Desirée writes:

… Joseph Conrad said:

“... the sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness”.

And here I am …

I think that nothing happens just by chance … this is my first experience on a catamaran and as crew member on a non Italian sailing yacht.

Discovery Magic is a wonderful catamaran, with an advanced and modern design where style, comfort, performance and safety are all together and majestically merged in this fantastic sailing yacht.

I met Caroline and John for the first time in Ponta Delgada and right from the beginning they were able to make me feel more like a daughter than as crew member.

They spend a lot of time showing and explaining to me a lot about sailing.

Sometime I am a little bit embarrassed … how many things I don’t know … and as you know in nautical language everything has a specific name in order to avoid misunderstanding  - especially in critical situations. And this is true in Italian like in English …

And this is also my first Atlantic Crossing … one year since I got my Italian sailing licence, and after have dreaming it for a long time, now here I am.

This is not the standard westbound passage, usually sailing boats go west via Canaries Island to Caribbean in November-December and come back in April-May via Azores, following the trade winds.

We are going from Azores to Bermuda, against trade winds and currents.

In the last days we saw some sailing vessels coming from the west destined for the Azores and they called us on the VHF to let us know that we were lost and we were going in the wrong direction … depends what is your course!

Why do people cross the Atlantic Ocean?

I don’t know. For many, or no special reasons.

Sailing gives me the opportunity to share everything with the others on the boat and build up a real working team as well the chance to stay alone with myself and have all the time to think about past and future projects.

Sailing gives me also a strong contact with the nature: sea and wind, sun and rain, sounds and smelling, dolphins and whales (by the way where are whales? I just saw a wonderful and elegant fluke hidden in the blue ocean …)

What does it mean crossing the Ocean with a sailing boat?

Crossing the Ocean is usually a long passage, without any harbour to recover from heavy weather and/or sea condition or to buy provisions.

There are specific rules and every crew member has an important responsibility for his and the others crew’s lives.

It is very important to be well prepared for the daily and night watches, mainly in the night when the others are sleeping and you have the duty to steer the boat on the right course and adjust sails depending on the wind intensity and direction.

It is also a fundamental experience that reminds me how important are things like water and energy that nowadays we consider unlimited and we use without care.

Yesterday, during my night watch I was impressed about our harmony with the sea, the wind and the moon: Discovery Magic flew fast on large waves, close hauled in a strong breeze, following the course towards the full moon.