First solo trip at sea !
DAY 1
After all the hustle and bustle of the last few months I'm finally alone in my solo sailing project. Only yesterday I was still on land, waving goodbye to my delivery crew with one hand while assembling a long job list in the other. Like all freshly arrived sailors in a foreign port, I set off for food and boat bits. I received a call from my wife who told me that one of the competitors in The Transat had been forced to abandon ship and learned that another 60 had dismasted on a training run. With my Vendee competitors dropping like flies I embarked on a new round of checks from stem to stern, hydraulics to electronics. Our months of hard work has paid off as Galileo is in great shape. With the phrase "ships a safe in harbour, but thats not what they're made for" running through my head, I slipped silently out of Horta and hoisted the main (a mission when alone!). I reached out of the harbour with just the mainsail and prepared to turn around the headland. As I tacked the boat I spun the pedestal winch to unfurl the jib while steering with my knees and felt truly in control and all anxiety about this being my first solo passage fell away. With the boat charging along the coast of Faial I sat down to drink it all in. The towering mast over my head, the urgent tug of the sails and just me, all alone, on a super slick racing boat with my bows pointed to the horizon. I looked over at my wake and saw that I was in convoy with two huge fin whales, their huge bodies rising and falling in the crests of the waves as we all sped westwards together. Bring on the Vendee Globe, seems like I've got Posiedon on my side!
PS: We have reached 87% of our crowdfunding campaign and we're getting to the end so please, if you haven't done so already, jump onboard! thanks
