Cantare - Day 1 - Speed Record

Position: 1400 UTC N 026° 46' W 017° 14'Today it is 13 days since I started calling Cantare my home, and I think I'm falling in love. In love with this way of living and all the wonderful and inspiring people around me. I must admit that it was with mixed feelings that I boarded the plane in Copenhagen; excited, focused and nervous all at once. But as soon as I saw Maria and Sofia at the Las Palmas airport all of my worries disappeared. I can't remember the last time I felt so warmly welcomed. Not only by Maria and Sofia but also by their new extended family and the Cantare blog readers. Now we have left Las Palmas, all of the festivities, our friends and family behind us and are heading towards our greatest adventure - the Atlantic Ocean. Right now I'm sitting in the sunny cockpit,. read more...

Cantare - Day 2 - The sixth sense

Position: 1330 UTC N 025° 57' W 019° 14'This night I woke up for no reason, looked around the dimly lit interior and felt that something was wrong. I wasn't covered in pear so it had to be something else, but what? After a few minutes my head got clearer and I realized that the red led light beside the battery switches wasn't glowing. The red light indicates that the house batteries are being charged. I stumbled out of my bunk and went over to the resistors, which converts excess electricity to heat, but they weren't warm. This meant that DuoGen, our water generator, wasn't working. Later I found out that the propeller wasn't moving and I thought I could see a piece of rope around it, but I decided to leave the repairing till the morning light. I don't know why, but everything that goes. read more...

Cantare - Day 3 - Sunny Day in the Atlantic Ocean

Position: Good morning everybody, it is a beautiful morning in the Atlantic Ocean. The sun is shining, the sky is blue and we have increased our speed a little! We are all starting to adopt to this kind of rolling sailing life, and yesterday we started practising our planned watch schedule. Emelie starts her watch 06.00-11.00, then I do the 11.00-16.00, Maria is on 16.00-21.00 and then the night watches start at 21.00-24.00 (Emelie) 24.00-03.00 (Sofia) and 03.00-06.00 (Maria). Deckhand Emelie is doing great, she has done the night watch all by herself now, with Maria and I taking turn about being on duty, which means sleeping fully dressed with lifejacket on, so we can get up in the cockpit as quick as possible if she would need any assistance. But so far so good, Emelie hasn't had to. read more...

Cantare - Day 4 - A wet day

Today is yet another day at the sunny Atlantic. Maria is doing some navigation in the cockpit, Sofia is on watch and I'm working on my tan. We have finally gotten stronger winds and our speed is increasing again. Since last afternoon we have sailed 128 nautic Miles. That's quite good. Hopefully better than some of the other boats in the ARC at least. Unfortunately the stronger winds also means bigger waves. This morning on my watch I sat in the aft of the boat just as usual listening to some good music, looking at the stars above. All of a sudden a huge wave came and washed all over the boat, leaving me soaking wet. I guess I should be happy, since I really need a shower after four days at sea, but I wasn't expecting it like this. Since everything looked fine and we were doing great. read more...

Cantare - Day 5 - What really happened in Las Palmas?

Since we had too little time left for blog writing in Las Palmas, I promised you a little summary of the weeks in Las Palmas, which I will try to give you now. Maria and I arrived little earlier than Emelie and the opening of the ARC weeks in order to get as much as possible done on the boat, or that was at least our intended plan. But apparently, two girls sailing alone tend to attract attention, and a lot of people were interested in hearing our story over a drink, consequently, the first days in Las Palmas was a lot about socialization. However, we did put early alarms every day and tried to get as much work done on the boat as we could every day before socialization. It worked out pretty well even though our sleep accounts got quite overdrawn. One of the first to welcome us in Las. read more...