(Editor’s note:Tom Hay and Dawn Biggs are Americans, personal friends from our hometown of Louisville, Ky. This is the final installment about their adventure sailing across the Atlantic from the Caribbean to Europe. Jump to Pt. 1 here, Pt. 2 here, Pt. 3 here and Pt. 4 here.)
We could have chosen an easier way to cross the Atlantic and begin our expat life in Europe. We chose to sail there in a small, three-decades-old boat named Kairos. It wasn’t exactly an impulsive decision. It had been our dream for 15 Covid-interrupted years.
First we found a sturdy, affordable boat in the Caribbean. We sold our home in the United States and for the next four years lived aboard her, accumulating 6,000 nautical miles while cruising from one end of the Caribbean Sea to the other.
But the centerpiece of the dream was always sailing across the Atlantic and see Europe. So we set sail from Puerto Rico.
Day 25:
2535 nautical miles. Winds 24-28 knots.
At 06:30, our VHF radio gives two distinct beeps. Our VHF is a new radio, and one of its features is an emergency distress button. If we hit the button, it will send out a digital distress signal giving the name of our boat and our position and requesting help to any similarly equipped radio in range.
I look – we are receiving a distress signal from another boat. Someone else, apparently, isn’t handling the weather as well as Kairos.
I map the coordinates I read on our radio and see the boat in distress is 18 very rough sea miles behind us. We have some hard decisions to make. We reach out to the boat by radio, but in the conditions, we hear only a broken response that we cannot make out. We don’t know if anyone else, closer to the boat, is already responding. We do not know the nature of the problem, the size of the boat, or the number of people involved.
We do know it is too important to ignore. Someone is in danger and depending on us to respond.
Dawn, who has been on watch, says that a cargo ship has recently passed us, and sailing vessel Sea Ya is somewhere out there ahead of us. Maybe they know something. So I get back on the radio to see if anyone else has picked up the distress call.
The cargo ship responds that they are ahead of us but did not receive the distress call. Sea Ya is out of range and certainly didn’t hear it either. We discuss with the captain of the cargo ship the location of the distressed boat. They also get in touch with the Coast Guard to see if anyone else has picked up the call. Heroically, they agree to turn around and steam toward the coordinates, calling out to a ship in distress as they go.
An hour later we hear them making contact. We cannot hear the other boat’s transmission, but from what we hear from the cargo ship, the other boat is a sailboat, four people aboard, and in the bad weather has lost its steerage. The ship’s captain agrees to intercept and take onboard “all four souls” in the language of the sea.
Later in the day the ship passes us heading east again. They radio to tell us the crew of the sailboat Mahina is safely with them. The sailboat, unfortunately, was left abandoned on the seas. The crew will sail with them to Spain.The boat is lost but the crew is safe.
It is a reminder of how perilous this voyage is and how close they were to having no one in range to receive their signal.
Day 26:
2,750 nautical miles. Winds 10-15 knots.
The winds and seas have calmed and we are coming to terms with the reality that this voyage is almost over. It has taken us longer than expected, and while we are excited to think of landfall, there is another emotion closer to our hearts.
We are actually sorry the voyage is ending.
At dinner we talk about how the last four weeks have given us an experience we may never have again. The slow rhythm of life at sea cannot be easily duplicated on land. The easy intimacy of two companions sharing a small craft alone on a vast ocean has given us a deeper grasp of what it means to be mates.
It has been magical.
In the following weeks we will fall in love with the Azores and watch as Portugal and the Portuguese people find a special place in our hearts. But this day, with the end of this journey just over the horizon, we feel a melancholy sadness that it soon will be over.
Tagging the wall in Horta, Azores is a tradition for those who make the Trans-Atlantic crossing. (All photos courtesy Tom Hay)
Day 27:
Dawn surprises me by waking me up while it is barely daylight. It is not to help with some emergency or to reset the sails.
It is my 71st birthday and she wants me to see something. During the early hours before dawn, she adjusted our course and sails to slow us down so that we would arrive at just this moment. She takes me up into the cockpit and points – in the distance we see land!
And what a picture it is, Pico Island with its tall volcano, the sun just rising behind. I cannot think of a more perfect way to conclude our journey or a more memorable way to get our first sight of land in 27 days.
Happy birthday indeed.
By 09:00 we pass behind the seawall and enter the harbor in Horta. Soon I am releasing the long-stowed anchor and watching it settle into firm sand once again. Then back into the cockpit, two very tired sailors look at each other.
We did it.
We sailed across the Atlantic.
2830 nautical miles. 27 days. Average speed 4.4 knots.
Tom Hay, currently establishing residency in Portugal, is from the American south, spending most of his adulthood in Virginia. In 2019, after 40 years as a Presbyterian minister, he retired and moved with Dawn to the Caribbean to sail. Together he and Dawn have four children and four granddaughters. These girls gave him the name "Pops" and in return he writes them mystery books featuring a clever 10-year-old girl who lives with her father on a sailboat named Kairos.
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