#20 Summer reading. Around the world on a 6.50-meter boat. Atlantic ascent/2
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I receive a message, “STRENGTH ALESSANDER, good wind for the end of your extraordinary journey, take advantage of all these magical moments before the BIG RETURN!!! Thinking of you. Virginie Moitessier.”
Less than 900 miles to Les Sables d’Olonne! The 13th is a gale! Very bad breakers and wave trains that I sometimes estimate higher than the mast. On the 15th the wind strengthens and around noon a large breaker corrals the boat causing the mast to touch the water. No damage fortunately. On the ground there is betting on my arrival date.
On the morning of July 20, I turn on the satellite phone to check for incoming messages when the phone rings: it’s Seb. He calls me from a 60-foot trimaran about 20 miles away. He is on his way to Séte and we almost didn’t get to meet. On the starboard side passes a pod of dolphins. After a few minutes, the dolphins reverse course and join me to stay and play for more than half an hour. It is less than 180 miles to the finish. I advance at night with the gennaker hoisted at a good speed, when suddenly a needlefish swoops onto the deck. I’m at the helm and try to grab her, but I can’t hold her, and she slides off into the water.
The morning of July 21 is 65 miles to Les Sables.
I have already informed my mother, Jean Jacques Clerc the WSSRC/ISAF commissioner, and Romain that I could have arrived at night but, that for the convenience of all the people who want to be present at the conclusion of my round-the-world race, I will slow down my speed so as to cross the finish line at the Nouch South buoy around 7h30 French time. For the past few days I have been hoisting my flags. Missing is the Italian one, which was destroyed en route by the wind. I sew a new one using the green bottom of a sack and pieces of red and white fabric from the pants of a track suit. I shave.
In the late afternoon I spot land! Yes, land at last!
It is the Ile d’Yeu that I have in front of me about 10 miles away. I tack and immediately lower the sails to slow down.
Just before dusk I see a helicopter pass between me and the coast.
After a few minutes it veers and approaches, flashes begin to go off. Also on board is Fabrice, who will not be able to be in Les Sables tomorrow but managed to get invited on the helicopter. They stay several minutes hanging around me. Iso the bow to take some good pictures of him. Retrieving a trolling line to which a mackerel has taken a bite. I set the boat on course to stay about 10 miles from the coast. Rest two hours.
Dawn breaks. I take a hot tea, go out to the cockpit.. Off the bow I spot a dinghy, then a sailboat, then more boats. People left the harbor to meet me. I am excited. Only a few miles to the finish. A sailboat pulls alongside a few meters away. I recognize the skipper and shout, “Romain!” “Alexander!” she replies from aboard. Let us exult.
Also on board with him is his wife Stephanie and their two children as well as Pierre Marie Bourguinat, editor of Voiles et Voiliers and Fabrice, a friend of Romain’s who was also present at the start.
A few minutes later a speedboat arrived with my mother on board. Jean Jacques is also there.
On other boats, which gradually go alongside me, I recognize other friends: Mario Virano and his son Andrea who came from Italy, Roberto Zorzi, who with a friend of his was also at the start. Also, Michel Poitevineau, Charles, Jean Louis et Yvon, Jacques Archambaud and many others.
I tack aft and point to the finish line. I spot the South Nouch on the left.
One hundred meters more, 50, 30, 10…. tuuu tuuu tuuu, sirens sound. A great round of applause erupts, filling my heart. I have arrived!
It is 06h02’40 “UTC (08h02’40 French time) and I have just completed the round-the-world voyage, solo, nonstop, unassisted, and for the three Chiefs on the smallest sailboat in history.
I spread my arms out leaning toward the people around as if to embrace them all and shout “Et…Voila!”
I smile, take pictures, cheer. Large flags of France and Italy and a flag of Sicily are flying on a speedboat! I lower the sails. Michel from aboard his “Pomino VII” throws me a line, which I fix to the bowsprit.
Before the entrance to the canal leading to Port Olona I climb the tree.
We embark on the canal, people cheer and wave from the banks and boats around.
It is a magical catwalk. I am moved.
A dinghy replaces Michel’s boat to ac- cost me to the Vendée Globe dock. A crowd bath awaits me. The pier is packed with people, dozens of journalists pointing their microphones at me and asking me to report on the most exciting moments of my trip.
I repeat myself in an “Et…voilà ! Vous êtes fantastiques !” Then a flood of words burst out of my mouth. I rec- count the motivations that led me to embark on this adventure, the difficulties encountered already in the ground preparation, the many people who were skeptical about the chances of success. And then the arrival of main sponsor Findomestic and other technical people who enabled me to get to the starting line.
Account of descending the Atlantic Ocean, passing off the Madeira Islands, and sighting the Canary Islands. Sailing in the trade winds passing among the wild and bristling islands of Cape Verde. And then the entry of the Stormy Thirty and the fearsome Roaring Forty, the encounter of the first albatrosses, until rounding the first of the three capes, Good Hope by sailing several hundred miles further south of the last offshoot of African land. The arrival of the new year, 2010, coinciding with entry into the Indian Ocean, and then the route further and further south into the cold, amid storms passing south of the Kerguelen Islands, the nightmare of icebergs, and the increasingly bitter cold.
I go on to tell about the encounters with the animals, the indescribable emotions they gave me.
“I stroked dolphins in the Indian Ocean!” I exult with shining eyes. I talk about the importance of the work done on the ground by those who followed me and loved me, my mother, Seb, Pierre, Romain, Yves, Fabrice.
I burst into tears with emotion. And in front of me other people are crying. I tell of the albatrosses ditching next to the boat south of New Zealand, of the sea lions and again of the storms, of the great leap into the Pacific Ocean until I got to the dis- albing, building a makeshift rig, and rounding Cape Horn to embark on the long Atlantic ascent that took me 268 days after departure to complete the round-the-world voyage.
I climb the tree to film from above all the people who have come to greet me. I then return to the deck.
A boy, making his way through the photographers, holds out a small piece of paper to me on which he wrote that he was on the pier celebrating my arrival and that, although he doesn’t know me, I made him cry with joy.
My mother and Romain get on board, we hug. They hand me a bottle of champagne.
I pop the cork, how wonderful! Let’s celebrate! Now it is time to go ashore…. People are watching me. With one step they are on the pier.
To separate from the boat so suddenly is a strange feeling.
I think about everything and nothing. I let go surrounded by the river of crowds. My balance is fine and I am slightly affected by the earthen sea, which nevertheless appears as a pleasant feeling of slight lack of balance.
A stage was set up at the top of the pier to receive congratulations from Monsieur Louis Guédon, deputy-mayor of Les Sables d’Olonne, and Monsieur Gérard Faugeron, vice president of the Conseil Général de la Vendée, and to answer questions from Rafael Godet, journalist for Radio France Loire Ocean. I thank all those present. I am asked what I am in the mood for at the moment.
I reply, “Of a nice lunch and a nice beer!” Someone asks me if I would do it again, to set off in such a small boat around the world. I answer yes, “Of course I would do it again, but I won’t do it again. I have more on my mind and new dreams to fulfill!”
I’m going back to see the boat. It seems strange to be able to finally observe it from a pier…. My feet are now on the ground, but my head is still on the road…. The ocean is inside me with its colors and song, with its breathtaking scenery, animals and the boundless power of stormy days.
I retain of each moment an intact memory, I retain the rainy days, the blinding sun, the rides on the waves, the wind in the sails, the salt burning on my hands and sometimes even inside…, the sinking into a Dantean abyss at the other end of the world and the rebirth beside…
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