Bluenote: Atlantic encounters

May 2017, Saint Martin faded gently into the distance. We were close-hauled and it was quite uncomfortable.  On the second day, we heard the fishing line run out. By the time we grabbed the rod to stop it, ‘snap’, the line had broken. Later it happened for a second time, but the fish managed to unhook itself. Then in the middle of the afternoon, the third time was lucky, with a nice dorado. During the first three days, the sea was rough and choppy, stopping us from sailing Bluenote at the speed it required. The boat slammed, we felt a bit like a cork floating in a boiling pan of water, thrown around in all directions. The wind blowing, the wind generator, the boom rattling, the water running along the hulls and hitting the boat, sometimes very hard - we were alone in the middle of the ocean, and there was more noise than in an airport! We finally found a much more comfortable point of sail under gennaker. I had wondered what I was going to feel in the middle of such a huge expanse of water, with nothing as far as the eye can see. Well finally, the horizon is quite close. We were low in the water, and couldn’t see very far; we even had the impression that it was a little higher than us, because of the waves. I felt as if I was in a perpetual washbowl, in a bubble, the center of the world. The sky and the horizon moved with us, I sometimes wondered whether we were really moving. It was a pleasant feeling. Our world at that moment was very small, amounting to the boat and the two or three kilometers around us…

Thirteenth day. A few meters from us, a ring of foam and bubbles was slowly disappearing. We watched. Finally, an enormous light-colored shape appeared to starboard, a few meters away; it got bigger and finally broke the surface: a whale!  At nightfall, the sea rewarded us with a last surprise. They were a good hundred meters away, but we were certain; they were killer whales. A few hours later, we furled the sails and entered the port at Horta. Once anchored and the engines switched off, the silence was incredible, and Thomas and I both felt we were going to sleep well! 

Who: Marthe, Thomas, Georges.

Where: North Atlantic, from the West Indies to the Azores.

Boat: Looping 15 m

Blog: www.bluenoteenmer.blogspot.com