Transatlantique – Partie 1

The Atlantic Lake

From the island of Gran Canaria 28° 7.879' N 15° 25.485' W Off the coast of Cape Verde 15° 10.952' N 32° 42.139' W

You will see, with the trade winds, it will be quick to cross the ocean

That was the idea. We left the Canary Islands with this idea in mind and the first two days did not disappoint us. We went down to the South with a good average. The weather was good and the conditions were ideal. It was after these first two days that things went wrong for us. We won't have any breakage or storms, far from it. We are rather confronted with the opposite, the dead calm.

A low-pressure system to the north of the Atlantic is completely fanning our area. We therefore encountered our first squalls and the boat did not make much progress. We even had days with an average speed of 2 knots.
We try desperately to find wind, in vain. Indeed, with our 300L of fuel we can't afford to use the engine too much to move forward. All we have to do now is wait.

Very quickly, we put things into perspective and try to make the most of our time at sea. We read, write and play board games on board. We even have the opportunity to swim with 13 000 ft of depth under the feet.

The terrible thing about this navigation is that although we are not moving forward, the time spent is very pleasant. Without wind and without waves, life on board is really easy. The boat is stable and we can cook comfortably, we can install the sunshade to shelter from the sun and the boat is quiet.

Nevertheless, we keep our goal in mind and we remain attentive to the navigation. We watch the weather regularly, seizing every opportunity to move towards Martinique.

We also continue to operate by helm and sailing watches. Each of us takes the helm in turn: during the day we take the helm for three hours and four hours at night. The night is divided as follows:

This rhythm of life is not so hard to follow and we know very well that it is also due to a particularly quiet navigation. We all take advantage of these nighttime moments to write to our families, read or listen to music or podcasts.

We sailed slowly towards the south west. Little by little, the temperature increased and we soon found ourselves very tanned.

At the end of 10 days of navigation a dilemma is offered to us. Either we continue to follow our route in little wind, or we lengthen the route to try to recover some wind. We take the second option and go down off Cape Verde.

Winning strategy! After two days due South we find the wind of the trade winds. We meet again on November 23rd, after two weeks of sailing off Cape Verde

15° 10.952' N 32° 42.139' W.

To be continued in part 2