Sea to Sky - An Electronic Postcard from the Atlantic

It’s safe to say that the days at sea are inevitably and slowly starting to melt together. It’s getting harder to distinguish between today, yesterday, and last week. I’m starting to understand how so many sailors start to hallucinate on long journeys. Just the other day my Mom was positively convinced that there was a massive iceberg and a range of mountains looming over our boat, but it was a mirage of clouds at sunrise. The highlights of my days have become sending and receiving satellite emails. Funny enough, I normally couldn’t be bothered to check my email at home. It’s interesting to see how such a minuscule part of life is magnified amidst the waves. In an exciting turn of events, we caught our first fish today! Sadly, we all found the shimmery green Dorado too pretty to eat and decided to throw it back into the ocean. The winds have been relatively light for the past few days and we were slowly inching along at 3 knots the majority of the time. We calculated that at that speed, it would take us roughly 38 days to reach Saint Lucia so I’m eagerly anticipating our arrival well into the new year.

It seems that nothing but vast, blue waters stretch out for eternity all around us. So far the ocean has been humbling and calm. The sky is so different out here and we have been regularly sharing our sunsets with pods of dolphins. As the sun slips deep beneath the horizon, the sky rapidly comes to life. The clouds transforms from white to neon colours only ever found in candy stores. It seems almost as if someone has climbed up through the sky, stood atop a cloud, and poured down buckets of multicoloured paint. Watching the stars at night is mind-blowing and grounding as my mind slowly tries to wrap around the complexity and sheer size of the universe. It’s hard to describe how vibrant and breathtaking the sky appears from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

There are obviously annoyances like almost constantly feeling seasick and secretly wondering whether we’ll ever really get to the other side. Although I know that this is most likely the farthest I’ll ever be from the rest of mankind and the closest I’ll ever be to absolute serenity. So as eager as I am to arrive in Saint Lucia, I’m also desperately trying to savour this incredible journey.

Danika Boucher, 16, “Sea to Sky"