More from the Atlantic Crossing
Windvane from Sailomat working excellently all the way through. We're so extremely happy that we in the end decided to go for this one. This Sailomat steering system works as flawless in as little as 10 knots downwind as it does in 45 knots and this setup must be the best one there is on the market for wheel steering sailboats, and others for that matter. We couldn't have been more satisfied with our windvane and can't even imagine what we would have done without it on this long passage. We have the Sailomat 760. Thank you Stellan for sponsoring our tour!
Reading aloud for each other was one new hobby we established.
One of the very few moonlit nights. Most of the nights were pitch black and only some stars kept us company (those nights which we were not visited by enormous squalls that is.) Moon 20% of the nights, squalls and rain probably 75% of the nights.
Dolphins visited us occasionally between the Canaries and Cape Verde.
Lunch time, before we ran out of bacon and other meat.
Homemade bread made in the gas oven. I'm looking much forward to start using the Remoska again soon, now when electricity is an easier thing to obtain.
A stop made in Cabo Verde.
Caos in the middle, on anchorage one morning in Mindelo, Cabo Verde. Yeah yeah, I know, it's my job and I forgot to take back the fenders after visiting the fuel dock..
Spicy chicken and turmeric rice for another lunch.
Problem with the forestay.
Interesting book.
Another gourmet lunch. Not.
My sexy captain.
While there still was meat onboard.
Fixing and trixing.
Ribs and garlic baked potatoes.
Alex playing with our friends.
One of those sunny days.
So where was I? We had some inner conflicts going on when I wrote that last post from the sea and some of you thought we've been fighting as of the lack of updates on the last five days of that crossing. That was not quite correct. The satellite connection failed and we couldn't get it started again to my frustration, a frustration which was present for around an hour or so until I realized that that sudden connection failure, too, was a great relief of some sort.
Either way, on the last week of that ocean passage we came to realize that an ocean crossing could bring not only good and positive feelings, but also a lot of inner speculations and retrospective confrontations which one hadn't had the time to reflect upon when we've been busy running around on land in that typical wheal we all know of. One day it was like our brains opened up and we began to reflect upon millions of things which gave us reasons to discuss and discuss and analyze our lives over and over again. Nothing bad for the relationship or anything else for that matter, it was just things in our individual pasts, about our life stories, about things we've done, things we hadn't done etc which we might not have fully made peace with. We're extremely happy to have gone through it all on that lonely ocean though, especially with each other's support during those dark and cold days and nights as one most possibly would have gone totally crazy in case any of us would have done this crossing alone. This trip was more needed for us as partners but also for us as individuals than we could have ever imagined beforehand.
As we were so late in time to cross that damn ocean, we were quite sure to get good help by the established tradewinds for our passage. We couldn't have been more wrong. There was no wind for half of the time and for one full week, the last week, we had loads of more wind waves and rain than we've ever heard of anyone experiencing during their Atlantic crossing. We had imagined the max wind speed to be around 25 knots as many books and people informed us so, but when having had to dealt with near gale, +30 knots plus loads of gusts up to 46 knots, for almost a week, we were quite sure that this wasn't no longer a typical Atlantic passage. Were we scared sometimes, people ask us? Yes we were, or at least I was at a few minutes here and there, not maybe for our lives too much as I trust in the safety equipment, life raft, my destiny etc but much more for the boat, our home. It is a terrible feeling having to hear the rigging screaming and shaking like the shrouds would fall down any second, or experiencing your home banging from one side to another while you're getting 6 meter (19 foot) waves covering the whole boat over and over and almost knocking you down from the beam. There were moments where you thought you had it all under control and others when you simply said, this is it, it is all up to the nature now. Imagine yourself putting all of your most precious belongings into one container and then trow it into an enormous washing machine and all you can do is to hope for the best. Obviously it is a bit stressful.
Of course it wasn't that bad every day. Many days were the total contrary of what I just described and we had loads of fun - fishing, cooking, discussing life and its wonders, reading, baking, making plans for our future and even dancing - but what I will remember the most will definitely be those nights of inner contemplations and hourly sessions of therapy conversations along with the stormy days and nights and those tremendous waves we surfed upon. Waves which I never seen in my life before except in movies and youtube clips. Waves almost as tall as our mast for christ sake - and all of those memories which at the time for their appearance might have been quite painful, have now turned into something extremely positive. I will always remember it all as something to be proud and happy for, glad that we were strong and confident enough to go it all through. It might have been hard and quite painful at many occasions both mentally and physically, but the strong feeling of proudness and the reward we got which was to finally arrive in the Caribbean and establish a new sort of life here, and from time to time being able to look at our boat and each other and say we made it - is much stronger than any pain we felt out there on the ocean. 25 days is a pretty long time if you think of it from one perspective, but such a very short period in comparison to how many days we'll be able to enjoy what we came here for.
It also felt extremely good to be up in that airplane the other day, it gave me another perspective to what we've just gone through and a warm feeling of thankfulness and proudness washed over me once again when I looked down from above, 10.000 miles over those waves which we just had been fighting with. /Taru
