43 Days at Sea - and I want more.
This was my favorite crossing of all. Doldrums, squalls, no wind, thunderstorms, trade winds, and my first time crossing the equator under sail.
(I posted the track backwards again ☹️ departure Tarrafal de Santiago and arrival Ilhabela).
You can read the full crossing journal on my Patreon, but here’s a little excerpt:
Day #16
What a dreary day… It has been raining since last night. And after every squall, the wind dies. Funny how heaven itself can become hell in just 100 miles…
One of the patches on the main we stitched on during the last Atlantic crossing started tearing, so during the last lull I brought the main down for the time being. I need it to dry a bit before I can tape it up, and hopefully that will be sufficient. But for now it’s raining and I’m just bobbing around…
This morning I thought a terrible thought: “I’m not going to make it.” But I did not mean it as a general statement. It’s just that there are a few possibilities: that I will be stuck in the doldrums forever; that I won’t have any sails left; that I will get pushed too far west to be able to beat into the trades; or that I simply won’t make it in time to see my brother, or spend Christmas with my father, or New Years with friends, or to renew my Brazilian residency — the primary reason for the timeliness of this voyage. Needless to say, I had an anxiety-ridden morning, and lost sorely to the rain when I tried to compete with my tears.
The sun eventually came out to save me from myself. I had a dance party, ate breakfast, and washed dishes while the mainsail dried, and then taped up the tear before pulling it back up. I noticed a pretty bad tear starting on the foresail also. I’d need to pull it down to patch because the tear is at the top, and technically it would be possible to do it right now as there is barely a breeze, but unfortunately the lack of wind is only due to the giant looming back cloud coming my way.
