This week was a story of adventure. After more than 90 days sailing around the world and experiencing an unfortunate dismasting west of Cape Verde, Arnaud Boissieres made it safely to Martinique after abandoning the Vendee Globe. Under jury rig with an outrigger for a mast and cut-up storm sails, he made a detour with a heading of 270 degrees, and continued sailing two thousand miles.

I had been anxiously keeping up with his tracker, waiting for when he would make landfall in Le Marin, where Stardust has been the past couple weeks. Sure enough, the time came, and Wednesday morning I made the wet dinghy ride to the entrance of the channel to accompany Arnaud back in. His family soon joined him on board, and as we made our way up the channel, boat after boat joined the flotilla to congratulate him for his bravery and the feat of sailing nearly 20,000 miles around all three capes of the world.

As the crowd that formed around him the second he stepped on the dock started to thin out, I had the opportunity to speak with Arnaud. I found it amusing how we were both in Les Sables d'Olonne back in September, and I would watch La Mie Caline go out for training almost every single day. Here we were, five months later, together again in Martinique! The big difference being our methods for arriving here; me, a mere 2600 miles across the Atlantic, while Arnaud sailed almost 8 times that, across all three oceans - Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian - and the three great capes - Cape of Good Hope, Cape Leeuwin, and the formidable Cape Horn.