind of African botanical gardens wouldn't be complete without monkeys scampering about. The different museums were visited by many, including the apartheid museum, which was enlightening.

There is a mix of architectural styles amongst the buildings of Durban, making for a visual treat just to walk the streets. Combine that with the various city parks, tiled street tree planters, street vendors and outdoor markets, and you start to see how the city transformed into quite a lovely place. Durban will also be hosting some of the World Cup games and so major renovations could be seen throughout the city - including a major new soccer stadium, creating a beach side pedestrian esplanade, upgrading streets, and other projects, Durban was quite the happening place. Six crew members, tired of the city hubub, ventured out into the countryside for a few days of camping, waterfalls, and mountains and others were content to stay aboard Phoenicia and host the various visitors.

Phoenicia welcomed another new crew member, Tony Lambdon, who is from New Zealand, but working in East London in South Africa. Everyone was happy to receive his new energy and enthusiasm and being a tri-athlete, his added muscle was also well received. With this addition we were once again ready to move on. As enjoyed as Durban was, everyone was ready to see the new sights of East London, the weather complied, and Phoenicia was off.

We found the current some 14 miles of the coast and managed a good 5 knots average speed over night. Mid morning saw the appearance of the low pressure system we had expected with south westerly winds and waves to match. We reefed up the sails and hove-to for a few hours until the large waves forced us to change course back on our track. We expect to endure another 6-9 hours of the low before normal north- easterly winds commence. Until then we expect a bumpy ride and little progress- such must have been the lot of the Phoenicians.
.
 
   
           
    Beira, Mozambique to Richards Bay, South Africa    
           
    Position Report 98    
    Date: 27th January 2010    
    Location: Richards Bay, South Africa - We have arrived!    
    Message:      
   
 
   
           
    Position Report 96    
    Date: 25th January 2010    
    Location:  26.28.4South and 034.37.9 East    
    Message:      
   
Phoenicia blog written by new crew member Steph Edwards:

Since we left Beira it has been interesting to watch how the crew members and their habits change from port to sea, and the experience quickly becomes an exercise in getting along and adapting to new circumstances, particularly as the watch system kicks in and the ship takes us far away from our usual daily comforts. With 11 of us we currently operate a two watch system (0200-0800, 0800-1200, 1200-1600, 1600-2000, 2000-0200). The two watches consist of: Sulhan, Aziz, Yuri, Vera and Atsuko; and Dirman, Niklas, Alice, Daniel and Steph. It's pretty hot so in reality most of the daytime becomes an operation in seeking shade, and like lying beasts we revolve around the ship with the sun, occasionally being forced to seek solace in our bunks below deck despite this being the sweatiest place to reside. And so the setting of the sun in the late afternoon signals shower time and the queue begins, and you can expect a loud tutting from Yuri's direction if he is kept waiting too long. Showers bring their own set of peculiarities, especially for the girls - modesty, an overhanging toilet, a rolling ship, an audience and possible lurking cameras make for an interesting experience.

With only one brief downpour so far the iPods have been out in force and Dirman can often be spotted disco dancing his way around the deck as the on-duty watch turn up the funk, Sulhan usually shaking his head in bewilderment. Then we are blessed with several hours of pleasant temperature to relax before dinner, and if it's a Saturday or a Wednesday then this is accompanied by some drinks and chocolate of happy hour, which is always well received. It's incredible to see the effect that rationed chocolate has on a group of people living largely (now we're into the second week) off rice and noodles. Things quieten down after dinner as half the crew are off to bed to catch some zzzz before the late watch, but the night time brings its own pleasure of helming a quiet ship under sail in the moonlight. Unless you are on watch with Aziz, who likes to talk all the way through his watch (a journalist by trade he enjoys a good debate), or Yuri when he brings out his recorder, or Alice who will get the party started if she is awake. Occasionally the aroma of fish head soup wafts through the boards as the nocturnal Sulhan heats himself up a midnight snack. Atsuko, who used to work for Apple, may well now be regretting bringing her iPhone, as a clear night means we reach straight for the star spotting app and she has to play Tech Support most of the night as we continually fail to get it to work.

