can we help
+44(0)1983 296060
+1 757-788-8872
tell me moreJoin a rally

Menu

Mon Reve - Blog Part 1



I counted twenty-two-thousand-five-hundred-thirty-eight flying flags in the forest of two-thousand-three-hundred and twenty-seven masts and beams laying orderly in the Muelle de Portivo des Las Palmas, from where we all depart for our transatlantic adventure in a few days ahead of us.

But before we can hoist the sails and catch the winds we all need to prepare our ships and fit them to our offshore homes. I am sure, to some of my new neighbours on pontoon 17 this is ”Business as usual”, but for me the idea is as novel as the thought must have been for Columbus’s friends, that sailing into the setting sun will prepare the arrival in the Land of the rising sun.

However, the quest for novelty is the foundation of any enterprise and adventure that I have been on and therefore I remain curious and happy to have arranged my life in order to arrive in Las Palmas on time.

In our case the forty-three feet Catamaran Mon Reve will carry us to the Cabo Verde Islands, before we set sails to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

But first things first; we are a crew of four. All handpicked by our Captain Günter who has sailed Mon Reve in Greece for the last seven years and brought her through Gibraltar to Las Palmas together with his wife, who unfortunately can not join us for the big ride.

Nevertheless, Gaby sent her brother Georg to join the crew, a fine man with many skills and an offshore sailing Greenhorn just like me. Günter brought his primary school friend Brigitte on board, who on the other hand has legendary tails to tell from voyages back and forth, the big pond. I came on board through a friend of a friend and a friendly e-mail to Günter and shall remain the secret ingredient in this fabulous potion. 

Meanwhile I counted four trips to town with a small white Ford Combo car that we rented. We anchored and hunted for food and prey in the huge Centro Commerciales along the four-lane ocean drive of the City of Las Palmas. We bought two hundred and eighty litres of bottled drinking water, ordered Canary steaks and cigars, filled a net full of oranges, lemons, limes apples, pomegranate, kaki, pineapples, yellow and green most delicious African bananas and a bottle of Gin to prevent ourselves from scurvy, malaria and other diseases sneaking up from the depth of the rotten waters and mouldy equatorial latitudes. We filled a fridge full of the finest Earl Grey Tea leaves, Moroccan almonds, olives and dried fruits. We hanged three-hundred-and-twenty-five salamis and forty-nine half pound lomos in our starboard hull, just because we can and must have lost all sense of quantities really.

Wednesday and Thursday went by in no time, with seminars to attend and a gathering at the swimming pool, which gave an opportunity to the two Greenhorns of our crew to enter a life raft and get instructions on how to jump into the water with an inflated lifejacket. – In general an exercise amusing to practice in a pool, but terrifying already in the slightest form of imagination, that this could lead the way out of a life threatening situation or vice versa. It is so absurd, that some of the good humour and much appreciated know-how handed down by the ARC Yellow-shirts was the only way to not check out from the adventure, but continue the preparations until last minute. Probably the word procrastinating does not even exist in a sailor’s dictionary, because preparing is the one duty done at all times. Somehow this is not any different on my Fireball dingy or on any other vessel I spot around pontoon 17.

Most likely it would be of no interest to anyone reading, that we spent a fantastic time in town, visiting a guitar shop, the most original canary tobacco dealer  and the local fresh food market, doing laundry and running to the skippers briefing just in time to fetch the latest news before departure, but because it was good fun and helped to get to know each other better, I want to keep the memory alive. 

After an incredible and generous party night at the club with the ARC crowd and the best ever heard Freddy Mercury cover, we spent a last night at the Sailors Bay, drinking beers, talking to the stranded mermaids working behind the bar and were wondering, what all the caps hanging on the ceiling mean. Were those the last remains washed ashore of sailors trying to do what we are about to set sails for? Were they the evidence of those who came back the year after, with an addiction to participate in the ARC rally again, leaving something behind in hope for fair winds and good luck? We never figured it out, but if I come back one fine day. I will throw my anchor at the Sailors Bay, order some pork and hope that some mermaids are there to draft beer for me again. 

 

When I Google searched “ARC” and “ARC Las Palmas” a few weeks ago, I found several rather dull videos showing the fleet departing. Basically what was on the tape was one boat after the other leaving the marina, while some friends and fans stand on the moorings and cheer for those setting sail. Still, the video I find boring to watch, however the memory of standing on deck during departure, blowing the horn at those on the mooring and receiving cheerful farewell applause and whistles, will remain for a lifetime and still leaves goose bumps behind, when I think about our own departure. The Mon Reve crew was in particular lucky that day, because our friends Ulli and Martina accompanied us in their dingy for half a mile out of the marina.

 

The ARC is race. And there is absolutely no doubt that we won’t win this rally!  Not a single statistical model would predict any odds against us. The material, the crew, the experience, the ambition and not to mention the limited quantities of personal equipment and stored food on board are all optimized, trained and stand in favour for us. Therefore we are absolutely glad that we crossed the starting line under sail and left a rather good first impression. We then immediately positioned ourselves perfectly in the wind, trimmed the sails and were so occupied with sailing and working, that we missed the spectacular view and the amazing feeling of leaving Las Palmas astern, together with the rest of the ARC+ fleet departing for Capo Verde.

Sunday was full of Sunday’s sunny spells and fair winds. We were immediately instructed and familiarized with the sailing of the Mon Reve catamaran by our captain Günter and hoisted beside the genoa also the gennaker sail. We turned more and more south in the hope to circumnavigate the calm zones and  enter into the zones of good north-easterly winds. We watched out for the acceleration zones mentioned by Chris during the seminars and also in the skipper’s briefing and were slowly entering the hour of the setting sun.

