THE COME BACK

Today, Monday 8th of April 2017, 06:00 -6 hours UTC. The crew members of El Galeon Andalucía, in which one i’m part of , we are heading Charleston , situated in the state of South Carolina and so leaving Baton Rouge behind us , a little cool town from Louisiana just in front the Mississippi river.

Almost a year letting me be carried away by the winds , the waves , the ocean currents , the crackling of the woods , the continuous movement. Those kind of things are what makes the difference between the people staying on land or an authentic old sea dog. Sometimes while we are sailing i turn my head to check if everything is going correctly , but it’s in that specific moment when the sunrise comes up or the sunset goes down , that my mind stops working correctly and my face becomes to be a stone statue , that can’t stop watching the sun rays. When the sun goes down , the darkness of the night absorbs us letting them appear , our little brilliant friends , the stars. It may sound incredible , but those little friends , are our guides during the night.

I arrived to El Galeon, the 4th of February 2016, i flew from Spain to El Viejo San Juan (Puerto Rico). I still remember perfectly the moment when i finally arrived and was just in front of the boat with my mate Carlos Quinto , look to each other and say: “ We finally arrived , bro “. After a while of been in Puerto Rico the USA shouted us very loud , it was time to sail. The adventure already started.

Once in the States , the big tour began , i could say that i’ve done and i’m still doing history. I’m sure that there’s a lot of people i’m envying right now , it’s normal , i would also have it but perhaps someday it changes. But just talk about what i really want you to know. That same summer el Galeon was going to participate on a big event called Tall Ships. It started on the Great Lakes , situated between the USA and Canada , we were going to pass threw the St. Lorence Seaway. Probably some of you are asking yourself: “ Tall Ships, what’s that ? “. Well that’s why i’m here, to solve your doubts. Basically this event consists on a tour with different ships from another century , classic ships … traveling place to place to show and teach a little bit of history.

Before the summer came we were sailing the east coast , stopping in almost every state until we arrived up to the north and started on the Great Lakes. I can say that i’ve sailed the Caribbean and the entire East Coast. In my opinion the top 5 places that i’ve been and i liked the most and still do it at the moment are :

– Puerto Rico : I think it’s enough if i say that it’s an island situated in the Caribbean so you probably can imagine how it looks like. It have a lot of amazing beaches and we can’t forget the womens. Probably this little island for a spaniard like me as they speak spanish i could say it’s like the closest you can feel to be from home.

– Key West , FL : This little key is one go the hundreds little keys from the south of Florida. It really is a fascinating place were nautical sports like : diving , fishing , sailing , kayak etc are very popular activities , so if you enjoy the sea life style i totally recommend it. And what to say about the nightlife , during the night this place is totally different but in a good sense.

– St. Augustine , FL : It was the first city with people living on it of the USA and first spanish colony. It isn’t a very big city but it’s full of history and it’s a very quiet and pretty area. Definitely i would go for some vacations again.

– Toronto , CA : This big city is part of Canada , i think this city at the moment is one of the most multicultural places i’ve been before . I don’t remember exactly how many days we stayed , but it were around three or four days , and one of them it was Canada’s Day. It was crazy , because at that time we already started with the Tall Ships and constantly they had concerts , parties , food markets , home made stuff etc. But if you wanna go there someday i recommend you to go during the summer if you don’t wanna be an ice cube.

– Chicago , IL : Another huge city of the US , located at the north, in the state of Illinois. We went to Chicago because we were still participating on the Tall Ships , but anyways , i think everybody has seen an American typical movie filmed in Chicago , so what can i tell you about this huge place , just incredible. But i know there’s always some people that want to know more about what else happened. While we were there one of the biggest festivals was coming up , called Loollapaloosa. And of course i went there with some of my crew , we love to sail but sometimes we also love to party.

I ended my experience in Chicago the 2nd of August 2016, but it wasn’t a good bye , just , see you soon !. After some short vacations i decided to come back and the 23rd of November 2016 i was sitting on a flight with direction to Savannah , Georgia they call it the city of the artists. Some days after we decided that the best place to spend the christmas would be Puerto Rico , that amazing island. Eleven days after a very calm navigation , finally we arrived and we could see some of the mountains from El Galeon. All of us were prepared to stop and explore that wonderful place.

I wont get in details about this little island because i could write a book just for it. We spend around two months and half in Puerto Rico , it was a non stop for us , we were always doing something interesting but unfortunately we had to leave. But we still were on the Caribbean , so we just decided to use the compas and go to the north , this maybe would be more a Jack Sparrow thing because we headed the Virgin Islands , but those ones aren’t at north exactly. But anyways we stopped to an island called St. Thomas in which one we stayed there for two weeks and i think i have never seen more turtles than in that place , every day we saw a bunch of them.

Then from the Virgin Islands we went to Santo Domingo , the last stop on the Caribbean , and they opened the doors for us. We just stayed there for three days , it was a very quick stop but definitely an amazing place were all of the crew members had a very great time.

Leaving Santo Domingo very early we were going to the first port i touched of the US the first time i was on board , Panama City in Florida. The truth is that it is a very little and quiet place were you can just chill and relax a little bit.

We had to stay some more days in Panama City because it was a big storm and very bad weather outside , but once it was clear , our next destination was Galveston , Texas. And who haven’t heard talk about Texas and the rodeo , so of course , it was something nobody could miss.

We spend around ten days in Galveston , so , once we were done our next stop wasn’t clear yet. We had different options but finally we decided go to Baton Rouge , a little town on the Mississippi river.

And here i am , sailing and letting me be carried. Maybe someday you get to know more about me or you maybe just stay with a to be continued…

Before i close and save this , i wanna say thanks to my crew members , we’ve been sailing for a while and so many time together finally you feel like you are with a huge family.

Alexander Borras