The cooking and cleaning rota ('mother watch', as we know it) takes one person from each watch per day and sometimes turns up some interesting partnerships. I seem to be ingraining the habit of afternoon tea in the rest of the crew - there is often baking, bread or popcorn to keep us going until dinner. Pudding is also on the rise. Yuri is the resident bread baker and has kindly shared his secrets with the rest of us so we have a regular supply of fresh bread on board, although we once discovered accidentally that frying flour does not work well for this purpose. Vera is an excellent producer of sweets and confectionary, I've discovered a fairly boat-proof banana muffin recipe, and Daniel is the experimental 'let's throw stuff in a pan' cook whose attempts always miraculously taste great. Niklas reliably turns out a good 'Swedish potato surprise' at most mealtimes, Aziz continually threatens us with boiled water but actually does great things with noodles. Alice, who has trouble sleeping during the day, has been known to cook for 14 hours solid whilst on mother watch, producing a vast array of dishes and a lot of washing up for her poor partner Sulhan! So far on this leg we have had one catch of the day - a tasty tuna - and with this Atsuko actually managed to convert several of the crew to fish head soup, which is no mean feat as several have been spotted running away from the Indonesian version. And Daniel has been converted to Marmite. Philip is exempt from mother watch except in emergencies but you can expect a raised eyebrow if you cook something not to his liking.

It's now our tenth day at sea on this leg and all bets are on as to when we will arrive, with the winner(s) receiving ice cream from the losers, although there will inevitably be some disagreement over how the days been counted and how much ice cream was specified! Currently it looks like Dirman and Daniel are the ones most likely to enjoy high blood sugar levels and tooth decay in Richard's Bay.

Steph

PS We have just covered some 97 miles over the last 24 hours and are now some 200 miles from Richards Bay.
 
   
           
    Comoros Island -Beira Mozambique    
           
    Position Report 82    
    Date: 26th December 2009    
    Location: 015° 33.500S, 041° 42.032E    
    Message: Blog from Captain Philip Beale    
   
Christmas on board Phoenicia was an almost surreal experience. On the one one hand lots of cheerfulness, many varied plates of good food for dinner and various treats during the day. This was moderated by the pretty foul weather which meant we took it in turns for someone to take the helm (whilst the rest of us stayed in the cabin) and endure an hour or so of being drenched by the very heavy rain. We have also had some problems with the large amounts of water collecting in the bilges and getting rid of it. For now we are managing to keep on top of it with various pumps and contraptions but it is a constant battle.

The good news was that yesterday the wind was in the right direction and at times we were making between 3-4 knots, although that didn't last very long as over the 24 hours to midday today we made just over 50 miles. Still that was a significant improvement on recent days, where we have been making between 20 and 30 miles. Alas we are still some 45 miles off the south flowing Mozambique current (which ranges between 1-4 knots). however at present we are only able to hold a course to the south (the wind being from the North West) - so it will be a while before we get to the current and further towards Beira. Only the optimists would forecast New Year's Eve in Beira.
 
   
           
    Position Report 79    
    Date: 20th December 2009    
    Location: Sailing to Beira: 013° 29.578S, 044° 22.223E    
    Message: Day 1 at sea Mayotte - Beira, Mozambique.    
   
   

We are now out at sea again after a exiting week on the island Mayotte. The new crew arrived shortly after our arrival to the island and we got time to know them before we set sail heading towards Mozambique. The winds are very light but we are reflecting on a very good and interesting visit to Mayotte, which is technically French but is both African and Islamic but ethnically and culturally linked (but not legally) to the three other Comoros islands.
In short is is a complicated set up and full of contradictions.

During the week we had time to explore the Island and we'd also spent some time on the beach or at the yacht club playing table-tennis and having long cold freshwater showers. The temperature is around 30 something here, so Mayotte was like an oasis to us where we could relax in the heat having soft drinks or beers. After a long leg without "proper food" we also explored the islands offering and I think we tried every ice-cream place there is around here.

My best memory of this Island would be the day we spend at the volcanic crater beach, swimming with turtles and snorkelling at the reef outside. Absolutely amazing.

