After I already sailed with the Beso del Viento from Gibraltar to the Canary Islands and from there to Cape Verde, I already knew the boat and crew well and so I also successfully mastered the third part and arrived safe and sound in the Caribbean!
So I managed to cross the Atlantic with a sailboat and hitchhike from Germany to the Caribbean.
How the crossing was, what I experienced and some more, you can read in my diary. Have fun reading!
Day 1:
We started 😍 my dream comes true! With a sailboat across the Atlantic and that as a hitchhiker! I’m happy: that I’m back on the ocean, that it goes on, that I will soon be in Latin America and that I can do it without a plane 💪.
The departure from Cape Verde was unbelievably beautiful. We sailed into the sunset and could admire the volcanic landscape of São Vicente on port and that of Santo Antão on starboard 😍
Just I have my first shift, which starts right with the sunrise ☺️
Now that Peter is still with us, we have 2.5h shifts and then 10h break. Very comfortable 😊
Day 2:
The first whole day was very quiet. I slept for a long time. Parts of the crew still need to get used to moving again a bit, while other parts need to catch up on sleep from our shore leave – especially me ✌🏻
The wind is relatively constant and blows us west at a good speed.
The waves are ok, so not as high as at the end of the last trip where not much was possible and we barely cooked. So we can cook quite well and have already eaten delicious. I made pasta with a vegetable sauce, yesterday we had salad and we still have fresh bread. Soon we will have to bake some and hope that the sun will give us enough power.
However, the waves are also not as low as we had them when everyone was chilling on deck and we played, cooked and ate together. At Christmas we had that and I am still thankful for it ☺️
We had several fish on the line today, but they were either too big and jumped on or they were too small and we threw them back in 😊
When I say we I mean Fedi and Siro of course. I have no idea about fishing and actually think it’s pretty good.
Day 3:
Today was cloudy but we still produced enough power. Haven’t had to fire up the engine to produce power yet 💪.
The wind has decreased significantly. We are now sailing with the wingaker, our downwind sail. This is a large sail that we stretch in front of the boat and that can only be sailed when the wind comes fairly from behind. Also, there must not be too much wind for it, because the sail area is very large. But then the sail is a real game changer and we were suddenly significantly faster than another sailboat next to us 😊
By the way, apart from the boat that also started from Mindelo at the same time as us, we haven’t seen any other. A few flying fish we see every now and then and I still find the sight fascinating!
Day 4 & 5:
3 other sailboats around us! With two we started at the same time in Mindelo and had lost them at times. In between we can see them sometimes with binoculars or naked eye, but most of the time they can only be seen on the AIS.
AIS stands for Automatic Identification System and is a system that transmits ship data between ships. Very handy to know which ships are around you, which ones are on collision course etc 😊
Currently, thanks to our wingaker, we are significantly faster than the other boats and are outpacing them ☺️
We have now completed a quarter of the distance, we are making good progress!
The overall mood is good and optimistic. But you can see that some people get bored and others find the boat too crowded with so many people. After all, we’ve been together for a few weeks now. With me is still neither of the case😊 I learn a lot of Portuguese, watch series and make music. Am quite creative currently ☺️💪
Day 6 and 7: Rotten vegetables, stable fruit and green bananas.
Time goes by fast and I’m fine 😊 every day the shifts shift by 1 hour. Currently I have midday and midnight shifts of 2,5h each. Soon I will get the full night shifts 🙈
The day before yesterday we had to take down our wingaker because we had over 20 knots of wind. With so much wind we are but also with the normal sails pretty fast. Since yesterday, however, we have pulled up the wingaker again and are making good progress. Have already almost half 💪 on average we drive 5.6 knots so a little more than 10 km/h 😊
We produce a lot of electricity with the solar panels. However, we sometimes have to start the engine briefly at night when we use the water maker during the day or cook a lot.
We have eaten a lot of delicious food the last few days: couscous salad, hummus, pasta with pesto, chili sin carne and always fresh fruit 😊
Unfortunately, some of the veggies didn’t last long…. I suspect this is due to 2 factors: 1. The conditions on board are not ideal for storage, it’s really warm and we don’t have enough fridges to store the vegetables there. (in the meantime we are replacing the freed up space more and more with vegetables). And 2. on Cape Verde 90% of the food is imported. In Mindelo it must have been 99%, as dry as the island is. We don’t know how long the vegetables were already on the way and lay in some storerooms. Some was already bad on the second day.
So unfortunately we lost some vegetables: 3 peppers, some tomatoes, half of the eggplants, 2 carrots and a zucchini. Really hurts, I usually don’t throw away that much in a year.
