Well, I just realised it’s been a while since my last blog.. life seems to go by faster and faster when you have kids and get older! 

We haven’t been sitting still. After our successful Atlantic Crossing with the group of trainees in January, we continued to explore the Caribbean islands with them. Learning about nature, cultures, teamwork, communication, sailing and sometimes of course, also going through hard times. The hardest time is seeing them all go home! But by now, the Atlantic Crossing group has already had their first group reunion, and it’s amazing to see all the trainees continue and grow in their lives. We sailed through the Caribbean with trainees until the middle of April, after which we spent some time in Saint Martin and Martinique working on Guppy, getting her ready for her next adventures. Many are planned! Our plan at the moment is to sail her back to New Zealand, via Antarctica and the Pacific. However, from the Caribbean heading south can be challenging as it’s against the current and the prevailing winds. My dad did it successfully last year, but it wasn’t a fast or smooth passage. 

Eventually, we decided to go with the flow instead of against it as Guppy doesn’t enjoy sailing upwind and flies when on beam or beam reach courses, also without much wind. Which means sailing back to the Azores first and then following the ‘’normal’’ route down south to Brazil. It’s a bit longer, about 2500nm…. And we’re curious to see how much longer it will take compared to how long my dad took 🙂 It will be a fun experiment. 

We had a good start, taking 16 days to sail from Martinique to the Azores. It was a beautiful crossing with light winds, but enough to sail, only the last few days, the tail of a low gave us some wind, but no more than 30kn. After the low, we were left with some cross waves, so that was a little uncomfortable, but it can’t always be amazing. 

This is the first time we crossed an ocean without trainees on this boat. Tim and Alex had mixed feelings about it; they love the liveliness and company of the teens, but soon discovered they are now allowed to take over the saloon with their toys and seemed happy enough building Lego, magnet blocks, and drawing. 

We also celebrated Alex’s 4th birthday at sea. As I said, time flies! Can’t believe my little boy is 4 and has already celebrated two of his birthdays at sea! We celebrated with strawberry cake – his favourite, we had bought frozen strawberries which turned out to be a lot less tasty in cake than fresh ones… still good enough for our little strawberry addict. 

We also celebrated a huge milestone for Guppy – she now sailed over 50,000nm since we have owned her! On almost all of which she carried kids and teens safely over oceans and seas. We are so proud of our old girl!

When Tim was little, I made up a goodnight song – now both of the boys know it by heart, it represents what Guppy means to us and goes like this: 

Close your eyes, go to sleep, dream about the big, big sea. 

About the dolphins that come by

And the whales that might say hi

About the fish that can fly 

And the birds in the sky

Close your eyes, go to sleep, dream about the big, big sea

About the islands we will go 

And the people we might meet

With our toes in the sand 

Running of with bare feet. 

Close your eyes, go to sleep, dream about the big, big sea

How Guppy pushes her bow, 

Wave after wave

Mile after mile 

Keeping us safe with her big guppy smile.