Sailing with us
Ding dong, the alarm clock rings.. It's 8, we said we were leaving at 10am.
Up you go kids, come on, breakfast!
Mummy's already preparing lunch, something easy to swallow and with the least dishes possible: today, it's tuna wraps with plenty of carrots and cucumber. Yes, because having boiling water on a heeling gas cooker might be a bit hectic while sailing!
Ok, breakfast is finished, now, wash the dishes and tidy up, please.
The very first thing to have comfortable sailing trip is to have a perfectly tidy boat. I remember that day when a full roasted chicken flew from one end of the saloon to the other, landing on the floor, then sliding back, leaving all it had in fat on the way. Lovely when the boat heels - imagine walking on a 45° leant floor full of grease.
So mum is - for the first time since last time – sweeping the floor. Daddy’s tidying the deck from all our beach and snorkeling material. Accessorily, also putting all the wet laundry back inside..
- Don’t forget to set the staysail! says Mum (it’s a sail for stronger winds - when we need it, it’s never set, when it’s set, we never need it!)
We still have to throw our garbage, and get some bread for tonight and tomorrow. A team of boys goes ashore. In the meantime, the completion inspector ‘Mummy’ goes down inside and finds half the breakfast still on the table, pencils all over the floor and the children reading quietly. You can imagine the lion roar!
OK, I’m having a coffee. The boys come back with bread and a fresh salad. I look at my watch, it’s 11:30am. Let’s go! The boat is impeccable, all the books are well stored in their shelves, the food is in the fridge, the dishes are in their cupboards, the children games are stored under some bed…
We only have 6 to 8 hours of sailing, it will be a real chaos when we arrive, and I know it: plenty of dishes in the sink, half the stuff on the floor, and we’re lucky if we have no vomit on the cushions.
We leave the bay using the engine, once we’ve reached a reasonable distance from the shore, we set the boat facing the wind and raise the main-sail. Then it’s the genoa’s turn. Depending on the wind, we decide whether we put the whole sails or if we take reefs (this means reducing the surface of the sails, because when too much power, then the boat is harder to steer). On our main-sail, we have three reefs, we usually take the first at 17kn, the second at 23-25kn, lower if we expect some rain squalls on the way, and the third when the boat is really hard to steer. On the genoa, it’s furling so if needed we don’t open it in full. We also have a staysail for stronger winds, and a storm-sail, which we haven’t yet used, which is very small and that you carry alone when you simply want to stabilize your boat in big waves.
Our preferred point of sailing is running downwind, when the wind comes from behind (angle with the wind direction between 110° and 160°). Obviously, because the boat heels less, the wind seems less strong than it is, it usually also means the waves come from behind and hit the boat less, it’s simply more comfortable.
Sailing downwind
Sailing frontwind
3 hours later, the boat is all set and shears the waves, the auto-pilot is steering, the children are all lying down around the cockpit, a little groggy. We finally enjoy the breeze, and just sit and watch the sea. No way can we do schooling today… We’ll catch up tomorrow. As long as we have enough speed, the boat will climb up any waves. Sometimes, a wave from the side may hit the boat and splash everyone. Screams and cries. This usually defines the moment when the little ones go inside to sleep. Because yes, sailing makes you really sleepy. Fortunately, not the captain!
After lunch, Augustin, the board griot (a griot is a member of a caste among the peoples of western Africa responsible for maintaining an oral record of tribal history in the form of music, poetry, dance, and story-telling), brings his instruments out, this is his way of passing the time. We’ve got a melodica (also known as the pianica, blow-organ or key-flute, a free-reed instrument similar to the melodeon and harmonica), balafon (a kind of wooden xylophone or percussion idiophone, originally from Mali) a ukulele (a small four-stringed guitar of Hawaiian origin), a tambourine, some maracas, a harmonica and a traditional song book to help with the lyrics … Enough for everyone to express their musical mood of the moment! Sometimes, when the nature turns into a muse, we write songs ourselves (one of the songs we wrote crossing the Atlantic, in French here). We won’t disturb anyone on this stretch of water, so there we are, all singing at the top of our lungs!
A bird comes to play with our genoa. Wow, the span of his wings is at least 2 meters wide! There he goes playing around with the wind streams in front of our boat. And suddenly, haven’t measured properly our speed, bang he goes in our genoa. A bit shaken he moves back, Aurore stretches her arm and touches him. Extraordinary moment.
Bip, bip, bip. The auto-pilot sends a strident alarm. Hum, what happened?! Oh no… the pilot is out of order… We still have 3 hours to go, we can’t do much while we are sailing because the pilot is hidden underneath the steering wheel. We’ll have a look once arrived, in the meantime, we have to steer. One hour and half me, the other hour and a half, Momo.
It’s thrilling to steer. But we are really lazy and steer only when there is really too much wind or when the pilot is HS.
We also have a wind vane system (wind pilot) for the big sailing trips. It's an amazing piece of mechanical technology! Through this small piece of plywood board you see that catches the wind angle, it keeps you always on the same point of sail.
Suddenly, someone screams: “The line!” We see the elastic tied to the fishing line stretching strongly, we might have caught a fish! The official fisherman on board, Xavier, runs to the back and starts pulling the fishing line back on the boat. Suspense… and disappointment… In these Caribbean waters, we find plenty of sargassos (floating seaweed), and they often get caught in our line… we are really unlucky fishermen I have to admit… Although, we were luckier when we crossed the Atlantic!
The fishing line remains on board, due to discouragement, but also because we are almost there! One day, we had forgotten it, and when we anchored and put the reverse gear to ensure our anchorage, the line got caught in the propeller and stuck everything! You make the mistake once, not twice!
We arrive luckily with the sun right over the horizon, just in time to evaluate distances, see the sea floor, choose our favorite place, and drop our anchor. Time for the 'arrival drink'!
We hope you'll sail with us again!
The point of view of BjØrn, a Norwegian boat hitch-hiker, whom we sailed with from Carriacou to Grenada on December 3rd, 2017 (click on the image to read his article)
*Pavilion Courtesy rules require to hang the flag of the country you are in on starboard (right), and the national flag of the person invited on board on port-side (left). On our board, Aurore is the flag officer!
