All at sea: but get me to the wedding on time

Claire McCluskey and her partner Nick are sailing back from the Caribbean to Ireland. This is part five of her Diary from the Sea.

After 2,300 nautical miles and 19 days since our departure from the Caribbean, Rogue Trader was on the brink of successfully completing another Atlantic voyage.

It is at this point that I must make a confession. I had a very important event to attend in Ireland – a cousin’s wedding, for which I was to be bridesmaid – and the date was getting closer. When we left Antigua, we thought we were being prudent by allowing three weeks to complete the crossing, with time enough to spare for me to fly home.

But attempting to sail to a strict schedule is always foolish, and sure enough, the slack spots we encountered early on were now leaving us short of time and fuel. There were just over three days to go until the wedding when we found ourselves 200 nautical miles out from Faial ... and the wind was slackening once more.

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We were so, so close. But with no wind, there was no way we could make landfall in time to get me home in time for the wedding. We have no level indicator on our main fuel tanks, but our estimates reckoned that they must have been pretty low by this point. It was highly unlikely that we would have enough to take us the rest of the way to Faial. But, not wanting to give up, now so close, we decided it was worth a shot and powered up the motor to see how far we could get.

Tense days

Those last few days were tense. I found myself watching the computer screen for hours at a time, as our little red GPS dot edged slowly along. It wasn’t long before I realised that this could help nothing but my mental instability, so I decided to occupy myself by losing at chess instead.

And it worked – in fact, so completely were we absorbed in the game one afternoon, that when David suddenly called out, it caught us quite by surprise. He had sighted land! And sure enough, there was Faial, just about visible on the edges of the vast blue circle that had surrounded us, unbroken, for weeks.

The giddy atmosphere was palpable and we nervously rushed around preparing ourselves for landfall, which we expected the following morning. Night closed in as we made our approach, and we stood watch in pairs to keep a lookout for other boats that were now appearing more frequently.

The barely-there moon left us in almost total darkness, and the stars were out in full glamour as we had seen on previous nights – joined this time by the twinkling lights of civilisation from Faial.

There were strange lights in the water too, a stream of phosphorescence was brightly following in our wake and spooky pulses of light flashed alongside the boat, occasionally revealing themselves to be dolphins darting beneath us, completely illuminated underwater. It was so utterly dreamlike.

The surreal feeling continued when I awoke in the early morning and found we were surrounded by land. It was a beautiful sight, with lush rolling green hills rising above the sleepy little town we were approaching.

Landing point

This was Horta, a traditional landing point for yachts making the eastward crossing of the Atlantic for the last 100-odd years. Running on what must have been the fumes of the last of our fuel, we arrived into port on May 18th at 7am, after 20 days at sea. Three and a half hours later, I left again, by plane. You just couldn’t make this stuff up.

So, in a way, I’ve cheated. I’ve spent the last few weeks writing about our homecoming trip to Ireland, and I’ve just skipped ahead to the end. I made it home the day before the wedding and had a wonderful, truly magical time – yet never fully able to shake off the dreamy disbelief that we had just crossed the ocean, for the second time.

It all passed by in a whirlwind, and it felt almost a relief to return to my 'normal' pace of life on the boat again. I returned a few days later to find Rogue Trader just where I left her, and the crew had a great time in my absence; befriending the locals, renting scooters and discovering late night, post-pub pastry shops. I've since had the chance to take in some of the island, and I have been finding incredible landscapes and views of the ocean everywhere I turn.

We bid a very fond farewell to David, who has returned home to his native Germany, and we have welcomed aboard Brian and Matt, two old friends from Ireland, for the final leg of our journey. For the first time in the entire trip, we have our crew organised well in advance of our departure. Now, once again, we are ready to go to sea.

Claire McCluskey is writing a weekly diary from the sea for The Irish Times for the duration of their journey. Follow their progress at facebook.com/sailingroguetrader