Yeah - now it's really starting!

What a ride! After 37 hours we anchored off the town of Sitges between Barcelona and Terragona. In 2.5 metres of water with 23 knots of wind. But on sand and with plenty of space around us. What could be better? Especially as the new anchor is awesome. Just throw it in and it holds. Spektra from Australia, if anyone is interested in the details... .

Katja has already written about our start. After getting up at 04.00, I felt as if I hadn't slept at all. Not the best preparation before the first night sail. The aim was to catch some good wind in the Gulf of Lyon and then sail across from Cassis towards Barcelona. That actually worked out. Arome's forecast was correct and we had about 15 knots of wind from the north-west. Optimal conditions you might think. However, I hadn't realised that a strange wave would build up on the short stretch of the Gulf: short, steep, from all directions at the same time. As long as we had wind, it worked. It jolted and jerked but nothing really flew around and with a bit of balance it was actually possible to make a coffee. When the wind died, our Code D, the light wind sail for every course (!) was to be used. That was great at first. We made an average speed of 8 knots and the sail was relatively easy to set and hoist. It was only when the wind continued to drop, but the waves remained, that dark memories of the last Atlantic trip came flooding back. The boat swayed back and forth in the wave, with no wind to provide the strength to stand against it. The sails start flapping and making terrible noises. It's really gruelling. Especially as it simply can't be good for the material.

Overall, we were much slower than I had hoped. During the first test runs, we reached a speed of 10 knots in 10 knots of true wind. Now our supplies, fittings, spare parts, tools, etc. are having an effect. The boat is much heavier and therefore much slower. Well, we'll get there anyway. And for our first long beat of 225nm (approx. 415km) we managed 37 hours and thus an average of 6 knots. That's not bad either!

It was quite a kick start, especially for Katja. Waves, strong winds, calm with flapping sails, changing sails at night in the dark, large cargo ships around us... all things that a cruising sailor knows, even if you tend to suppress the unpleasant experiences. At least I do. At times I had real doubts: do we really want to cross the Atlantic? Seriously? Voluntarily? Why would you do something like that... . It's exhausting, it's constantly rocking, you're always tired, you're scared at times, something always gets broken... . In between, however, there are real feelings of happiness. When the boat rushes through the waves, when the wind, waves, boat and crew harmonise. Then it feels great and everything else is forgotten. When dolphins come to us, when the sun rises or sets over the horizon, when Katja has conjured up a plate of pasta at a time of total exhaustion. Then everything is good again and life is good. I hardly know of anything where the amplitude between high and low is so great and, above all, so rapid.

Tomorrow is now a working day! Thanks to Elon Musk, we had internet even in the middle of the Gulf of Lyon. I had to upgrade the tariff and pay extra for "ocean use", but once you've had experience with conventional satellite communication, it's a quantum leap. In the middle of the sea, there is WLAN with 300 MBit download rates thanks to a small dish. Unbelievable. No idea whether that's a good thing in the end. After all, dead spots also offer freedom from universal accessibility and thus have something of an Internet fast. For me, it's a real advantage: I had planned to continue my projects during the trip, at least on a reduced scale, which seems to be working out thanks to flexible clients. So tomorrow I'll be working. Even if the weather cries out to continue sailing. We're not yet familiar enough with working while sailing, but that will come!

With our first stroke, the hoisting of the Spanish host country flag, we are really underway. I'm exhausted and excited, looking forward to sailing along the Spanish coast and taking a deep breath in Gibraltar before heading out into the Atlantic!