Novara is in the Caribbean
by Novara 21 Mar 16:51 UTC
Novara is in the Caribbean © Novara
We've made it to the 'other' side of the Atlantic! After a sail of 3,300 nautical miles, from the coast of Africa to Antigua and Barbuda, we've got adventures galore to report.
And we've also had some excellent climate-change related community interaction along the way. Read on!
Novara on the high seas
Looking back on our Atlantic crossing, two major things stand out; the vastness of the ocean, and the resilience and dedication of our brilliant crew. We left Agadir on 5 January with Steve, Bob and Blair and sailed out into a strong breeze. The wind lasted four days then died, and we had to motor four days to Cape Verde islands. We took advantage of the lack of wind to swim in the Atlantic in 4000m of water on Nigel's birthday. Amazing! In Mindelo we reprovisioned and changed crew with Maddy, Andy and Catherine joining us. The weather looked good for a departure on 17 Jan. We had a couple of days of rough weather to begin with, and then perfect tradewinds all the way to Antigua to arrive on 31 Jan at midday (incidentally within five minutes of the time Veronica predicted in Mindelo). We had our share of adventures along the way: things broke, but we had a great team spirit, made contact with a team of Atlantic rowers and we got to know which critical systems on Novara needed attention. All in all, a life-changing experience.
Novara One Planet project
Since our last update in November, we've tried to keep our climate adaptation engagement work rolling. We had a webinar connecting climate action leaders in communities from Scotland and the Caribbean. They have many common challenges, despite diverse geographies. We have also worked with the City of Agadir, Morocco to review their community action plan and provided a climate impacts checklist. This is an ongoing activity that our team is continuing to follow up on. After arriving in the Caribbean, we met with colleagues in Antigua and Barbuda. Climate change is very real for them with the increasing intensity of hurricanes, as well as warming oceans, increasing land temperatures and loss of bio-diversity. They shared many stories with us - of courage, of frustration, determination and resilience. We're aiming to head to Dominica as our next stop.
What work are we doing on Novara?
After our crossing, we knew we had plenty to repair. Luckily with the engineering skills of Maddy and Andy we were able to start making progress. But when some critical equipment began to fail (the heads blocking was the straw that broke our proverbial back) we knew we needed to stop and get Novara back to health. We've spent almost a month working our way through a list of boat maintenance jobs and we're back on top of things again. What have we learned? To schedule quarterly maintenance stops!
Where next for Novara?
Our plans change depending on which communities put their hands up to engage with us. Our current plan is to head to Dominica for a couple of weeks, and then move south along the windward islands to get to Grenada by late May/June.
If you have any questions, or you'd like to get involved, let us know. And if you feel like following us on Instagram or FB, we're @novaraoneplanet.
Veronica, Nigel and the Novara team at novara.world