It has been about a month and a half since I last made a post, my apologies.
The crossing was... well... fantastic. The crew was interesting and diverse. The scenery was, as ever, beautiful. Until we hit the Acores the trip was relatively uneventful with the exception of one of the crew, Aaron. Aaron was on watch with me and as such shared a cabin with me. He was, and it is the opinion of the entire crew, a disaster from beginning to the end. We fired him when we stopped in Spain because we couldn't cope with having him on the boat any longer. Anyway that is enough moaning about him, although I could go on for hours, believe me.
The Acores was an absolutely beautiful place and I had a lot of fun on the island, Faial. The Acores is made up of a group of islands. We made a day trip to Pico, but moored our boat in Horta on Faial. Horta being a city. Whilst there I dedicated much of my time to Peter's Cafe and to the hose pipe and brush on deck. Made a whole load more friends, can't keep track really. It is an exceedingly small world, bumped into a girl called Lara, she told me where she was from, a small place and I immediately said the name of a friend of mine and she said "yes, know that one." (I am now in England and am planning to see Lara soon.)
We stayed longer than we planned, 3 days turned into a week. Unfortunately we had an electrical fire on a Friday which rendered our engine's battery charging abilities useless, and it being a friday meant that work only commenced on the following monday.
We left the Acores and hit a 40 - 50 knot wind from ahead of us, this is a big wind, 80 - 100 km/h or 70 mph, and it being in front of us meant that the waves where crashing over the boat, these waves where 20 foot high. Big waves. This weather carried on for about 5 days. Hectic, heavy weather sailing, the best in my mind. It was absolutely awesome, to say the least.
We entered into the Mediterranean, after this unbelievable weather, and the entrance was awesome, you sail between the coasts of Europe and Africa through a passage, past Gibraltar rock and you have just crossed over from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea, and for us from a 40 knot wind with heavy seas, into flat sea, nice sailing wind, and beautiful sunshine, what a difference. For most, the entrance into the Med is not nearly as nice, in general it is raining and blowing. We made the transition as the sun came up and what a sight that made. It was unbelievably beautiful and even more stunning as a result of the week of sailing that had preceded it.
We stopped in Estepona, in Spain, for three days, the owner was on holiday in Spain and wanted to see her boat, bless her. I bless her because at this point we got rid of the miserable man, Aaron. An interesting place, Spain that is. After this we completed the last 700 miles to Toulon in France. I spent a few more days on board helping clean the boat and getting it ready for its next charter before jumping on a train to Nice.
In Nice I spent a few days with one of by best friends, Charles Hutton-Squire, catching up and things like that. And that my dear friends and family is the end of the transat. Unfortunately my computer crashed recently, and so the pictures will come a bit later on when I have my laptop working.
The crossing was... well... fantastic. The crew was interesting and diverse. The scenery was, as ever, beautiful. Until we hit the Acores the trip was relatively uneventful with the exception of one of the crew, Aaron. Aaron was on watch with me and as such shared a cabin with me. He was, and it is the opinion of the entire crew, a disaster from beginning to the end. We fired him when we stopped in Spain because we couldn't cope with having him on the boat any longer. Anyway that is enough moaning about him, although I could go on for hours, believe me.
The Acores was an absolutely beautiful place and I had a lot of fun on the island, Faial. The Acores is made up of a group of islands. We made a day trip to Pico, but moored our boat in Horta on Faial. Horta being a city. Whilst there I dedicated much of my time to Peter's Cafe and to the hose pipe and brush on deck. Made a whole load more friends, can't keep track really. It is an exceedingly small world, bumped into a girl called Lara, she told me where she was from, a small place and I immediately said the name of a friend of mine and she said "yes, know that one." (I am now in England and am planning to see Lara soon.)
We stayed longer than we planned, 3 days turned into a week. Unfortunately we had an electrical fire on a Friday which rendered our engine's battery charging abilities useless, and it being a friday meant that work only commenced on the following monday.
We left the Acores and hit a 40 - 50 knot wind from ahead of us, this is a big wind, 80 - 100 km/h or 70 mph, and it being in front of us meant that the waves where crashing over the boat, these waves where 20 foot high. Big waves. This weather carried on for about 5 days. Hectic, heavy weather sailing, the best in my mind. It was absolutely awesome, to say the least.
We entered into the Mediterranean, after this unbelievable weather, and the entrance was awesome, you sail between the coasts of Europe and Africa through a passage, past Gibraltar rock and you have just crossed over from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea, and for us from a 40 knot wind with heavy seas, into flat sea, nice sailing wind, and beautiful sunshine, what a difference. For most, the entrance into the Med is not nearly as nice, in general it is raining and blowing. We made the transition as the sun came up and what a sight that made. It was unbelievably beautiful and even more stunning as a result of the week of sailing that had preceded it.
We stopped in Estepona, in Spain, for three days, the owner was on holiday in Spain and wanted to see her boat, bless her. I bless her because at this point we got rid of the miserable man, Aaron. An interesting place, Spain that is. After this we completed the last 700 miles to Toulon in France. I spent a few more days on board helping clean the boat and getting it ready for its next charter before jumping on a train to Nice.
In Nice I spent a few days with one of by best friends, Charles Hutton-Squire, catching up and things like that. And that my dear friends and family is the end of the transat. Unfortunately my computer crashed recently, and so the pictures will come a bit later on when I have my laptop working.
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