This week have been like heaven to us after 46 days at sea though Philip had a bit of a struggle getting the returning Omani crew visas for their flight home. And just two nights before we left Mayotte we got our dingy stolen even though 8 crewmembers slept on deck next to it. But that couldn't get us down and we all worked very hard to get the last provisions aboard with other methods. We also got some help from some local French people we met here and became friends with.

We specially want to thank:

Nicholas Duchein for showing us the island and the help with several dinghy rides.
Nicolas and Manu for help with shopping, car, visas, immigration Rafael - selling his dinghy to us.
Michelle for the use of his dinghy
Pierre for the last minute dinghy ride with our provisions.
Dr Nadav and his wife- for sailing and other advice Dr Domique for checking our medical box and taking care of our captain.
All all at the Pamanzi Bay Yacht Club for their help and the Port Captain and anyone we may have inadvertently missed from this list.
Rudolf and Patricia - especially for there help on the last day.

Niklas

Photos at the top of blog
1.Mayotte's turtles at play.
2.Beautiful Mayotte with Phoenicia in foreground at anchor.
3.Phoenicia at anchor (below)

 

 

 

 

 

 

   
           
    The Indian Ocean: Oman to the Comoros Islands & the threat of Pirates    
           
    Position Report 76    
    Date: 7th December 2009    
    Location: 11.19.0S 47.22.2E    
    Message:

Arwad meets Arwad in Chance encounter North of Madagascar (plus photos)

   
   
        
    
         

On Monday morning Phoenicia had a chance encounter with Syrian owned and crewed ship Aboudi V. Aboudi V had come from Socotra, Yemen and was on the same course as Phoenicia and heading towards Mozambique. The crew of Aboudi V is mainly made up of seamen from Arwad Island where Phoenicia was built and gave them a first chance to see Phoenicia in under sail.

Mohamad Osman, the owner of Aboudi V, on hearing of the encounter kindly offered to provide some much needed chicken and rice and other supplies for the crew of Phoenicia. However a transfer between the two vessels was abandoned on account of the swell and in view of the fact that Phoenicia is now less than 200 miles from her destination at Mayotte. Nevertheless it is hoped that the ship’s paths may cross again as Phoenicia will also be heading for Mozambique following her stop over in Mayotte. Pictures show Phoenicia’s chance encounter with Aboudi V.
 
   
           
    Position Report 65    
    Date: 13th November 2009    
    Location:

00 53.05 S 66 26.6E

   
    Message: Blog from Captain Philip Beale    
   
Thanking the Phoenician Gods

We have had a good 24 hours and have covered 142 miles over the period, of which nearly a knot is due to favourable currents of the average speed of nearly 6 knots.

We have spent part of the day reflecting how lucky we have been so far and in fortuitously avoiding the pirate attack area now just some 200 miles to our west. As the report below indicates, the crew of the MV Felitsa were not so lucky.

More information has emerged regarding the vessel hijacking in the Indian Ocean reported in the November 11 Drum Cussac Gulf of Aden Piracy Alerts.

The 23,709-dwt Greek-owned, Marshall Island-flagged bulk carrier MV Filitsa, was hijacked by Somali pirates at position 00:35S - 062:40E, approximately 1050nm east of Mogadishu, Somalia in the Indian Ocean, at 0105 UTC on Wednesday, November 11. The vessel was approached by pirates in skiffs, with the ensuing chase lasting for five hours. Three pirates were reported to have been injured in the attack.

The Filitsa and its 22-man crew, made up of three Greeks and 19 Filipinos, was carrying a shipment of fertilizer (urea) en route to Durban, South Africa when the incident occurred. The vessel, owned by Piraeus-based Order Shipping Co. Ltd, is subsequently reported to have turned around and headed north towards Somalia.

We are now a few miles from the equator and heading south east and plan to pick up the south east trade winds a few hundred miles further south, that will take us towards East Africa.
Tomorrow morning we will celebrate a time honoured tradition of a reception with King Neptune for those of the crew whose first time it is to cross the equator under sail. We will then have a small party to celebrate the achievement. Nothing too grand mind you, there is not a drop of alcohol on board. So soft drinks and a few sweets will be the order of the day.

