Post 14

Johnnie Unitas’s Birthday!

Today is May 7, 2023. It’s been a busy few days since my last update. Here are a few highlights to bring you up to speed.

First, remember the flying monkeys in the “Wizard of Oz”? They scared the shite out of me when I was a child. They always seemed to me to be saying, “we are coming for you my pretty and bad thing are gonna happen!”

Well….we don’t have flying monkeys out here in the ocean but there are a shite load of flying fish and while steering at night from the open cockpit, you begin to think them darn fish are the flying monkeys from Wizard of Oz!  It is actually very nice steering by the stars at night, until a dam fish flies across and lands on the boat and you hear the flapping wings on the deck until you don’t. Then in the morning you clean off the deck and count how many there were.

Second update is that the darn tomatoes have been whining for more shade. So we finally agreed to give them the shaded half of the outdoor table. The good news is that we have eaten all of the tomatoes that we picked up  in France. So that means we have been sailing for 2.5 weeks since we left La Rochelle. Remember from my last post on how to keep time that 1 kilo of tomatoes equals about 1+ week of sailing time. I think we had 2 kilos of tomatoes when we left France.

Third update on a positive side, we caught the westerly winds of the Saharan Desert and are now in the next stage of our Just Live Transatlantic Crossing Adventure.

For centuries, sailors have been searching for the perfect wind to help them cross the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. And for many of them, the Westerly winds of the Saharan Desert have been the answer. These winds blow westward across the Atlantic from Africa, creating a natural highway for sailing vessels.

And we were finally there! Two plus weeks after leaving port in La Rochelle France, we caught the westerly winds to leave the European coast and sunsets behind us, sailing Just Live into sunsets for the next few weeks. The next stage of our adventure is underway.  We were ready for the long journey that is still ahead.

But as we started sailing west into the open ocean, we were about to realize that the voyage would be much more challenging than we had anticipated- as if sailing 5000 nm across the open ocean wasn’t already a big enough challenge.

The first few days were relatively calm as we continued our routine of navigating by auto pilot from inside the main salon, out of the elements.

So the fourth update (and this one is a reel bummer), you will notice above that I said we are now steering manually from the open cockpit. See what I mean about the flying monkeys/fish…”Bad things are about to happen my pretty.” And they did!

A few days later, in choppy windy seas, sailing at a comfortable pace with the sun starting to rise……our auto pilot quit. 

We quickly got things under control and began trouble shooting the problem.

After some early morning research in pitching seas, we concluded that we will be steering by hand for the next 30+ days, i.e., 3000 miles. With three of us onboard that means 1000 miles each.

Without an auto-pilot, we now take our 3-hour watch up top outside at the wheel, steering Just Live manually.  Well, I wanted to take time to workout on this trip and now I will get 9 hours per day (or 1000 miles) steering through these following seas. :)

Finally for the fifth update, today is Johnnie Unitas’s birthday- the greatest quarter back that ever lived!  He and I were both born on May 7th! Pretty cool, I think.  And what better way to spend my birthday than following a dream of a lifetime - sailing (manually like our forefathers) across the Atlantic Ocean. 

It is a journey that will test even the most seasoned sailors, but one that is well worth the effort for those who love the thrill of the open ocean.

Cheers,

Paul

P.S. Remember, you can click on this tracker link to follow us across the Atlantic on an interactive map via Iridium Go - thanks to Captain Anthony.