Post 14

Atlantic Crossing - Part 1

Henry during our first full day at sea, cruising nicely at 8+kts

Departure day...

I arrived at the marina in Arrecife at noon after a short taxi ride from the airport through the town centre. I sat for half an hour outside a cafe opposite the yacht Piligrim and observed the comings and goings of the assembled five man crew. They'd had a delivery of groceries from a local supermarket and I watched all of them loading the provisions aboard. There was an organised calmness to their activities which struck me as a real plus point. After my breakfast sandwich, I savoured my last beer in the cafe for probably three weeks and went down to introduce myself to Tomasz, the skipper, and the others before stowing my kit onto Piligrim. 

Our mission is to sail south to pick up the trade winds that blow from the east between the latitudes of 20 and 8 degrees North, from the west African coast across to the Caribbean.  Using these trade winds, sailing ships have crossed the Atlantic to the Caribbean in relative safety and comfort for many hundreds of years. If you believe Dr. Alice Roberts as I do, it's probably more like thousands of years. It's the mariner's equivalent of the Pilgrims' trail and these winds are pretty consistent all year round, with strengths ranging between just 10-25 kts and rarely anything else.  So our route may look a little odd sailing so far south towards the Cape Verde islands but those tempted to cut the corner, often pay the price, suffering either no wind or winds in excess of 45kts.

Piligrim and our life pattern on board her

The watch rota has been organised so that every 5th day we'll each be responsible for preparing meals and drinks for our shipmates. The boat was 'dry' which I was actually pleased about. With four of us complete strangers to the skipper, he simply could not afford to have any excessive drinking on a small yacht. So not knowing whether these 'strangers' can drink in moderation, like a glass of wine or a beer with a meal, the safest option is no drink - period! 👍

Piligrim is a Beneteau 50 and is exceptionally spacious, due to its vast beam of almost 5m, giving it a huge cockpit area and main cabin. It's light displacement design means it sails very well in light winds but needs to be reefed relatively early, around 20kts, otherwise the degree of heel becomes too excessive. We held our own against a ketch probably twice our size for more than ten hours while we were heading south. I just loved that race but that's just my childish, competitive streak. Below deck it has four double cabins, each with their own tiny ensuite shower, basin and toilet. The boat was spotlessly clean and didn't look like it was built some twenty years ago, it looked barely five years old.

Our Polish skipper

Skipper Tomasz - a true professional in every aspect of commanding this boat

This Steve McQueen lookalike seemed to be a carbon copy of one of my favourite movie stars in most aspects. He didn't say a lot but when he spoke, it was always with calm authority and he put me in my place on a couple of occasions. This was Tomasz' seventh crossing of the Atlantic and he's the only person that's trusted by Jan, the boat's owner, to skipper Piligrim. He seemed to have an endless supply of Polish movies, box sets and podcasts and was quite happy to leave us to sail the boat for ourselves. That said, we were under strict instructions to wake him should the wind change strength or direction and not to alter the sails without his permission. 

He enjoyed my cooking and made a point of thanking me for my efforts. Truth be told, he would probably be happy to live off salami, cheese and fruit, so I think having 'nice food' while at sea was something he perhaps wasn't accustomed to. He actually wanted my Irish soda bread recipe (it's actually my good friend Loretta's - and yes, I did give you all the credit lol) because the Poles seem to like unrisen bread. I'm not sure Tomasz could even boil an egg but I ended up making about ten loaves. But that was because there was NO YEAST on board! More on that and their provisioning efforts later...

A spooky experience...

It was a moonlit evening, being Saturday the 28th November at about 19.40hrs. Henry and I were on watch when I noticed a small boat heading across our stern about 150m behind us. It was completely silhouetted in the moons' glowing reflection on the sea. Then I noticed another identical boat behind it, but not a single person or light could be seen on either boat. They must have been either sleeping or hiding below the gunal. I immediately notified our skipper who appeared on deck and we debated what they were doing some 111 miles from the Western Sahara coastline and almost 300 miles from Gran Canary. 

They were either refugees heading for pastures anew or more likely, local fishermen. The skipper decided not to turn back to investigate which I wasn't too happy about. His primary concern will always be, quite rightly, the safety of his crew and he wasn't prepared to risk any exploratory investigations. But what the hell were they doing so far from land in two tiny boats, not even the size of a gig, in a 2m swell with no protection from the elements? That haunting image of those mysterious boats will last long in my mind and I intend to draw them when I reach land and a sketchpad. Spooky stuff.

Henry - my English compatriot

During his initial spell of sea sickness, my roommate Henry decided to sleep in the large main cabin, being the most stable part of the boat, leaving me my own starboard double berth cabin - yippee!  He's is a very mature 18 year old, originally from London but living now in the border counties of Scotland with his family at their small hotel. He decided to take a gap year not wishing to start his medicine degree in the current climate. He fitted in so well and having recently passed his day skipper test, he wanted to sail across to the Caribbean to begin his exploration of Central America. 