 
   
           
    Position Report 61    
    Date: 6th November 2009    
    Location:

09.32.5N, 58.37.9 E

   
    Message: Blog 7 Suspicious contact at 50° on the starboard side.    
   
It was 18:30 hrs local time yesterday evening and dusk was just descending. At first there was a report of a contact on the starboard side with the spotting of a light. The narrative ran something like this: “What is it?” “It is a large ship”. “How can you tell that?”

“The mast is a at least 10 meters tall”
“How can you tell that?” Ermm....
“How long do you think the ship is?
“About 20 meters”
“The same as Phoenicia then?”   “Yes”
“so most likely either a pirate mother ship or a fishing boat?”
“Wow their deck lights are bright”.

“Yes they are obviously doing something on deck, either launching a skiff or two or hauling nets”
.
“Looks like it is getting closer”.

“Yuri can you get the generator started and the LRAD plugged in. Nicolas can you check the satellite phone is ready and switch on our navigation lights.”

“You are 20° off course- for goodness sake’s concentrate or we will be in real trouble. You should be steering 150°, not 130°”.

“That is interesting they have turned off their deck lights but they have their navigation lights still on”.

“Darken ship and get our navigation lights off. They will know we have seen them but if they are coming for us it will be more difficult for them to find us as it is pitch black right now and the full moon won’t rise for an hour or so”.

“There is another contact on the port side, several lights”

“What is it?” “It is a very large ship, a container ship” comes the reply. “Okay it is going to clear us easily- so lets concentrate on the starboard contact”.

“Oh xxxx. It is turning and coming right for us”.

About 10 minutes later. “Actually I think it is a fishing boat and its bearing is moving down our starboard side”.

An hour later- “stand down everybody. But be extremely vigilant on the lookout unless you want an enforced vocation inside a Somali cave. It must have been a lonely fishing boat. We don’t want to see any more of them as they are not good for the nerves”.

“What is for supper and are there any more of those pancakes left?”

Message from Phoenicia UK office: Blog readers please note the latest position report has come in from the ship and all the crew are well with no sign of any problems since the incident last night. Please keep following the blog and satellite tracker for the latest news. You can also leave a personal message for the crew on the Phoenicia message board - click here.
 
   
           
    Position Report 57    
    Date: 1st November 2009    
    Location: 15 04.8 N,  57 35.0E    
    Message: Blog from Yuri Sanada (Film maker & core crew)    
   
We are sailing for a week now, still trying to get as far east as possible, before we turn and head south. The reason is obvious if you are following our voyage around Africa, to avoid the dangerous waters around Somalia, presumably infested with pirates. Unfortunately, we are not making as much progress as we planned in the beginning. So we are taking our time, and enjoying the simple but meaningful pleasures this water world can offer to us.

First of all, we have freedom. Not the same kind of freedom you have back home of course. Our world now is limited by the area of the ship, but even with a crew of 11, everybody seems to find his own private corner when comes the need to be alone. Our freedom here is more like no appointments, no need to go to the grocery store, no phone calls, no salesman at the door (however we did encounter a medium size shark the other night), and no schedules outside our environment.

We do have obligations, but they come naturally, like keeping the boat afloat and moving towards our destination. For that, we are divided in two groups, 5 people each, and the captain, Philip, showing up every time he is needed. Our watches are 4 hours during the day, and 6 hours at night, so everybody can get a longer sleep time.

While this Phoenicia Expedition is voyage of discovery, trying to prove that the Phoenicians had technology and skills to sail around Africa, it is also a voyage of self discovery, as we are exposed to different cultures aboard.

Our group in this leg is composed of five sailors from the Royal Omani Navy, three Indonesians, and three westerners, from England, Sweden and Brazil.

The food varies each time there is a different nationality cooking, and you can, sometimes, really taste how "hot" the difference may be. Water is a major issue for us now. We are carrying three thousand litres, but we didn't calculate the need of eight Muslim crew members to wash with fresh water five times a day, before they put their rugs towards Mecca to pray. They could use up to 1/3 of our total supply just to fulfil their religious obligation. So, as good comrades, we all are adapting to this new situation, and agreed to save more water, maybe by using more seawater for cooking and washing.

