Now we will be on a sailing boat for about 3.5 months…

As we have mentioned in a few previous posts, our intention is to cross the Atlantic Ocean with a sailboat. The reason for this is that Jaanus has always dreamed to sail around the world and when we started to plan our around the world trip Jaanus was trying to sell this idea to Kaija. Kaija, on the other hand, was convinced that only sailing is not so great for exploring more remote places on the mother earth. By sailing you only end up in beautiful bays and coastal towns. In order to have the variety in our trip, we decided that we will use different transportation methods during the trip in order to meet both of our dreams.

Already months before we started our trip, Jaanus signed up in FindCrew.net – Find a Crew™ is the world’s largest international online marine crew and boat network helping boat owners to find temporary or permanent crew and vice versa. Free membership just allowed to go through the announcements and let each other mark their interest for a particular boat and journey, but it doesn’t allow you to send personal messages. For this, you need to sign up for paid membership which is $53.49 USD for 30 days.

Jaanus was already before the travel continuously monitoring the offers on the website. Still being in Estonia Jaanus noticed that there is an Estonian guy Margus looking for a couple of people to board in Portugal for the Atlantic Ocean crossing in September. Both Jaanus and Margus marked their interests as „maybe“ at that time. When we were already traveling we didn’t think about this very much and Jaanus almost had forgotten this. But in Bulgaria, we decided we shall start looking for some serious options. So again Jaanus marked that we are interested in Margus boat and he replied he is very interested. We could not send any personal messages due to we both had free memberships. Thereby Jaanus was trying if he can find Margus contact details on the internet somehow.

We only knew that his name is Margus, he is 52 and that he probably owns a Dehler 34. Google sometimes rescues the world, so soon he found an article in Estonian newspaper talking about a Margus who is going to sail around the world with his sailing boat. He started about 1 month before we did. From there on we already found his blog and contact details. We were so full of hope and very keen to contact Margus in order to discuss whether he might take us to his crew. At that point, it just seemed to be destiny that ones having a same mission at the same time could make this journey together.

Jaanus sent an email to him introducing us and asking a few details. We agreed to have a call next morning to discuss things. And the following morning the deal was made and we had a shop to cross the Atlantic.

Both of us had a very positive feeling about this since the first minutes. We first hesitated to go along because by doing our research we thought that crossing the Atlantic will take 2 weeks up to 1-month maximum. But the reality is that we have to wait for the hurricane season to be over, in order to cross the ocean safely, and this is only at the end of November. This means that our adventure on the sailboat will be extended to mid or end of December. This leaves us not much time in North- and South-America. Despite that, we made a deal to sail with him. Margus sailboat is called SALACIA and you can read more about him and his journey at www.salaciatour.com

The overall plan was that we will board in North Spain or Portugal, Porto on around 10th of September. From there on we will sail south along the coast of Portugal and visit the coastal port cities including Lisbon, if possible. By then we will also probably know whether both of us will tolerate the sailing and will not get too seasick. Also, we have enough time to see how it is actually to live on the sailboat 🙂

After Lisbon, we will try to go Morocco. By October, we will try to reach the Canaries and spend some time there. By the end of November, we will reach Cape Verde from where we will start crossing the Atlantic Ocean early December. We will most probably reach Barbados first and spend some time there after a long journey crossing the ocean. The final destination for us with Margus will probably be Panama.

Although it takes considerably more time that we have planned on the beginning it seemed as a once in the lifetime opportunity and it’s very meaningful for us to do this part of our trip with Margus who is on his own around the world trip. I am sure we have a lot to discuss with each other.

We met Salacia and Margus on 9th in the Leixoes marina, which is next to Porto. Since there was actually no room to get a berth in the marina due to it was full, Margus stayed at anchorage and we used the dinghy to board the Salacia. How our first day worked out will be available in our future posts in due course.