They're in Cape Verde. Who? But Blandine and Max of course. We left them in the Canary Islands. We're meeting them on the eve of the departure for this crossing which will take them 6 days to complete.
No storm this time, no wind in the nose, no technical problems yet, just a crossing with a big swell which reminds us that we are sailing in the Atlantic. For this leg, our couple has embarked hitchhiker boats. A couple who, despite their lack of experience, will prove very useful. Indeed, the windvane gear settings are not yet fine-tuned. Max can't get it to work on Bohème, a Dufour 4800 with a steering wheel. No other solution for the crew than to keep the helm by organizing watches.
The days at sea follow one another with for all leisure the arrival of dolphins by hundreds and the joys (or misfortunes) of fishing. And despite a night arrival at anchor, Bohemia was able to drop anchor safely. Now it is time to discover these welcoming islands.
Blandine wrote a little diary of this crossing. We deliver it to you here:
" Our last stop before our first "big" crossing is the island of La Gomera. We spend a rather quick day there, but have the chance to meet a Whistler! This 82 years old Gomerian met in the bar in the village square and gave us a demo of the famous Silbo Gomero. This whistle used (rather formerly) by the shepherds on the island to express themselves over long distances through the big valleys.
Let's get serious, it's November 10th and we're starting our crossing to Cape Verde! Anxious as I am, my dear captain is trying a new way to make me enjoy the crossing, so we take Pauline and Hugo on board. These two hitch-hikers met through an advertisement wish to reach the Caribbean via Cape Verde, their lack of experience frightens me a little at first (isn't it an extra responsibility, rather than an aid on board?) After a little trial sailing, I understand that "it's going to make it to Cape Verde" I'm reassured we can leave!
The swell of the first few days is no picnic for us, although we were aware that this crossing wasn't going to be a restful one because of the beam swell in this part of the ocean, which makes sailing quite uncomfortable, it's not rocking, but rather really disturbing.
Then comes the moment when we really realize that, yes, we're going to have to steer all the way through the crossing, Max definitely can't adjust our windvane gear, the system on our steering wheel is not so easy to handle. On top of that, there's no point in trying our belt-driven autopilot, which won't hold up in all that swell.
Come on, we get it, we get used to the idea of taking turns steer non-stop. At night there will be two-hour watches to be shared between Hugo Max and me, as Pauline isn't at ease with night sailing, so she'll take over from 7am for sunrise.
That's it, it's routine on board, despite the incessant swell.
Eating, bathing, brushing teeth and washing dishes become the checkboxes of each of our days. The blues get a bit of a kick out of it at first, "more than 500 miles", no dolphins or other entertainment on the horizon, our fishing line breaking... Cape Verde seems so far away!
Then comes the day of the half of the crossing, the morale rises, we only have 3 days left (I still wonder what the Atlantic crossing will be like when half of it is 8/10 days away from the finish... In short "we'll see").
And there everything is better, we catch our first fish, a small mackerel which will serve us as an aperitif followed by a show of a hundred dolphins rather incredible, their jump of 4m high make us scream of happiness, we encourage them as if they were on stage.
Now we are ready to face the end of the journey.
The last day dawns, we miss the wind, what can we do, we're not going to finish with 15 hours of engine power! The crew is getting motivated, we're going to put the spinnaker on.
Our new sail of four Parisian apartments (110m2) works wonderfully, it makes our boat majestic and proud to arrive soon at its destination. We spend the day with an average of 6 and a half knots under spinnaker, with a flat boat, just perfect!
Night falls, for sure we will arrive at night (I don't know how we manage to always arrive at night!), we hesitate, but decide to keep the spinnaker at night until we arrive on the island of Sal. The arrival is quite stressful, our GPS is not very precise, the only solution is to enter our GPS coordinates by hand on Open CPN (navigation software on the computer), we are far from being precise, we are approaching the anchorage, and there the relief, dozens of boats at anchor, what's more, with their anchor light!
It's good I think we've arrived in Palmeira, on the island of Sal, Cape Verde (I certainly needed to repeat myself to realize it), it's 3am, we took 5 days and 20 hours, with an average of 5.5 knots, just perfect! "