The rather studious Henry was preparing for his entry interview for Edinburgh medical school

Despite his slender build, he had an enormous appetite and second helpings were just a given for him. He cooked us a nice risotto amongst other things too and was an enthusiastic member of the crew. I do hate to see tins of sweetcorn on a boat, but he seemed to enjoy the stuff with everything - yuck! His only downside was the time he spent in the head, 30 minutes at least and that was just to clean his teeth! He's well read and I enjoyed our chats while we were on watch together. I also enjoyed teasing him but this lad will go far in life and will make a fine doctor. 

 

The galley was truly superb too, the electric oven was later to prove to me that real baking and cooking is possible on board a cruising yacht (note to Discovery Yachts - replace that piece of trash you install in your £1m+ 55 footer). It also had a large top-opening fridge that offered me  almost a square meter of work surface, ideal for preparing and rolling dough and pastry. My first impressions of this fast, spacious cruising yacht were extremely favourable.

I guess everything's relative though. Next to us in Arrecife marina was a 35 year old Swan 65 (the Rolls Royce of cruising yachts). The hired skipper Chris chatted with me and gave me the ten bob tour around her, wow, what a boat!  My Dad often dreamed of sailing on one of these...

We left the marina at 18.26hrs on 26th November 2020 and sailed out of the large harbour under the cover of darkness. We will stay on GMT for the duration of the voyage and watched the evenings stay lighter and the sunrises get later once we start sailing west. For now we are heading S SE with 25kts of wind on our starboard beam. We hugged the eastern coasts of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura to shelter from the increasing winds; we cruised comfortably at 8.5kts for the next 48 hours. 

We quickly settled into our two man, overlapping watch system, having four hours on and six hours off. The boat was nicely healed so sleeping was relatively comfortable with little rocking motion. Despite this stability, Henry and Janusz suffered sea sickness for just over 2 days before they too were eating and sleeping normally with the rest of us.

Mariusz - an amusing, enthusiastic and helpful guy...

Mariusz is a guy that loves his electronic gadgets. He has a drawstring bag that's full of them.  A GoPro, two extension arms, a waterproof enclosure, a multipoint charger plus two mobile phones which I thought was rather odd. I suggested to him him that such people are either drug dealers or they're cheating on their partner, to which he just laughed. But then he revealed a small red device the size of a matchbox that was made by Garmin. 

Marius bathing on Martinique

He hung it above our canvas cockpit shade, the bimini, so that it had an unobstructed sight of the satellites above. This little Garmin communicated with one of his phones via Bluetooth, enabling us to send unlimited text messages (of no more than 160 characters). Hence my ability to communicate with my brother Andy about our progress etc. The boat also has a separate SAT phone that I used a couple of times with decent clarity provided there were no clouds above us. 

So I wasn't completely isolated from the world but thankfully the dreaded virus word didn't get raised once - happy days.  I teased Mariusz because he was worse than my sons for texting, he must have sent over 100 messages a day to his wife.  Mariusz also tried very hard to get us all into his Polish rap but thank the Lord, he failed miserably - bless him...

What a whopper

This picture was taken after the bloodbath had been washed away...

We all took turns to pose with the fish but in truth I was actually sleeping when it was caught. I can take some of the credit though because it was usually me that put the lure out behind the boat at daybreak. The skipper had seen many Mahi Mahi caught before but never one this large. The Poles like fish and eat Carp on Christmas eve as part of their traditional celebrations. I have caught many Carp over the years but they could not understand why we don't eat them in England. I didn't tell them that I witnessed two Polish anglers fishing near me in Banbury caught cooking a Carp on the bankside. Their BBQ and fishing tackle was all thrown in the lake along with the anglers by some disgruntled Brits. However I did mention that my sons would use Bonjela on their Carp's mouths when they caught them as kids. Janusz and Mariusz just laughed in total disbelief... I told them that England, unlike Poland is a civilised country lol. 

My essentials

A few of the essentials for future trips...

Clockwise starting from top left, is my priceless bluetooth speaker that kept crew morale high with an amazing selection of music.  Janusz' collection of 1960s and 70s classics won hands down for me with the The Beatles, Louis Armstrong, Andy Williams, Englebert and Scott Joplin getting played a lot on December 13th, my late father's birthday - they were some of his favourites. 

Next is Mariusz' Garmin SAT phone device that kept me in touch with my brother Andy and some of you good folk. 

My polaroid sunglasses were an absolute must in the bright sunshine. 

I read A Farewell to Arms twice because I enjoyed Hemingway's love story based in part on his own life. Having recently read his Old Man and the Sea, I wasn't disappointed by his compelling, Nobel prize winning writing style. What an amazing author, simply classics, can't wait to read For Whom the Bell Tolls next. 

Then comes those magic little detergent capsules that kept me smelling fresh not that we wore much clothing! 

A tube or two of fizzy orange hangover tablets woke me up each morning and cured Mariusz' upset tummy on one occasion. 

Last but by no means least, my cheap and cheerful kitchen timer. No burnt cakes, bread, pies or scones thanks to this little gem. It's so easy to get distracted when sailing and I was able to make soda bread in the middle of the night while napping.

I'll finish here and post again in a couple of days time with more about my other shipmates and our amazing adventure.

Thanks for reading my blog, hope you found it interesting and please post your comments below and I will endeavour to reply to all of them.

Apologies too for the late posting of this one and the poor formatting that is all part of Google's excellent Blogger package (not)...