But we can’t ignore that we bought vegetables for 7 people for 2 weeks, so a large part has held up so far. Especially the zucchini and cucumbers still look top 😊 squash, potatoes, onions, garlic and sweet potatoes also still look top ☺️ carrots and peppers have to go soon, but are good in the fridge hopefully for a few more days.
We then also froze frozen veggies and a large portion of precooked veggies.
The fruit keeps mega well, by the way! We haven’t had to throw anything away yet.
Only the bananas cause us problems: we bought a whole bunch and they are still all green. I have already taken some off and put them in the sun for several days but my feeling is that they all ripen at the same rate. So we are afraid that in the second week we will suddenly have to eat 70 bananas in 3 days or so 😂.
I’m looking forward to shakes, banana bread and co but it’s unclear how the effects on our digestion will be.
Day 8: Half 💪
Since today it is closer to the Caribbean than to Cape Verde☺️
The wave is currently really pleasant and we have relaxed days. The weather is really top, in between it is a bit cloudy but the sun comes out a lot and it is 25 – 30 degrees during the day, so shorts weather 😍☺️
At night it cools down to 20 degrees, so I always wear sweatpants and a shirt on my shift (besides the life vest, which we always wear even in calm weather when we are alone on deck). Right now I have night shift and enjoy the starry sky, which is only partially covered by a few clouds. Otherwise, the sky is incredibly clear 😍
A sailboat is on the AIS in front of us since yesterday and we have seen it in between by binoculars.
Tonight we are going to saw it. Fedi says one boat is called sailing, from two it is a race ✌🏻
Day 9: Starry night
When I just came to my shift, I was flashed by the starry sky! The last days we always had some clouds, now you can just marvel at the complete night sky and there is probably no place in this world where there is less light pollution than here. So we can observe several planets, see the Milky Way well and discover new star images 😍 do you know e.g. the big dog? 😊
I would love to take photos, but it’s difficult 😃
Just imagine how magical this is right now, I keep the moment firmly in my memory 🥰
Today during the day we have suddenly had 3 fish at the same time on the fishing 😳 the first was quickly off the line, the second has Fedi brought on board and the gold mackerel was really big!
With the third I was allowed then times ran. And the fish was really big, because he pulled very strongly and pulled a lot of line. After about an hour of strained pulling, we could then see why it went so hard: it had caught seaweed on the line, the fish was off for it 😃
Well, a fish is enough for the others completely and the days Jakob and I prepare the seaweed, I’ve also never eaten 😅 in a sailing book but it says that you can eat. Am already curious.
Day 12: Construction sites on the Atlantic
We are now 3/4 of the way there and so far nothing worse has happened. So it looks good that we will arrive safely in the Caribbean. (I interrupt writing to knock on wood quickly).
Nevertheless, a few things have broken and minor construction sites have opened up. There are several problems with this: 1. in the middle of the ocean, you can’t get spare parts that you don’t already have on board. 2. you can’t google how to solve something. (in case of need we could get information via satellite phone from an external person who either knows or googles for us) 3. it is rocking all the time, that doesn’t make repairs easier and we rather have problems with the sails than people overboard.
And so we struggle with the following problem(s):
- one toilet is clogged, so that we use one to 7.
- at our mainsail at a sail batten a fuse has loosened, so that we could not use the complete sail area.
- shortly after we solved the problem at the sail batten, a reefing line broke. The reefing lines allow us to reduce the sail area when there is too much wind. Now we have to reduce the sail area if then very much because we are missing an option.
- our radar still does not work. This was supposed to be repaired in Cape Verde, but unfortunately it did not work. Many boats cross the Atlantic without radar, so it’s ok, but the radar not only helps to detect objects in the water early (for that we still have the AIS, floating containers I think are more from movies than they are a real danger). But the radar also helps to predict thunderstorms and strong winds in the surrounding area by cloud movement. That would be handy, so we’d be warned a little sooner.
- Since the cable fire at Christmas, our generator has not been working, so we use the motors to generate power when the solar panels don’t provide enough. But the motors are not very effective at generating power and one of three solar panels keeps shutting down…. So electricity is scarce and we always have to ask if we can use the kettle. In case of need we start the engines to be able to cook warm. So also half so wild.
- There has already been a bit of broken crockery. We regularly come across glasses or cups when opening the flaps. And not everyone has as good reflexes as I do, who has seen a wine glass fall open. (replace good reflexes with luck 😂)
All in all, however, as I said, it runs really well and all these little failures are part of it and are good to cope 😊
Day 16: Arrival in the Caribbean
We arrived last night on Martinique in the Caribbean. The first views this morning were already fantastic. There is very blue water, great beaches and lots of palm trees, it looks like!
Now the next part of the trip begins – quite a lot lies ahead of me!