crossing the atlantic

with a fixed sail esteban and peter left cape verde towards the caribbean on december 1/11. a 2000 nautical mile journey of only sea and some rain in between. the crossing was uneventful for the most part, which is good news; mostly following seas and many wind gusts. some days the gusts came every hour with torrential rain and dark skies. few electrical storms though. with the many rainy days the rainbows were spectacular; something not seen anywhere before.

the food was plentiful with a total catch of 10 mahi mahi, the last one being so big that it lasted for an entire week of food supply. in total they saw only four other sailboats which is not that many considering it is a busy shipping lane and it was also the time of the arc. the arc is a sailing rally of over 250 sailboats which for some inexplicable reason decide to depart all at the same time from the same port in the canaries, and sail together the entire leg, to exactly arrive and overcrowd the same port at their destination. knowing they would be sailing around the same time as this rally, it was rather surprising they did not see other boats.

the wind was constant always coming from the stern making them sail wing on wing; with the head sail to one side and the main sail to the other; capturing all the wind from the back. there were only a couple of days with no wind at all, and our beloved yanmar, as always worked marvelously. there were also a couple of days with wind from the nose. very bizarre and uncomfortable, but at this point in the journey nothing surprises us about the wind and the direction where it comes from.

as far as living together in so close quarters, i have heard from both esteban and peter that it was fine. they enjoyed each other’s company and had a good time despite some of the boring parts of a long crossing. this is an outstanding result considering what we originally expected and wanted from a crew. because i was not going to be on board, my only condition was that it was a man. esteban’s expectation was that it would not get sea sick. we thought this was best, to have little to no expectations. and at the end, we never imagined that we would end up with a great chef, an experienced sailor, and overall an excellent man who has become a very dear friend.