The rest of the story ... the crossing begins Part 4

The first evening on a beautiful sail...Pondering along with the sunset ... we had many and they were all different. As you can see from the photos, the sea, even the Atlantic can be calm. The first few days we had light winds and we needed for the first time in our ownership of Zimbabalooba to fly a spinnaker. The big colourful sail pictured below.

The spinnaker sailing for the first time on  Zimbabalooba! We had a sock made so it was easier to set and take down... and it proved most helpful. The biggest issue is that the sail is light weight and so the max usable wind speed was about 18 kts. After that we reverted to the 130% jib.

 The third day was Christmas !!!  Marcus and Emma got into the swing of things and dinner was the most important part of the day. Marcus wanted to make it a memorable meal. Perhaps he was got a little off guard in the photo ... The Swedish meat balls were great :)

 

Anne, before she left had prepaired Christmas Stockings for each of us and Emma was put in charge to make sure we opened them and what a nice treat it was. It was time to call Anne and wish her happy Christmas ...

 

A friend joined for a little piece of the trip... Emma dispatched him fast ... needed to lighten the boat to go faster :)

One of the best things about crossing the Atlantic was going to be the fishing. Open ocean means big fish. The picture below is of a Dorado ... Rarely would I say that somethings are to beautiful to eat I am Iish and love free food ... but this might have been one of those times.

While the sailing is effectively down wind and relatively easy, nature has it's way to remind you that you need to be on your game. Below is a squall, a small one these local low pressure systems tend to travel in groups and usually start late afternoon and continue until morning ... we had a few that made life interesting, but for the most part we tried to avoid them when ever possible. The rainbow was a nice touch.

One advantage of these lows is rain, something you don't see otherwise. We all took advantage of this and showered with fresh rain water.

Marcus was always the last one to get up. The boy loved his rest! Here he is sleeping in the best bed in the house. The port side pilot berth. Emma usually slept through everything ... her unicorn wasn't so lucky.

The weather overall was a little strange. We had swell from both the NE and from the SE, and this made sleeping a little uncomfortable at best. Usually in the open ocean the swell/waves only come from one side and maybe change over a period of days... we were not so lucky. The picture below shows us sailing along under main and jib ... the same tack and direction for 13 days or more. Another sail boat we met half way across and almost 1.5 times our size was struggling with the waves. They had had a few break over the stern (back of the boat) and now were sailing along with just a para sail.

A calm sunset to the left.

Afternoon napping in the cockpit. We all took turns. While the autopilot drove the whole trip our job was easy, stay on board .. eat and sleep and watch out for other boats ...

About one third of the time we had a little more wind than we needed, but the surfing was fun, sometimes as much as 14 kts, 8 to 10 was more common... the noise as the boat surfs down a wave is beautiful ... Zim wanted to take off at every occasion... we held her back.

Another beautiful sunset.

Sometimes the wind was really behind us and so to keep the jib flying we used the spinnaker pole to stop it from collapsing. This also helps to increase the effective sail area. The nice thing about this is that you can still furl (roll up) the jib.

One afternoon and when no one was expecting it, Emma spotted something in the water. She had hoped to see whales the whole trip and finally her dream came true. First one and then a second. These guys swan for over an hour with the boat. Swimming like dolphins of the bow. At one point they were within 10 feet of the boat. Beautiful creatures but a bit concerning so close to the boat.

You could watch them surfing inside the waves it was amazing to watch, so big and so graceful

 

The pictures don't tell the full story. Then they were gone.

Two days later and without warning they reappeared. Again they swam for an hour of so and were off again.

While fishing off the back one afternoon as I brought the lure in, I looked up and it was staring me in the face a whale the size of a double decker bus, 15 feet off the back. While beautiful I was always worried one of these guys might hit us ... there is no triple A in the Atlantic. During the whole crossing we saw only three boats and a few more on AIS(Automatic Identification System) that never got close enough. One afternoon we talked to a boat 250 miles away and saw boats 400 miles away on AIS. 

We had left Dec 23rd at around 4pm and then as fast as it all begun it was over... first St Barts appeared and finally St Martin.  Jan 8th 2015 we made land fall at 8am. 15 days and some hours later :)

On that cold wet November day in 2006 after spending three days in the cockpit on a friends boat while crossing to Bermuda from Newport RI, I realized that there was to be no greater adventure than to captain your own boat across an ocean. I spent many hours, days, and weeks learning to sail for just this trip. It wasn't all plain sailing... the boat and crew during it's many small trips learned the week spots and how to improve. The shore team was also great. Regular emails to let us know the weather and all the other stuff that's important when your hundreds of miles from land. Thanks to everyone.

Below is the track across the Atlantic

St martin at anchor ... do you see Zim?