(Editor’s note:Tom Hay and Dawn Biggs are Americans, personal friends from our hometown of Louisville, Ky. This is Pt . 2 of their adventure sailing across the Atlantic from the Caribbean to Europe.Jump to Pt. 1 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 3
170 Nautical Miles. Winds light 5-15 knots.
This morning we pass over the deepest part of the Atlantic – the Puerto Rico Trench. At this spot, the ocean floor is more than 8,000 meters below us.
If we were to drop one of our dive weights over the side, it would sink for more than 5 miles before coming to rest in a part of earth so inhospitable to life that it is named after Hades, the Greek god of the underworld. In the sea’s Hadalpelagic Zone the pressures are immense, the darkness unrelenting and the water just above freezing.
And what keeps us from following that imagined dive weight there? Only a thin layer of fiberglass shaped into the form of a boat. Learning to trust our boat, or to trust the skin of an airplane carrying you 30,000 feet in the air, or the heart of a partner, these moments of trust are what makes adventures possible.
That and not thinking too much about it.
Day 5
393 Nautical Miles. Winds light, motoring with mainsail.
We are working our way north through the still airs of the Horse Latitudes. In these latitudes, the winds will never come, so we are using our motor to move as quickly as possible to the other side. We also are finally settling into a watch schedule.
Someone needs to be awake and on watch every moment on a sailboat. For that reason each boat develops its own schedule for watches. There are as many watch schemes as there are boats. Most common are watches of a set number of hours – 3 or 4 hours for instance – where one crewmember is awake and the rest are asleep.
That doesn’t work for us. For one thing I require less sleep than Dawn and when I get a break, I can be sound asleep as quick as a kitten. Dawn often takes an hour or more to relax and fall to sleep. If I only go on watch for three or four hours, she gets very little actual sleep time before I am waking her.
So I take one long night watch, starting at 8 p.m. or whenever she is able to drift off, and not waking her to take over until 3 or 4 in the morning. Then while she watches the sun rise and establishes the sail plan for the day, I disappear, only to rise 4 or 5 hours later (and I take lots of naps).
It works for us and varies very little on this entire journey. The only complication comes on the last morning, when Dawn makes some sail adjustments to give me what is a very pleasant surprise upon waking. But that will be many days away.
Day 6
524 Nautical Miles. Winds 10-15 knots.
What is it like being in a small sailboat day after day? Our boat is basically 40 feet long (12.2 meters). Add the sugar scoop on the stern and it is officially 42 feet. At its widest it is 13-feet wide – but it comes to a sharp point at one end and tapers to 10 feet in the other so it is not a perfect rectangle.
Think of a standard 40 foot shipping container with one pointed end and a 6-foot-2 inch (1.9 meter) ceiling. Into this we put an engine, a stove and refrigerator, two water tanks and a diesel tank. We add storage batteries, two heads, two sleeping areas, a fresh watermaker, two months of food, tools and more assorted gear than I can list.
This is the original tiny house, and we cannot get out of it unless we are willing to swim. Additionally, unlike a tiny house, our space jerks and sways like an old swinging bridge in a storm. To sit or to walk, to brush your teeth or cook or wash, or even to share a brief embrace, means always giving one hand to the boat for safety and stability.
The boat is like a living thing, and if we are not careful it can hurt us. And at this point, we hardly even notice anymore.
We have rules for ourselves – some spoken and others not. At night, the person on watch must wear a life preserver and be attached to the boat by a safety tether. That is definitely at the top of the spoken rules because knowing it is being followed allows the other person to sleep more soundly.
Less strident are other rules. Be nice, we only have each other. Pause to have our meals together so that we have space to talk about non-nautical things and honor our relationship. When the weather is good (I know I’ll hear about this from other sailors!) we allow ourselves one cocktail as the sun sets.
We don’t miss having a third person aboard. We are finding that it has become a precious time for us.
In the end we will hold this journey and the togetherness we shared alone at sea as one of the most precious gifts of our lives.
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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