The Atlantic Crossing

Last you heard from us we still had not left Cap Verde. We had a little funny event that you must hear about.

René and Michal had spent most of their Sunday trudging through most of Porto Grande together with two local chaps, Joe and Mani. We wanted to get a hole at the port railing plugged (it is very annoying when the water runs in!!!) The task was now to find a welding equipment and a welder as well. The two guys were very helpful in finding a welder and a welding plant. On this "sightseeing" René and Michal were dragged through some of the poorest parts of Mindelos. It ended up with 4 men, Joe, Mani, the welder and the owner of the welding equipment. The welder’s vocabulary was limited to YES and COOL. This made the communication a bit difficult. Joe and Mani acted as interpreters and the work proceeded. 5 hours later everybody were ready for a knock off beer in the cockpit. The price was 4000 Cap Verde escudos (about 30 USD). We had to pay in two instalments because it was Sunday and we could not get money from the bank. We paid 1700 ecu Sunday and Joe returned Monday and got the last 2300, they knew from the beginning that we had to do it this way. But then Joe came back later and demanded further 1000 for his work!! After a long argument René gave him 600 and he left. At night a boat came with a policeman- why we could not understand. We were about to believe that we were victims of a conspiracy. Skippers had to use big words in trying to convince the policeman about the fact that we had paid the "group" and we were not responsible for their distribution of the money. But that was not the policeman’s attitude!! So we had to go to the Chief Constable first thing in the morning. Dennis and René reported at his office Tuesday morning but Joe and the welder did not show up (just what we had expected). The Chief Constable claimed that we had to pay him 2300(150 dkr) or we would not leave the island with our ship's papers and an exit permit. This could cause problems in the Caribbean. We were not able to get a receipt!!! So we had no choice, we had to pay although we on grounds of principle should not.

Tuesday 3 pm we left Cap Verde and a trip of 2109 miles waited ahead. The crossing took 20 days and we arrived at Tobago 13 December. Between these two dates 5 crewmembers had an experience that only weakly can be described on paper. 20 days at sea can seem very alike and in order to avoid to much rattling off we divide the experience according to topics.

The wind is the sovereign element for this trip. Most longtripsailers describe the North-East trade wind as a good, stable and reliable wind with a force of 3-5 beau fort. The crew of Dream regards the trade wind as unpredictable, unstable and at times non-exiting. This year, as you probably have guessed, we have had atypical winds. Some examples, within 24 hours we had winds from all the four quarters of the globe, 48 hours of dead calm- and now we are talking of an Atlantic sea with absolutely no ripples, high winds in addition to tropical rain so heavy that the ditches along the boat were turned into small rivers. During these heavy showers we took up a sympathetic attitude because it felt like a huge shower with all the lukewarm water you wanted. Everything was washed in fresh water – bodies, clothes, cushions and the boat itself. During these extremes quick actions are often demanded. We learned that when a minor tear in the light weather genoa jib caused that 3 naked men with shampoo in their hair had to struggle in order to save the sail quickly. In order to show his loyalty the helmsman also wore his birthday suit. On 3.Decemberin one of the biggest natural phenomenon’s arrived. Michal woke up the entire boat at 7.15 announcing that a tornado was lying ahead on the port side. We were all paralysed and fascinated by the forces of nature- and instead of acting and tear the sails down everyone grasped for his camera and clicked. We were so close that we see the column whipping in the sea like a huge mixer and the sea around the column was filled with particles of water. Fortunately the tornado disintegrated about 4-5 miles away. On closer examination the tornado is renamed to a waterspout which can do up to 80 km an hour. Usually it lasts no more than a quarter of an hour but is able to do a lot of harm in that period of time. Our encounter with the waterspout had a happy ending and stayed at the same course. Dead calm is a total contrast to the high winds in a waterspout and is less dangerous but to be becalmed is probably the most psychical fatiguing situation when you are at sea in a sailboat. You set sail but they rattle and make a lot of noise constantly. You take the sails and you get nowhere. No matter what you do it does not work.

We had this experience within a period of 48 hours with sails up and down and we the fact that we made a distance of 70 miles was only due to the continuous current which luckily went west.

Fortunately we only had a total loss of wind these 48 hours but the first ten days we only had a very gentle breeze and constantly we had to shift sails concurrently with the change of winds. In a situation like this it is very necessary that the crew encourage each other otherwise we all end up in terribly low spirits. Senne´s guitar did it very well.

No matter whether it is in calm or stormy weather one man must be on the look-out. A new ting on board is that according to the duty roster one man is on duty during daytime and two men are on duty at night (10pm-6am). This plan gave more resting time between the watches and furthermore we could have the same watches every day. It is very necessary to have worked in a circadian rhythm so that you exactly know when to rest and when to "work". The only one without a fixed watch plan is our sixth man "Harry" known as the wind rudder. He is on duty constantly. He only demands a bit of oil, a little caring and a wind of minimum 3m/sec. The hours where Harry takes the duty at the helm is in countable but if it had to be replaced the trip would have been quite different. It gives a lot of freedom and we would be very sorry to be without. It provides us with the opportunity of dining together which is of great importance for the social life onboard. But even with a wind rudder it can be scarce with only one or two men on watch. In extreme situations it is necessary to call the others in order to take part in the working of the sails. This was necessary when the weather sheets to spinnaker decided to disappear one dark night with a good northeast wind. Dennis was on watch when it happened. A slam was heard and Dennis called for help and at max 2 minutes later the spinnaker was lying on deck. Everybody was on deck. The same thing happened when our tiller broke- no panic because we could steer by the wheel and two hours later Harry took over again.

When you use things they get worn and this happened to our nice D-shell, the spinnaker on the 29, Nov. We had to make big repairs. "King of sails", Senne, and "Queen of sails", Dennis, cut off the torn pieces, strengthened it with tape and now we just had to sew 8m by hand. A job we took on turns and we broke 4-5 needles. We managed to get it done and the "shell" is again flying in front of our ship.

We have been lucky enough to catch fish and of course this has had a great effect on our nutrition. To catch your own fish and prepare it with lots of exquisite spices gives you a good feeling. At the second day at sea we were about to catch 2 big fish but we lost them both together with our new bought bait. Dennis learned from this experience and the next day we used heavier equipment. The next day we caught 8 doradoes. The biggest was 4-5 kilos. Now we had meat!! After this we caught fish every other day mostly dorado. The culminating point arrived at 4.Dec when we got a 109cm Wahoo. This needed teamwork and offered food for 2½ days. GREAT!!!

When we had no wind we got no fish and had to eat canned food. Vegetables and spices can turn the lousiest can into a delicious meal. Supplementary was fresh baked black bread every other day.

One of the biggest "events" on this trip was when we reached the midway mark. The GPS showed 1054 miles to Tobago. We shot a bottle of chilled champagne open and the bottle was tossed around even Harry got a sip. We took lots of pictures and everybody was in high spirits. The same feeling came when we were within sight of Tobago and it was a great pleasure when we dropped the anchor outside Scarborough. There was only one sailor besides from us, a nice place to arrive at. It felt like paradise lots of palm trees, white beaches all over vigorous.

That was all for now. Merry Christmas and a Happy New year to you all. We thank you all for your greetings. It is so nice to receive news- please continue