Last April in Marmaris as we began our journey, the idea of crossing a large and unwieldy body of water like the Caribbean Sea was not an intimidating thought That was a sign of utter cluelessness, not one of admirable bravery. A year later, thanks mainly to our countless “humblings” in all corners of the Mediterranean and several refresher courses on the Atlantic crossing, we know better, and today we take very seriously any passage across a body of water with the word “Ocean” or “Sea” in its name.

We now enter the third and final ay of our Caribbean Sea crossing with Cartegena, Colombia less than 150 miles from our bow. Over the past couple of weeks we’ve battled against the changing seasons, which forced us to make this crossing before the tropical storm season gets underway, and also against autopilot problems that threatened to create intolerable delays. We were pleased to finally get our autopilot cleared through Jamaican customs and even more pleased to get the installation completed and our passage underway in less than a day. We won’t declare victory on our autopilot problems just yet, but after two days of 20-30 knot winds and the heavy seas that Caribbean Sea is known for, we can at least smell that victory is nearby.

Multi-day passages like this, in our opinion, aren’t a reason to take up the hobby of sailing. For those imagining it to be a relaxing cruise filled with fishing, reading books, and sunbathing on the deck, talk to us about this before buying your dream boat. Even a big boat like Tamarisk gets tossed around like a toy – beginners find it loud, violent, seasick inducing, and with the hatches closed to keep the waves out, its hot enough down below that Swifty calls it a “sweat camp”.

But there’s a reason we endure the heat, the waves, the pounding, etc. and will continue to do so until we’ve gone 360 degrees around the marble and back to where we started from. In a word, it’s our curiosity, and as we approach Cartegena, being a new port, a new country, and a new continent all at once, our anticipation reminds us how curious we are. We’re probably asking ourselves some of the same questions that have driven people to explore far away places since the beginning of time: what might we find, who might we meet, what might me learn. But before we get to any of that business the first thing we’ll be asking is where can we find an ice cold cerveza?

It took us 18 days, 12 hours, 45 minutes to do what Christopher Columbus famously did during five weeks in the fall of 1492. I am talking, of course, about sailing across the Atlantic Ocean from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean. We can’t claim to have discovered a new world or to have conquered a people during our Atlantic adventure, but we’re happy with our modest accomplishment nonetheless.

Our Atlantic crossing touched almost every human emotion we were capable of. We felt the thrill of sailing away into 2600 mile abyss, panic when essential equipment began failing during our first week, true comradry after completing mid-voyage repairs, exhaustion from consecutive sleepless nights of foul weather, fear when the wind howled to 40 knots, boredom when the wind refused to blow, and pride when we finally saw the silhouette of the French island of Martinique in the distance just a few hours ago.

We leave the Atlantic crossing not free of battle scars. Our mainsail rigging was damaged when the wind caught the wrong side of the sail as we prepared to reef in a big 35 knot squall a few days ago. Sailors will recognize this as the dreaded “accidental jibe”, and we now fully appreciate the desirability of avoiding this violent maneuver under all circumstances. Our autopilot decided to call it quits after two weeks of course corrections in roly-poly conditions – its complete failure now being prevented only by a makeshift rope attachment system. And our toilet now flows the wrong way on occasion, requiring regular disassembly and rebuilding, the details probably only interesting to ultra-keen cruisers… enail me if you want to know more.

Above all this, we’ve been humbled…. again…. by the power of the sea and the wind. We’re sick and tired of being repeatedly humbled week after week, but the lessons we’re learning are necessary ones for the 30,000 miles that still lie ahead. We’ll prove this by never mentioning the words “accidental jibe” again in these pages.

We were lucky beyond words to have Richard and Rupe aboard for this journey – it was mostly luck that led to them being aboard for the crossing this time, not our outstanding planning, but if we can get them aboard Tamarisk for the next crossing it definitely won’t be luck that’s the cause.

It’s time now to prepare for entry into Martinique where Piers, Wendy (mom), and Alina (perhaps our most adventurous friend) are waiting for us – after almost three weeks at sea, it will be a great feeling to finally see them standing on the dock. Even if they’re not on the dock, it’ll still be nice at least to see a dock. Cheers to the three of them for their patience (we’re more than two days late), cheers to Richard and Rupe for their relentless effort and dedication to this journey, and cheers to the dock!

We’re learning that in the Atlantic you just never know what to expect next. In theory we should be sailing in steady 15-20 knot tradewind conditions almost the whole way across the ocean. But given the frequent storms we’ve encountered most of the way so far, we’re not even sure we know what tradewind conditions really look like. The night before last was when we finally blasted through the big “weather complex” (as the forecaster calls it) which was the cause of the disruptive weather conditions we’ve experienced so far. As we pushed through the final front of the complex, the wind blew all night at 30-35 knots while dousing us with torrential rains, big seas, and very gusty conditions. Fortunately everything on the boat held up, including Rupe’s mainsail repairs from a couple days prior. Eventually the complex huffed and puffed its dying 30 knot breaths and in an instant we were in 0 knot winds, thankful to be through it. That was the end of the storms, the end of the big winds, and the end of our sleepless nights for this journey (we think).

