Homeward bound

S1°17.286

W34°17.722

This is our last long ocean crossing - north west bounds through the Atlantic. From Recife Brazil to Grenada in the Caribbean. It’s around 2020 nautical miles and should take us anywhere between 13 and 15 days.

It occurs to me that the Atlantic is the only ocean we’ve travelled north in. Following the trade winds and cutting through the Panama Canal for this circumnavigation has seen us almost always travelling south or west.

Ever since I was a child my brain has imagined North as uphill. And in someways, this is playing out like that now. The last hill before home.

We don’t have access to the internet very much on this leg and so my daily notes are getting written, but not posted. You will be reading them all in one sweep. But as I write I know how different each day and night is. So please excuse any jumps in mood or contemplation!

On last night’s watch there were squalls all around - although none of them caused us too many problems and the winds remained strong but steady, it meant that I watched the stars disappear behind an inky black. The moon - hinted at its existence behind me by changing the inky black to a vaguely lit charcoal grey. But the sea state was steady and I found myself standing up on our top most deck, life jacketed and locked on, holding the metal frame of our Bimini and properly riding the waves. As we rode and fell with the waves, I stood fast, the wind blowing through every part of me and my eyes scanning the horizon in all directions for any boats that we couldn’t see on AIS. As we sail essentially up the North East Coast of South America you have to be aware of fishing boats, security boats, nefarious boats (read Pirates!) which may be choosing not to use their identification beacons.

Standing there, alone in the night, not a human soul to be seen for so many miles in all directions it blew me away for the gazillionth time this trip. I LOVE this feeling.

This feeling of aloneness which I’ve tried to describe before, is not lonely. It makes your own soul surge up and fill you to the brim. With aliveness.

I may chase this feeling for the rest of my life.

N00°22.429

W36°30.726

We crossed the equator again this evening. Re-entering the northern hemisphere. We crossed into the southern hemisphere so long ago now. Before we made it to the Galapagos. That honestly feels like a lifetime ago. When we held a ceremonial ritual then to pay homage, respect and honour Neptune. And we did the same again tonight.

It was so interesting how different the two honourings naturally became. The first one back in February last year was jubilant, novel and full of daylight freedoms. We still drank rum and offered it to Neptune. We ate something sour and sweet in acknowledgement of the joys, trials and tribulations ahead and we jumped into the sea (it was a calm day!). When I came out of the water I noticed that Neptune had taken my Fitbit. After a moment’s sadness I remember accepting this as deeply fair. I needed to offer up treasure. But equally what was taken served me no purpose. I would learn that time is so much more fluid and bendy out here. That step count is irrelevant. And that being told how few hours you slept has no reassurance. Neptune claimed an unnecessary hold over me. Neptune gave me the beginnings of my glimpse into a new freedom.

In contrast, this equatorial crossing took place just past 10pm - which in the equator is very dark. The seas were rougher and the winds squally. We were all very underslept from the rough night before and simply a little more weather worn and less shiny eyed than a year ago. I can speak personally - loving this entire journey more than when I started - but definitely coming from a place of knowing, more than a place of the unknown. Since that early crossing we have all covered varying amounts of nautical miles, they push to and past 20,000. We have experienced so much that Neptune commands. And so our offerings this time round were an honest take on the experiences we’ve all shared, the good, the bad, the terrifying, the magnificent. We offered things up this time in humble acknowledgement to this.

We gave true bits of ourselves - un glorified, un glossy, real. A birds nest of our own hair, and a strange medley of truly important to us things - basically our blood, sweat and tears all in a ramekin that looked the most like ingredients for a spell I have ever put together! 😂. I wrote Neptune a letter and we shared exhausted thanks and respect to the seas we’ve been both broken and mended by. We offered all of this up with our own tots of rum and a double dose for the sea. In the howling wind, we said our thank yous.

This time Neptune didn’t take my watch. Instead, that night when I was on my moonlight shift he gave me a perfect wind and seas, moon and stars night watch. Thank you. Long may it continue.

N2°27.731

W41°45.981

Look at you!

Standing underneath the stars in the middle of the Atlantic.

Sailing.

On a boat

Flying along at 8.5 knots.

On watch by yourself under the moon.

You didn’t see that coming, did you?

N03°51.793

W44°48.834

The Atlantic during the day is a rich royal blue with occasional tones of navy when the clouds cover it. Peppered, like the mysterious corn circles of the West Country, with bright orange and gold circles - or vast as far as the eye can see - rivers of sargasso. A type of algae seaweed which flourishes out here. They say that baby turtles take shelter and rest in these woven rivers, but try as I might I’ve not yet seen any.

