Finally on land, after the storm...

On Sunday evening (03.06), as everyday we listened to Herb in the SSB radio. He is talking with boats and give them weather information. Lucky us, there was one boat called “Pinocio” very close to us most of the days so their report fit us also. Herb said that a srorm (even more than a storm, a hurricane force is getting closer to the Azores islands and we better arrive to Horta until Wednesday morning. We had left then 240 miles and we had 2.5 days. We continued sailing and on Monday morning when the wind became weaker we started the engine and calculated that in 36 hours we will be in Horta, just before the storm begins. On Monday evening I wished Assaf “Enjoy your last night watch”, but it was a mistake to say it because on 2 AM Tuesday we heard that the engine stopped and Bosse shouting “Shit”. We came immediately to replace him and he went to try and fix it. It was raining a lot and it’s not fun at all to sit and steer in heavy rain. We knew we will not make it to Horta in time before the storm only with the sails (we were only 77 miles from there) because our direction was North East and the wind came from that direction so we couldn’t sail fast so we changed direction to East, hopefully the engine will be fixed soon. After 8 hours of working on the engine, he gave up so we just kept sailing east and we didn’t know what to do with the fact that the storm is getting closer. The next morning Bosse saw a ship near us and talked with them in the VHF radio to get a weather report. They told us they think it’s ok to sail to Horta because the storm will arrive only the day after. It was good news for us and we started to sail back to Horta but it was not easy because now we had to sail North and the wind was again against us. As the hours passed, the wind became stronger and the Barometric pressure kept decreasing rapidly which usually means the winds become stronger. In the evening we already had winds of 30 knots and in the night it raised to 40 knots which is very strong wind, it means that we got into the storm but from some reason we didn’t change direction (the captain makes the decisions…). The waves were very high and against us and they bit the boat so hard that it sounded like they are going to break it (but the body’s boat is very strong) and I didn’t feel good from it so I just stayed inside my sleeping bag most of the day (when I was not vomited) and Assaf took the night watch instead of me. At around 7 in the morning we suddenly broached, which means the boat got a big wave from the side and it knocked down almost 90 degrees into the water (the mast touched the water). Assaf was sitting in his watch in the leaving room and flew to the other side of the boat and hit his head in the ceiling. no damage occurred to him but he was in shock for some minutes. I was in my sleeping bag and flew to the other side of the room which is very small so it was not much but I didn’t understand what is going on, where is up and where is down and I saw lots of water in the boat. I was sure the boat is going to sink, so as soon as I could I stood up, put my rain pants and coat and as an instinct, I put on me the water proof bag with the passports and wallets. After few minutes we understood the boat is not going to sink and for now we will not find ourselves waiting in the life raft for some ship to see us one day… but we also found out that so many things were damaged or lost and we were frightened that something like that will happen again because the storm didn‘t pass yet. Accept for the engine that didn’t work already for 2 days, the sails were ripped, we lost the navigation lights, the wind vane (self steering device), one solar panel, all the drinking water were spilled from the tank (we had left just 80 litres in the spare jerikans), the SSB radio (our only way to communicate for long distance) was burned because water came into it. The only thing we had left working was the VHF radio that works for short distances (distance you can see), so we decided to try and call for help every 15 minutes but because we lost one of 2 solar panel, the electricity was low and we had to decrease the callings. In that time, the waves were huge and the only reasonable thing to do was just going with the wind. We were around 58 miles from Horta (so close…) and for the next 24 hours Assaf and Bosse made turns of steering with the wind and I called for help in the VHF every 20 minutes, all day and all night. We were so terrified, we didn’t have sails and the waves were huge and we were afraid we will not see a land again in the next period, if at all. It’s very scary to be in that situation and not be able to inform anyone about it. On Friday morning the waves began to be lower and we changed the main sail to a spare one which was weaker and we had another small storm sail (that was there already before the storm and was not ripped) so we hoped for not having strong winds (because the sails were not strong enough for strong winds and we were not mentally ready for a storm again…) and started to sail again to Horta with 150 miles left (the waves took us south 100 miles in 1 day). The winds were still against us so on Saturday morning Bosse decided to change our destination to the island Sao Miguel which is more north east and we could sail faster. We didn’t want to make any plans for the arrival because we were afraid it will not happen, but of course each one of us thought so much about the moment we will step on land. And on Sunday 12.00 it happened! We arrived to the port of Punta Delgada and intended to get into marina because we had so many damages to the boat and the best way to fix it is to be inside marina, but we didn’t have a motor, so first we saw fisherman boat and they dragged us to a dock but it was a big ships dock so immediately policemen arrived and started to investigate us for an hour, which was the last thing we had energies for…, we just wanted to get into the marina. After that 3 small boats came and were very nice and towed us into the marina (we had to convince the marina people we really need to be there because they were full, but eventually we managed) so finally around 2PM on Sunday, 10.06, after 25 days at sea and a very unpleasant experience, we were on the island.
Happy end…

Crossing the Atlantic ocean…

What is crossing the Atlantic?

