Seasick on shakedown cruise in 4m waves | Wandering Minds Ep. 2

This week, we visit two dear friends in Paris and Nantes while impatiently waiting for the go signal from our skipper to finally come to Les Sables-d’Olonne and board the sailboat we later cross the Atlantic on. As soon as the weather allows, we set off for a shakedown cruise to Quiberon in 4m waves and get terribly seasick!

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Last week we were caught fullon in the preparations for our world trip and went through quite an emotional roller coaster I was starting to feel some emotions some emotions some anticipation emot anticipation how is that and on departure day even made a spontaneous appearance on TV and now after having given our family

A big hug at the bus station we were sitting on the night bus to Paris and couldn’t wait to finally set foot on our boat and meet the crew that we would spend the next 5 weeks with made it so now we’re sitting on the night bu to

Paris and pretty much ready to set sail and you’re not getting that and pretty much ready to set sail U but the Atlantic didn’t want us yet since we were starting in ldon um we first had to cross the Bay of bis and where December is the best time

Of year to cross the Atlantic it is the absolute worst time of year to cross the Bay of bis and um so we were kind of stuck yeah and while the departure kept on delaying our Skipper sent us messages daily with updates of the weather forecast there was the biggest storm of

Autumn in the Bay of bis and we needed that 3-day time window to safely cross from Leon until the first port in the north of Spain so to sweeten up our waiting time we texted our friend pameela just a couple of hours before going on the bus to

Paris and she replied immediately and invited us to stay with her so the next morning we made our way through Paris loaded with our two backpacks guitar and two other bags full of sailing equipment made it to Paris after a happy reunion we went on to her

Tiny Studio on the campus of Ash a prestigious French business school outside Paris in the next days we cooked together at baguette and cam bear and wandered through Paris inhaling the cold winter air filled with old and new memories we visit some markets in different quarters and go to the cinema

To watch flow a documentary about a French sailing heroin Florence we ended up enjoying Pamela’s hospitality and Company for 4 days and are so grateful for the new memories made together now it’s going to n we just um said goodbye to P we had some amazing days um strolling around

Paris uh you’re watching good cinema movies um for my part spending yesterday in bed and being sick because I ate a freaking whole come on bear in the restaurant as an Entre who would offer M come bear as an Entre well I ate it anyways and I got

Sick so um I puked and uh but that made for for a nice cozy day in P ni home y today now it’s going on towards n um n is closer to l which is where we take off from and so there we’re going to

Meet Naima which is a friend of one of reina’s best friends uh or the girlfriend of one of best friends and um so there we will stay and wait until we can actually finally leave in not Naima generously accommodated Us in her flat that she shares with two other Women we got to enjoy a last bit of City Life strolling through town and even getting some work done we just had our first working session on our trip because it turns out at some point you do actually have to sit down choose videos edit videos to

Make it all accessible to you we baked some bread trying to revive Nina Sao despite not feeding it you can can still kind of bring it back to life and patiently waited for the go signal from our Skipper and currently every day we receive a message from our Skipper with the

Current um weather analysis and yeah it just seems like every day is like well I don’t see any possibility to start in the next 3 days and right now we’re already talking about that he doesn’t see a possibility until mid of next week which would be like the 15th of December

Yep and and we wanted to celebrate Christmas on the boat well we’re going to celebrate Christmas here what’s the problem we ended up saying saving vegetables on the market together and transforming them into pickles another treat for The Pantry on board on the last evening we went to a

Concert at the University of Arts where NAA would prepare gallettes and then finally the day had come on Saturday our Skipper John call us all in toon so the boat we had found a passage on was a yach delivery of a new catran that was ordered by a charter company in

Martinque but built back in France in the saulon so John the skipper had reached out on the platform find the crew which is somehow like a dating platform for Sailors just two weeks before he had initially planned to to to depart because two of his initial crew

Of five had to cancel spontaneously and so that was during our time in goo when we uh were still preparing and um looking out for options how to find a boat and then I looked at this offer and I saw okay there’s a brand new boat with a professional Skipper with all safety

Equipment already on board and only expenses to be paid and I was like n that’s the boat we gone to cross the Atlantic on yeah and that was in the afternoon and just on that same evening we had a phone call with John um where we were just both sitting

There like yes yes yes and uh after about an hour where he told us everything about the situation and the conditions and so on um he said well we can sleep over it think about it and get back to him tomorrow because he’d need a

