Who: Gaëlle, Cédric, Enzo.
Where: The West Indies
Multihull: Venezia 42
Blog: www.facebook.com/Ti-Mouss
The three of us have been cruising for 7 months now. Before September, our experience was limited to a few weeks’ cruising, always with a skipper on board. We started the trip with our owners, to get used to the boat, and since then we have become ‘sailors’ on the Caribbean seas. We have chartered Catanelo, a Venezia 42, for a total of 10 months, from the company O Sail. A mutual desire to take a break from our work and the crazy rhythm of Parisian life, a need to grant ourselves some time as a family, to enjoy our 11-year-old son, and to travel, to discover different cultures and sceneries – this is what drove us to plan this adventure. What could be better than travelling with your ‘home’? We appreciate the pleasures of cruising, interrupted by a few stressful moments and misadventures; all part of the learning curve! For the budding sailors that we are, the slightest misfortune quickly becomes a nerve-racking problem. For example, in Union, as we arrived in the Clifton anchorage, a line from the mooring buoy got caught in the propeller, and it was only after two hours’ diving, with the help of two local fishermen, that we succeeded in freeing ourselves, before the Marine Park came to give us a roasting… After a few weeks’ sailing, we had to face…a storm! We felt the wind chilling, while it got up to 46 knots in the channel between St Lucia and Martinique! Action, reaction, the captain handled the situation very well, while the rest of the crew remained rooted to the spot, hanging on to the table! Fortunately, the little problems were quickly forgotten, when we discovered the sumptuous environment surrounding us; the whales jumping offshore from St Barth, swimming with turtles in the Tobago Cays or at Tintamarre, walking along the white sand beach of Barbuda, watching the sunset over the Caribbean Sea. We never get bored of it, and make the most of every moment!
