Sailing Photographer

You may have read about my friends Kim & Simon selling all their stuff to go and sail around the world… If not then please click HERE to read a little about more about them and find out their challenges and hopes before and since the journey.

So they sold EVERYTHING: house, car, businesses and bought a boat. A boat that they can sail around the world in the next few years or however long it will take. Before they set sail, they very kindly asked if I wanted to join them to document the first leg of their journey from Gibraltar to Malta and as there wasn’t anything super urgent to hold me back, I decided to go ahead and join them. We had a great few days in Gibraltar, discovering the town and meeting some local monkeys, I wrote a bit more about our stay in Gibraltar HERE.

I had no sailing experience and on top of it all I have a serious fear of deep water! So why on earth did I do it?

Well, the first main reason was that I knew they would keep me safe. They have years of sailing experience and know their way around the boat so I had no question over my safety. Secondly, I wanted to confront my fear of deep water and no doubt it was a challenge.

Due to the weather forecast, we left Gibraltar a day before we had initially planned and as expected, everything started off nice & smooth. Crew of 6: Kim, Simon, Skipper Mike, Kim’s cousin Loryn, me and Kim & Simon’s 3-year old daughter Sienna. I had my camera out and it was the first time I’d tried my hand as a sailing photographer, capturing the moment of leaving Gibraltar, the first emotions on the boat and heading deeper into the sea. When you look on the map Spain, North Africa and Italy – all look so close. However, by the 2nd day we couldn’t see any land even if you would have climbed the 80 feet mast! I did a 360 degree turn and all I saw was water. Lots of deep water. We weren’t completely alone of course, there were plenty of tankers that we regularly passed and several pods of dolphins which greeted & swam alongside our boat. But apart from that, we were long distance away from civilisation.

The main activity was sailing of course, but also keeping a log book, tracking tankers and keeping ourselves hydrated were important parts of the day too. The log book got updated every 2 hours and we tracked the movement of tankers and other ships 24/7. We all kept an eye out also for whales as when we left Gibraltar we heard that someone saw Killer Whales not far from Gibraltar, but the only whale we saw was – we think – a long fined pilot.

On the 2nd day, we were hit by an African sand storm which we later heard reached even the South coast of England. Initially it was hard to understand why the sky was oddly orange/red but next day the boat was covered by sand and the odd clouds all made sense.

On the 3rd day we hit a storm with waves as high as 30 feet with gusts of 50-60 knots of wind. But as we were going the same direction as the waves it oddly felt safe. However, after some discussion we decided to escape and find a shelter in Algeria. The images don’t do justice to HOW high the waves were but they might give a little sense of how rough it was. We had no plans to anchor anywhere until Malta, and definitely not in Algeria, but you can’t fight the sea. As we approached Algiers there was only TWO options of how we were going to be greeted. None of us had ever been there so we had no clue how it would go. They would either welcome us or not, but fortunately every single official we dealt with was friendly and welcoming. We were the only sailing boat and apparently great sightseeing for locals, who were taking lots of photos of us entering the empty marina. A chief engineer from a local tugboat kindly offered his help with our broken generator and I’m sure it was the highlight of his week :). Everyone was friendly but the whole town felt eerie. Every 4 hours we could hear the whole town echoing with prayers and although we were told that we could get a special permission to walk into town, we decided not to. There was something uncomftoable about the whole place. When we arrived, the officials put a security guy to watch our boat and the guys stayed there 3 days and 2 nights. Just 10m from the boat. We are still not sure if the designated security guy was for our or their own protection. Another odd fact was that when we got ready to sail off, there was a random guy, max 10m from our both, taking notes of our boat on a piece of white paper. He avoided any eye contact and as it all looked way too strange, we informed the local police who just happened to be near our boat. The police spoke to the guy and assured us that he is a local fisherman and we needn’t worry. But you can’t ever be safe enough and obviously our initial thoughts were that he and his mates would come after us once we are out at sea. I also took a photo of him just in case we needed later…

Nothing happened after we left Algiers but I definitely kept my eyes wide open the next 24h scanning the sea to see if we were followed by a group of “North-African fishermen”.

So we sailed on, day and night, and without any hesitation – the 3-hour on/off night shifts were hard work for all of us. Dark, wet, cold and in the middle of nowhere. And when you tried to go to sleep it was a separate challenge as the sea was rough enough to shake you up & down, left & right. Loryn and I shared the room in the bow and one wave was so big that her whole body lifted off the bed whilst she tried to sleep.

If you are looking for a good night sleep then avoid sleeping on a moving boat in a rough sea! 🙂

Another potential problem can be seasickness. You either get it or not but if you do, there is absolutely nothing you can do other than just lying down flat and waiting for it to pass. There is very little you can do to control it and if the swells get 30 feet high, you can’t escape it only wait patiently. Both Kim and I wore a seasickness plaster behind our ears to prevent it, ate and drank the same things – I was fine but she wasn’t. Total mystery.

Fortunately, as the time went on, the sea calmed and everyone felt better and more alive. As we were passing North of Tunisia, our main sail got stuck on the mast and the safest place to fix it was to anchor in the marina near Tunis. This was another anchoring in North-Africa that we didn’t plan, but the coastal view was beautiful and it felt a real privilege to sail so close of Africa. Simon was the brave man who climbed up the mast to release the sail and I don’t know how he wasn’t scared as I was scared by just looking up to the mast! Once the sail was fixed, we carried on and didn’t stop until Malta. We arrived just before the midnight and everyone had a well deserved and comfortable sleep in a quiet marina. It was so nice to sleep without being thrown around in your bed or knowing you have to get up for your shift soon.

During the whole journey there were so many beautiful sightings, views, sunsets & sunrises that it’s impossible to capture it all in photos or on my phone. I guess the best way to see it all is to go and do it yourself as I’m totally over the moon and humbly grateful for having had the opportunity and time to see the route from Gibraltar to Malta. I feel I have seen a part of the world from an angle that not many people get to see and I hope this post will give you a small insight in what it felt and looked to sail 7 days in 56′ sailing boat.