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Atlantic Crossing

almost 6m, and around 8h UTC, a big surge filled the cockpit like a bathtub:
I was afraid that a large amount of water could have entered the aft cabin
through the hatches. But Christine was sleeping and did not seem to have
been sprayed.

Around 9:00 UTC, I saw a strong light on the horizon in the Southeast: the
moon? But it was not logical, and indeed the moon was in its normal place
high in the sky above us. Suddenly the
second moon ac- Suddenly the second celerated and was
rushing towards moon accelerated and us, I feared a huge me-
teorite, it would was rushing towards us, I fall on us! Passing be-
hind a cloud, he suddenly disappeared,
was it an hallucina- feared a huge meteorite tion ? , but no, here he
was again, always with this frightening
speed. But it also evaporated after a few minutes. Phew! The incident last-
ed 15 minutes. Later I learned that a Soyuz rocket had been launched from
Kourou in French Guyana that night !

Thanks to our good management of electricity, the batteries were stable at
75-80% of charge, the sun recharging during the day for our additional
night consumption. When the sun rose on the 19th, we had less than 50
miles to go, we were now seeing the coast of Saint Lucia: Earth ! We were
a little South of the strait between Martinique and Saint Lucia, but the cur-
rents should help us to go up North without having to gybe.

About 25 miles from Saint Lucia, Gilbert saw a boat on the water, it was a
local boat, which we actually saw almost at the last moment. Could it have
been pirates? As a precaution, we moved away from their path, but the
swell was such that when we were at the
Gillberts watch top of a wave, it disappeared in the hol-
the happy binnacle low of another, and vice versa: only at
the rare moments where the two boats
were simultaneously at the top of their
wave, we could see them clearly. They
were two men on board, and proudly
showed us their catch, including a huge

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