Atlantic Crossing

I crossed the Atlantic Ocean under sail: 3,800nm/4,400mi/7,000km sailed, exactly one month shore to shore, 25 days underway. We started the crossing on 09 January 2019 from Cape Town, South Africa and finished on 09 February 2019 at Salvador, Brasil, stopping only in St Helena for six days.

The Atlantic was my third and final ocean crossing of my circumnavigation. It lacked the luster of being my first (Pacific) or my favorite (Indian).

In some ways it was a really special crossing. We were accompanied by dolphins arriving to Cape Town, leaving St Helena and arriving Salvador – my favorite travel companions in this gypsy life of mine. St Helena was a delightful stop – a quaint little British town in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean visited by the most amazing creatures I’ve ever swam with – whale sharks. And for us Northeasterners, it’s our home Ocean.

But it’s just a pond, the kind of ocean people cross in anything from a rib to a tree trunk raft to a kickboard. Race boats can sail across in just 6 days, and people have been crossing it for over a thousand years. I describe our passages as “easy peasy” and Captain Ruud said that it felt like “one ocean crossing too many”. In some ways it was excessive: two long, slow passages back to back (1822nm in 11.5 days and 1944nm in 14 days), light winds (0-20, but average 8-10 knots) directly behind us, and a pervasive, underlying sense that it’s the end of the World (ARC) as we know it.

The conversations across the Atlantic Ocean reminded me of my first hurricane season in the Caribbean. From April onward that year, all anyone could talk about was where/when/how everyone would reach their destination out of the hurricane zone.

“From St Maarten down the eastern Caribbean chain in late Spring, all any cruiser talks about is Grenada. How soon are you leaving for Grenada? Where are you stopping along the way to Grenada? How soon do you need to get to Grenada? Will you haul out or leave it in the water in Grenada? Do you know a reliable boat boy in Grenada? What does your insurance policy say about a named storm in Grenada? When was the last time a hurricane passed through Grenada? … It’s a tough task to enjoy hiking volcanoes, snorkeling coral and kayaking coves when a hard and fast deadline looms that no one will stop talking about.” The Pilgrimage South, May 2015, Life is Water

Ever since Cape Town, all our fleet has been talking about is the circumnavigation completion in St Lucia, and where they’ll take the boat once it is over – back to Grenada, over to Europe, up to the States, sell the boat, put it up on the hard, keep on sailing. We’ve been underway together for over a year and 20000nm at this point; we’re only one month and 3000nm away from the finish; it’s understandable that we’re focused on next steps.

I wasn’t ready to focus on post-circumnavigation plans (maybe because I don’t have any post-circumnavigation plans?) until this landfall. I hopped on a plane for a tour of Argentina, Brazil and Chile, the places I lived in 1998, 2000-2002, 2005 and 2006, and the dear friends and colleagues I haven’t seen in years. Reconnecting with them (and with my former self) was inspiring and invigorating and reassuring. It’s taken me 4 years, 30000nm, 3 boats and 3 oceans of waterlogged wanderlusting, but I’m finally back on the road to finding myself and my home.

So Atlantic Ocean, I will always love you for bringing me home. Land ho!