The differences fall apart when we have to work together to achieve a common goal, like raising the main sail, that weights over a ton, and when we change watches, and everybody has a meal together. So we go, sailing along, being creative in the kitchen, pumping water from our bilge, adjusting the sails, and looking out trying to decide if that dot on the horizon is a star, a friendly cargo ship, or maybe a pirate vessel waiting for us.

Talking about that, it's funny the way the cargo ships seem to accelerate when they see us. I don't blame them, for a replica of a 2500 Phoenician Ship must look like a pirate ship to them.

We continue on this long leg towards Tanzania, playing pirates, and praying not to meet the real ones. Yo ho ho, a pirates life for me.
 
   
           
    Position Report 55    
    Date: 26th October 2009    
    Location: Underway - 16 51.4N 54 50.1E    
    Message: Blog 1 Salalah to Dar Es Salaam/Zanzibar    
   


We managed to get the ship and ourselves ready so that we were able to leave Salalah port at 1800 hrs local time on Sunday 25th October 2009. Beforehand we had an extremely busy 24 hours, which included last minute jobs on the ship, a victualling exercise that will see us through the next 4-5 weeks at sea, welcoming the new crew members, port clearance procedures and various safety briefings. And that is not to mention rigging the main sail and securing the ship for sea which in itself took about half a day.

In terms of victualling we have taken on board some 3 tons of water, 30 kilos of potatoes, 10 kilos of onions, 30 kilos of rice, 20 kilos of pasta, 200 packets of Mi Indonesian noodles, 100 apples and oranges and a good range of other supplies. And some 10,000 tea bags just in case we get caught short! We have ample instant coffee which has now been supplemented with some of the best “blow your brains out” traditional Omani coffee…so there are no excuses for not keeping awake on watch! Although once you have the Omani coffee you won’t sleep after your turn on watch.

In terms of Crew we are delighted to have 5 members of the Royal Navy of Oman on board. They are Salah Al-Khatari, Khalifa Alzaabi, Abdulla (Ali) Al-Balushi, Youssof Al Agbri and Rashid al Ghuzaili. They are all experienced sailors and they are already getting to know how the ship works. And apart from our gratitude for the coffee and delicious Omani dates they have brought with them, we would like to thank Lt. Commander Ali Alharthi from the Royal Navy of Oman for making their participation in Phoenicia possible.

So we now have more Arabic speakers than any other language group on board, and with Sulhan, Dirman and Aziz (from Indonesia) the majority of the crew are muslims for the first time. The rest of the Crew are made up of Yuri from Brazil, Nicholas from Sweden and Philip (captain) from the UK.

Our passage plan is the scenic route to Dar Es Salaam because of the recent attacks of Somali pirates, so we are now heading due east along the Omani coast to give the pirates as wide a berth as possible. The north east monsoon is already blowing and as soon as we are far enough east we will hoist the main sail to south-east towards the Seychelles. A voyage will be well over 2500 miles and will probably take a minimum of 4 weeks. The latest joke on Phoenicia is that with positive attitude in mind, there are no Somali pirates, just Somali fishermen…. with guns.

And although we are preparing ourselves for a piracy attack we are not spending too much time thinking about what it is like being held in a cave or on board ship for a few months whilst being held hostage. In any event the weather here is pleasantly warm if you are from Europe and a little cool if you are from Oman or Indonesia and the sea state is calm. We are just waiting for the moment when we can get the main sail up and start some real Phoenician sailing.

 

   
           
     Yemen to Oman    
           
    Position Report 54    
    Date: 11th September 2009    
    Location:

Alongside at Salalah, Oman

   
    Message:      
   
Blog from crew member Warren Aston:

After 12 and a half days bobbing on the ocean, Phoenicia docked safely in Salalah, southern Oman late on Friday evening 11th. Members of Oman Sail (http://www.omansail.com/ - an initiative to rekindle Oman's maritime heritage) rendezvoused with us after sunset to provide two batteries to start the engine for the berthing process. All the crew stood on deck as we sailed in past a very impressive line of huge container ships loading and unloading at Raysut port to our sheltered marina. Clearance of the ship and the shaving of fearsome crew beards didn’t begin until the next morning.

