Jeanne Socrates

When I have a good Wifi connection I like to keep up with some other sailing blogs. One that I follow makes me realize that I am just a wimp. Jeanne Socrates has just completed a circumnavigation.

So what you say, lots of people circumnavigate but not many do it by going south of the 5 great Capes.

Plenty of people have done that you say, well there is no other woman has done it at age 68 or older and she had the fortitude to go back out when she lost her first boat.

On her way down the west coast of Mexico from Guatemala, she lost "Nereida" on a steep surf beach north of Acapulco, less than twelve hours and about sixty miles short of completing her first circumnavigation, on 19th June '08.

Nothing daunted and fortunately well insured she bought a new boat and set of again and on friday 6th May 2011 crossed over the track made in December 2009 when sailing down to Cape Town from Lanzarote (Canaries). This completes a single-handed circumnavigation of the globe, her route taking her from Cape Town, around the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Agulhas, past Cape Leeuwin (Australia), through the Bass Strait and Cook Strait (New Zealand) to Kauai (Hawaii), on to Cape Flattery (Pacific US/Canada), Sth from Victoria, B.C., around Cape Horn where she suffered a knockdown



The knockdown damaged the yacht badly including breaking the boom and created total chaos down below. Declining offers of assistance at sea she limped in to Ushuaia the capital city of Tierra del Fuego in Argentina.

There was little in Ushuaia in the way of facilities. At the time, Jeanne was uncertain as to how to proceed. However, with incredible perseverance, she ordered the spares fought with customs repaired Nereida once again, and set off from Ushuaia heading for Cape Town, where she had previously spent two months replacing her engine.

Despite this and a few other problems along the way, it will have taken just 14 months to complete sailing from Cape Town back to Cape Town (March 2010 - May 2011).

The lady has bottle.

I am getting wussy at the moment at the possibility of having to sail up to St Lucia this weekend with a forecast of 25 to 30 knots and squalls and an erratic depth sounder.

Still it is only one doomsayer that is giving that sort of forecast, the others that I usually rely on are not expecting things to brew up so strongly.

BARGE UPDATE


Still upside down.

They have been working away and apparently have a plan to flip it in the water somehow. This I want to see!