The Atlantic (2,124nm) – post I

WE MADE IT!!! Hopefully our radio silence over the last few weeks didn’t cause any undue concern – we actually arrived on Martinique on 6th December giving us a passage time of just over 14 days from Cape Verde (a speedy crossing).

We’ve decided to capture the crossing in a series of four posts (with this post being the first), which will allow us enough space to cover what was a huge achievement, and also give each of the crew an opportunity to share their perspective of the experience. We will be sharing the other posts over the next couple of weeks, and to help tie them together each one will start with a question that the author has posed to the crew about the crossing – we hope this helps bring it to life by showing it from all angles!

So, on to my question for the group! I was surprised and excited by how much pride I felt both during the passage and on reaching the other side, and so was especially interested to hear how this compared to the others’ experiences. I’ll start with my answer to the question, followed by the rest of the crews’:

“What are you most proud of from the passage?”

Parker / Laura: I am incredibly proud of how I was able to find an inner resilience (most of the time) that I didn’t know I had. Stuff broke or went wrong a lot, and it was up to us to figure out how to fix it or make it work. I knew going into it that this would be the norm, and I didn’t think I was going to fare particularly well with it – so I was really pleased at how well I was able to rise to many of the challenges we faced. The specific memory that stands out most is when Katherine and I had to fix the Hydrovane late one night. It was Katherine’s watch and the vane (the “sail” part that provides the drive) had just come loose. This had actually already happened once earlier in the day, when we’d realised the knob was broken. We thought we’d fixed it with a bit of epoxy, but clearly it hadn’t really worked. We rely heavily on the Hydrovane, so we were determined to fix it well enough that we could keep using it through the night. Because it was Katherine’s watch / my on-call time, we didn’t want to wake anyone else up. Besides, this should be something we could do! To fix the vane required bolting it directly to the frame, bypassing the quick-release knob that had broken. Bolting the vane on meant Katherine had to hang over the back of the boat to hold the vane in place while I stood on the sugar scoop (the little platform at the back) and sorted the bolt. At night. While the boat was charging along at 6+ knots. (We were both clipped on to the boat for safety, in case anyone gets worried.) And we did it! We got it sorted, got the vane back working and steering for us, and carried on with our watches. This gave me a lot of pride in myself (and the people around me!). P.s. stay tuned for Katherine’s take on this story in the next post!

Alec: Whilst getting the boat and crew safely across to Martinique was undoubtably the achievement I am most proud of, in reality the sailing / skippering demands of the crossing itself were relatively low; however, I take immense satisfaction when I consider the total number of hours that I’ve dedicated in pursuit of this goal, including the combined efforts from Laura and I in enhancing Serenity that were the reason the crossing was so straightforward. Whilst I’ve always considered myself a goal oriented individual, this is the first long-term / aspirational goal that I’ve been able to reach, as previously motivation always dipped after the first few months of effort. The biggest takeaways for me were the importance of pacing yourself, relying more on others to help with the hard yards, and keeping reminders of the final target around for inspiration – I’m now excited to consider what other opportunities have become possible for me.

Katherine: If I could choose any job in the world, I would be a camp counsellor. I love the antics, activities, and memories counsellors and campers alike experience during those summer months. This statement may not seem particularly relevant to the question at hand, but stay with me because it is! For every day of the passage, I designated a DJ (good tunes are critical to morale), a Hype Man (to boost energy and gather the team… hyping examples include reenactments of famous speeches, ocean hakas, and sing-a-longs), and a social activity (friendship bracelet-making, lip sync battle, storytelling, etc.). I personally believe adding structure to each day, as well as a little silliness, helped bring variability to a potentially endless sea and create some really fantastic memories at the same time. Thus, what I’m most proud of from the passage was reconnecting with my inner counsellor and bringing a little bit of summer camp to brighten up the voyage.

Ballin: There are a number of things about the passage that I’m proud of; first and foremost is our bravery in taking a plunge by leaving our jobs for a year, in part to do this thrilling and daring adventure on the high seas! Then there was gutting a fish, helping to find a water leak, and managing to cook in what often felt like a clothes dryer (the kitchen was always hot and set to “tumble”). After the trip however, I learned from the others that I seemed to be the person least phased by the kicks and knocks that came up along the passage. While on the boat, I had realized that crew moral was contagious. If one person was feeling down, which could easily happen given the tough conditions all around, that was OK. If another person was also having a bad day, it became so easy for the rest of the crew to start to spiral. So I am most proud of my positivity and the impact that it had on others on the passage. Of course it may have had to do with having an awesome early-2000’s video game (Baldur’s Gate II – check it out!) that I could use as a retreat!

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FEAR BECOMES PRIDE AND GRATITUDE

I think I found this question of “what are you most proud of” intriguing because it reflects how profound the experience of the Atlantic was for me. It was an emotional journey that led what started as trepidation to become something much more positive. To be very honest, I was dreading the crossing. It had been the pink elephant, the giant gorilla in the room ever since we cast lines from Split, Croatia back in April. Initially it was this far away thing that didn’t quite seem real, and then as it drew ever closer I did all I could to ignore it and not face up to it. I’m not sure if it was made worse or better knowing we’d have two of our closest friends with us; I really didn’t want to make them nervous because I was worrying.

