Please select your home edition
Edition
Exposure Marine

Blue Planet Odyssey - Aventura makes landfall at St John’s

by Doina Cornell on 9 Sep 2014
Aventura makes landfall at St John’s. Cornell Sailing Events
However much sailors love being at sea, landfall after a long passage is always sweet. When Jimmy woke me early in the morning of Friday 5th September, I rubbed my eyes and stared in wonder at the green Newfoundland coast. Finally, after two months, I get to see trees again!

Aventura by now was happily clocking 7000 nautical miles on her log, an impressive figure when you think she only left on her adventures at the end of May, some three months ago. I’m proud to say I’ve done 3,500 of those, a great loop from Greenland north to the High Arctic and back sliding south to our new destination, St John’s Newfoundland.

Coming here was never part of our original plans, so we are arriving in complete ignorance other than what we can see on the electronic chart. On watch last night (my final night watch, I am definitely not going to miss those!) I watched the lights from the city whiten the horizon, but now all I can see are rocky cliffs and no buildings or any way in. I wonder if I was dreaming.

A cheery contact from Port Control on VHF Channel 11 instructs us to come in behind a large oil tanker, and we watch in amazement as she slips between two rocky spurs and vanishes completely from view, swallowed by the land. St John’s is a perfect landlocked harbour – no wonder this site was chosen on the easternmost point of North America, a key place in the earliest history of this mighty continent. The earliest explorations west from Europe, seeking the fabled north and a way through to the Pacific, touched here first – an appropriate place, then, for us to come to the end of our own Northern adventure.

We are soon docked on Queen’s Wharf, right in the centre of the old historic town, a stone’s throw from the beach where in 1583 Sir Humphrey Gilbert landed and claimed it for Queen Elizabeth thereby founding the British Empire. We’re dwarfed by giant ships that service the offshore oil industry: once seals and fish, now oil is the natural resource powering St John’s economy.


Our new crew are waiting to welcome us with fresh pastries for breakfast: Lou Morgan, who will be sailing the Blue Planet Odyssey Northern route in 2015 with his family, on their own Garcia 45, and Ryan Helling of Swiftsure Yachts, who represent Garcia in the USA. I’ll be happy to relinquish crew duties to these guys, they are fresh and enthusiastic and soon prove their worth with a busy day of fixing things on Jimmy’s long to-do list. A thousand miles takes a toll on any yacht, and we need to be sure Aventura is ready for the next 1000 miles as she heads south to Newport, Rhode Island. A boatyard and a rest, a little TLC, will be waiting for her there, and she has certainly earned it.

Ryan gives me a hand to take the laundry up the street, and we pass cool young people sitting out under the trees sipping cappucchinos. A world away from Arctic Bay where we were a bare month ago. Same country, but so far away. I’m feeling over-stimulated now by new sensations, and best of all, it is so warm I can go barefoot on the boat. After two months of two layers of thermal socks, my feet at least are happy.

‘You owe me dinner in the best fish restaurant in St Johns,’ I’d made Jimmy promise during one particular wet and windy episode as I had to handsteer while he switched from the main to the spare autopilot. True to his word, he takes his crew out for a delicious dinner of halibut, a local specialty.


All too soon is it Saturday morning and they are ready to go. I don’t envy them. I’ve checked into a hotel as my flight home leaves Sunday, and strong southwesterlies are predicted, right on the nose…. And yet, when I hug my father goodbye, and watch the boat steam fast out of The Narrows, my home for two months, she turns right, going south, and she is gone… there is a little bit of regret. I have family and work I must get back to, and yet, it has been a grand adventure.

‘We did good,’ Jimmy told me as we said goodbye. ‘You and me, just the two of us, for 1200 miles.’

He’s right, we did pretty good. Exactly forty years ago this summer when I was seven years old, my dad took me sailing. Nice to still be sailing together, forty years Cornell Sailing

Allen Dynamic 40 FooterDoyle_SailWorld_728X90px_SY BOTTOMZhik 2024 December

Related Articles

Thayer Trophy Women's Team Race preview
Regatta has become a catalyst for developing women's sailing teams When the Corinthian YC launched the National Women's Invitational Team Race for the Thayer Trophy in 2021, the goal was to give women sailors the opportunity to compete in a high-intensity format on par with the world's most renowned team racing events.
Posted on 17 Jun
Finn World Masters in Medemblik Day 2
Pieter-Jan Postma leads after the second day of racing in The Netherlands Pieter-Jan Postma, from The Netherlands, is leading the fleet of 307 Finns from 27 countries after everyone sailed two more races at the 2025 Finn World Masters in Medemblik. France's Laurent Hay is second with Germany's Fabian Lemmel in third.
Posted on 17 Jun
World Sailing launches the World Sailing Academy
A new online learning platform for the global sailing community World Sailing officially launched the World Sailing Academy, an innovative new online learning platform designed to provide comprehensive educational resources and training to sailors, coaches, officials, administrators, and the global sailing community.
Posted on 17 Jun
Sailing and the summer solstice
Celebrating sailing and the longest day of the year If you love long evenings and early mornings, this is one of the best times of the whole year, as the summer solstice (Friday, June 20) and the entire rich expanse of summer are about to burst into bloom.
Posted on 17 Jun
Erica Lush Completes Bermuda 1-2 Regatta First Leg
While training for the Solitaire Du Figaro Rhode Island sailor Erica Lush completed the first leg of the Bermuda 1-2 regatta as the only woman skipper in the fleet. Lush sailed solo from Newport to Bermuda, handling a boat new to her, and rough sea state.
Posted on 17 Jun
Susan Widmann Sinclair Women's Championship
Winning this year's event was a very accomplished skipper, Carmen Cowles and her team The biennial running of Noroton Yacht Club's Susan Widmann Sinclair Women's Championship, presented by Fairfield County Bank, just finished a second wild and wooly event, thanks again to Mother Nature.
Posted on 17 Jun
Video Review: The Amazing Cure 55
Composite Construction meets Cruising Convenience It was two years ago at the Sanctuary Cove International Boat Show that I talked to Dave Biggar about his ideas and plans for the Cure 55. At the 2025 show I got to step on board the yacht and see how his ideas became reality.
Posted on 17 Jun
2025 GL52 Big Red Regatta overall
Katana prevails, Wizard finished second The 2025 edition of the GL52 Big Red Regatta is now in the books. John Huhn's KATANA continued its winning ways on Day 3 to wrap-up first place overall with just 12 pts.
Posted on 16 Jun
Conrads, Bell win 505 Pacific Coast Championship
A single point victory at Bellingham Yacht Club After three days and 11 races, AJ Conrads and Jon Bell captured the 505 Pacific Coast Championship by one point, narrowly besting former World Champion and Long Beach legend Howie Hamlin and crew Jeff Nelson.
Posted on 16 Jun
Finn World Masters in Medemblik Day 1
Eight races over two course areas in four groups with four different winners Racing at the 2025 Finn World Masters began in Medemblik, The Netherlands, on Monday with eight races over two course areas in four groups.
Posted on 16 Jun