In terms of news, not covered in earlier blogs… while off the coast of Yemen we decided to rehearse the LRAD (long range acoustic device) in case it was needed. With earplugs fitted to all crew several blasts were given by the captain to make sure it worked and then it was covered ready for piratanical use.

But.....20 miles inland, the Yemeni press had a breaking news item which I copy here;

BREAKING NEWS

Residents on the east coast have reported strange noise disturbances from the ocean that have sent locals running out of buildings and tents in case of collapse. The source of the noise is a serious mystery because no-one ventures out to sea at this time of the year. We interviewed several of them:

Ahmed, early 40's, labourer 'I never went to school but I know a big sound when I see one.’

Fatima, 23, teacher: ‘We had to close the school in our wadi until we find out what was going on.’

Abdul Sheikman, 55, sheikh: 'We have sent all public servants home until we hear from Sana'a about this problem.’

Farid, 9, student 'When the big noise came i thought my world was coming to an end.’

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And, while being overtaken by a small yacht on the afternoon of the third last day of the trip, we photographed a bright red light above and beside the other yacht. None of us saw it with our naked eyes but it clearly shows up on 3 of the 4 high-resolution pictures taken. We spoke to the yacht's owners, a Canadian couple, in Salalah after arrival and they were experiencing radio problems at the time which is interesting. So it seems that even the aliens are taking a keen interest in Phoenicia's progress!

Finally, on a slightly more serious note, I want to say that for all of us the voyage to Oman was a memorable experience with a lot of life lessons and moments to remember. Philip is to be commended for the huge effort involved in making a project like this move from an idea or dream to the reality of standing on the deck of a wooden ship in the open ocean. It takes a lot to make things happen on this scale.

I'm sure that Phoenicia will continue to demonstrate the capabilities of 600bc technology as it continues its journey around Africa. I for one am glad to have been a small part of it.

Warren Aston
Aden to Salalah voyage

 

   
           
    Position Report 43    
    Date: 20th August 2009    
    Location: At anchor in Aden, Republic of Yemen    
    Message:      
   

PREPARING TO LAUNCH PHASE 2 OF PHOENICIA

It has been a busy time as the crew have started to come together for the next phase of the expedition. Philip Beale, the Expedition Leader, arrived in Aden first followed by Dirman, Sulhan and Aziz from Indonesia and then Warren from Australia. The last crew members will arrive over the next few days.

Over the last few days Phoenicia played host to some 200 Yemeni high school students from Amideast to promote international relations and learning about Phoenician history. The tours of the ship were well received if somewhat tiring. Many of the students had never stepped foot on a ship of any kind before so it was a real eye-opener.

 In the meantime plans are underway to check and test all the ship’s equipment and to brief the crew on the passage to Oman and other issues like Piracy and security. We have had a few minor setbacks like a coast guard boat making a hole in Phoenicia’s side and the Indonesia’s having their visas cancelled (stamped out) as they made their way to a domestic flight! It could only happen here in the Yemen but there is not much that surprises us any more. In the meantime we have several very hard days of work ahead of us, in temperatures of 40 degrees centigrade, before the ship will be ready to go to sea.

Please keep visiting the website as we announce more news on our planned departure for Oman.
 

   
           
    Passage to Aden, Republic of Yemen, to lay the Ship up    
           
    Position Report 41    
    Date: 13th May 2009    
    Location: Latitude: 12º 49N, ongitude:043º 21.7E    
    Message:      
   


Blog from Expedition Leader:

We left Hodiedah on Monday morning about 9.30 am having said our goodbyes to the Maritime Affairs Authority (MAA) our hosts in Hodiedah and members of the Yemen Coast Guard, Harbour Authority and Mohammad our agent. Due to the 10 mile long channel that approaches the port of Hodiedah, it was mid afternoon before we got out into the open sea. Within in a short while we were sailing well with a reasonable westerly wind force 3 blowing on our quarter. Later it veered northerly and we were able to make even better progress. Occasionally since then the wind has died away and we have been left doing barely a knot- such are the vagaries of the winds in the Red Sea in May when they transition from southerlies to predominantly northerlies.

