Part 10, Sailing Las Palmas, Spain – Santa Maria, Cape Verde.

Nov. 12^th - 21^th 2010

Evaluation – why and what learned

After 9 days and 6 hours of sailing from Las Palmas with Santa Maria as destination we reached it. King Neptune submerged by surprise and challenged the capability of the vessel, our physics and our minds. It was far beyond our worst expectations which frightened us all at some point. Only strong commitment, team spirit and no sleep helped us through.

At some point reading about this journey you probably wondered why I would go through this - why voluntarily expose yourself to such a rough time, simple life, simple food, no shower, little space, surrounded by the sea and 24 hours rolling making the limited portions of sleeping a matter of trying not to roll over?

The short answer to why is I never did challenge myself sailing on the big Ocean. And why wait until tomorrow, some day in the future? You don’t know about tomorrow – make it today! Let go of all the taught boundaries and limitations – follow the instincts and try not to worry too far ahead. It will all solve in front of you along the way. The future will be so much different than anticipated anyway. It’s magic. Go all in on hunting and collecting preserved priceless memories.

Living with limited resources as water and electricity is becoming aware how precious these everyday commodities are. It has been an important school in learning to appreciate small things and the almighty nature from tough troubled waters to beautiful breathtaking sunsets that made you feel thankful. It is the story of our lives.
Take all the small daily elements which for instance light, drinkable tap water, hot showers represents. It all can be summed up and connected to happiness. We are having a spoiled life on this planet with a lot of luxury commodities. Why complain about everyday stuff – is the bus late? – is your neighbor a pain in a certain place? Is the weather not behaving? With all the good stuff already inhouse, surrounded by or stuff that just needs to be grabbed it makes a huge positive sum that we should be aware of before focusing on a few negative things which in the end will not do the mind any good. Especially if not changeable. Accept it or take action...

Moreover adventure is the main reason – the fundamental motivation key – however on the shifts in the dark night when shadows of enormous waves sneaked in and attacked the mind from behind it made a powerful damaging entre; the imagination of a cozy and calm adventurous voyage suffered. A new key was desperately employed – the key of challenge. It is always a handy key to have around the neck walking down the path of life. A life that will perform enlightening confrontations - the gift of destiny.  The challenging trick is to keep focus on the positive elements. Target the light and keep strong and determined. It is easy said than done. Pessimism, panic and complaints want to invade. So above all maintain constructive and optimistic cause you will get through it so you might as well go through best way possible.
When I was a kid and got hurt my mother always used to tell me that I would get over it before I would get married. At that time I didn’t always agree but now I must admit it and it probably formed the foundation of a forced positive mind cause how often does something really crucial affect you just looking months, weeks or even days ahead?  In case you don’t get through it you might have “left the building” and then I believe it was not meant to be. It somehow brings me comfort to think like that and also underlines the importance of living today.
I often feel with the destiny of a guy I read about in the paper. Driving down a road in a thunder, it strikes down in a tree that exactly with a tenth of a second’s accuracy falls down when he is passing by and kills him. That is bad luck in extremes and demonstrates that we cannot predict when it’s over. We have the gift of live and obligation to make it as joyful, giving, positive and memorable as possible with the unknown time available.  If it’s over tomorrow I guess it’s all about looking back being able to say I did my best, lived life in full and had a great tour!

Now the question is – do you do this?

Focus on the light even if it’s just one pixel out of a million and please do go out and enjoy that life!!!
I guess that’s what I wanted to say all from the start of this voyage to myself… and to you.

Good luck - make the best of it!

And this is not

…the end

It’s the reflecting conclusion of a challenging trip and a mark of a new beginning. So stay tuned for more shallow as well as deep thoughts coming up. 

Part 9, Sailing Las Palmas, Spain – Santa Maria, Cape Verde.

Nov. 20^th 2010

3rd sail and last sail up

Today’s 06.00-10.00 shift started with lots of light. A huge cruise ship on port side with hundreds of lights lighted up the last part of the darkness and made us change the heading for 15 minutes. No reason to get too close to this giant.

Around 10.00 hours when Gunnar got up from his sleep we checked our position and got our speed confirmed to 3 nautical miles / hour. It was quite good in comparison to our vessels limping status with two wrecked sails. However we had yet another bonus sail. In between the main sail and the front sail the boat was equipped with a 3^rd sail. Now the waves allowed us it was time to hoist it out in the sun and let the wind fool around with our last piece of healthy sail. We both went up on the deck while Sheilah tried to keep the course of the ship. Gunnar ensured that ropes for both port and starboard side were in place for this new sail. However twice he had to return on deck and retie the port side rope – some birds must have been messing with the tie while we not looking! Now with the fog sized sail up we immediately accelerated to 5 nautical miles.

