I came back to the boat in Gibraltar on Monday October 17. The boat had safely been brought to Gibraltar by Georges Fillon with his nephew Antoine. Georges is coming back for this final leg with me and I am accompanied by a longtime friend and colleague in the diamond trade, Paul Kawan. Paul is a legend in our industry…
Our 6th and final day of the crossing was excellent. In the early morning of Tuesday August 23rd, the wind shifted to the West as expected and gradually turned to the Northwest. The option to go further West paid off, allowing me to head straight for Praia. We were able to sail in ideal conditions in a straight line for…
Monday was a beautiful day, very different from the others. After some rainshowers, we took the opportunity to clean the boat thoroughlyinside. Vacuum cleaner, then wet cloth with a cleaning product. It's nice tofeel and smell a clean and fresh boat. The youngsters wanted to have the experience to swim with 5.000 meter depthunder them. Today was the best opportunity.…
Saturday morning, we wake up to a completely different sky, it was completely covered with clouds. We continued to have a good wind, still coming from 170 around 20 knots. We are still moving at good speed, above 9 knots. The big news of the day is that at 8am, a few minutes after having sent my last news, we…
We had a beautiful day on the ocean yesterday. Blue sky, sun and good wind. Since we have crossed the equator, the temperature has risen significantly. It's true it is summer in the northern hemisphere but I was not expecting such a marked change. We had a steady wind the whole day, almost from the South at 170°, blowing between…
The morning of Thursday August 18 was beautiful. Yhe wind was still blowing at 18/20 knots from 140, we were still going at 10 knots regularly. It was a bright sunny day with a pleasantly warm temperature. Around 10 am the wind diminished a bit to 15/16 knots, I unfurled the genoa completely. After lunch, the wind turned to 150°…
We have thus left Fernando de Noronha at 3:30pm on Wednesday 17th of August. We did some last minute errants and anchored in a bay nearby, we could check that the autopilot was working perfectly. I put the outboard engine on its support on the aft pulpit, deflated the Zodiac and stowed it in the lazaret in the back of…
The repair of the auto-pilot piston drive took finally longer than forecast. In fact, I found out that there were no direct flights from here to Salvador. The piece had to transit in Recife. It left on Thursday August 11 and not on Wednesday as I had been told. Further, all the oil had not been purged, as a result…
Just a short news to inform you that a mechanic found by the ever-reliable Marcello from Salvador de Bahia (who had fixed my forestay fitting) came yesterday, Wednesday August 10, on board at 7:30 am. He took the piston out. As it turned out, one of the bolts holding the piston on the gimbal had fallen some time ago. As…
We have successfully arrived at Fernando de Noronha on Monday night at 11:00pm. We had a very fast crossing. The wind was very stable since Sunday night. Right after dinner it increased to 20 knots with gusts up to 25 but as it was coming from the South East, it did not add any strain on the boat. We regularly…