Leaving Montreal’s inconvenient and expensive Mirabel airport in the 80’s in a new pod. Funny how people can make absurd decisions that affects the entire globe and redirect millions of dollars to a useless purpose and get away with it, but when I told people I was crossing the Atlantic in a 42’ sailboat with two other people, they thought I was insane… :)
This is not a tempestuous mariner’s tale or a story of survival against the lady with the green eyes. It is one person’s journey out of the chaos of her life, sailing merely being the ‘vessel’ to facilitate it.
It started at the Montreal Boat Show in February of 1987. Like many Canadians, I am sure, I embraced a dream of getting a sailboat, a womb, to deliver me to a habitable tropical island somewhere in the South Pacific. There was a booth there for an outfit called “Voile Aventure” who offered charters to isolated places. I inquired about prices and was dissuaded. I then asked if it was possible to work on any of the ships. No, they weren’t hiring, but, there was a boat in the Grenadines that would need crew to take her back to France come the summer. How much would that 6-week trip cost? $800CAD.
Done! My girlfriends were coming, of course. Who could turn down the white sands of the Bahamas, the pink sands of Bermuda, the black sands of the Azores and the grey rocks of Marseilles? I ended up on the plane alone. In a way relieved that I didn’t have to be responsible for the higher maintenance needs of some of the girls.
Starting out, there was only the French Captain, Olivier Tommelleri, and Denis Goulet, a French Canadian with fresh water sailing experience. Olivier had been with his girlfriend Brigitte for a year crewing on the boat and she flew back to Marseilles to be with her son earlier. Denis was married, but decided to do the Bermuda-Azores leg of the trip with a third party. I was on sabbatical from men and fresh out of college with a degree in Philosophy that proved difficult to market. Tired of majoring in bartending and minoring in limited real estate sales as a vocation, I needed a break. All in all, we were well-suited to one another in terms of our individual and mutually exclusive boundaries.
Our first dinner together was unimpressive. Olivier did not seem particularly enthusiastic about our trip. He was certainly unhappy without his girlfriend and hardly spoke a word. Denis was all smiles and I spent half the dinner explaining to him that the lime that came with his fish was not a green lemon, but an actual lime. I don’t think he’d ever seen one before. No wonder the whole world thinks Canadians live in igloos and drive canoes to work.
As the late arrival, I was left with the forward cabin. Denis and Olivier took the two aft. That first night I realized the boat was infested with roaches. After a few more nights of disgust, I finally got used to them. After all, they were the only other creatures around for hundreds of miles at times, and they often made better company than the rest of the crew.
I was given the 2am-6am and 2pm-6pm watches. Not sure what kind of deal that was, but I slept soundly and vividly around those watches nonetheless.
Our second day out we caught a good wind out of the east that rendered the toilet inoperable. Funny how easily things can impact comfort or even survival at sea. My efforts at discretion were not reciprocated in the slightest. When one of these men needed to relieve himself, or shower, I would go below and keep myself busy. When it was my turn, I tried to plan in their absence, but Olivier and Denis inevitably found their way on deck to check things out, be it an ice cold bucket shower on the poop deck, or my morning constitutional. Oh, wouldn’t the girls love this.
This trip was meant to remove me from my environment and give me a clearer, more objective view of my future path. So far, I had progressed only as far as an acclimating to my new environment. I was enjoying the change, however temporary it was. We were entertained by the usual dinoflagellate glow of the water at night, and got over-excited by the limited SSB squawkings, whale and dolphin sightings.
On our entire approach to Bermuda we had a hard time staying dry from all the spray. We surfed the following seas and could get an extra 3 knots out of a good wave. We were scheduled to reach Bermuda at night and I had every confidence that our Captain 1. knew the way in, 2. knew the protocol for arrival and 3. had the tools and ability to enter safely into the harbor.
My first inclination that things were amiss was his request for the copy of “The Atlantic Crossing Guide” I had picked up from an Armchair Sailor store to familiarize myself with the general voyage. As the title suggests, it is merely a guide. An out-dated one at that, with crude over-simplified maps to various points of interest.
I could tell he was’t completely confident with which channel to follow, given the minimal navigational information available and so he asked me to get on the radio to the Harbormaster since he did not speak English. The extent of my experience at the time with a VHF on the water was limited to engaging drunken Bridgetenders. The conversation went something like this:
Me (M): This is the French sailing vessel “l’Arbre du Voyageur” (an old idiom for the word ‘mast' in French) calling St. George’s Harbormaster.
Olivier (O): (in French) Ask them which is the cut to get in
M: The Captain would like to know which passage is the entrance to the harbor?
Radio Tower (RT): (with proper British accent) What is your position?
M: We just passed light #…
RT: Well, the (so & so) light is not functioning and if you are not familiar with these waters, we strongly advise you not attempt the passage
M translates to O
O: Describe to him the passage in front of us and ask him if that is it
M: Yes, Radio Tower, um… We are near some rocks and there seems to be a narrow cut that looks like it might take us in, but there are no markers
RT: (after a long pause) Where is your Captain?
M: He’s here, but he does not speak English
RT: What is the make and size of your vessels?
