It has been no secret since we came home from our Pacific Loop in 2010 that we were not done blue water sailing. But we had family responsibilities, then a house remodel to finish and retirement to figure out. Then the reality of having to refit our boat again for offshore, plus the extreme weather events driven by climate change gave us reasons to decide just not to go again. Now we look for other opportunities to get some time in warm water.
We started sailing with Puget Sound Cruising Club shortly after we bought Yohelah in 2000, and have joined the group for many cruises and raft ups over the years. We shared several of those anchorages with Jim & Barbara Cole, who sail the Hallberg-Rassy 36 Complexity. Jim was a Boeing Engineer, and transferred to Australia to finish out his career. In true sailor style, they didn’t fly there, they sailed Complexity.
After retiring in Australia, they sailed Complexity up to Southeast Asia and did a refit. Then they set off for the Med, heading up the Red Sea. One night in early March 2020, I was on Facebook Messenger and started chatting with Jim. They had made a stop in Djibouti, and now were forced to decide what to do about Covid. Rob was on chat with his sister in DC (who works for our State Department), and her advice was to get OUT of Djibouti. Either sail south to Kenya or get north up and out of the Red Sea. They had German crew, and chose to continue on up north.
They sailed north up the Red Sea and managed, without being allowed to stop and go ashore anywhere, to get through the Suez Canal and into the Med. Cyprus allowed them into the country with an onboard quarantine period, and they remained there until Covid restrictions were lifted and they could travel freely through the Med. They’ve been slowly sailing west since then, across the Med during the summer and home in Seattle during the winter.
As soon as I knew they were getting close to an Atlantic crossing, I literally raised my hand and volunteered to crew and asked if I could join them for the passage. Besides chartering, this is about our only opportunity for blue water sailing now, so I’m eager to get some miles in and time aboard.
When we sailed across the South Pacific, we shared many anchorages with the gorgeous sailing yacht Hello World, owned by our German friends Brit and Axel. When we had to turn north at Tonga, they continued south to New Zealand, then eventually shipped Hello World home to Europe.
They have now purchased a beautiful new to them catamaran they have named La Ola, which is in Portugal. I’m going to meet them at their winter dock in Vilamoura, in the south of Portugal and spend a few days aboard getting reacquainted after saying goodbye to them in Tonga so many years ago.
Now I get to learn a few things about weather in the Atlantic. We’ve all heard about the “Horse Latitudes”, and you can clearly see them (the dark blue at 30 degrees north where there is no wind) in this image from https://earth.nullschool.net above which shows the current global wind patterns. When we crossed the North Pacific in 2010, we were careful not to sail into the North Pacific high pressure system where there is no wind in the middle of the Pacific. Our route will be much like that, staying where the tradewinds blow.
So we’ll sail south from the Canary Islands to the African island nation of Cape Verde. Barabara says, “You have to sail almost that far south from the Canary Islands to pick up reliable trade winds and shaping a course for the Caribbean. Being so close, we can’t resist stopping in a country we have never visited.” And really, who even has heard of Cape Verde if you’re not a sailor planning an Atlantic crossing?
We’ll leave the Canary Islands November 15th (ish), sail 800 miles south to Cape Verde and explore there for a while. In early December we’ll sail the remaining 2,000 miles into Barbados.
Now that we have returned to diving again, it wasn’t hard to convince Rob to join me in Barbados when we make landfall. We’ll do some dives, and spend Christmas and New Years in the Caribbean.
I’d give anything to be sailing our own boat across the Atlantic, about to close the circle on our circumnavigation, but that’s not how the world is working. I’m grateful to have good friends I trust, who also trust me to be good crew, and will give me the opportunity for some of the warm weather sailing time I miss so much.
