Atlantic Crossing Diaries – We made it!

Hello and my bad for writing this post so late! If you hadn’t already guessed by now… we made it to the Caribbean! I think it took us 13.5 days in the end… This was slightly longer than anticipated but I will fill you in on the details. We made it to our final destination on 24th November (well over a month ago… oops!) but had a lot of drama entering the Caribbean…

Let me recap the crossing; I took notes on most days about anything interesting that happened and hopefully also have photographic evidence of the memorable moments.

Upon setting off, we were pretty lucky to see dolphins at sunset, and on day 2 we caught a mahi AND a tuna!!! Sadly this meant we had to stop fishing because we had no freezer space left and we couldn’t eat that much fish 😦

Tunaaaaaaa

Mahiiiiiiiii

Fish weren’t the only animal that featured during the two week crossing. A bird landed on the flybridge in the middle of the night one night… hopefully just for a mid-Atlantic breather and not an injury. We also had a cricket on the boat for a while who we named Clive and kept in some soil and fed cabbage to (really didn’t mean to illegally transport him!). More notable however, was our encounter with a turtle which I am going to describe in more detail shortly. Up until halfway, the main drama that ensued was us tearing a sail (the biggest one which was unfortunate) but, in general, the first few days were drama free. I wrote an actual halfway point update though, so this should give you the scoop on what happened from halfway onwards.

Night watch – an ALMOST half way update!

Wednesday 16th November 3am

These watches are getting harder and harder to get up for. We have had huge swells ever since we left Cape Verde, causing the boat to quite literally rock from side to side like one big f#*!/#g rocking chair (excuse my French). Each time you go to sleep it is with a heavy head from the dehydration and lethargy seasickness brings. Then you wake up feeling like you’ve been hit by a bus and suffer a few moments of disorientation. It has not been comfortable… And while we had large swells on the first legs of our journey, it wasn’t a patch on this. With loose drawers and fittings inside the boat, it makes for an accident waiting to happen (I don’t mean to scare you mum – luckily for you you’ll only be reading this when I have safely made it to the flip side!). Every time you go to the fridge for some milk, you are forced to move a large barricade of tupperware boxes and food containers, our only hope of keeping a stubborn loose drawer closed (I’m not joking, these drawers are out to get you when the whole weight of the boat is forcing them open). It is definitely not a one-woman job unloading the dishwasher either, unless you have extra limbs. My cup of tea is always inviting in the morning, so much so it gets excited for me to drink it and visibly lurches from the mug as it sits on the kitchen counter, no tea landing remotely near my mouth. I don’t want to sound all weak and soppy, today was just a particularly rough day, especially for Josh. When stuff goes wrong with the boat he has a lot of pressure on him; I think Sean’s solution for the sails was a big help. *LOL reading this back is funny*

There are still some happy moments, however. Even though everyone is visibly more tired, fresh food supplies are running low and we are anxious to make it across safely, I know that personally I am trying to find some joy in each day. The boys acted like a couple of children yesterday and were collecting kelp with a fishing net to inspect it and see if there was anything living in it. I am reading some good books (at least in the moments I am able to look down and not feel icky), Talia and I have taken over the galley and try to whip up a nice meal for everyone each day (this was fun before we started having sauce catapult out of saucepans), and I am starting to not feel guilty for just lying on the sofa watching TV or listening to a podcast. In spite of the downs, there have been some good ups so far, dysfunctional family dinners or spontaneous coffees in the morning are among my favourites.

Some pretty snaps from along the way

A full rainbow!!!!

Au natural at golden hour

Cloudy skies

A sore Scrabble loser (German scrabble too…)

Some makeshift sailing

17th November

Today started off badly. I was on night watch from 3-6am and while the sea state had calmed down a bit, the boat was barely staying at 6kts. It made for a peaceful, uneventful watch until unfortunately my Bluetooth headphones decided to take a leap of faith onto the deck and subsequently roll into the ocean. Not the worst thing in the world, but a bit of a bummer. From then on though, I chilled out and things improved. Earlier on that evening, I had laid out under the stars which were breathtakingly beautiful. It felt like we were such a small dot in not only a giant ocean, but an entire universe. It made me stop and just be for a while. We saw lots of shooting stars which lit up the whole sky. Once I got over the headphone drama, I made the most of the beautiful moonlit skies and put on some chilled stretch music and did the slowest, nicest yoga stretch session anyone has ever done at 4 in the morning. I watched the stars fade away and then went back to bed for a bit. Around 9am I was woken up by excited screeches from Josh and Sean as they had caught another mahi. Then the morning just got better; another catamaran sailed over to us ‘Just to say hi’. They were four middle aged Germans, so our token German crewmember Robert felt honoured to chat to them on the boat’s behalf. They even gave us a weather update for the next few days as we haven’t been able to get one. Just to continue with the fun events of the morning, we decided it was the perfect time to have our mid-crossing dip in the Atlantic! The sea was calm and the current wasn’t too strong, so we put out a couple of lines and jumped in with goggles. It was sooooo beautiful and made me realise why it’s called the big blue. There was just blue alllll around us. It was a moment. We topped off the morning by baking some croissants in the oven; this is the most that has happened before midday since we left Palma. And it didn’t stop there… just when we thought the day couldn’t get any more action-packed, we saw a turtle floating by caught in a HUGE mesh of plastic and fishing line. It was such a sad sight as it was struggling to swim and we couldn’t let it just float away attached to all that crap. Josh turned the boat around and as a team we hoisted the turtle – and the host of plastic, netting and lines that came with it – onto the deck. We used pliers and knives to cut off all the plastic; it was truly heartbreaking to see. It’s leg was so swollen because of the plastic that had wrapped tightly around it for what could’ve been days. We managed to get it all off and set it free into the ocean and watched it swim away. It was a real eye opener to just how messed up this world is. If you would like to donate to WWF to help save turtles in danger or to adopt a sea turtle click here.

Such a sad sight seeing this endangered animal like this

The mass of fishing line and plastic that the turtle was stuck in

How the turtle looked floating on the surface

A mid-Atlantic swim. Who would’ve known that stopping for this swim led us to finding the turtle!?

No day was as significant from thereon in. We continued to enjoy nature’s beauty; we saw BABY dolphins and their parents, beautiful rainbows and a LOT of rain. We saw some giant swells, so much so that the boat was literally surfing the waves. We were just eager to get there by this point but little did we know how complex it would be arriving into the Caribbean.

What followed was a week of craziness. We said goodbye to Talia and Robert on the 23rd November.

We had an evening in St Martin, sailed to the BVI, spent the night there and then the drama ensued.

We were denied entry to the BVI, had to sail to USVI with new crew, more visa trouble ensued, we were denied entry again from the BVI where the boat was supposed to charter, had to sail AGAINST the swell back to St Martin and so on.

We finally disembarked here and went to a hotel. However, Josh needed to organise a new passport so while we had some rough travel plans in place, we decided to scrap these and head back to Europe. With a quick pit stop in freeeezing Amsterdam, we were back in Portugal early December.

And there we have it. The Atlantic Crossing Diaries are well and truly over! It was a once in a lifetime experience and I’m not saying I won’t do it again if the opportunity arises!

Adios for now xxx

A few more beautiful photos