Atlantic crossing: Neptune hates us ...

December, 2nd 2018. 

Ciao Mindelo ! We are happy to leave and eager to finally see the Caribbean Islands. The islands of Pirates, palm trees and rum! Hmmm happy ... but maybe a bit worried. It is quite a big step for us... We imagine a 15 day trip, hopefully shorter...

 

We're around 10 boats leaving for the Atlantic crossing. Amongst them 3 Dutch boats. From all our travels we know that if a Dutch guy pays one night extra in a harbour, you shouldn't go out at sea 😏😎
So since the Dutch guys are leaving it means we chose a good weather window.
Good? As predicted a year ago, when Geoffrey and would be crossing we would be beating up against the wind instead of the nice trade winds pushing us smoothly along.
As you can see on this weather chart, that's exactly what's happened. First we had waves sideways, later also the wind shifted. Due to the many cyclones in the North Atlantic, waves were pushed towards the equator, creating a very disorganised beating of waves from the north and the southeast. It felt like sailing over a sandbar in the North Sea 😟 but then 16 days 😠.

After one week our kidneys, lower and upper back were hurting sooo much! We decided to take it slower and follow the biggest waves down. My journal states a few times that Neptune really hates us. Not 'us' in particular but humans messing with nature and provoking these extreme cyclones and weird weather patterns. I guess I don't need to lecture, everyone knows what I'm talking about 😢

Check out the video, but imagine it 10 times worse (the camera found it funny to make us seem like woesies 😌😊).

So anyway this means we were a lot slower and added some days to the passage, but we were also a lot happier 😜

So how do we occupy ourselves?
1. Playing the guitar.

2. Watching movies.

 

 3. Catching some fish (a Mahi Mahi a Baracuda and lots of algae 😏).
 

 

4. Playing with the lego's.

5. Playing with dolls...

6. Just Chillin' and deciding what the first dinner on land would be ... unanimous vote for ... meat and fries !!!

 

7. Watching a whale swim along the boat and dive under the nose! Sorry no pictures, happened too fast!   ---    8. Draw the whale !
 


9. Go swimming over more than 5000 m depth 😝
 

10. Get a new hair-over 😂


11. Watch a lot of sunsets!!!


12. Try to avoid many thunderstorms (or not? We like the rain that gets rid of the salt ... for a few hours!). At night you can only see them on radar, so its a bit more difficult to judge whether you have to decrease the volume of the sails or not ... Keeps you awake!

 

13. We spent an enormous amount of time watching the miles creep along... 4000 nautical miles, ... 5000 nautical miles ...

14. We (I) teach the girls to enjoy Madonna from the nineties 👯😍

Sorry no pictures 👅

15. LAND HO

That's sooooo exciting! We see La Desirade Island of Guadeloupe first and since it's still early, we decide to anchor at 'les Iles de la Petite Terre'. A bit of a Robinson Island and just perfect to arrive and forget the loooooooooooong time at sea!

First: a quick plunge in the water!

Second: apéro time under a beautiful sunset!!!

 

Third: nude night dive

Sorry again no pictures😳

And the next morning exploration of the island. Lots of Iguanas, Turtles, Rays and huge dinosaur fish!

In the afternoon it's time to head for civilisation to pick up my brother with his family. 

We went to Point-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe. Wonderful marina and an amazing pontoon with still a lot of boats from the 'Route du Rum'.

 

And what do we have for dinner?! A special 'Guadeloupean' hamburger with fries! We love it!

To finish up this fine passage, just a note to tell you that we wanted warmer weather, well ... we got really hot weather 30 - 35°C. Humid. Thunderstorms every 3 hours (great!) and a seawater temperature of 30°C 😜😝👯
Cleaning the boat and doing a 4 hour shopping Friday before Christmas was hard but who are we to complain 😎

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE !!!