Well we made it all in one piece and by the time we arrived we were a team, me Ben, Francis and Manu, which meant I had much less to do.
What a treat it was to be greeted by Rosanna Emily and Patrick on the dock. We all went for a drink or two and it was hard to adjust to going to bed and staying there.

What was it like I ask myself?

Fortunately our boat is quite new and strong, we took care and nothing broke, just two pins dropped out of shackles, the ones I had not cable tied up....
The assistance of other ovni owners especially Stephen and Francine at North Sea Maritime, Graham, Kate and Phill in giving their time and experience was invaluable. Rosanna put together a folder with good wishes from friends that she gave us as we left and it was fantastic.
The boat went much much faster than I expected, we sailed with poled out genoa and staysail or genaker depending on conditions and the boat was typically doing over seven knots with our best surf at over 14. I think our best 24 hours was about 160 but we did not fly the genaker most evenings. The first evening out of Gran Canaria was quite windy and we thought we would be in St Lucia super fast, but the next two days were almost calm and we motored or sailed at about 4 knots We swam until I jumped into a pool of jellyfish. It was good to have the calms out of the way and once the wind started to blow it slowed to 10 knots but never really stopped. We saw a lot of mini squalls with rain and a couple at 30 knots They made us take our genaker down which kept the crew busy. Our fav wind was 15 to 17 knots genaker up when we hopped along seeing 8+ knots and we pulled ahead of other boats. We saw some quite big waves and we were surprised how quickly the conditions would change, following waves, cross waves, waves from everywhere, no waves; I thought the ocean would be slower to change. On the beach one looks at waves coming in and think they came across the ocean from Africa, well they didn't. It was never scary just bumpy. The nights were amazing, not at all like nearshore sailing where you are worried about traffic, you just look at the sky, see shooting stars, doze and make sure the wind pilot is steering you in the right direction.

We set out with food as a high priority and I think we ate better than I typically would at home. Highlights were fresh tuna tacos, steak taco, an incredible scene when Ben made fresh pasta ravioli which we stuffed with mushroom and caramelized onions, sole with capers and fresh tomatoes, salted cod risotto, salted cod fish cakes, and potato latkes.

It was a treat to make the trip with Ben, as we had agreed many years ago to do this, but we never thought it would happen. In the intervening years Ben has become a young man and I an older one. On a few occasions his judgement was better than mine, I can put this down to good teaching.

We steered with a windpilot wind vane system which we loved as it is silent and consumes no power. Sometimes it would steer for hours without attention when the breeze was steady. If the wind changed direction we did too and it required tweaking if the wind speed increased but I would use the same again. We also had a wattsea hydro generator that produced more power than we needed that includes running the watermaker, so for days we only ran the engine to make some hot water. Our desalinator water maker worked well and we showered and had an endless supply of water.

It's hard to take in an experience like crossing the ocean, but I can say, now that a month has passed, that I am happy to be headed north through the Caribbean not west to the pacific.