Ocean Crossing Countdown #1: It’s Not All Stress-Free, Fun Times 

Well, the countdown is officially on and the clocks are ticking.  We are currently 4 weeks from our estimated date to begin a 3ish week sail covering 4800 km across the Atlantic Ocean.  If my word choice sounds non committal with “ish” and “estimated” it’s because quite frankly, boat life does not support firm commitments when it comes to timing and even position.  The past week has thrown this fact in our face with multiple events.  We now have a saying on the boat; “start a project, make 2 projects”.  Those that are familiar with the cruising lifestyle are acutely aware that boat projects are never ending and never easy.  This becomes more apparent when you are prepping for long, offshore passages.

In a perfect world the big projects on this list would have been completed during the summer when I was back home working to try and pay for said projects.  However, we had multiple issues and concerns with contractors in France that resulted in us finding an alternate provider in Palma.

Thus, we started our substantial electrical system upgrade at the end of September.  This coincides with the boys and I leaving on our epic adventures through the Italian, French and Swiss Alps as well as a brief trip to London UK.  In said ideal world, the upgrade would have been completed when we returned 8 days later and we would have benefitted from a lovely downwind passage to Gibraltar to set ourselves up to cross to the Canary Islands.

As you can probably surmise, this was not the case.  Due to technician illness, limited marina space on certain days, and mega-yacht emergencies taking priority we are still in Palma and still waiting for our lithium install to be finalized.  Unfortunately, we have also missed our ideal weather window to Gibraltar and now have a Southwesterly system forecast for the next 10 days at least.

Fortunately, in the meantime, we have been able to steadily cross off a number of other items on our to do list.  Today was due to be our big electrician “go day”.   Potentially the last day the electrician is available this week to work on the boat and there was a giant list to complete.  This list included things like rewiring wires that were placed in wrong places, mounting the last two batteries, securing the first two batteries, labelling all the wires, and doing some programming/troubleshooting.  Work started beautifully and things were coming together in a positive fashion but this was not to last.  Sadly, a small error (not confirming that the DC system was turned off), resulted in a major problem (one of our two new invertors being completely fried).  Another invertor is not presently in stock and has been ordered in but will not arrive until sometime on Monday (best case scenario)…

After recovering from this setback, the boys moved on to check another issue that arose after the wiring last week.  Our heating and air conditioning unit is not operating properly.  Keeping with the mantra of “start a project, make a project”, they turned on the A/C unit but had forgotten to reattach the water intake hose.  This became painfully apparent when 10 litres of marina saltwater came pumping into the engine room right next to all our electrical panels.  This could have been disastrous but thus far, it would seem that the only fatal victim is our 60 amp charger which will now get added to our list and added to our costs.  As will a service check and possible replacement of our A/C and heating compressor.

So now we continue to sit in Palma at the mercy of the electrical install, the weather and the marina availability.  Our 4 week countdown is now feeling like a vise grip.  Particularly given that we have 8-14 days of non stop sailing to get to the Canary Islands assuming we have a safe weather window and then we are going to have to do final prep and provisioning for a 3 week non stop sailing passage.   Why the tight time crunch?  Well, we certainly could depart on our crossing anytime between November 1^st and Dec 27^th, but we have a fantastic set of crew that are planning to join us for the crossing that we are super excited to sail with and we have told them we would have them home by Christmas.

Fingers crossed, we have more favorable outcomes and more favorable weather to come.  As we always say, “all bad things happen for a reason”.  We will put our heads down, power on, and look forward to coming out the other side.