"Land in sight!" shouted Katja at 9.30am today, about 30 miles from our destination. We have arrived in St Charles in Barbados! Our relief is clear to see.
Atlantic crossing completed
"Land in sight!" shouted Katja at 9.30am today, about 30 miles from our destination. We have arrived in St Charles in Barbados! Our relief is clear to see.
You have arrived! Great! Awesome! Strong! And you beat me to it - beat me to my first comment. I wrote it on the plane tonight 😀
Dear ones, your blogs are exciting! I have listened to them all and am fascinated by your spirit and positive serenity.
The contrast with my life couldn't be greater: last week I was in the Swiss mountains / Zurich - this week in Nairobi. This morning I arrive in Berlin via Frankfurt.
The video with the waves is super nice - you can really feel the boat rolling with the waves, this up and down and this powerful water.
It's super cool how disciplined you have to be and how you have to manage resources and make decisions accordingly. Why use the scarce electricity? You are like mankind on earth that is reaching its natural limits: you know that resources are finite and you have to manage and live sustainably with renewable energy. That's not enough - so you have to cut back and limit your consumption. Your advantage: you are a good team and I think you have a clever skipper / because I think the skipper decides in the end?😉 your algae fishing stories are funny 🤣 I'm sure you'll get somewhere
Question: why are you so fast even with a genoa or small headsail? I can imagine that it's not so easy to sail downwind and that it doesn't quite work, so you have to deviate about 30 degrees (?) from the direct course and jibe from time to time. How many degrees of deviation do you need to make good progress? And safely?
And Barbados! I can understand that a bit.
Now I'm going to listen to the new blog entries. Kind regards
Ahoy my dear,
Thank you for your kind words and your enthusiasm! We make good progress with the small genoa when there is enough wind... and we had it! And only with the genoa can we sail almost exactly downwind. With the mainsail, it's more like 30 degrees to the wind, which means we'd have to be about 1.5kts faster to make it worthwhile. And more stress in return. That's why we decided to take the easy route and the boat is relatively fast.
Best wishes for your eventful life,
Martin
Hey you Atlantic conquerors 🙂 or just crossers ;-), dear Katja,
Congratulations on your performance, sporting, sailing, psychological and so on and so forth.
Enjoy the factory, you have earned it and I am happy for you, great!
All the best and lots of fun on site and exciting experiences!
LG and all the best from Jan-Peter
Well done Team Biosphera!
Now comes a few days rest, but I hope those decks have been swabbed before the rum punch starts 🤪
Hooray Biosphera! Hooray, Team Biospera has reached its destination! 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
Respect! 👏👏👏👏
We wish you a relaxing and wonderful time in Barbados! ☀️🏝️
And we look forward to the next report! 😚
LG
Adina & Andrej
Congratulations!
I am delighted for you and thank you for sharing your experience from afar.
Thank you very much, dear Hubert 🙂
How great, you made it, congratulations!!!
What a marathon, what a team effort. Is there at least someone standing at the finish line and clapping?
I will miss your podcast and your reports. Luckily I'll soon be travelling comfortably in your footsteps on the Cap Verden.
What's next for you? I'm curious.
Enjoy the arrival first!!!
Ahoy dear Niki,
Thank you for your lovely comment and the constant feedback! It has done me good and still does.
No one was waiting and clapping here at the finish. I approached the first dinghy crew that passed us to let us celebrate. They also congratulated us in a friendly manner and then told us about their crossing :-).
All the best to Tomo too
At this point also from me: Chapeaux! Congratulations on crossing the ocean into Caribbean waters. A great achievement by a great team. A big contrast to winter in Berlin. I sit in a packed M29 in the morning and listen to your podcast every now and then on the way to work. Office days await with long meetings, boring conferences, endless Excel lists ..... Here it's wintry cold, slippery with frozen slush or polished footpaths and cycle paths - so I don't dare ride my bike or my beloved e-swallow. Frost is forecast for the next few days: Mon min -11°C to max -6°C.
All the better to see you in the sun, in the water at RumPunch. It's also nice to see the first part of the journey mastered so confidently - at considerable speed. It took us much longer - back then with the monohull, without colourful cloths but with a trade wind sail, which was hauled in at night. Like you, I am now looking forward to the rest of the journey and to being part of it and gaining an insight into biosphera life. I am curious ...
Ahoy Stefan, thank you very much! And my condolences for the M29 in the ice and snow. Thanks to Elon, you were out of work this time, which means we had to do without your great weather routing. But I still had the Garmin as a back-up and if Elon Musk had switched us off, I would certainly have tried to switch you on again :-).
Colourful scarves are great, even if we caught up with them at night! 🙂
Best wishes to the cold and also to your family!
Hey racers, congratulations on your arrival! Your blog is very lively and true to life and therefore very entertaining. How are things going now? Will you continue sailing together or are you two happy to sail the next trip alone again? How did you manage it in 2/3 of the time that the ARC teams need? Would you plan the PV system differently today? How much battery capacity do you have anyway? Questions upon questions. Take care and take care of yourselves. Best regards from Berlin, which has been white since today, Eric
Ahoy Eric, thanks for your lovely comment! We're not quite as fast as it sounds. You might be comparing us with the ARC, which goes from Gran Canaria to St Lucia. That's just a lot further. By stopping in Cape Verde, we split the crossing into two parts, so the second part was shorter. What's more, the trade winds are even steadier in January and, in our case, simply strong - which of course makes for a fast journey. We will describe what happens next in the next post. All the best to cold Berlin!
Atlantic crossing,
What a huge milestone, dear Katja.
We've only read each other's hearts from time to time over the last few years, but I've never seen you as happy and bright-eyed as in your photos. It seems as if you have arrived travelling.
I wish you much joy, health, exciting encounters and happiness on your journey.
Hug Jo
Dear Jo, thank you for your kind words! The Atlantic crossing was indeed a milestone and changed me in a very special way. I can't wait to see what else is in store for us. Give yourself a big hug. Sincerely, Katja