The crew have settles in quite well but it has been very hard work getting the ship up together again after 3 months. We have had the usual cuts and bruises, rope burns and aching bones and muscles. Inevitably not everything works as well as it might and after hours of work from some MAA engineers we still could not get our generator to work and have been left with the power from the solar panels, wind generator and alternator from the engine. So we just about have enough power to keep us gong if we are careful in how we conserve it.

We have two watches, one led by Nigel Fransham, and ably assisted by John Bainbridge, and two Yemeni hands – Ali and Fadh. Nigel has been very busy undertaking lots of initiatives and only once failed to see the funny side when he couldn’t get to sleep due to Abdul being rather loud on deck. Philip is leading the other watch with Richard Kellie and another Yemeni called Abdul. Unfortunately Richard has been a bit seasick and the Abdul is err…rather lazy- so guess who got the short straw on watch selection. Nevertheless we have had some interesting conversations not least about Richard’s book which has taken 15 years to write and is set in the Holy Land and when it eventually comes out will be in three volumes.

Apart from the usual sailing routines of watch keeping (lookouts, pumping bilges, helming,adjusting the sails and meal preparations ) quite a bit of time has been spent on anti-piracy measures. So we have wrapped the ship’s rails with barbed wire, razor blades, fire hoses and have molotov cocktails at the ready to throw at the pirates. Well okay, we haven’t actually done that and we have resisted offers of AK47’s (on sale foe $10 each in Hodiedah) to protect us, believing that if the pirates really want to come on board there is not much we can do to stop them- such is the low free-board of the ship and our relatively slow speed. Our basic plan is to stay close to the Yemeni shore, darken ship at night and keep a low profile, i.e. no radar and VHF. We have a sonic device on board which may help to delay any attack while we would then alert the authorities to the situation be satellite phone. We are in frequent contact with the local coalition forces out here as well as our security advisers at Drum Cussac, in Poole, England. We expect to pass the through Bab el Mandeb, the approach to the Gulf of Aden, tonight which is probably better from an anti-piracy point of view. We expect it to be a bit tense as we pass through the strait as there are numerous fishing boats in the area as well as reports of vessels involved in smuggling people from Eritrea into Yemen. Anyway you can follow our progress on the Yellow Brick tracker which is automatically updated every 4 hours and in any event we are looking forward to being in Aden for the weekend-pirates permitting!


Short Situation Report at 1800hrs GMT on Wednesday 13th May 2009.


8 miles to Bab El Mandeb
3.5 miles off Yemeni Coast
Situation: Ship on passage to Aden
course:156ºT
Speed:2.5 knots
Wind direction and force: NW 2
Barometer: 990
Sea State: Moderate
Cloud: hazy
Visibility: Fair

No of Crew & Status: 7 crew –all ok.

 

   
           
    Position Report 38    
    Date: 6th May 2009    
    Location: Alongside MAA Jetty Port Al Hodeidah, Republic of Yemen    
    Message:      
   


Myself and a small crew have made our way back to Port Hodeidah for the next expedition passage to move Phoenicia to Aden - some 270 nautical miles around the Yemeni coast.

We are all well and arrived here Sunday evening. We welcome new crew members Nigel (from the UK), Richard (from Canada) and returning crew member John (from the UK). In Sana'a we met with another prospective crew member Abdul who will join us later this week along with a number of other Yemeni sailors that we are talking to here in Hodeidah.

It is great to see the ship again and she is in fair condition - a couple of leaks occurred whilst we were away but all in all she seems okay. There were crows nesting on the mast when we arrived - so a real crows nest! - which has now been removed. We are all working very hard and hope to be ready to sail on Saturday/Sunday. At the moment the wind is still from the south but locals assure us that it is due to turn at the weekend.

We will write again within the next couple of days as we prepare for departure.

Philip Beale (Expedition Leader)
 

   
           
    Sailing to Yemen & postponing the expedition    
           
    Position Report 37    
    Date: 12th January 2009    
    Location: Latitude:14º 50.0N, Longitude:042º 56.0E    
    Message: