Luc & Yveline Formagne, aboard Doudou, reflect on their Atlantic Odyssey in their personal blog.
We will never forget our crossing and we are extremely happy to have been able to take part in the Atlantic Odyssey, despite our somewhat deficient English!!! It allowed us to make the acquaintance of Pascal and Pascale, to meet Michel and Hélène who will follow in our wake at the end of the year, as well as all the other great crews of different nationalities. The week of pre-start briefings was really helpful and we left feeling pretty calm.
It was very motivating to receive a daily position update from all the other boats with whom we could correspond via email (we were not alone in the event of a crisis).
Most moving for all the boats was the festive welcome hosted by Kathy and Roger, the earliest arrivals with fog horns, the tourism office with the famous planter’s punch.
After the voyage, the atmosphere on the pontoon was really super, each one recounting their best moments, and the problems with the boats (there always are some!). The happy hours and the friendly evenings organised for the participants were relaxing, while Neptune and Penny Lane improvised a musical soirée on the pontoon, with Gary on the saxophone, Vanessa and Pete on guitar.
With Roxy and Themi, we had the pleasure of receiving onboard visits from school children who had never visited a boat before.