I’ve spent almost my entire adult life living on the west coast, very near the Pacific Ocean, and yet I now feel like the Atlantic Ocean is my home ocean since I’ve sailed across it twice and now starting the third time. It seems familiar to me in a way only an ocean sailor can understand.

I am on the homestretch, headed west from Namibia to St. Helena Island, then onward to Antigua and South Florida, the finish line for my solo voyage to 7 continents I can now conceptually see over the horizon to the northwest. I expect to arrive there in early February. From St. Helena I’ll have about 5200 nm left to sail, shorter than my passage from Puerto Montt to the Marquesas.

Until now I kept thinking, generally, “I have a long way to go” without really putting a distance or time frame on it. Buying provisions was affected: I need a lot of food on board because I have a long way to go. I still have many cans of tuna, salmon and vegetables I bought in Chile 18 months ago.  I guess I need to start eating more tuna and draw down those reserves instead of buying new stuff because the remaining days are now certainly numbered.

I was reminded of these things this morning when I sailed across the Greenwich Meridian into the Western Hemisphere, definitely my home hemisphere, after spending more than a year on the east side.  I’m incrementally getting closer to US time zones so I won’t have to get up in the middle of the night to watch Oregon football games with Starlink. The winds and currents should be favorable for the remaining legs of my voyage, although I’ve learned never to take these things for granted or the mythology of the sea might rise up to smite me. You are well-served by humility when sailing the world’s oceans.