We have no choice but to break through the golden weed-webs from time to time and hope that they aren’t getting caught or attached to us on anything important below.

When you have nothing but a vast expanse of horizon mixed with a vast expanse of miles creating a vast expanse of days and nights you have to surrender. I know I’ve written about this so many times. But truly, the only way you can let go of impatience or free up your mind to stillness, is to surrender.

And then all the profoundness of being at sea unfolds. Your mind drifts to where it wants to (or needs to?) go. There is no where to hide. No part of you that can retreat from your own inner gaze. You start to try to solve (or at least I do!) the parts of your character or life that aren’t really the best versions of you. Or you start to see parts of yourself you may have outgrown. Or you start to see where you may have left behind parts of you, you might like back. And you definitely feel all the feels towards the magnificent people you know in life. It makes me want to return better. Better for every one. Better for me.

This is possibly the most theatrically dramatic and absurd version of therapy I can think of. Which then doesn’t surprise me that it’s the one I chose.

N04°38.274

W47°00.604

A fear you honest to goodness can’t let yourself think about.

Falling off the boat.

The reality is you almost certainly wouldn’t survive. Certain conditions (no wind, daylight!) might make it possible but as I sit here tonight at 3.13am, I’m allowing myself to just reflect the horror of it - as it is VERY good to remember this.

Half an hour ago I was (firmly attached to a safety line) and keeping a steady watch on Chaz as he manually pumped out the bilge in our back port lazarette (for those of you following along, the same one that tormented us so in The Storm). We’re in some rather big seas at the moment and we think a few feisty waves, which come up over the side of the boat, must just find their way in.

Anyway, as I kept watch of the little headlight motion in the lazarette, the periphery of my vision took in the speed at which we are currently moving through the water, 9-10 knots. The waves are readily washing over the scoops at the back of the boat (and a cheeky one even hits me on my back and left shoulder - Surprisingly warm!)

But then I see a lime fall from our fruit hammock and roll off the cushion, onto the deck and straight off the back of the boat. And it’s gone in an instant. I don’t even see it bob away for more than half a second.

We are taught in our survival at sea course what to do if you fall overboard. Or if someone else does. And the drill is specific and intense and you have to believe in it. Life Jackets have their own location beacon which transmits on impact with the water. But the truth is, in this pitch dark, hundreds of miles from land, with a 4 metre swell, a 2.2knot current and the sails up, you’d be miles from the boat before it was able to even stop let alone turn around and start searching.

And holy heck if that isn’t a sobering thought.

So you go back to the number one rule of the survival at sea course. DO NOT FALL OFF THE BOAT.

And so I kept a hawk-like view of Chaz, so proud of being on a boat where clipping on is not only essential but sacred, and didn’t take my eyes off Chaz until he settled back down for sleep and my watch resumed.

And then I wrote this. To shake the shiver of fear and death off my soul and remember the exquisite madness and the privilege of being out on a boat in the middle of the ocean, under a blanket of stupidly bright stars, bombing it along with the fury of the wind.

It’s absolutely, ludicrously wonderful.

Just stay on the boat!

N05°06.252

W48°28.061

We are more than halfway!!! 1,136 miles covered this leg so far, about 906 remaining.

I was thinking about this last night. The distance covered from Namibia to Brazil. And then this distance from Brazil to Grenada, is basically like doing the original ARC (Atlantic Rally Crossing, from the Canaries to St Lucia) and then deciding to turn around and cross the Atlantic again, straight away! Two Atlantic crossings in one quarter of a year.

Who does that?

Madmen, that’s who.

Yours, proudly part of the madmen crew.

Longitude and Latitude currently unknown in my cabin.

Tonight has been so bumpy and so fast that finally making it down to my cabin - at least three new bruises accrued on the way as I was flung more than walked - I went to close my little curtains and saw a wave splash the window and I just laughed. Quite hard. Perhaps a little hysterically. What an absolutely ridiculous ride this is. Bouncing around, infinitesimal in an ocean. Taking turns to stay awake in the darkness to keep us all safe. Then collapsing into a bed you’re thrown around in to the sounds of sloshing and thwacking and frothing. Wild nights at sea are ridiculous.

N05°somewhere

W50°something

The Atlantic is still rough and feisty this morning, 4 mt swell comes fast and thick, winds reaching 30kn from time to time, but LTD is an excellent purveyor of these seas. And having to work for these last miles of the circumnavigation feels absolutely correct. We’re sailing with the wind on the beam beautifully. This feels absolutely appropriate. To do hard things, you have to do hard things.

It’s a blue sky day here and it’s entirely beautiful.

I am so in awe of the invisible ferocity of wind.

Atlantic! Thank you for this.

Oceans! Thank you for it all!

