The end of our sailor's life?

We left Cirebon for our last sailing aboard Tequila, fearing the worst conditions, given the failure of our first attempt...

But "the wall" let us go through, not without taking its toll of sleepless nights and tired bodies...and most of all, soaked crews...

We got 3 days and 2 nights of nearly continuous rain (as you can guess by the floods in Jakarta!)...our night watches extended to day watches, so that 2 of us could stay dry while the third was steerring thru the gales and rains...

North Atlantic?...No; Java sea, only 6 degree lat (luckily, as the waves crashing on the deck were 23 degrees C rather than 15!!!)

Tequila, which surprised us so far by being totally waterproof, didn't stand against the continuous rain and endless waves crashing on deck every few mn...she started leaking and soon became a "cave a champignons" (sure you'll all get what that french expression means...).

We ourselves started mutating into mushrooms; pale faces from sleepless nights and sunless days, silent, and taking roots in the less uncorfotable places, awaiting for sunnier days...

Tequila, drying in Jakarta's sun...

Jakarta is where our sailing trip ends. Tequila and her captain continue with other crews and we are starting our land trip.

We will keep amazing memories of those 4 months on the sea...

Wonderful sailing in Australia, perfect conditions, the boat in perfect hamony with the sea, wind...and us...

Unique travelling in Indonesia, discovering remote mooring and meeting welcoming fishermen...

But the sea seem to have decided to keep the worst memories for the end...maybe so we remember for a long time how long term sailing can be tough...

And, just to be sure that, when I forget about those bad moments, I don't propose a round-the-world, tansatlantic or some other crazy sailing trip...Romain got me to sign a written agreement that I will "never, never, never, bring him on a sails powered floatting object for more than 24h".

Believe it or not, in the heat of the moment, I was very happy to sign it!!! ;-)

SO...we leave Torres foosteps at the door of the Malacca straight and start following Marco Polo's till we get back home...

Keep watching this space, there will undoubtetly more adventures to come...

05:49 - 8/02/2007 - Ajouter un commentaire