We are fully loaded to the brim with Coffee, Rum and Chocolate. Barrels in the noise room, that’s probably a first. With time to think after weeks of harbours and civilization, I am finally writing my 4th blog article on this journey. Returning home I really look forward to seeing my families and friends again after that long time on the road.
The crew is in a really good mood, after more or less a week at sea everybody is getting into a rhythm again. The old crew falls into its patterns and the new crew gets their feet wet. Old inside jokes developed over time get retold while some stories as if by a silent agreement are not being talked about. And everybody knows that these days of crossing the ocean to Bermuda are the last days of Caribbean Sun before entering the actual North Atlantic, into the European Spring.
The thing I will write about our last harbour, Boca Chica, is that you are not supposed to drink the tap water there – am I surprised? My personal favourite from all the places we visited in the west is Grenada. It had the right mix of exotic but sympathetic roughness. It had a distinct culture, friendly people and on top of that a green and lush nature. The whole crew had a great field day visiting the Grenada Chocolate Company – a delicious slavery-free Oil Down included.
Stepping on land in Horta at the  Azores would be a very welcome experience after all the stories I have heard of these islands, but to be sure we are stocked up for the “long crossing” directly to Amsterdam. From our perspective, it looks like Europe is doing a unique social experiment where the boat is somehow not part of it. We are lucky enough to have plentiful supplies of bog roll and the best homemade pizza I ate in my life. I am prepared for a small chickenpox party after arrival to get done with it. We don’t see many aeroplanes, but got a friendly visit from a US Coast Guard helicopter while passing Puerto Rico. What happens to the rest of the planet? No daily crazy media frenzy to worry about. Our little world here is not changed that much, except the worries about our relatives at home belonging in the risk groups. We are probably at one of the more sane and safe places at the moment.
One thing I strongly remember is that day on the crossing to the Caribbean when we drove the dingy on a calm day around the Tres, she dressed up with all the Stun Sails you can find. That tiny self-sustained world floating in the nothingness of ocean above an abyss of kilometres of water. That was an “Apollo 8 Moment”: Treat that floating home and anything on it with all the love and care you can, there is nothing else around it. If somebody sees a metaphor there I’m happy…
Now after being engulfed in a waft of slightly fermenting chocolate beans for an hour or two I’ll return on deck to finish a wonderful, sunny Sunday off-watch.

Martin Zenzes, Bermuda Basin, 2020