Moana Set Sail

A passionate and competent sailor with a joyful attitude toward nature and sea life.

Moana along with her niece Anaïs joined us in Tenerife to cross the Atlantic on our sailing vessel of 39 ft with destination Martinique. We were about to leave, eager to start the crossing, when our enthusiasm turned into a frustration when we realized that the gps on the cockpit wasn’t working. This forced us to stop the unmooring and try to solve the problem. We were considering to call a technician and resigned to the idea of postponing the departure for at least a day. Soon and unsolicited Moana took actively part in the effort of searching for the cause, and we were pleasantly astounded when she after some searching was able to located the missing link among the confused electrical wires and solved the problem so that we finally could set sail for the crossing just a couple of hours later. Moana showed surprising technical skill in fixing and improve autonomously many technical details onboard before and during the crossing. We took advantage of her suggestions to improve and better organize the board equipments. She was very reliable in her night watch and in handling autonomously the sails. During the crossing we took pleasure in her joyful attitude, be it when singing and playing guitar, or just observing enthusiastically the sea and sea life around us. In addition to this she delighted us with her tasty dishes and special drinks throughout our 28 crossing days. After our arrival we especially appreciated to be in the condition to recall the highlights of our life onboard in a video she masterly edited and posted on YouTube and, to top this off, together with her niece Anaïs, she composed and sang a song with the notes of the guitar in another artful edited video recalling with words and embedded images the best moments of the crossing. It was a fortune to had her onboard for this crossing. We are going to miss her.

18th Mar 2020

A keen sailor with an active interest in the liveaboard lifestyle

Moana joined me in southern Portugal where we spent a few weeks sailing my 35’ catamaran up to Cascais/Lisbon, and back. She’s a keen sailor with a sense of adventure and an active interest in the liveabaord lifestyle, even if that means carrying jerry cans of diesel for a kilometre through the city. In her time aboard she piloted the boat through narrow channels, performed night watches, sweet talked the spinnaker into setting in less than ideal winds, and smiled with glee when beating into 30 knot winds and confused seas. It was a pleasure to have her aboard, and I would happily have as her crew again should our paths cross.

25th Jul 2019