Ironbarque started life as one of the boats built to race around the world in the Southern Ocean as

Ironbarque  started life as one of the boats built to race around the world in the Southern Ocean as part of the "BT Global Challenge" carnival mexico cruises yacht race and she did it twice under the name of her sponsor, Me to You , a teddy bear company.
The identical yachts were built to withstand the storms of the Southern Ocean and were equipped to accommodate a crew of 18. When they stopped holding the race the boats were all sold off; mainly to charity groups carnival mexico cruises focused on training troubled youth or leaders of the future. Our hope is that we are doing the latter and have turned this former racing boat into our traveling home.
My husband, Ken, sailed her from England to Panama with a crew of 5, headed by a delivery skipper, carnival mexico cruises who helped him learn the ropes of blue water cruising. They started out at the end of March and when they reached the Canary Islands carnival mexico cruises in April they were joined by our two older sons for the Atlantic crossing.
They were aged 15 and 12  and we thought that the Bay of Biscay might be too tough for their first blue water experience. The concern was well founded as heavy weather meant a torn main had to be repaired in Portugal.
Our youngest two children were aged 10 and 5, so I flew to Panama carnival mexico cruises with them for the final leg through the Panama Canal and up the coast of Central America and Mexico. From Panama onwards various members of the crew departed to return to other jobs so that from Acapulco on we had only two additional crew.
We were rafted together with two other sail boats and silently coasted in excited camaraderie into the lock behind a ship. Line handlers high up on the side walls hurled blue ropes towards us in synchronous cascades in order to steady us away from the walls in the middle of the roiling carnival mexico cruises rising waters. After 3 rising locks we emerged onto Gatun Lake and were guided to our mooring pontoon, where we tied up for the night, carnival mexico cruises surrounded by the jungle.
It was magical to wake on the lake among all the other ships and yachts that had done the same, with the wild life of the jungle making their presence audible. We had to await the return of our cigar-puffing pilot before continuing the rest of the journey along the Chagres River to the locks descending into the Pacific. The whole journey takes 9 hours. The 3 yachts had separated carnival mexico cruises at the lake and made the journey down the river individually. We came together carnival mexico cruises again at the next locks and rafted as before.
Descending was even more wondrous. Our boats were dwarfed as they sank to the bottom of the dripping black walled locks until finally the huge metal gates opened onto a new world and we emerged, blinking at The Pacific Ocean.
The brain scrambling heat and humidity at 7 degrees above the Equator in a steel boat with openings designed carnival mexico cruises to keep out the water of pounding Southern Ocean storms. Until we got to Cabo San Lucas we wore as little as possible, even on deck at night on the ocean.
The dawn dolphins that erupted from the surface in simultaneously leaping pods of riotous joy as far as the eye could see. At various times of the day charming groups would surf and race us at the bow, stunningly silver deep below the surface. They seemed to know when there were people at the bow.
Green bioluminescent arcs flashing in the darkness of the night as dolphins leapt out of the black alongside the boat. Normally you see sparkling fairy lights in the froth of the water parted by the hull but this was simply awe-inspiring. Both are caused by Dinoflagellates, which are tiny plants that absorb sunlight during the day and emit a blue-green light in response to movement in the water. Even flushing the toilets at night became magical when these got sucked into the intake pipe.
6pm. We took turns in pairs to take watches of 3 hours at night and 4 hours during the day, so that a lot of the time, most of the crew were either sleeping or working, but at 6 o'clock there was a change of watch and dinner was brought up on deck and everyone emerged blinking and happy and enthusiastic to see what had been prepared from the variety of cans of meat, tuna and vegetables, and those who had prepared the meal were relieved to escape the sweaty heat of the galley and feel the cooling breeze.
Nothing can compare to the thrill of finding you have all the right ingredients self-sufficiently carnival mexico cruises on board, or the gratification of having something so essential as a lemon when you catch a 25 pound tuna!
My favorite watch sequence was the 9-12 midnight followed carnival mexico cruises by the 6-10am watch because that gave the most normal stretch of night to sleep in and the delight of the dawn and the accompanying carnival mexico cruises dolphins. The ravenous lust for sleep was overwhelming at the end of any of the night watches and one would tear off life jacket and harness (and later all the layers of foul weather gear) with a hungry passion.
The chocolate ice cream sandwiches we had on our dawn arrival into Cabo San Lucas after 6 days at sea and a grueling last night. (They were followed by a second full English version later, which was nearly as good).
- After 6 days at sea we had a tough and tiring carnival mexico cruises last night coming into Cabo San Lucas, during carnival mexico cruises which everyone had each taken two 3 hour shifts carnival mexico cruises in rough conditions. Our 5 year old had slept soundly and emerged bright eyed with wonder up the companionway as we were surrounded by the harbor, asking in awe, " How did we get here?"
That it would be so fabulously exhilarating to fight fear and steer a boat at night on the Pacific with crashing waves spewing up from the bow like lava illuminated by the red of the navigation light and find you are not afraid at all, but smiling with your whole being.