Every time we checked the remaining distance on the GPS we gave in a bet on the remaining miles – a qualified guess. I came up with 109 miles and I could see on Gunnar’s surprised look that I this time not only were close but spot on and it made our destination reachable within the next 24 hours if the conditions would continue like this.  We had never been that close and felt good as we seemed to have passed Neptune’s big wave challenge and now we had a new actual sail moving us forward at our expected average speed.

109 miles left and doing 3,2 nautical miles speed

Just before midday I blessed my body with breakfast; cornflakes and chilled milk. Then a nap was needed followed by a body refreshment. All together it made me feel reborn and 100% ready for a 15.00-18.00 hours shift. It was calm and joyful flavored with yet another different and magic sunset. This could never be routine. The small golden lit waves hit the vessel like small appreciating and embracing hugs. 

I took the 22.00-02.00 shift and did expect to discover the silhouette of land in the starlit horizon. But as I got close to the end of my shift I had to let that imagination go. I saw nada out there. The reason was that we were moving slow again. Our speed was reduced to just 2-3 miles. The wind had died completely on us.

I got almost 4 hours of sleep that night which was my night record on this voyage. At 06.30 the whistle was blown with air from a satisfied captain who was longing for some sleep. I was surprised to learn that he didn’t bump into the sight of land yet. 
Far away on starboard sight a cargo ship was slowly moving while the sky gradually changed the black background to deep blue which soon was taken over by a lighter version. The time was now 07.25 just before the appearance of the sun and there it was: “LAAAND – LAND AHOY!!!” I shouted but I guess the rest of the crew was all enrolled in a thick heavenly passionate substance of dreams to hear my annunciation. . . In a moment I thought of putting my lips around the mighty thief of dreams which would wake them up in a split second; the orange whistle but I almost immediately found mercy – I knew the value of sleep and transferred my excitement to my camera that started shooting the first images of land in 8 days.

LAND AHOY in the horizon just before a beautiful sunrise

It reminded me of the latest King Kong movie when they first encounted land… but hopefully no surprise like that were awaiting us.

King Kong get ready for some visitors ;)

Nature had more surprises ready though. Huge shoals of flying fish appeared just above the surface of the sea. There were hundreds and they flew astonishing long distances in the air before they all disappeared back in the blue sea. It was amazing. Soon I had to sit back down behind the wheel and digest the impressions.
My thoughts couldn’t let these flying fish go. I wanted to know more about this special and different specie... Did anyone investigate that story yet? It’s nothing less than a wonder – we are talking about a creature which is half fish and half bird. Many questions started popping up like: do they breath in the air or in the water? Do they speak fish or bird language and most interesting; how on earth were they created? Now excuse my mind for running wild but could one imagine that a romantic bird was on hunt for prey, made a full duck down in the water for a fish but on the way fell in love with the targeted fish (hey, opposite attract;) and ended up – somehow – to make love to this fish?!! It could also have been a brutal water rape. At least the fish saved its life and a new magnificent specie was soon born!:)
I smile found my lips and I had the feeling that a scientific zoological professor was taken prison inside of me and just needed to be locked out. I mean we have the flying fish, mix it up with the little mermaid and we soon will both be able to swim with our brothers in the sea and fly with our sisters in the air learning new cultures and languages... Or OK wait, maybe my mind was just in a serious need of sleep again...!

  

I didn’t get that sleep though. When Gunnar and Sheilah woke up at 09.15 to the horizon showing land we started preparing for reaching land and with the continuous poor wind I took down our new sail and our blue acting main sail in the back. Gunnar turned on the motor and we travelled the last miles to the south of the island of Sal for engine in a moderate tempo AND autopilot which worked when having the diesel engine employed. Even though running for engine is not at all as cozy and joyful as when sailing for wind, music filled the cockpit and we could all enjoy the time together relaxing. The sun mirrored in our sunglasses as the island slowly passed on our port side. Our goal was reachable within hours and we would be anchoring up in the village of Santa Maria before darkness. Perfect.

