Wind Surf Day 4 – Relaxing on the Atlantic Ocean

 "A true traveller doesn’t rush, they soak in the essence of the journey."

Wind Surf Transatlantic Sailing Day 4

By April’s arrival, the Wind Surf was deep into the Atlantic, carried steadily eastward. The early rhythm of the voyage had taken hold with meals, conversations, and long hours of watching sea and sky blending into one.

Photography and April Fool’s

Today began in the usual fashion, with Sean heading up on deck to photograph the sunrise and me staying in bed for a little while longer. Sunrise, which begins around 5:30 AM, arrives early when you go to bed after midnight! When I joined him outside, it was a gorgeous day, with moderate feeling waves, sunny skies, and a few passing squalls. There also seemed to be quite a lot of flying fish playing around the front of the ship, which made for an entertaining morning.

Today was also April Fool's Day, or All Fools' Day. The daily programme, which appears somewhat regularly on the stateroom televisions, indicated that the origins of April Fool's Day, a day during which people play tricks and pranks on each other, are uncertain. However, in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, which were written in 1392, there is an account of a conversation between a Cock and a tricky Fox, where one attempts to convince the other that March has 32 days. Perhaps this reference to April 1st as March 32nd was the first trick that began the tradition?

Breakfast on Wind Surf

We stepped into to Verandah for a bowl of muesli and fresh fruit, a watermelon smoothie, and a cup of coffee for breakfast. One of the squalls swept through as we ate, causing everyone to scramble for shelter in order to avoid the few short minutes of rain. 

It is now day three at sea, and it feels like many of the staff and other passengers are beginning to know each other. Breakfast had the vibe of being shared by one large family, with lots of good-natured teasing and joshing being dished out by the staff.

Around 9:30 AM, we headed down to the lounge to listen to Pat and Rosemarie Keough’s talk on Portugal and their walk along the Rota Vicentina, a footpath along the southern coast of Portugal that we have also hiked along with the Camino Portuguese. As usual, the talk was both interesting and very well presented. At the beginning of the talk, they focused a lot on the photography and how the images were composed. Many of their photographs emphasized diagonal lines of sight, making them very active and powerful shots. 

They also did a very good job of blending the broader story of hiking, visiting different regions, and learning local history with more focused details, such as the working windmills that still exist across Portugal for grinding grain.

Day of Onboard Presentations 

Sean is quite sunburned from all the time he's spent on deck taking photographs over the past few days, so we decided to stay inside for today. Following Pat and Rosemarie Keough's talk was a presentation by the head chef, who gave a demonstration on how to cook seafood risotto. 

He also handed out the recipe for the dish, which smelled extremely good as he was cooking it. This was a very popular presentation, with people asking lots of questions, taking notes, and going up to have their photos taken with the chef and the dish at the end.

Lessons Learned While Hiking

We remained sitting on the soft sofas of the lounge after the presentation ended, and Sarah stopped to ask us more about our six-year hike across Canada on the Trans Canada Trail. She seemed curious about what he had learned during that experience. This is always a difficult question for us to answer, as we haven't quite worked that out for ourselves yet. Perhaps we just babbled an answer, but right now, the most we can say is that we came back with a different perspective and with the strong belief that finding a connection with each other, the natural world, and the spiritual side of ourselves is vital for finding a better way to move forward as a species.

In addition, learning to listen more and judge less is a first step toward making that connection. Hearing people's stories as we walked across the country, we came to see that most people are essentially the same, even those who have been convinced of radical political positions. We all want to be assured of the basics (water, food, shelter, and a feeling of safety), as well as the opportunity to earn a living that allows us, our children, and our children's children to have meaningful and prosperous lives. It isn't a very satisfying answer, or particularly related to hiking, and we felt that we let Sarah down, but what more could we say?

Clearly, we need to reflect some more (or walk more) to find wisdom.

Captain’s Noon Update and Fresh Perspectives

As these questions swirled around in our minds, Captain Trevor Bailey gave his noon update regarding our current position and upcoming weather conditions. It seems we have now travelled 239 miles since yesterday's announcement, maintaining a speed of around 10 knots. Barbuda is still the closest land, and it is now over 500 miles away. As Rosemarie said, we will soon be closer to the people on the International Space Station than to anyone else (although this assumes there aren't any other ships in the vicinity).

 
In the second part of his announcement, the Captain indicated that the storm in the eastern Atlantic is expected to worsen in the coming days. In response, he has adjusted our course again, taking us even farther south to avoid the worst of it. This means that we will likely not stop in Ponta Delgada as planned, but instead make a stop on the Canary Islands to refuel and resupply.  

