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18 days, an 11 Meter Boat, 3 people and Lots of Fun
Day 0 - Preparing to Leave
Today is a big day because tomorrow we want to leave to cross the Atlantic with the Tarpan. But before leaving we have to buy food, lots and lots of food, and also drinking water and things like beer and Coca Cola. There's a lot to do before we can leave.
Day 1 - Leaving Mindelo
Today's the day and we're finally leaving the harbour of Mindelo Cape Verde for the big adventure of crossing the Atlantic. Everything is stocked up and ready but we are a big group of people who want to cross together, which makes starting much more difficult.
Day 2 - Out at Sea
Today the feeling started to sink in that this is going to be the place where we will be spending the next two and a half weeks together.
Day 3 - Fish or no Fish
In the morning we put out the fishing lines every day. Fish usually hunt during sunrise and sunset and so at least during those times we try to have our lines set up with good bait. And this time, we actually caught something.
Day 4 - Fish for Real
I get woken up by Christian screaming for help. Both Rebecca and I are up immediately and run on deck to see what's going on. Fish. Not one, but two have bitten, one on each line. Two at the same time! It's said that Mahi Mahi, big golden mackerels.
Day 6 - Seagrass Fishing
It's been a few days at sea now. 6 to be exact and there are about 12 more to go until we reach our goal of Guadeloupe. It's late at night and I am sitting here during another night watch.
Day 7 - Crazy Hats
Today Christian did the most kickass recipe with the old, leftover bread. It's a German dish, called Scheiterhaufen and it's essentially old bread with sugar and butter and eggs, put into the oven together with some sour cherries. And the result is amazing.
Day 8 - Sunrise Magic
Today was an interesting day, beautiful sunrise, and I had the morning watch so I could witness and take it all in, in perfect solitude. French Kiwi Juice on my headphones, watching the clouds and the waves and the sails in the wind.
Day 9 - Sailing Maneuvers
Today I was woken up in the very middle of the night and my sleep by Rebecca screaming something about the autopilot not working anymore or something. I thought I dreamt it only, but still went out to look and it actually didn't work anymore and she was steering manually.
Day 10 - Dolphins
This day was without doubt one of the most eventful days of the whole journey, because so many beautiful things happened and everything all at once on the same day. I woke up because of a loud banging noise on the hull of the ship.
Day 11 - Christians Ciabatta Bread
Today was a special day. So many small things happened that made the day perfect and beautiful that I am smiling with a big smile while writing this during my night shift. The day started with me having the morning shift.
Day 12 - Surfing the Waves
Today I woke up to see the sunrise after the morning watch had just ended. The sea has this particular golden pattern and color in the morning and I could just sit there for hours and watch the patterns of the waves dance around and play with the liquid golden sunlight.
Day 13 - A Day of Reading
Today was one of the most uneventful days so far. Nothing broke on the boat to fix, nothing to steer, no sail changes. It's like all of us today just went into an introspective mode. Reading, writing diary, listening to music.
Day 14 - Double Rainbows
Today's day started with my morning watch. And in the background there were dark ominous clouds about one hour and a half into my watch.
Day 15 - Chasing the storm clouds
The first thing to tell about today is from the night shift itself. I went to bed after my night shift ended at around 04:30, only to wake up again almost immediately after because I could hear how the wind picked up and Christian tried to bring in the sails.
Day 16 - More stormy weather
Today was another day of quickly changing clouds and stormy weather. And the winds shifted too much today, so that we needed to also change our sailing configuration to a mainsail/foresail combination.
Day 17 - Swimming in the Deep End
This morning is beautiful. Serene. The sun rises while the moon sets. By now the moon is gone. There's almost no wind and the sea is calm. So calm. No waves and just the soft light of the morning sun give the waves and the water a hypnotic effect. The color of deep blue.