It’s been a little over a week since I arrived on Triton, a sailboat that comes out as queer and feminist. After a little smooth sailing, it’s time to make our first big crossing together, starting from the island of Yeu, located off the Landes, to Gijon in northern Spain.
At the port, all the neighbors tell us that this crossing is considered complicated, because this part of the Atlantic is very busy…
Get ready for the crossing
On a sailboat, nothing is simple, you have to choose the right departure day to let yourself be carried by the wind (but not too much, it would be dangerous), check that the waves are not too high, too strong, but also prepare the boat to spend three days at sea.
A few days earlier two crew members left us. It is therefore with two stories, Claudi and Sushi, that we are making all these preparations. Hannah, our skipper, is still there.
Having postponed the crossing due to bad weather, a three day window looks good to us to start. We schedule our alarms for 6:30 in the morning. Tomorrow we finally leave!
Logbook of the crossing
7:30 departure
We let go of the moorings and go to the pier intended to refuel with diesel. The maneuver is a little more dangerous than expected, another boat arrives and seems to be in a hurry. Claudi yells “SOU-CE-MENT” at him with German accent to cut with a knife. I laugh to think about it works as well as yelling “calm down” at someone angry. At 7:45 we finally leave the port, but I see Hannah worried because a huge ferry should soon be leaving from the same port across the same channel, and it goes much faster than us. I imagined leaving the port calmer…
8:30, hoist the sails, here we are at sea
here we are outside, hoist the sails and set sail. Well, not exactly the right one, because the wind is not exactly favorable this morning. Too bad, we’ll fix it later.
At 10, Hannah and I take the helm first while our acolytes go back to bed… It’s our first shift. From that moment on, every 4 hours, we exchange in pairs to take turns at the helm, Triton does not have an autopilot.
After 4 hours at the helm, I get on the boat and all of a sudden I don’t feel well at all. I get seasick and think back to a comment that some people have fits of claustrophobia offshore because there is no way out. I have the good idea to remember that I have cloistered tendencies, and that we left for 2 and a half days of sailing.
At 18:00 it finally passes and Hannah and I take the helm again. We witness a magnificent sunset. This crossing will be silent, we feel it!
Midnight : ” Even though I don’t speak German, I suspect there is a BIG problem.”
At 10 pm we go to bed, leaving the others at the helm. Two hours later, while sleeping, I was awakened by “Scheiße! Scheisse!”. The boat begins to rock dangerously and I hear strong gusts of wind. Even though I don’t speak German, I suspect there is a BIG problem. I take out a head and find that the mainsail has ripped. No drama at all (yes), I already imagine my death in the middle of the ocean, my parents’ reaction, and I tell myself it would be a shame to die there, so young.
The others encourage me to go back to bed. Given the wind and waves, it would be dangerous to do anything right away, I might as well rest. I agree to go back to my bunk, but just before entering I joke “Wake me up if we sink”. Nobody laughs.
At 2am I couldn’t sleep and it was my turn to drive until 6am. From time to time, Hannah tells me she sees dolphins around the boats. Not me. I am tired.
When it’s time to hand the helm back to the other team, we take the time to stow away the ripped mainsail. Now we have only one sail to tow us, our sailboat is much less stable and goes slower. We take care of it.
6:30, I go to bed fully clothed. Changing would make me lose minutes of sleep. I. Wants. Sleep. They woke me up at 9.45, soon it was my turn to drive.
18:00: repair of the mainsail
As we hand the wheel back to the other couple, I see Claudi run to the back of the boat and throw up. He said he’d cook us something for lunch, I guess he’s dead. I’m working on it.
At the end of the day, at 6pm, we decided to try to repair the mainsail, but the hole was almost 2 meters long and we were tossed about by the waves… So, while Hannah was helming, Claudi roughly sewed up the hole, and I support Claudi because don’t fall into the ocean. It takes more than 2 hours.
Then the mainsail is hoisted again. We’re feverish, will the seam hold? For now it seems to work. Damn.
At 10pm, I go to bed fully clothed as soon as the other couple takes the helm, until my next shift, which will be with Hannah, is at 2am.
Our time comes, Hannah falls asleep next to me, I feel good, so I let her sleep.
4am: Unidentified ball of light
I wake her up in a panic: there is a ball of light that has suddenly appeared. And what? A large boat that I hadn’t seen? Will it hit us? She takes the binoculars and laughs: it’s the moon. This anecdote is funny, but we have 2 hours left to drive and I start yawning loudly. Finally 6am arrives and I go to sleep until my next shift at 10am when we’ll take the helm again. Nothing happens, we are tired and we don’t dare to listen to music for fear of waking others up. In short, we get a little bored there.
At 14:00 I go to sleep for an hour and when I wake up I feel better. I tell myself (almost) that I’m not tired anymore. Two hours later, as I read, I hear others shouting. We are surrounded by dolphins. They are so cute. We would almost forget another essential piece of information: we have finally arrived in the Spanish maritime territory!
I arrive at the port and… a merchant ship pounces on us
18:00: OK, you can really see the coast, but in the distance we see a large freighter that seems to be heading towards us. Changing course is complicated for us, because it would be difficult to return to port with the wind we have. So, we’re waiting to see if the freighter changes course…
… Which doesn’t seem to happen! I stress to others that we are tiny compared to him, that it doesn’t matter if we waste an hour, they tell me to have more patience. Do I trust their decision? All right.
Finally, after a few minutes, the aforementioned cargo changes course, there are no more risks and the coast is getting closer and closer.
21:00: We tidy the sails, the entrance to the port of Gijon is approaching!
Finally, after 2 and a half days of crossing, we arrive at the port of Gijon. It’s an explosion of joy, we hug each other, we’re super proud of what we’ve accomplished.
Now towards the toilets, the shower and above all our ultimate goal: rest!
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Source: Madmoizelle
Mary Crossley is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. She is a seasoned journalist who is dedicated to delivering the latest news to her readers. With a keen sense of what’s important, Mary covers a wide range of topics, from politics to lifestyle and everything in between.