We came into the bay around 17.30 with the main sail and front sail all tight up – we wanted to ensure we didn’t look like vagabonds coming to town with our busted sails and other damages. 5-6 sailing boats primarily catamarans were already anchored up in the bay a part from a big dutch schooner and we ”parked” Sheilah CV about 200 meters from shore. After making sure we were not drifting, Sheilah prepared some well deserved spaghetti with meatballs which included a beer. I don’t want this to sound too impressive but still – it was actually 10 full days since I last had alcohol!!! We enjoyed fully to be safe anchored up at our destination and could now laugh out loud about all the challenges, how we had been under pressuer and reacted in the emergency period:) It was a true relief. It had been much tougher than anyone anxiously would have anticipated but with hard work, courage and good teamwork we had now succeeded.

Gunnar, Sheilah and Sheilah CV - image taken when having a swim around the boat

Before long lack of sleep caught up on us and at 21.00 hours the whole crew retired into the cabins and both Gunnar and I were looking extreme forward to not only a full night’s sleep but the fact that the orange alarm whistle would not break into our dreams and wake us up felt like an award.
I felt the calm sea outside my cabin walls just rolling the boat a bit, took a few deep breaths and off I went. Sailing into new unexplored seas in the endless sea of the dreams…

YOU!!! You don't go anywhere - soon an sailing evaluation and update on my present life will be online. Feel life and do stay around for more thoughtful stories on sbock.hugbucket.com.  

Part 8, Sailing Las Palmas, Spain – Santa Maria, Cape Verde.

Nov. 19^th 2010

Yeah, our sail looked like sh*t but a few square meters were still working for us...

Sleeping 3 ½ hours in one go felt so good and I could have continued several more hours if it wasn’t for that stupid whistle again. Apparently there was no way my sub consciousness could incorporate and make this sudden sound natural in my dreams.

I had to get up – It was 06.00 o’clock again. A moment later I sat in front of the wheel surrounded by darkness and the sound of the sea. The red light from the compass was the only light apart from some blinking stars. Gunnar had on his 4 hour shift been blessed the appearance of porpoise (the look of a small black dolphin), flying fishes and ships passing far away. Well during my next 4 hours of duty I was offered was a sunrise 07.40 hours on my port side AND two birds at some point on the starboard side. That’s 4 hours of entertainment right there…

At 09.30 we had sailed for 7 days and had 169 nautical miles left (313 km). During the last 10 hours we had eaten up 35 miles which we found quite astonishing in our miserable condition having just 10% of front sail and the main sail cover working for us… Luckily current, wind and waves all went at our destinations direction. 

I had my breakfast; cornflakes with lukew… no wait. The milk was actually cold this time. We must have forgotten to turn off the fridge during the night.

During the day the waves calmed down even more which meant that we more or less could stand and walk normal just minding that one hand for the boat in case of a little rolling. It was a relief for sure. When I turned in for my 4 hours of shift at 14.00 I tightened the steering wheel and to my pleasant surprise it actually quite accurately kept the course for the next 50 minutes without my interventions. Great! Now for the first time on the tour I could relax, chat and enjoy. I cut my nails. 

The boat was in fact equipped with a self steering system. However only the first day we had time and energy to play a little with it without succeeding to get it to work properly. Anyway with the waves we had ever since, it probably would not have worked anyway.

Sheilah for the first time in more than 7 days of sailing made hot food for us in the kitchen. My rice from yesterday was accompanied with eggs and some meat; bacon! Due to the calm weather it was also first time on the voyage that we could eat together. This was what we had waited so long for and what we in the beginning of the trip expected the voyage would be like.

Soon the entire sky was painted in golden, red and orange colors by the sunset. The all day blue sky transformed magically thin long clouds to a painting worth scenery. It almost was as if the sky was bleeding as the colors got darker and darker. The day died. It was truly beautiful and unforgettable. I realized being one with nature experiencing sunrise and sunsets every day is a priceless gift. It makes it up for all the rough times – Thank you where or whoever you are!

sunset in calm weather - 100% peace

Takes my breath away...

Heaven is bleeding.. the day is dying. And our sail is making us look like pirates;)

Gold in the sky

I only harvested one hour of sleep before my watch started at 22.00 hours… and what a watch. Nothing was going on. It was all quiet and the steering was pretty much steady just by fixing the wheel. Finally I could do what I always thought the night shifts were made for; reading. I was excited by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her book called the Nomad. I just checked the heading for every page I turned. It was a sublime shift!

All of a sudden 4 hours were gone and I could jump into 3 ½ hours of relaxing sleep in a steady boat.

Stay tuned - we are close to seeing land and the end of this sailing journey. Will update soon.