Wow ! I just sailed across the Atlantic - Mindelo, Cape Verde to Camper & Nicholson Marina, Grenada

Chris Monk

Wow ! I just sailed across the Atlantic!!! How does one describe 15 days at sea? Long - undoubtedly! Monotonous - not at all; the regularly changing weather and sea state, the fretting over whether or not we had the sails tuned or had the right sail plan up or were heading in the optimum direction to get the most favourable weather, the chatting, the debating, Dave’s soap box, the fishing, the fish prep, the cooking, the truncated sleep patterns, watching the heavens at night, being mesmerised by the phosphorescence in our wake. The feeling of vastness was ever present, with boats in close proximity early on, the Rally fleet soon spread and we could go for a couple of days and see nothing on the horizon, nor even on the AIS system tracking vessels within a 25 mile range. Then occasionally we would end up sailing in relatively close company with another yacht for a day or two, seeing their sail on the horizon or monitoring their masthead light at night. We would call them and chat on the VHF, then our courses would diverge and we’d be on our own again. Once more our route took us through an area of no wind for 24 hours so we took the chance to swim in 5000m of water, some 1000 miles from the nearest land….. a most bizarre experience! The weather finally gave us 3 days of ‘proper’ tradewind sailing, with the wind right behind us at 15-25 kts allowing us to surf down the swells running up to 4 m in height at times. Normal boat speed for “Breeze” is around 6 kts, the highest speed we saw whilst surfing was over 15 kts, quite an exhilarating feeling! Thankfully we were spared the worst of the intense squalls of wind & rain that other boats experienced. Grenada finally showed on the horizon and we were welcomed with a distant rainbow welcoming us to the other side of the Atlantic. Then, shortly after crossing the Rally finish line, we dropped the sails and motored into Port Louis Marina in St George’s, Grenada to our own personal welcoming party of loved ones and the Rally organisers armed with rum punches and bottles of champagne. What an adventure for myself, Mike, Ian and Dave!