Atlantic Odyssey 2 days 11 - 13

12 May 2026 at 10:59:58 BST
Day 11
The good ship Sukama sallies ever eastwards into the gloom at the end of the day in spite of the bedraggled scallywags who came along for the ride. Mostly they are controllable but once in a while they break out of their box and get up to mischief. I accept that we (even I) can all be mistaken just once in a while, but what hope really without even a single cup of tea to oil the wheels of the mind……suffice it to say that the kettle went on very quickly.

With decorum reestablished and a flutter of her skirts, Sukama forges onwards, in the groove coping with winds of varying lightness from 5kts to 13 knots. Just now a steady, yes steady 9knots is filling her sails admirably and she is happy in her groove making 7knots of boat speed – not bad given her 20 tons. So that’s 2 whole days that we’ve been sailing properly taking the tedium of motoring out and now having to move around a lot more carefully – self preservation for fear of finding ourselves compromised as we heel more, or less. You can never quite know whether movement in the nanosecond that you decide to move will throw you off balance or not. And then of course there are cups of tea to share which obviously require intense concentration at all times.

Today was Anthony’s day off/food responsibilities. He was doubly motivated to improve the proportion of fish less days, so before lunch he and Paul caught, landed, and filleted 2 highly respectable fish in double quick succession – one a jack, the other another mahi mahi but hugely bigger than the first. So with his pride restored we found ourselves treated to beautifully presented lunch and creative mahi mahi for dinner accompanied by veggie couscous and pesto enhanced with roasted pine nuts.
The other fillets are now in the freezer ready to jump into the limelight on another fishless day or two!

To top off our highly exhausting day – index fingers rebelling after 5 flexes of the muscle – I tapped away on a computer, played a harp, and considered projected dates to be in Brexit lands with Malcolm. Watch this space for more on 2028! Are we getting ahead of ourselves? Anthony and Paul turned their attention to zahtzee after dinner in the cockpit. We are being positively civilised and putting the table up each evening – we’ll be getting a table cloth out soon……

Must away to grab some shut eye – zzzzzzzzzzzs.

Day 12
Every day has its beauty. Some days you have to look harder, other days it’s easier to find. Some days its a passing comment, a gesture, a hug, a moment of connectedness or perhaps an inner smile recognising the enormity of the reality we’re living even when the passage is not going quite according to plan, the plan being to make way under sail, rather than motor in a generally easterly direction.

We’ve had plenty of days where we’ve been seriously thankful for this reliable motor in the death blob of calms covering over 1000miles – that’s almost half the Atlantic stretching back to the Caribbean! There are plenty of others out there challenged to escape, such as those who don’t or can’t carry enough fuel to power them through to find the wind.

With Charlie’s help we’re heading northeast riding the eastern edge of a front to find the western winds on the northern edge of the high now building to give us the heading for the Canaries. We’re now describing the banana of the banana! Heading now towards some seriously black clouds which will have winds of their very own to share in due course, unless of course we never catch it which is how it’s possibly looking but not quite sure it’s made up its mind where its going. It’s all to be played for, and dealt with as each ‘next’ becomes our ‘now’ and we figure out where to go from ‘here’.

Blue parasail filled with wind heading towards the sun on a yacht

Parasailor sail

Today we’ve done more ‘sailing’ things than any other day yet. After chef’s special scrambled eggs and smoked salmon we set to with a will to organise and raise the parasailor. The wind was behind the beam, just, so in spite of being minimal it was definitely worth a try, and a try that paid off as it flew for over 3 hours increasing our speed by at least 1 knot every hour with a slightly improved course directly to our waypoint 200 miles ahead. We made respectable speeds until the wind decided to drop away again, whilst the bobbles of the bobbly sea increased so then it was a return to white sails with a poled out jib which is more stable and can function at both higher and lower wind speeds than the parasailor but is nothing like such an exhilarating ride! Still, can’t have it all all of the time, and how incredibly lucky are we. Glad too that all are still on board as our all too stable platform of late was yawing with alacrity!

It seemed the right moment to reward ourselves, so out with the fruit from the freezer and tropical smoothies all round enhanced with mojito – but who stole the rum? Chased immediately by builders tea and flapjack for those of us who need our fix.

Paul has more staying power than I will ever have figuring out how to master numerous knots, Anthony continues to try to figure out how to make the electronics do what he wants them to whether the SSB, radar or plotter – they all their present with their personal gremlins! Malcolm is demonstrating that he’s really a bookworm at heart, and I hold my hands up to tap tap tapping on a keyboard as idea after idea demand my attention. My plan was/is to get my computer organised after Anthony kindly installed 4 times the amount of space than I had before, but my drive to do it is infinitesimal, and is constantly usurped by other ‘pressing’ things. Such as writing and planning our next adventures!

Such are the challenges for 70 something year olds!!

14 May 2026 at 12:50:02 BST

Day 13

And already I confess into Day 14! It’s all been a bit busy in a good way. Some of my busyness has been about time out with my head in a book, some about hoisting sails, setting poles, sleeping or cheffing.

We have wind, at last!! Today was a real crew takeover. We offered the con to Anthony and Paul who readily accepted, both keen for different reasons. For Anthony it was time to call the tune, make the decisions, and equally importantly decide how to achieve them safely. For Paul it came as another great reason for him not to take his turn as the chef of day, his least favourite sport so it seems. For us, it was a joy to give them both the opportunity to step up together. Albeit still and forever sons, they’re also two men with heads on their shoulders, different skill sets, different experience, both loving the sea and the spectrum of experiences it can offer, but in truth we’ve had our fill of the minimal winds, and today we had wind to work with. Today Sukama feels like a real sailing yacht with free movement, wind and wave induced motion. Steady 14/16knots just behind the beam, 1.5metre seas was perfect territory for bringing bit of a challenge to trimming the sails, headsail in particular, but we loved how they went about it with a trial and error approach, small adjustments and much consultation with each other, until finally asking for a helping hand. All were very happy with achieving consistent boat speed of 8knots.

Malcolm finished his book and started another. I’ve almost finished mine. It really was time down but with a constant weather eye on proceedings. I felt I was on holiday! What a fabulous treat of a day!

So here I am on watch at 5am realtime. We’re riding the edge of the front so lighter skies to starboard with extensive cloud cover blotting out the rising sun and general greyness to our port. I could as well be in the North Sea with this sea state! Steely grey in colour, 1.5/2metre waves, blowing a force 5, short sharp fetch. We’re riding with it just aft of the beam so occasionally one finds the beam and properly heels us before rolling away from our port bow, others pile up on the starboard quarter in a dance of white spume slewing the stern pointing our bows windwards but George gamely rescues the situation every time! 2 reefs in the main 2 in the headsail and still speed over the ground is highly respectable occasionally topping 9 knots to Anthony’s unbridled delight. This is what he came for, but I wonder what his takeaways will be of the past 12 days when the wind hasn’t been up? That will be a fascinating conversation when we near the end of our trip.

Talking of which, it may well be all change. We thought we were going to the Canaries, but perhaps after all we’re going to the Azores! It’s beginning to look like the most probable destination but has yet to be fully decided. Assuming we do, we anticipate some interesting times to look forward to en route, exactly what Anthony and Paul signed up for!

Video from January East to West trip