Yet, despite such a shaky start, I look back on the crossing not with relief that it’s over, but with immense pride and gratitude for the experience and the people who chose to be there with me. Dare I say joy at what we’ve achieved! It’s not like we climbed Everest or something, but I do feel sort of staggered that we did this big thing entirely on our own. No guide, no check points, no whammies – it was just Serenity and us. We sailed across a whole ocean in a 43 foot boat!

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The defining moment for me actually came before we even left Cape Verde. It was two days before we were due to leave, and I all of a sudden noticed a shift in myself and my outlook. While still nervous, I just felt… ready for it. In fact I actively wanted to get going and do it, rather than keep trying to hold it at arm’s length. It felt like my mind reached a breaking point where it was like, “you know what, screw it, I’m tired of being worried all the time. We can do this!”

That feeling came, I think, partly from the build up of experience from our previous passages but also in large part from the people around me. Their exceptional attitudes buoyed me, and, cliche as it may sound, they taught me a heck of a lot. Alec has this incredibly ability to crack jokes and smile when the going gets its toughest (e.g. in a sudden squall or even a broach), which instantly puts people around him at ease so they can do their jobs well – and makes success all the more likely. Katherine is a true master of “mind over matter.” I vividly remember watching her come up the companionway steps to help sort out sails when the wind picked up one time; she bowed her head and I briefly saw a flash of fear cross her face, but then she set her jaw set was immediately asking what she should do first. She refuses to let things get to her. Ballin seems to have no fear; he will just go for things. None of this “second guessing yourself” malarkey, he just wades right in and takes action. I truly, truly admire and respect my friends’ strength, and I absolutely believe their examples led my own growth.

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The good shiz: standouts from the passage

Such a big crossing would always have its ups and downs, but I wanted to share a few of my favourite highlights from the first half of the trip.

Lip Sync Battles

Katherine designed an epic schedule for the passage to keep morale high and ensure we had fun together each day. This really peaked during the first half of the passage when, on one sunny, easy-sailing day, we were scheduled to have a lip sync battle. Each person was to choose a song and perform a lip sync to it for the group. I love this group of people because everyone went all out! Katherine choreographed dance moves to match all the words to “Party in the USA,” Ballin gave Cyndi Lauper a run for her money on “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” I attempted to freestyle rap “Baby Got Back” and Alec, my dear husband, dressed up as country star Maren Morris to give us his rendition of “Sugar.” It was such a blast and something we would never have done in normal life – such a great memory! And, don’t worry, we videoed all the performances :). Stay tuned for these in a special Atlantic highlights post to come once we’ve had a chance to edit all our video clips!

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Getting goofy

We all know each other pretty well, and spending so much time in close quarters definitely broke down any remaining barriers to us feeling completely comfortable around one another. This brought out people’s silly sides, and I loved how everyone embraced the goofy to keep each other laughing throughout the trip. A few nuggets:

• Katherine created a “rumour box” where we could anonymously submit whatever odd, random rumours about each other we could think of. Ballin aka the “Rumour Fairy” would periodically read these out. For example, rumour has it Ballin only showered twice on the entire crossing…
• Alec and I read a memoir from a crazy couple who bought a boat and sailed around the Pacific islands in the 1970s. One especially humorous part of the book was that in most of the photos the author was sans clothing, with something nautical strategically placed to protect his modesty. The captions always described this as “typical cruising attire.” For some reason, we all felt compelled to stage our own “typical cruising attire” scenarios but now have a rather unusual collection of photos
• Early on in the crossing, bottles of Smirnoff Ice (a sickly-sweet alcopop) started to appear randomly throughout the boat. Some may remember a craze a while back where you could “ice” someone with this rather un-delightful beverage, whereby they would have to take a knee and immediately chug the bottle (even if it was warm – yuck!). Their appearance on the boat led to a heated game of cat and mouse where we all tried desperately not to be caught with one. Several had to be chugged, and rumour has it a number more are still hiding around the boat!
• Alec instituted a “spirit animal of the day” to add a bit of pizzazz to our morning distance logs. The rest of us then insisted that each day, at the end of the day, we all reported back on how we’d emulated the spirit animal that day. It got really hard when we had the box jellyfish!
• We all got various phrases or words stuck in our heads and, maybe because of the delirium of fatigue, constantly repeated them. Katherine was known to yell “BOAT GYM” any time a winch was mentioned, while Alec would whisper “satisfy” even when we weren’t playing Trains. And if Ballin says “tuckus” one more time, I swear…

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And a bit for Neptune

After Katherine and I nearly managed to hit two boats despite having an entire ocean in which to sail, we decided we could see see why sailors of yore got really superstitious. Some things just seemed too weird to be coincidences (why did the flying fish only ever target me??), and I can only imagine how much freakier the whole experience would have been without navigation equipment in the days of the explorers. As such, we started regularly offering a splash of our beer to Neptune. And, on reaching the halfway point, we felt we needed to complete a proper ritual to thank the sea god(s) for our safe passage thus far. They, we determined, would clearly best be honoured by dunking our heads in the sea and then taking a shot. We each dutifully did so in turn, with a few extra splashes of gin over the side for good measure. Hey, it clearly worked, because we got to Martinique safe and sound!

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I hope you’ve enjoyed this little window into the passage through my eyes! Next week, we’ll dish up Katherine’s side of the story. Until then, happy holidays all!