M: It is a 42’ GibSea
RT: Port of Registry?
M: Marseilles, France
RT: What kind of survival equipment do you have on board?
M asks O
M: A life raft, some life jackets, flares
O gets annoyed with all the questions and tells me to end the communication
RT: We need names of all the passengers on board
M responds
RT: You cannot come into the harbor without checking into Customs and Immigration first, nor can you anchor here without doing so first. You will have to stay where you are for the night.
O gets angry and asks me to sign off
Thoroughly embarrassed and frustrated I sign off I head up top. Olivier then tells me I had to help him find our way in because he is blind in one eye and has no depth perception, but damn the English, we are going in anyway!
The waves were still 15-20’ high with winds at 25-30 knots. There was spray everywhere and as we closed in on land Olivier and I turned to see a large light in the sky accompanied by a very loud whining noise. Out of the clouds, an airplane was coming in for a landing on a steep decent to a strip on the shore that must have been directly in line with our boat but not visible from our position. Olivier dove into the cabin for the spreader lights, the spotlight and the planes right wing dipped to accommodate out mast. In spite of the strong wind, we still felt the draft from the aircraft a smelled the fuel.
Somehow, we made it in and anchored for the night.
After a good scolding from Customs and a reprovisioning, I climbed the hill to the radio tower to thank the man I had spoken to. He was not there. I could only leave a note thanking him for his assistance and apologize for polluting the airways with my lack of protocol.
We picked up Denis’ girlfriend and we were off to the Azores.
Bermuda to the Azores took 17 days. I rained the entire time and we were followed by 40-60’ rollers the whole way. When I opened my eyes the second morning, the hatch above me was submerged. A huge cash and vibrations made me think we had hit something very large. I made my way up top only to find Denis standing completely naked at the wheel wearing nothing but a blue safari hat and a cigar protruding from under his mustache. The image might have bothered me more if I hadn’t been distracted by the great wall of water behind him that looked like it was about to engulf the entire boat. Another crash! I looked to the bow and it was submerged again, and losing its grip on the wave passing in front of it.
I moved my sleeping bag into the main salon where I could minimize the effects of levitation between crests. Unfortunately that location also came under attack when a pot of left over mac and cheese came flying out of the sink and onto my head. I donned my long johns, baseball cap, fowl weather suit, walkman, boots and safety harness. My hands were soaked on the wheel and easily lost their grip as the motion of the waves lifted me up off the deck. Force 7 winds and Olivier was delighted with the time we were making to get him back to Brigitte. Ah love…
My spirits were waning with every passing day and I considered going home after the Azores. My tooth ached, I was cold and wet, the food was dwindling and the boat was getting less functional the further we went.
I turned 24 about half way to Horta. I had a few thoughts of moving to Toronto and finding a decent job, but then I got to feeling cold and wet again and wrote a poem:
Ode to the Transat (it rhymes in French)
I am sick of being at the wheel
All wet and wanting to vomit
I don’t want to be on the sea
Without sun or sleep
Take me back to my bed
I beg of you
To the point, no?
We were on a starboard tack for about 4 days which got annoying. I thought the French Canadian couple would surely get ill from all the rancid hame they were eating. I contemplated insanity for a few hours.
Finally, two days out of Horta the weather started breaking. We saw the good omen of dolphins and even talked to some sorely missed ships on the horizon after 15 days without another soul. That night I started thinking about Marine Biology.
We landed in Horta, reprovisioned, said goodbye to Denis & Co. and greeted our new French companion, Andre. He had the demeanor of Chauncy Gardener and a very dim view of women, especially on a boat. I never thought I could embrace a lack of romance as I did on this trip. Andre did not bathe until we were pulling into Marseilles harbor 11 days later, which Olivier fortunately had some familiarity with. Andre’s wardrobe... well, at least he had one.
As the trip was coming to an end, I started to feel nostalgic. I felt this should only be the beginning of an epic adventure I did not want to come to a close. I wrote in my journal by a full and bright moon in waters where historical battles had been fought and many lives had been lost. Each day of the last week at sea I removed a bracelet from my wrist and cast it into the sea. They were ragged old things given to me by people in my past life. We passed through the highly-trafficked narrows of Gibraltar with a few close calls and headed for the Gulf of Lions.
Fresh fruit was my first objective when we landed in Marseilles. I found a beautiful box of cherries and was walking them back to the boat to share with the rest of the crew when WHAM! I got hit by a motorcycle while crossing the street to the marina. Cherries went flying, my hip was bruised and I was limping, but not concerned enough to heed the suggestions of other and make me want to go to the hospital. I was leaving and could see a doctor back home. I was two days early for my return flight home and did not even care to stay in Paris. My desire to remove myself from the world had been met. In 7 hours I flew what took me 42 days to sail.
The voyage changed me. I wasn’t sure of the change’s permanence or effect at the time. Over the years it felt more like an introduction to a side of me that many could not appreciate, a side that wouldn’t always want to be lived out to such an extent, but would need to be given life once in a while. I felt less concerned about other people’s opinions of me. I felt an initial loathing for the hustle and bustle of civilization that waned after a while.
