Life on-board Ia Orana

It’s from a quiet little harbour, Cartagena, in Spain that I’m finally taking a little break to give you some news.

We arrived last Thursday, or was it Wednesday? – don’t know, we lose track of time… The minute we had set foot on earth, two kids of the age of Xavier and Aurore arrived from their boat right next to ours to welcome us. And an hour or so later, arrived the boat L’Oiseau de Passage, part of Festina Lente fleet, a sailing festival that we had been following since they had come to Marseille. Total coincidence.. but such a wink!!

So now, we are in between two friend-boats and we are unable to leave. The city is so welcoming, plenty of things to visit, a really charming downtown, and…. Friends. “Come and have some drinks on our boat tonight! – Ok tomorrow on ours!”. This is what we needed, what we’re seeking. Meeting people with which there’s a lot less barriers than on earth, and a lot in common.

It’s also a few very relaxing days after two weeks of somehow intensive sailing. Yes we did stop in the Balearics, but it was always quick and because of the weather. We also stopped in Alicante, for the name (Moitessier, our leading light, sailed from Tahiti to Alicante), and also because during our crossing from Ibiza to Cartagena, at 10pm, suddenly, our automatic pilot dropped us. We were supposed to arrive the next evening around 11pm. We steered the whole night like this, and it was ok, with a few plans B: in order to make myself a cup of tea, I managed to trap the helm (PL: ster) as you can see on the picture with a couple of knots to keep it steady.

But in the morning, when the little one, Augustin woke up and went straight to the front, you imagine me shouting at him “come back, come back!” but stuck at the helm… By chance, there was little wind, and I passed the helm on to Aurore and went to get the baby. Impossible to spend a whole day like that, with always one of us steering, and the other one taking some rest. So we re-routed towards Alicante, where we arrived around 2pm and had our pilot repaired.

You might be thinking we’re taking our time, but in fact we’ve been feeling in a rush! Distances by boat are really, really, not to be evaluated the same way as by car/train/bus… If you look at our journey, imagine that every day, you arrive in a place, and the next day, you leave. First because I had some commitment for work that made us hurry to Morocco. And secondly because we totally depend on winds. And if they are favorable, then we have to move on, otherwise we could stay stuck for days. In the end, we’ve been very lucky with the kinds of winds we got, never over 25 knots, most of the time 13-15kn (1kn = 1.8 km/h) and we feel we’ve done some miles.

So, how is life on-board:

Sleep… We started with 220 nautical miles (nM – 1nM = 1.8km) of crossing from Marseille to Minorca. This kind of navigation means that there’s always one of us parents awake while the other is sleeping, and this, with a change every 3 hours. At night, it has been rather calm until now; you mainly need to take care of cargos who will not re-route even if you’re sailing (international rules of priorities normally give full priority to those moving with sails rather than engine).

Now during the day, and more specially when the kids wake up, you are all alone handling the boat, and also breakfast and “silence, daddy’s sleeping!”. At home, I used to have all the breakfast tools easy to catch for kids. Unfortunately in the boat, all the wardrobes open only from the top with a special lock that avoids opening while sailing. The “get it yourself” strategy will have to wait a few centimeters more!

Then, we’re here for long. So it’s not holidays anymore. School…

After sleeping by tranches of 3 hours, it’s really hard to put them to work. And imagine my poor Maxime (5 y.o) who knows how to read – cool! – but really needs training with his writing, when I ask him to write lines of ‘A’s and the boat is moving and heeling (PL: przechyłu statku) !! Now we’ve stopped for a few days, it’s much easier; school from 10am to 1pm every day, and depending on our availability, we split the subjects: I do French, Religion and Languages (now it’s Spanish), and Momo does Maths, History and Science. But here, our history sessions were live, with visits in museums and Roman ruins.

Cooking… or rather finding ideas, my nightmare!! At the beginning it was rice at lunch and pasta for dinner. Slowly we’re getting to a little more gastronomy as I get used to an “inclined kitchen”. Unfortunately we haven’t caught any fish yet – don’t worry, we will make sure you are aware when it happens ;)

But we’ve been able to find some good recipe ideas. And I hear at every meal: “Mummy, what you prepared is terribly DE-LI-CI-OUS!” I couldn’t have got a better compliment! In the end, you manage as much in the boat’s kitchen, than at home. It’s just a discipline – that the kids are starting to catch! –hand-wash, dry and store right after the meals. Kids ahve learned to help, and that's one battle won!

Finally, navigating with kids is not such a challenge.

They have been all quite sick the first few navigations, but sleep is the best remedy. One day, we had quite a lot of wind, with rather big waves from the back. They were a little scared, and were all feeling a bit groggy. Suddenly, dolphins, right next to the boat, surfing on the waves, passing under, and… Jump! Thank you Mother Nature for helping us! They participate more and more in the actual sailing, and it’s really pleasant to see them learn so fast. Augustin has found his stability and moves around now with no problem. Our belief that children adapt to any new context, as long as their parents show conviction, is really confirmed.

Now you certainly have questions or topics, that I didn't think of. Don't hesitate to ask in the comments box below!

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