- Well, Florence, let’s just tell you right away: the transat (the trans-Atlantic race) is cancelled ! The Brazilian buyer is not buying the boat anymore.
At first I believe it to be a joke, a kind of sailor initiation. Not at all.
- We can still stay on the boat until tomorrow. We can sleep here tonight if we wanted to. With Cédric, I go around the marina to ask if someone is leaving for Brazil. Nobody. Our bitterness soon swims in alcohol at the harbor’s bar. Too bad, we would have been a great team. They seem really nice. What I am going to do tomorrow? Certainly stay in Vendée, go to the beach and why not… Lay on a transat (deckchair).

- Florence, wake up! I just got a phone call! In the end we are leaving for Brazil! It is 6 o’clock but it is impossible to go back to sleep. Over the next few days we prepare the brand new sailboat, an Oceanis 48. Drawers after seats, table after floor, we cover everything with plastic, cardboard, foam and carpet. The boat must be delivered brand new. There is water in the engine; the departure is going to be postponed. Finally no, it is fixed the next morning. We fill two enormous carts with food. There is no more room in the car so I hitchhike back to the harbor.

Saturday, July 2013, 6th …. Today I leave for a transat (trans-Atlantic race)!

 

 

(Un) transat or (une) transat = a deckchair or a trans-Atlantic race

(In French both words are called ‘transat’ This paragraph is based on a play on words. Le transat (the deckchair) is masculine and la transat (the trans-Atlantic race) is feminine.

So, apparently the inventor of the transat (deckchair) never crosses the Atlantic. He has probably never been on a boat.The transat (deckchair), it is on the beach that he thought about it. Otherwise he wouldn’t have named it like that… Or maybe was he referring to a curved canvas reminding him of a boat’s sail. Or is it this curve that reminds him of the waves’ one and the chair’s instability from the boat. And this wood’s slamming? The front of the boat violently hits the waves!

 

… You would have guess, a boat moves! I understood it was on the sea, my stomach too. Even when it moves a little bit, it still moves (too much), you have to hang on to the side of the seats. At night you have to settle yourself in your bed against the corner so you don’t move too much. We eat in bowls; the electric stove swings so the pans do not fall down. The body is always under tension. The stomach swings. It seems like most of the people are seasick but after a couple of days it goes away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was not my case: I was often sick, sometimes for an entire day, sometimes for a few hours. During the last week, it was better. The medications did not have any effect. The only hope that I had left was to look up at the horizon or tighten up my molars and hold my breath to reach my cabin. Thankfully, swimming time gave me some time off.

 

Luckily, I was still able to ensure my shift. We were taking turns every six hours for a watch of three hours. In this way, I was keeping an eye on the speed and the wind, the weird noises, the potential boats on the horizon from midnight to 3 am, from 9am to noon, from 6pm to 9pm, from 3am to 6am etc… I was to wake up Julien, the skipper, when something was wrong.
There was some rain (more accurately buckets of water at “Poteau Noir”), some gusts and sometimes some huge waves that would hose us down. But no tempests (like Astérix and Obélix where the storm unleashed), nor pirates’ attacks. I learned knots and a lot of technical words. I was part of the maneuvers to put up and take down the sail; I also tried to steer a bit.

Finally, I think I found the common point between le transat (deckchair) and la transat (trans-Atltantic race): the slowness of the time. We were able to rethink the world and France too. Politics, society, economy, I think we talked about everything.
One month, you have a lot of time to think about questions more or less existential such as « Do sharks eat dolphins?”* or “Should we throw a can in the sea?" ** and to reconsider the basics because yes « fishes fly » and « Brazilians from Salvador are black”. You sleep, think about what we are going to eat, eat, take a nap and eat again. Reading, music, some movies, learning some words in Portuguese and some constellations’ name, dolphins’ performances and sunsets et… the best: swimming every two – three days in the immensity of the ocean.

* No, sharks do not eat dolphins, according to Julien (info checked since)
** Yes, throw cans in the sea, it is offering a house to fishes. The aluminum will degrade with salted water, it pollutes less than burning them in Brazilian recycling center... still according to Julien (I still have no opinion on the question).

 

Translated by Emmanuelle Renault

 

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