N06°00.469

W50°46.066

We just lost our staysail halyard!

Me and Chaz were up top so saw it immediately. Finn was on school and bless him immediately hung up and was life jacketed and out.

We retrieved it from the water and all is good now. Back to a thin sliver of Genoa!

N07°12.892

W52°41.054

Staring at the Southern Cross and saying my farewells. We won’t be able to see this constellation soon. She was such an unfamiliar constellation to me when I first saw her last year and now as we travel homewards bound and ever northerly it’s slipping deeper and deeper into the night’s horizon.

Thank you for your guidance.

N09°16.698

W56°33.654

As we come to the end of our very last long passage on this circumnavigation I have such bittersweet feelings about it.

And a reflection - I like that being on passage is a parenthesis on all life. I imagine that if used well and in the right conditions this is the tonic I may always need.

This may be my penultimate sunset on passage. Tonight I watched a large rain cloud blow over us, (watching weather travel over empty horizons is a true love I have learned out here) it obscured the sun, and then dumped all of its rain to the port side of us, leaving us dry as a bone.

Thank you penultimate sunset.

N10°14.744

W58°08.044

04.38am

It’s funny. I’ve done so much contemplating over the past 15 months that you’d think very little would surprise me in my own head. And yet I’ve just spent five or so minutes standing atop this beautiful boat, under a blanket of stars, with soft knees and a tight core so as to be able to move with the strange but now deeply familiar motion that comes with sailing at 8 knots through a swelly sea.

Living the Dream’s helm station is to the aft starboard side and is roughly 3 metres above sea level. When you climb the final three steps up on to the sail deck you can turn back upon yourself, lock in between the Bimini metal poles and stare out to the dark, dark horizon. I do this multiple times on watch to use my eyes rather than solely relying on the AIS on our nav screen. You never know if there may be an unregistered fishing boat or similar and to be honest, there is nothing quite like standing atop a sailing vessel amongst the creaks and the rattling of boom and taut lines with the wind in your hair and the waves, near invisible but for the bioluminessence and their never quieting sound.

Anyway, I noticed on our charts another sailing vessel, on this passage we’ve only seen container ships and tankers, but tapping on the AIS sketch of a boat, reveals all the details and on this occasion instead of L289m, it says L15m and I immediately know it’s one of us. And yet, as I gaze at its name, it isn’t one of the WARC fleet, it’s just another sailboat out here in the big blue.

Even though I know I can’t see further than around 6 miles with my own eyes, at night sometimes a mast light can be seen from even further off. So I stand and search the horizon. (It’s actually 16 miles away so I knew it would be fruitless!) Nevertheless, I searched and scanned to find another one of us.

And standing there it really hit home. I have sailed the world. I’m looking out for a fellow sailor - not just ‘a’ sailor.

My mind has fully accepted that I’m a sailor.

This shouldn’t have hit me with as much surprise as it did.

We’re not there yet. The end and the finish line are still many weeks away. But as I stand here alone tonight, Chaz, Virginia, Tillie and Findlay all safely asleep below, I am looking out to see if I can spot a fellow sailor.

Complicity in a giant ocean.

Truth in the realisation of a dream made real that seemed so insane.

I have travelled almost entirely around this beautiful globe, over this planet’s magnificent waters.

In tiny boats. (All things considered.)

And mostly, simply by the Earth’s winds.

It’s knocked me into stunned awe.

Goodnight.

N11°04.995

W59°34.950

I just watched a tiny bird appear, a swallow of sorts I think. He appeared, catching my eye as I read, blinding me by the sun he flew past as it was setting and flew directly to our boat. He flew over the mast and off to the starboard side of sea and sky. He circled back, wings straight as a dye, looking like a small 1940’s aircraft, gliding back around, in one twitch of his wing he flew back up and over the mast again, swooping far behind us and back alongside us and just as I was managing to take in the details of his tiny form he headed North, up and out and up towards the clouds. I followed him with my gaze until he was a speck and then a speck no more. I saw him. He saw me.

I’ll miss these tiny dramas.

N12°00.658

W61°48.518

Grenada!!!

We have made it back to the Caribbean. I’m a little bit of an emotional wreck, seeing all of our fellow World Arc friends, seeing Peta, a yellow shirt who we haven’t seen since we left St Lucia all those months ago, waiting patiently for the rest of the fleet to safely arrive. Seeing everybody’s shared exhaustion, and having Martha and Bob shout “Circumnavigators!” across the jetty to each and everyone of us.

And the Rum Punch. Number one rule, do not have more than one Grenadian Rum Punch. I fear I may break this rule. And the tears will flood all the more.

Oh well, salty sea dogs need rum to level it all out apparently. Who am I to argue?