So here we are in Tazacorte, on the island of La Palma, in the Canary Islands. The day has finally arrived. After many months of planning and preparations it is time for Loki and her crew to start the next adventure – crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Our trip across to Antigua in the Caribbean is approximately 2500 nautical miles, or in landlubber speak about 4630 kms. If you drove from Brisbane to Perth you’d cover about 4300 kms, so it’s a bit longer than that. Depending upon the weather we get it will hopefully take us a bit over two weeks of sailing.
Loki is now back in the water, her sails are on and some very time-consuming and somewhat convoluted maintenance tasks have been undertaken, thanks to Fitzy, Martin & Maudie. Great to have a good team on board with a handy skill set! A new hot water service, bilge pump and a brand new auto-helm have been fitted. The antenna for our new Iridium satellite comms device has been installed along with new engine water hosing. Plus various multitudinous tasks, the details of which I won’t bore you with. All stuff that involves crawling around in small spaces and/or drilling into inaccessible areas of the boat. The provisioning is now done and looking at the forecasts the trade winds seem to be settling in nicely, so if the weather Gods smile upon us we should have a good trip across.
So after a week’s worth of very long days getting the boat ready, and now that all the grunt work’s done, we are all really looking forward to getting out in the ocean. The day has finally arrived. Saturday we set sail. Starting to get excited now! As the wise man Mark Twain once said: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bow lines, sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” We are ready. Antigua, here we come!
Hasta luego!
Kate, Fitzy, Maudie & Martin