Since yesterday morning we’ve faced gorgeous sunny days and very light winds. Again we’re being cheated out of our tradewind conditions, but that’s OK for right now, we can use a little rest. With our big sails flying to catch any wind out there, we’re averaging around 6 knots. It’s a strange feeling to be in the middle of one of the world’s largest oceans, about 1000 miles from nearest land, and have almost swimming pool like conditions. We should transition to real tradewind conditions later today, but we’ll believe that when we see it.

We’ve made enough progress south and west that things are starting to feel like summer again. The water is warm, the cabin fans are back on, and the sun is back on a high arc – all this means the time is perfect for a sunbathing session right about now. We’re declaring today the first day of our second Summer in 2012 – not sure if we have the authority to do that, but there’s nobody here to stop us, so we’re doing it anyway.

We are not optimists, we are realists, and we never expected our Atlantic crossing to be all smooth sailing without any incidents. That’s a good thing because we would have been in for a rude awakening when our mainsail halyard snapped on day 4, sending the mainsail crashing down to the deck. We also would have been surprised to find our autopilot linkage failing on day 5, annoyed to discover salt water leaking into the engine room, and bewildered when we noticed three new tears in our mainsail as we tried to re-hoist it on day 6. But because we are realists, our boat is 20 years old, and we are attempting a passage more than 5 times the size of our second biggest passage, we expected events like these and took them in stride. So we’ve spent the past three days performing MacGyver like repairs all over the boat while sailing under jib alone. Our speed has been slowed from 8 knots to 6 knots while we had no mainsail, but we made progress the whole time and probably lost no more than a day in total. We are now steaming back along at almost 8 knots with ideal trade wind conditions, relaxing and enjoying a storm-free day of sunshine for the first time on this journey.

An optimist would have assumed none of this would happen, been upset by the number of things going wrong, and probably would have been missing a bunch of tools and spare parts that we needed to fix things. If you’re an optimist, we suggest adding a little pessimism to your thinking – you won’t be as let down when things go wrong, and you’ll probably be better prepared to tackle problems when they come up. That’s just a little wisdom from the sea that has served us well.

We caught our second fish last night (I mean our second fish ever) when a flying fish on an apparent suicide mission flew into the cockpit and began flopping on the floor looking for an exit. We tossed him back (he would have made a pathetic snack), but in doing so we evened up the fishing score with Piers who caught the other fish a few weeks ago. The score is now tied at one-all, and that’s a good feeling because he’s been getting a little arrogant about his fishing skills lately.

How far can you sail into an ocean? Exactly half way – after that you’re sailing out. Tomorrow we will reach the half way point of this voyage when we cross the 1325 mile mark. We’re all looking forward to be sailing out of the Atlantic starting tomorrow, and if we’re not in the middle of repairing something at the time, it might be a good moment to crack open a beer and enjoy the view as the half way mark passes beneath us.

The sun has just come up on day three of our Atlantic crossing. Our greatest challenge so far was getting clear from the Canary Islands because the wind is highly unpredictable due to the large land masses. We found similar conditions in the Med where the wind goes from 25 knots down to 5, then back to 25, all within an hour, forcing us to make constant sail adjustments. But ever since we put a 100 mile gap between us and the islands, we’ve had great trade wind sailing conditions. This means fairly steady 20 knot wins day and night, with only slight changes in direction. With over 180 miles of progress per day, we hope this continues.

With Rupe’s expert advice we’ve put into place a watch program that puts one person on watch at all times, each watch lasting 4 hours (unlike our prior system where we had true watches only at night). This system allows us to stay more rested because we have clearly defined times when we have no responsibilities and can feel comfortable going to sleep – a huge stamina builder over the weeks. The person on watch is responsible for adjusting sail trim, maintaining proper direction, monitoring for approaching ships, and watching out for weather conditions that might require a change in our sail plan.

The Canary Islands are now several hundred miles behind us so we’re starting to feel a sense of real isolation. There are no boats in sight, nor any on our nav equipment, no chatter on the VHF radio, no birds, no mosquitos, no coast guards, no 911 operators standing by – if something were to go wrong, nobody is here to help us. Bobbing along on a 56 foot piece of fiberglass heading into the middle of a great blue abyss may not sound fun or interesting, but for some reason there’s something very special about an experience like this. Maybe it’s the challenge of taking on mother nature in the raw, maybe it’s the extraordinary sense of isolation that few people ever experience – whatever it is, we’ve got a couple weeks to figure it out.