First of all, it’s about 4000 kilometres until the first place you can leave the boat and step on land. It’s a journey where you feel the differences in time, in contrast to flying above the ocean when you suddenly land in another time zone. It’s few weeks that you can see the sunset and sunrise without any effort of waking up early or drive to the sea in the evening to see the sunset. You learn how to live with 2 more people 24 hours a day without the option to escape somewhere even for a second. You develop your creativity of tasty and special food with the products you have. You learn how to pass the watches (4 hours watch, 8 hours break) by looking at the stars, the sea, the waves, looking for ships around and hoping for a quiet and fast watch without surprises.

16.05.07

8AM - Last meeting of the 4 boats that suppose to sail together. One of them said they don’t join us since they are not ready yet. After the meeting, Assaf and I went to take a shower in one of the marinas, last shower before the Atlantic. At 11 AM we started sailing with another Swedish boat and British boat. We passed the island Anguila and then put in the GPS the way point “Horta - 2177 miles”…Assaf and I were in the cockpit in that point and within few minutes we got so much water in the face from a wave that we understood immediately - it’s not the Caribbean sea anymore… The wind came from the North east which is our direction so the sailing was not so comfortable, the waves are big and bit the boat, the boat heels to the side, it’s hard to sleep and everything became complicated - if you want to go to the room, you have to hold everything you have on the way, making food is also a hard task and going to the toilets is the most complicated one… Beside that, we didn’t feel so good, an easy sea sickness and it took us 2 days of vomiting and resting to recover.

17.05.07

I woke up early in the morning and didn’t feel good. I tried to eat some dry crackers but my body didn’t like the idea… It was a bad day, I couldn’t even do my night watch, so Assaf replaced me.

18.05.07

I moved to sleep in the small room with the 2 floors bed because it’s not as bad as the fore cabin and I slept all the night. In the morning I felt much better and could take a watch and even started to eat a little bit. The night watch was full of stars, even few falling stars… in the end of every watch we write in the log book details about the watch like the wind’s speed, miles left, barometric pressure and so on.

19.05.07

Today we made “Levivot” from potatoes, we felt like it’s Hanuka, just it wasn’t possible to light candles in those winds…We waited until Bosse will fix the salt water pump and then started to make the Levivot and while making it, a ship passed very close to us and we talked with them in the VHF to get a weather report.

20.05.07

The winds are weak since yesterday and the only good thing about it is that we don’t have to hold everything in the way in order to do something.Today is a pizza day (we still have some cheese from St. Martin). I also wanted to make a cake and I knew Bosse will love the idea of using the oven once for pizza and cake so that’s what we did. The pizza was very good, but the cake not… the oven was too warm for it. Sometimes cheap is expensive… but still the cake was finished.Night watch… when the waves break on the boat, we van see planktons, very beautiful.

21.05.07

Today I made bread. It takes around 6 hours in total. Bosse didn’t like the idea that I made a new bread when there are still some pieces from the one we made last week, but it was not tasty anymore. In the afternoon Assaf started to make our trekking food - rice with salami, but then we heard the fishing line stretching - we had a fish for dinner, a tasty one. My night watch was crazy, the winds kept changing all the time and it was raining a lot, I was glad to finish it and go to sleep.

22.05.07

We are doing good with the sailing, nice winds, In the morning we wanted to make a shower somehow, so Assaf took the bucket which had a line attached to it, held the line in his hand and put the bucket in the sea, but it was too hard to pull it back and he couldn’t do it, so we lost the bucket… and the shower…Today I made a new record - 26 miles in my watch (in 4 hours), which means something like 12 kmh. I know it sounds slow (and actually it is), but it feels like we are flying. That’s one of the ways to keep ourselves busy in watches - calculate how many miles “we will do” in 4 hours, if in 2 hours we already did X miles… and then the first thing we do when we finish the watch is ask each other - “Kama kama?” (how much did you do?)

23.05.07
Since we don’t have a bucket anymore and we really wanted to make a shower, we took 2 bowls, filled it with salt water, took the Johnson baby shampoo (the only one that works in salt water) and after we finished with the salt water, we spoiled ourselves in 1 liter of sweet water for the good feeling.For lunch Assaf made some Indian think with peas and rice, it was very good.

24.05.07

Happy birthday to Keren! I hope you had a great day. I had a terrible night watch, I even couldn’t hold until the end of it. 3 hours of heavy rain and changing winds, I was completely soaked and shaking and when Bosse replaced me, I went into my sleeping bag and didn’t come out until my next watch in the afternoon.

