Sunday 10th December 2023 - We did it!
The Adventures of Tin Man
Andy Topp & Steve Arnold
Sun 10 Dec 2023 19:48
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14:4.8N
60:57.6W St Lucia!
So this is it, the final blog post for our epic
adventure. I don't even know where to start with this one but I think it's safe
to say right now that you will have to forgive me somewhat because it will no
doubt be a little sentimental.
First things first I'll cover the last few hours prior
to arrival. A rainy but otherwise uneventful final night saw us drop below 100
miles to St Lucia early on. Other than a bird which decided to hitch a ride on
the bimini for about 8 hours until first light not much else happened. I woke to
the morning light and joined the others on deck. Around 8:30am i heard two words
we have waited three weeks to hear ring out from Will - "Land ahoy" - and the
mountains of northern St Lucia crept over the horizon for our final morning of
sailing. A quick spruce up (boat and crew) and the first bottle of bubbles was
consumed five miles out.
We crossed the start line at 13:00 UTC on Sunday 19th
November 2023 in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, and we crossed the finish line at
12:30 local time today - Sunday 10 December, 2023, in Rodney Bay, St Lucia. I
think it's fair to say we are all absolutely elated and a bit exhausted, and
looking forward to some creature comforts. But overall I think we are all just
so proud of what we have achieved.
This second leg of our journey took exactly three weeks.
We journeyed over 3000 miles (3093 to be exact), we crossed four time zones,
entered the tropics, and saw almost a full cycle of the moon on the way. Over
the last few weeks we have also considered some other slightly more abstract
things - not being in any country for three weeks was a bit odd, not seeing
another human being apart from each other, not having spent any money for three
weeks, not seen land, or left the boat (other than for a very quick swim in the
Atlantic), or that the crew of the International Space Station were amongst the
small number of people that were within a few hundred miles of us. We've also
thought about the fact that we have entered a relatively small club of people to
have ever done this - starting with the great explorers many centuries ago.
What's really interesting is that whilst the rest of the world changes the sea
never does so our view has been exactly the same, for a considerable amount of
this journey, as the view Columbus and his peers had.
In total, since we left Portland marina on 12 August we
have been at sea, in two stints, for 35 days, on Tin Man, our trusty steed, who
has carried us between three different continents, for over 4,700 miles.
But whist these statistics and musings are all very
interesting, and they give a good reference point for the scale, distance and
time spent on this adventure, for me and my fellow adventurers the experience
will be measured in other ways.
These blogs have served two purposes - acually three.
Firstly I hope they have been informative and entertaining to you for kindly
reading them. We wanted you to know we were safe, but we also wanted to share
this amazing experience with you all in any way we could. Secondly, they serve
as a record of what we have done, what we did each day, for posterity purposes.
But also they have given me an opportunity to reflect and think about what this
experience has meant to me, in a way that, without putting pen to paper each
night, I might not otherwise have.
When I think about what we have all learned on these
epic journeys it's almost too much to list. We've learned a lot of practical
things - how to fit a new bilge pump, the intricate workings of a reverse
osmosis water maker, how to replace a joker valve in the toilet. We have learned
ocean sailing and have become sailors in the most enviable sense, but we have
also become carpenters, plumbers, and electricians. We have become problem
solvers. We have become adventurers.
Several years ago Andy and I had this crazy idea that
"one day" we would sail the Atantic. It was one of those ideas that felt utterly
unrealistic, preposterous almost. But then it started to develop from a stupid
idea to a credible idea and then from a credible idea to a rough plan to a more
firm plan. Until we finally set a date. We knew that our key consideration was
crew and we knew that it could be hard to find others who would want to do it
with us, or so we thought. It's possible to do with two, or even one, but I
imagine it's pretty gruelling to do so.
It turns out though that we know people who didn't think
we were crazy, or who were as crazy as us, and who were excited by the prospect
of joining us. We couldn't have dreamed it would work out as well as it has. For
me and Andy, being able to share this amazing experience with our friends Sam,
Will and Jooj, is remarkable in every way. And whilst this is an intense
experience - five adult men sharing the space of a small studio flat for three
weeks, captive, physically challenging, with the possibility of that not
working, the risks were high. But this crew has worked exceptionally well.
