The Vendée Globe seen by Clarisse Crémer: “Here I am transformed into a marine animal”

“I’ve been at sea for 50 days. Alone on my big 18m boat. I have crossed several oceans, crossed lost islands and sailed off continents on which I have never set foot. Heading east, I went up one by one the longitudes that organize the geometry of our planet, each day the sun set a little earlier, adding uncertainty to days that were already poorly organized. Until this day of December 24, when my boat crossed a particular longitude: the antimeridian!

Meteorological coincidence, this calendar crossing was added to the passage of an uninviting depression, which chose to cross my path like a Christmas present offered by a distant aunt who would not really know your tastes. My brain, already badly battered by the lack of sleep, the shift in solar timetables, as well as the concerns related to these strong winds crossing my path in the wrong direction, then found itself in the absurd position of making a leap into space- time and go back 24 hours to relive Christmas Day once again.

After so much time alone taking care of my boat, I was already struggling to remember the date, I struggled every day to try to maintain a semblance of time organization, I tried as best I could to remember what it was like to be on stable ground, facing another human being, without wondering if the wind would change in the next few minutes …

This passage of the antimeridian will have finished killing me. Well, not to finish me off, but to finish my last semblance of civilized, organized life. After 50 days the verdict is in: the reminiscences of earthly logic no longer have anything logical for me. Here I am transformed into a marine animal, which only knows the law of the wind and the sea. Make no mistake, I always want to arrive safely and reconnect with all the joys that make me happy in earth, but my body and my mind are for the moment totally transformed by the adventure I am going through. Any memory of earthly life seems incongruous to me. I used to qualify life at sea as absurd, as our concerns are so original, now it is life on land that seems to me to deserve this qualification! “