POSTED MARCH 31, 2020
Well, that took a bit longer than planned. We made it to Cape Verde on the 29th. Our sail from Casablanca had started with really tough weather and associated tough sailing but we had some better bits near the end.
The Morgan fellow we were picking up turned out to be a female Morgan so we jumped into a bit of a rethink of the quarters again. Morgan turned out to be pretty resourceful at sourcing food provisions and supplies and methanol and had a good stockpile for us when we met her.
As we set out for the big sail across to The Bahamas, Ciara did her teaching thing but actually had and has, Alisha doing most of it as we learned from our sail from Casablanca to Cape Verde this Millennial is a quick study and a bit of a natural sailor.
What is a little tougher is that Ciara just received news that her ex-husband committed suicide. It seems that at some point shortly after I was there he went into the barn, swallowed the wedding ring, took off his boots, made some cuts on the soles of his feet and ankles and then while standing on a chair, used zip ties to tie his wrists up to the beams above and then kicked over the chair. This is a very slow way to die and very scary stuff. I have a hard time taking out a splinter so it must take some serious control to cut your own feet and then hang there waiting to bleed out. It turns out that he died of a heart attack from the blood loss and they don’t know exactly how long the process took.
Ciara is more than a little shaken by the whole thing. She is, of course, relieved that her nightmare with him is finally over but equally stressed that my little trip to help her ended up with a resolution that still puts some stress on her. Now in some ways, she will never get away from him, but at least not live in fear.
So as we headed off we envisioned the next few weeks as just days and nights of hard sailing but with four to work the boat and me to cook and keep us organized I was feeling pretty confident. I have heard Captain Ciara say more than once to the group that “this is not November”. What she means is that the tradewinds for this route are ideal for crossing from north Africa to the Caribbean in November or December making that the chosen time that most serious racers or recreational sailors take this trip on – not in March. Well we don’t get to choose our timing for most things in life so why should this be any different?
You probably won’t see anything posted here until we make it to The Bahamas and we are in quarantine there.
Django