WE MADE IT!
Winners of the female class and 7th overall! In 43 days, 4 hours and 56 minutes we reached the finish in Antigua. Proud, tired, euphoric, we heard the horn, saw our friends waving and flashed the flares that mark the finish. What a fantastic adventure it was!
On the 12th of December we got our stuff together for the start. After a good nights’ sleep we prepared our food in the tupperware boxes, filled the water bottles and said goodbye to our loved ones. We knew that we would see them again on Antigua but what we would experience, see, endure between start and finish we did not know then. That soon changed after the horn. It was us and the ocean and nothing else. We felt good, free, strong, unstoppable. After losing sight of La Gomera and El Hierro we knew there would only be the Atlantic.
The first week some of us got acquainted with the state of being seasick. Not much fun. But we all recovered after 2 days, kept rowing and enjoyed the good winds and surfing the waves. The week before Christmas we experienced the zone of no winds. Nice sight, such a mirror of water but it doesn’t do much for speed. But things change and the Ocean shows a different face every day. We rowed and rowed, enjoyed zillion of stars, saw dolphins, some other fins sticking out of the water (sharks? small whales?), neonblue fish and always a nice little bird that seemed to follow us and tried to land on our Queen. Christmas brought us hard winds and the need to para-anchor. Fortunately we could get away that afternoon only to repeat that routine again on Newyears’ Eve. We knew the wind would back to NW and that is bad news. No way we could get out, we tried twice before we we successful during a small weather window. Hard work we can tell you now! The second week of January was good, finally winds from the E/NE. It took a few days for the swell and waves to change so that we finally could speed up again.
The race with Valkyrie was superb. We had the same speed the first 2 weeks but we seemed to get faster, only to be overtaken once in a while. In January we overtook them again after seeing them for real for the second time, that close! 20 miles difference and hoping that would be enough to stay in that position. Unfortunately they overtook us again. How hard can you chase another boat? Well we tried and rowed and rowed, our arms got 10 cm longer from the hard work! They got faster and faster, we wondered if they had some Popeye food on board but admitted, let’s race our own race and we felt comfortable doing so. Our other competitors, the other Ladies 4, were nowhere near.
None of us got really sick or suffered from bad injuries. We kept eating (sometimes reluctant as nothing was really tasteful after a while), as much sleep and power naps as possible, drank 5-6 liters a day and were in good shape. We looked after ourselves, each other and our Queen. We heard sounds, voices but didn’t experience bad hallucinations or other mindfucks. No nervous breakdowns or major hick ups, stayed a strong team with an iron routine that kept us going. Proud of what we achieved! And so thankful to be able to do this. Out on the Ocean, that was home. No Covid, no turmoil, no curfews and Corona news to worry about.
It was us and the Ocean. We did it!