We have had the right balance of caution but fun. Of pushing boundaries but in a
meticulously considered way. With care, with consideration, and with an enormous
sense of comradery. At each stage it's been a total joy to have shared this most
amazing of experiences with these people.
If I reflect on the reality versus the perception of
this trip beforehand, I can conclude a couple of points. Firstly it was in no
way as scary as I thought it might be. At times it had the capacity to be scary,
and at times it has been challenging, but I never felt at any point that we
weren't prepared for it or that this team could not cope with it. I have trusted
my life with this group and vice versa, and never once have I felt that that
trust was misplaced.
I also feared it could feel claustrophobic. It's hard to
explain the reality of it but the vastness of the ocean removes any sense of
being trapped even though in reality you are. On the flip side of that the
vastness could be disorientating or scary but looking out at the horizon each
day at the never ending and unchanging view is comforting. It's reassuringly the
same. As I sat on the bow on Friday listening to music and dangling my feet over
the side ocassionally getting splashed by the odd wave, I tried to commit as
much to memory as possible, to savour every moment of what we had
left.
I looked out at the view, a view which, after three
unchanging weeks, could have become boring, I realised that I don't think I
could ever get bored of it. It's grand and reverent. It's powerful and it's
unwaveringly beautiful. And despite its unchanging characteristics, it can also
feel very different. At night the pitch darkness can be unnerving but it can
also wrap you up in a dark blanket. At night it becomes a fairytale of
glittering stars, and of bioluminescent wake, of sparkle dolphins,
shooting stars, and falling meteorites, of unexpected flying fish,
satellites, planets, and constellations. Bookended with the most incredible
sunsets, and sunrises you have ever seen, and punctuated in between with the
rise and fall of the moon as it arcs across the night sky in its various
forms.
Yesterday when I was wondering how I would bring these
blog posts to a close I asked the guys what comment they had about the trip.
What was their biggest takeaway, or memory, or how would they conclude the
exerience in a sentence. As always they delivered in their own unique and varied
ways a collection of wonderful insights which I thought i'd share.
Jooj - "If you go really slowly in any direction,
eventually you will get somewhere" I think the word "amazing" should go on the
end. I loved this not simply for its literal meaning but its philosophical one
too.
Will - "Out here against the all powerful majesty of
nature we're barely a mote of dust but together we can achieve amazing things.
Also we should have brought more rum."
Sam - "The world feels like a much smaller place when
you've travelled from one side to the other and seen every mile as it goes
past."
Andy - "It's not a race"
How do I conclude my experience? Well in probably a
characteristically cheesy way. For me I have realised a couple of things. If you
open your eyes and look at the world, it delivers so much. All of the amazing
things we have seen out here, they're happening all the time. They didn't just
happen because we were looking at them. But we had the time and the space to
just sit and watch as the world put on a performance unlike anything else I've
ever seen. And it did so entirely unapologetically, unfathomably, but with a
level of nonchalence that is unrivalled. "So what?", it seemed to say back to
me, "I've been here all the time, where the hell have you been?"
For nearly two years we have thought almost exclusively
of nothing else other than this trip. Planning, buying, reading, preparing,
organising, project managing, talking, fearing. As we set sail three weeks ago I
thought to myself "here it is - this is it. We are finally doing it." Then it
dawned on me - what was I going to think about when this was all over? What
would consume all my waking thoughts once we were back in the UK? I think I know
the answer and it's simple - the next adventure. If nothing else I am more
certain, we are more certain, than ever that this is what our lives should be.
Maybe not straight away, but soon. I don't want to live out the rest of my life
thinking "I wonder what it would be like to...". So I guess my biggest takeaway
from all of this is a change in priorities. I don't need stuff to be happy, I
need this. Sailing is intoxicating, it's addictive. I'm an addict of it and what
it brings and opens up. I'm fascinated by the world it enables me to see and I'm
going to make damn sure it keeps fascinating me at every possible opportunity,
for as long as I possibly can. I, we, urge you to do the same.
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