A reply quite soon and we were just like listen uh honestly we know that we want to come with you for sure and so the next possible option to cross the Bay of bis was still 4 days away at that point but there was an option to do a Shakedown Cruise which is

Like the first time a new boat goes to sea but northwards um and you’re like what northwards um but there were two points that were quite convincing for that the first one was obviously a Shakedown Cruise is super useful when you’re a new crew a new boat and you have a quite a

Rough passage in front of you of three days and so that would allow us to do one day where we could just figure out the Dynamics in the team and also if the boat was all right and the second was we would even get a better wind angle if we

Started further north and um then descended South so that’s what we did so once more we pack our stuff and hop on the train where we meet our skipper for the first time and then after another hour standing in the pack train and half an hours walking with full luggage the moment had Come so we just arrived in this and uh this is like our first minute on the boat basically and we just got to know Eric and G also um so it’s I mean this is just so crazy to finally see these faces after like uh being weak and months in preparation and

Um it just feels so good the vibe is so good the boat looks amazing I mean obviously it’s a brand boat everything still smells like plastic um it’s all untouched it’s all it’s all white so it’s a bit um yeah feel quite special to be on the boat and um yeah just looks

Like we’re in for quite an amazing time in the next mon So where do we pack our bag we just entered um into our new home for the next 4 weeks or more it was a bit hard to find we just had to remember okay it was the cabin on the left side in the back um and we even have our own Bathroom do we have light no uh here see what the hell so this is more space than we have ever lived on during any Journey so it feel like a big upgrade crazy the guys are checking all the other things so why do we sleep on this boor

Here we actually have like the badest bigger than our tent so we’re really being spoiled um yeah this is where we’re going to sleep we have direct SE view watch the ships so today is our first day on the boats and uh today we got our first hint

On what is actually waiting for us because after breakfast John did a very intense briefing with us these uh Clips you may not have seen them before they’re safety Clips so you have to you know pull one part down and then you can open it the bucat that I was talking

About uh divide the boat so these are vertical walls in the boat above what happens if the boat Turns Upside Down and how you can actually uh then climb out of the boat by removing part of the stairs and um about how the lifelines work uh the different shooting utensils

You have to uh actually say hey our boat is uh I don’t know sinking and you can like shoot some smoke in the air so the helicopter will see you better we also learned that the uh biggest risk or the reason why most people die on a Sabo is

Especially men is because of peeing aboard cuz then they just fall in the scene yeah now we just had lunch and we will have a look outside to uh practice a maneuver of actually um unb barking disembarking Ming sh in the evening we rechecked the weather forecast which confirmed that we could finally leave the next Morning by Monday morning boat and crew were ready to face the fierce conditions of the North Atlantic for the first time I’ve e like a full plate of puk’s first losers Today 7 me forward with boarding the boat that evening for me personally a Dream came true a dream that I had kept since at least 10 years everyone who knows me knows that I’m sailing fanatic and that I’ve been dreaming of crossing the Atlantic for years after years of watching YouTube

Channels like sailing La Vagabond Magic Carpet and so on I just couldn’t believe I was now in for the same Adventure We’re hitting the first waves feel okay how was feeling I got with it three times but every time I feel better that’s a cycle how many times did you r four no you sit there you feel good and you don’t feel good anymore you run towards the edges of the

Boat you puke everything that’s in there you feel better for like 10 minutes maybe 5 minutes and it starts all over again keep watching The Horizon miserable hello so it’s 12:00 we’ve been sailing for 4 hours it’s seasick I’m sick green See and I also vomited three times but actually really helped the rest of the team he is taking it quite well he’s having a nap upstairs Eric also vomited but now feels better and John is fit as ever and also capable to sail the boat on his

Own cuz it’s an autopilot and uh we might have to Reef soon because uh the wind is picking up and we hope to be in by 10:00 all right I’m back at it again after about like 2 or 3 hours of just being absolutely I’m now back in

Being quite okay and now this is just look at the sun after 12 hours of constantly being shaken by the waves we finally came around the Headland of Kon and the sea was getting flatter pretty shaken tired but still full of adrenaline we came into the marina and success sucessfully mored

Alongside we were in for a good night’s sleep next week after getting groceries and some small repairs we dare to make the jump over the Bay of bis here we do all the provisioning for the big Crossing we just hope that we won’t di eating each other and explore biona for a few

Days all stocks being full we set off into 30 knots of wind the course to La Palma in the canaries land inside Woohoo