25.05.07

The sunrise was amazing, but my camera doesn’t work from some reason. For lunch Assaf and I made meat (from a can, like “Luf”) and potatoes pie. It was not as tasty as we thought it will be, but what can you expect from low quality meat…?

26.05.07

My night watch passed fast, mainly because about an hour and a half I focused in the ship I saw and tried to understand what was it’s direction because in some point it was pretty close to us. After the watch, I went sleeping and Assaf also slept until we heard Bosse shouting “Golden makarel” - we caught another fish. Actually we had luck with fish, people told us that in the north Atlantic it’s hard to catch fish. So we came to see the fish and it was not dead yet and it jumped from side to side in the cockpit, I couldn’t see it and returned fast to my bed, but for Assaf it was the first time he killed a fish and made fillets from it. Of course it was tasty, but it’s not easy to see it before it’s dead. In the afternoon we made brownies which turned out to be the sweets highlights of the sailing, it was finished very very fast.

27.05.07

The wind became very weak, we hardly move, but it’s a way to make a shower. I decided to delay the shower and go to sleep after the night watch, but after an hour Assaf came to call me because they saw whales so I came immediately and saw them but they were not so close to the boat (as the dolphins we saw few times already), and because I already woke up I changed to bathing suit, went down to the platform and made a shower. It was nice even though it’s a salt water shower.For lunch Assaf made pasta with mushrooms in red wine sauce (we bought dry mushrooms before the sailing). The wind was still weak and Bosse said he doesn’t mind that the sailing will be even 5 or 10 days longer but I couldn’t agree with him…

28.05.07

In my night watch the wind was stable so I didn’t have to steer and I was bored so I made rolls. In the morning the wind stopped completely and we had to start the engine. The ocean was quite, like a mirror, looks like a lake, it’s amazing how different it can be in few hours. We saw sailing purple jelly fish, they look so nice, but actually if you are with them in the water it can be very dangerous.We don’t have an automatic pilot (that you give it direction and it keeps this direction), so when we use the motor we must steer every second because if not, in 2 minutes we can find ourselves in the completely opposite direction, it’s not easy to do it for 4 hours. When Bosse and Assaf finished to play chess (almost 2 hours one game), we finally ate lunch, in the evening.

29.05.07

In the night I saw for the first time a sailing boat passing in front of us, we talked with them in the VHF and it was very nice. In the morning I saw 2 groups of dolphins, they swam next to us for few minutes, it always give a nice feeling. Now we have left 750 miles so we hope to get to Horta in no more than 7.5 days. In the evening we stopped the engine for getting good reception in the SSB radio and listen to Herb’s weather reports. Herb is talking every evening with sailing boats in the north Atlantic, they give them their location and they give them weather forecast and advises. We didn’t talk with him, but listened everyday to what he said to boats around us. It was nice today to listen to him because I didn’t have to sit and steer for about 1.5 hours. Herb said that about 60 miles north to us there are strong winds (gale) and we better sail east for a while so we did what Herb said. In the evening, in Assaf’s watch, the winds started again and we finally stopped the engine after 36 hours. It was nice not to steer anymore and the winds were good so we sailed fast (comparing to this boat).

30.05.07

2 weeks at sea!Assaf told me to wake him up if I hear a fish is caught (because I had no intensions to take the fish into the boat by myself and kill it…). Around 5.40 in the morning I heard the fishing line stretching, I pulled it a little bit and understood it’s a big fish, so I woke up Assaf. And it was a huge dolphin fish (it has nothing to do with dolphins…). Again, it jumped from side to side in the boat and I just screamed and couldn’t see it so we woke up Bosse to bring a knife because Assaf tried to hold the fish that it will stop jump. Everything became so dirty (it’s better that I will not write more details about it…). Bosse just went back to sleep and Assaf worked hard for almost 2 hours to clean the fish and cut it (it was very very big) and then I cleaned the mess for another hour. When we finished with it, it was already Assaf’s watch and I went to make breads. For lunch we ate the fish and it was very good. In the evening I had a little crisis, I felt I just want to get to the island, I don’t want watches anymore, don’t want movement that make everything hard to do, and also Assaf wanted the same.

31.05.07

We continued sailing east until Herb’s evening report. In the afternoon I saw again a group of dolphins and called Assaf even tough he didn’t feel so good. Herb said we can sail again towards Horta, but the wind was from North east so we couldn’t sail to this direction and almost all the night we kept sailing east and only in the morning we changed the sails and sailed north.

01.06.07

Almost all the day we sailed in the right direction to Horta and we were fast, we sailed 140 miles (usually we make around 100 miles a day).

02.06.07

We want to get to Horta!But the wind was weak today and we made only 70 miles, it’s depressing…