 
For us, this change of course was ironic. After so many headaches trying to figure out how to get to the Canary Islands to hike the Camino de Gran Canaria, it turns out that one way or the other, we will now be stopping there anyway. We feel this just goes to show that things will work out as they are meant to, even if it isn’t necessarily how we expected them to. What a ride, what an adventure.

Lunch at Verandah

With smiles on our faces, we headed back up to the Verandah restaurant for a bite of lunch. There were many different dishes inspired by cuisine from the Philippines, including a whole roast pig. We tried a variety of different salads, all of which were very tasty. Sean also had a veggie burger patty, which was delicious and surprisingly seemed to be held together with cheese.

In keeping with our indoor theme today, we headed back to Compass Rose, where we sat inside and did some journal writing and reading. I tried the cocktail of the day, which was a Painkiller, and involved several types of rum, pineapple juice, and coconut cream. 

It was a pleasant afternoon, though, during which we chatted more with the couple we met while birding on St. Maarten. We also spoke with Jean, who comes from France but spent time building railway bridges in the Canadian Rockies.

We did our best to stay awake today, foregoing an afternoon nap. Instead, we stayed in the shade of the umbrellas outside Compass Rose until the setting sun behind us extended across the deck, making it too hot for comfort.

Dinner on Deck at Candles

Then we went down to get ready and dress for dinner. Tonight we had a reservation at Candles, a specialty restaurant that is included in the base cruise fare. Every second night Verandah is converted into a stylish dinner venue where guests can dine by candlelight outside on the deck.

 

The weather was gorgeous as we sat down to dinner, with mostly clear skies and a warm, gentle breeze blowing. The meal began with some fantastic cheese and olive focaccia bread, and progressed to a delicious watermelon and cherry tomato salad. For the main course, we ordered black pepper tofu, which was served in a sesame sauce over rice. Unexpectedly, the main course was accompanied by small plates of broccoli, asparagus, and baked potatoes. Interestingly, we were also brought a small dish with three types of salt - pink, black, and a light brown one with a strong smoky flavour. 

There was something slightly unreal about sitting outside, in the middle of the Atlantic (or at least more than 500 miles from the nearest land), enjoying elegant dining and an outstanding meal while watching the sunset from the deck of a sailing boat. Again, we were left wondering, how did we get so lucky?

 

It felt like a food crime, but we were served so much delicious food that there was no way we could eat it all. We didn't have space for dessert, although all the options sounded fantastic. Eventually, we hoisted ourselves up, feeling slightly too full from our efforts not to waste anything, and slowly made our way down the deck under a blanket of stars. 

Once the sun dips below the horizon, darkness falls very quickly out on the ocean, although curiously, the temperature doesn't really change much.

Stargazing at Compass Rose

We moved to the back of the ship and stood at the railing, looking up at the stars. A crescent moon hung above us, and in its bowl sat Jupiter - the single brightest point in the sky at the back of the ship. Just to the left, we recognized Orion's belt in a constellation of the same name, but otherwise, the star configurations didn't look familiar. We were joined by several other passengers who debated what we were looking at and which direction was north. Eventually, I used the Skyview App on my phone to get some answers. It is darker at the front of the ship than at the back, which made seeing the sky easier, but it was also much, much windier.

As we looked over the side of the ship, we spotted a group of flying fish leaping towards the ship. During the day, they generally leap and skim the waves away from us. Perhaps like migrating land birds, they were attracted to the lights of the ship. As we watched the tiny flashes of silver in the waves below us, we suddenly spotted a bird! We caught the flash of a light belly as it wheeled alongside, and glimpsed a brown back. Beyond that, it was too dark to see the details. We hadn't spotted any signs of birds all day, but now that it was dark, they must be attracted to the fish leaping, which, in turn, are attracted to the lights of the ship. It seemed a little unfair. Cool! At least to a curious naturalist.

As usual, we ended the day sitting on the deck outside Compass Rose, enjoying the live music and the pleasant night air. At 10 PM, the DJ put on 70s music and people began to dance. We met a few other passengers, including a couple from Lunenburg, Nova Scotia and a gay couple from California, both of whom were taking great delight in enjoying Toblerone cocktails, which looked like light, chocolatey, rich deserts in cups. The dancers eventually talked us into joining them, which made for a fun end to the evening.

As we turned in for the night, the thought of storms still lingered, but so did the promise of resilience. Tomorrow the seas would decide our course, but our spirits were already learning to sway with the ocean itself.

Read about Day 5 at Sea on Wind Surf →