Over, but not out
A year afloat: to the Caribbean and back
Sam and Alex Fortescue
Mon 19 Sep 2011 09:14
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It has been four long weeks since we finally furled
the gib, switched off the navigation instruments and hung up our wet weather
gear. And I felt I owed one last post.
I'm back from a whirlwind tour of Benelux, with
weddings, reunions and grand gatherings. It's all been an abrupt change from the
simple, more self reliant existence we've led since we sailed away
from Totnes in August 2010. Summer Song is - I hope - still riding the vigorous
tides of Poole Harbour. I suspect she is collecting sea life on the hull at an
alarming rate and would now barely reach five knots surfing down a wave. It
doesn't matter; she'll be hauled out in a few weeks to spend the winter enjoying
a well-earned rest in a cradle at the boatyard.
It'll be a sad moment, because she has been in a
state of constant motion for a year. During that time, she has covered more than
12,000 miles in waters off four continents. She has raced at up to 12 knots down
foaming Atlantic waves; pressed her way through 35-knot winds and 20-foot seas;
sped along behind her multicoloured spinnaker; and kept us safe and (mostly)
warm and dry tirelessly. But all good things have to come to an
end.
I feel a sort of loss at having been separated from
those endless Atlantic waves. Summer Song and the broad Atlantic in all her
various guises has been a constant companion over the past year, and it's hard
not to miss them. Despite the sharks, the three-mile deep water and the
inscrutable weather, we've never felt in danger. We have been fortunate to see
no more than manageable winds and seas and suffer no worse breakages than
the odd shackle or line. Of course, good planning has something to do with this,
but we undoubtedly also owe a debt to Poseidon, Neptune, Odin and any other
watery deities. As if in proof, a brace of hurricanes and endless low pressure
systems have been battering the UK since the day we returned.
We have already 'unpacked' the boat, raising her in
the water with the sheer weight of books, charts, clothes, gadgetry and conch
shells removed. We left her in a poignant frame of mind, feeling that we had
somehow diminshed her powers. Happily, this is mostly illusion, as she still
bristles with much of her Atlantic kit. But without the trappings of our
everyday life aboard, she feels more like a weekend-and-holiday cruiser
than our home on the waves.
The feeling of having landed has begun to sink in.
At first, I harboured the suspicion that Alex and I would be back on board in a
few days, continuing our trip - just as we did after staying with the many kind
friends that pampered us ashore - from Natalia Simoes in Lisbon to Irina in
Easthampton. The tranquil, green hills of Dorset and the colourful garden with
its chirruping birds all seemed like a temporary treat.
But soon Alex will be back to work in London
and I'll start researching a book set in Martinique.
But already, our time afloat seems like a
retreating memory, and it is hard to believe we have really been away for a
year. We explored no less than 53 different regions, including 38 new islands
(for us, at least) and eight countries we'd never been to before. We were
invited aboard boats from 28 feet to 58 feet, motor and sail by people from many
corners of the globe. We were heartily cursed by a boatload of Virgin islanders
for cutting them up in the BVI regatta. But I think, of everything, the water
was the best thing. Looking back at photos from Martinique, Antigua, the BVIs,
Cuba and the Bahamas, there is always an incredible turquoise backdrop -
water that is so clear you could see the fish 30m down and warm enough to spend
hour after hour snorkelling.
So from Summer Song, the Skipper and First Mate
Biffle it's over, but not out
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