CONQUERING THE STORM

After our drive around Lanzarote we spent another night in Puerto Calero before heading back home crossing the North Atlantic Ocean. There was a storm on it´s way but we mapped it out to avoid it. We had no choice but to leave as we promised our finca/pet-sitter to be home after six weeks. The first day started out with calm sailing, nothing spectacular and nothing to worry about except enjoying a nice sunrise, sunset and starry sky.

Day two was also eventless following the path of the sun and the moon and the stars.

On the third day we managed to get caught up in the storm even though we calculated our route to avoid it. The winds were stronger than anticipated and we were sucked into it. Because the autopilot was fucked/would´nt hold with these waves Harald stod behind the wheel from mid-day to midnight.

On day four we were up all night, Harald behind the wheel and Heidi feeding him and making sure he was OK. Unfortunately she doesn´t have the experience to conquer waves like these so it was all up to the very experienced Captain.

During this fourth day the storm reached 10 on the Beaufort scale and Tealie was swaying and rolling hard, as if she was a tiny toy in a bathtub. It was hard to control her and also hard to stay upright. We launched the sea anchor we had bought for this very purpose and truly believed, and hoped, we would never have any use of it. There you go. Somehow we made a sloppy knot and it disappeared after only a few minutes at sea. It sounds utterly stupid to make such a foolish mistake but with the boat pitching and yawing and being all over the place, the waves crashing into it´s sides and the wind howling around us, and on top of it all being up for 24 hours already, it was an easy mistake to make.

We just had to keep going and thinking quickly we had an old mainsail lying about which we prepared as a makeshift sea anchor to help us stabilise the boat. That worked wonders.

During the day it started raining hard and the wind picked up speed. The storm was raging and at night there was thunder and lightning. It was frightening, sitting through the pitch black night with only the howling wind as company and waiting for the lightning to strike the mast. We were soaking wet and cold, the Captain was still behind the wheel and Heidi kept him fed and warm changing his woollen socks as they got soaked. The photos and videos below don´t do the storm justice.

During these hours we packed a waterproof bag with all the necessities preparing ourselves both mentally and physically to jump overboard. We had all the necessary equipment for such a purpose, like lifevests, liferaft, flares, EPIRB, you name it. Heidi tried standing behind the wheel to relieve the Captain for a couple of minutes but got soaked within minutes and just didn´t have the experience to keep the course. Something to work on getting home!

Passing on to day five Tealie was impossible to control. The Captain had been behind the wheel for nearly 40 hours and neither of us had slept a wink. He started hallucinating, seeing alleys with trees and was not in this world anymore. Heidi took command and ordered him to let Tealie drift and him into bed. Heidi set her alarm every 30 minutes to check the path and Tealie had a perfect northbound course towards the west coast of Morocco. After ten hours on her own she started drifting south.

With the Captain rested he took charge again and steered Tealie north towards Tanger in Morocco. When we eventually saw the lights of Casablanca we could finally feel safe. We had not seen land or any boat, or had any contact with another person for five days as there is no mobile connection so far out at sea.