This would be my first night at sea under sails. I was a bit nervous, not scared though, but the idea of sailing through dark waters and into the open sea, was strange at first. Meanwhile I have adjusted to the night cruise and it became my favourite hour of the day during the first leg of the rally. The first few nights we did double watches because the Greenhorns had to learn the duties, become comfortable with the darkness and familiarized with the job. What I enjoy in particular during the night shifts is the focus on the sailing. In dingy sailing gaining control over the boat and using a single or double hand strength to tame the wind in the sails and flit over the waters, awakes the adrenalin and therefore makes the sport an experience.

 

Tankers, cargo freighters, fellow sailors and other events appearing on the radar, might disturb the peace during a night shift, but in-between there are these wonderful moments when I feel extremely tiny and unimportant in this vast world, but simultaneously radiated with endless joy and happiness, because we circumnavigate through the darkness, which is lit-up by at least a billion visible stars.

The starry skies are so generous and gorgeous that I have been staring into them for hours and must have lost the sense for the horizon they project. The shield of the Orion star-sign might also appear as full-blown sail of an accident bark crossing the ocean of a trillion stars hidden in the Milky Way. Planets appear like sparkling rubies, ready to get picked from the sky and put under the binocular. The one star rising in the east just before day breaks the night, the morning star, is so bright and clear that it could be the little sister of the moon. However, the worst of the nights at sea are the countless shooting stars, that have troubled my brain night after night, resulting in a complete change of my whish-making system. Therefore I created a cast system with three buckets.

First, if I do notice a shooting star just for a split second far-off in the sky, I would reach into the bucket with primary and immediate wishes such as: Fair winds, no emergencies on board, a big fish biting the hook, good luck for the rally and so on.

Further, if my eyes catch one of the shooting stars quite visible for about a second with a short tail, I grab into the bucket of secondary wishes: A joy full trip across the Atlantic, a visit by dolphins, a great time in Saint Lucia and Cuba after the rally, that my PhD project is going according to plans after my return to Switzerland, that my paintings continue selling well in the near and far future and many more.

However, there are these magnificent kinds of shooting stars, which make my world collapse, because they are an absolute novelty to me. They appear extremely close-by and one could be afraid, that they would hit a hole into the boat. They are fireworks or rockets shooting down through the spheres with long bright tails illuminating the sky and leaving me in deep awe. If I spot one of those I reach deep into the bucket filled with precious and tightly sealed secret wishes.

 

When the nights are over and the rest of the crew is crawling out of their beds onto the deck, because the smell of toasted bread and coffee is flooding the hulls, the wonderful time of breakfast has arrived. Fruit salads, cereals, cheese, bread and even omelettes were served at the table. We enjoy the winds and the waves, the clouds and desperately hope all day for some fish to bite the hook.

We have sailed for most of the time with north-easterly winds, were using our gennaker and genua for a few days as a Passat foresail reaching up to nine knots speed by maximum winds around twenty-three knots. During the first few days we also sailed into a few squalls, which was quite mystical at times to be out on the open water with nothing else, but water on the horizon. When the clouds broke the rain showers appeared like grey curtains falling to the stage in a gigantic opera house with many cloud-creatures watching the drama orchestrated by elements.

From time to time the calm was so bad that we needed to start the engine. At least during the nights we were under sail and in our second night we did well in the rally. We might have been a bit too harsh on the gennaker sail and it snatched, but we are sure to get it fixed in Mindelo before we set sail again. After the bad luck with the gennaker we were forced to sail in front of the wind with the spinnaker. Surprisingly constant winds were in our favour and the performance was acceptable with the limited amounts of winds.

 

The Mon Reve crew was particularly privileged, and we hope that other crews also have such an encounter, because were accompanied and visited by a school of short fin pilot whales surfing beside and around the catamaran for about an hour. This was certainly a most spectacular highlight of this passage to Cabo Verde and we can only hope to enjoy such company again on the second part of the journey. I remember when I talked to the mermaids at Sailors Bay in Las Palmas they revealed a secret spell to me, which allowed us to communicate with the short fin pilot whales, they understood our wizard tongue and carried us for some time like Santa is carried by the reindeers.

The whales were very friendly and joyful creatures and because they did a favour for us by surfing around our catamaran, I promised them to mention that sailors should be helping to keep the oceans clean, not throw litter into the sea and respect the ecosystem as a habitat for many creatures smaller and less spectacular than sea mammals, but of equal beauty and of vital importance to the health of any marine life.

 

Currently we are only a few hours away from Mindelo. One more night shift ahead of me, with a possible chance for me to grab into the wish-buckets again.  Although there is nothing more I could wish for.  Because we had such a good spirit in the crew, we relaxed during the days at sea and enjoyed the working time equally.  We had a blast every single time when Günter made a BBQ on deck, Georg put some magic together in the pantry and Brigitte sliced and diced fruits for salads.

We are all excited to visit Sao Vincente, meet the people and the culture of the Cape Verde Islands, taste the food and visit the project supported by ARC.  I am already curious to arrive at land. How would land smell like after a week at sea? How will my legs feel like after the swell? And most importantly, will I be as excited to leave for the second leg of the passage, as I am excited to continue the sailing at the very moment? We shall see.  O

 

 

 

 



Previous | Next