sunset St. George's Harbor, Bermuda

This is No Vacation

by with 3 Comments Atlantic CrossingAtlantic IslandsBoat work

Wednesday July 2, 2014

sunset St. George's Harbor, Bermuda

As much as I would like our time here in Bermuda to be all relaxing and rum drinks, unfortunately there is a lot of work to be done as well.  Since we did happen to land ourselves in an amazingly beautiful area that deserves lots of exploring though, we decided to break up our days and do off and on boat work versus having fun.

Yesterday I hauled our overflowing bag of dirty laundry to the laundromat.  Even though we’d basically been living in athletic gear the entire passage, wearing clothes for three days at a time before changing them out (although who’s going to complain about the smell?, it’s just us), we were kind of lax on some of our chores in Miami, and laundry fell to the bottom of the list.  Which meant that on top of the past three weeks of dirty clothing and bed sheets, we had about two weeks worth of clothes from before the passage to deal with as well.

While Matt tackled some minor projects back on the ‘Dip, I loaded myself down like pack mule with about twenty pounds of clothes, sheet, and blankets between two bags, and set out into town.  I had spied a laundromat the previous day on our little hike about the area, so at least I knew where to go before the extra weight could reduce me to a mess of tangled limbs and nylon bags in the street while trying to hunt one down.  I did find out that things are done a little differently here, and instead of just inserting coins into a machine, I had to spend $5 on a card to then load money onto, which then gets inserted into the machine and deducts from my balance.  Not really an ideal situation for someone who is only going to be here once, but I didn’t have many other options.*

Once all the clothes were in the middle of a rinse and repeat, I took off down the road to check out a few of the markets to gauge pricing in the area and we could see what kind of costs we might expect to fill our pantries again.  As soon as I stepped into the first market it became apparent that our pantries would remain at low until we reach the Azores.  In only looking for basic items, this is what I found we’d be paying.  Head of lettuce: $3.50; quart of milk: $2.50; pound of chicken: $7.50; loaf of bread: $5.00; 5 lb bag of rice: $10.  At least this means we’ll finally be able to go through all the items we provisioned for while heading to the Bahamas.  And I know for a fact that there’s a can of pear halves I bought in St. Augustine that still need to be eaten.

Today, which on our ‘schedule’ was supposed to be a fun day, kind of slipped into a work one.  After sleeping in entirely too late (I’m using the excuse that I’m still catching up on two weeks of sleep), I didn’t have much drive to get off the boat.  Once the coffee was made and enjoyed we were now into lunch time, and the prospect of exerting enough energy to get off the boat and do something enjoyable was too much.  The settee, a bowl of popcorn, and an afternoon matinee sounded much more appealing.  That’s not to say we could get away without doing some kind of work though, to allow ourselves two fun days in a row then.

Remember how I mentioned we got a little lax about a few projects back in Miami?  Cleaning the bottom of the boat was another one that kind of slipped through the cracks.  A bad one.  One of the last things you want when making a 3,000 mile journey is a bunch of barnacles on the bottom of your boat slowing you down after having spent one month sedentary in a hot tropical climate.  I’m pretty sure it took at minimum a half knot off our speed during this passage, and possibly up to one.  That bottom right now is nasty.  During one bored day on passage we actually put my camera in it’s waterproof case and shot video as we dunked the camera below the water line to see exactly what we were dealing with.  No wonder all those fish attached themselves to us like a reef…..we looked like one!

Probably due to the fact that every time Matt has gone about cleaning our bottom before and the project had taken him all of one hour, I thought that with the both of us working on it we could knock it out in 45 minutes and spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing.  Sigh.  You silly, silly girl.

What happened in reality is I spent the next two and a half hours shriveling up like a prune in salt water while using muscles I haven’t used in quite a long time, and pushing myself to the limits on breath holding capabilities.  It was sad, really.  At the water line I was doing ok as long as I could hold on to something to keep the current from pushing me away from the boat.  But as soon as I tried to get the under body, my body would only allow me to stay down for three scrapes before scrambling back to the surface to gulp fresh air.

I have to say, I don’t think I’ve ever pushed my body as hard as I did today while cleaning that bottom.  Even though I wanted to give up very early and make Matt finish the project himself, I stuck it out and cleaned one whole side myself.  I give major props to Matt for doing it himself every few months in the past, as well as anyone else out there who is stuck with this horrendous project.  Unless you’re like our friends Ren and Ashley who can hold their breath for five minutes at a time.

When I finally finished and was able to climb back on to the topside of Serendipity, I was like the living dead.  I could barley move, and bumped about the cabin in a zombie like state.  An immediate nap was in order, and now hours later, I am finally regaining the status of a normal conscious person.  Just in time to enjoy a glass of wine and this sunset.  So I guess it’s not all bad.

 

*My card was purchased back from the owner once he found out I was a sailor in for a one time visit.  He may have actually run the barber shop next door…….very nice guy.

Tabacco Bay, Bermuda

This Could be Paradise

by with 5 Comments Atlantic CrossingAtlantic Islands

Sunday June 30, 2014

Tabacco Bay, Bermuda

I realized something a little strange this morning after waking up, making myself a cup of coffee, and sitting to savor it with my laptop resting on my legs while enjoying some top 40 tunes blast from the radio.  The luxury of being able to do all these things, after being deprived of them for the past 18 days, feels completely normal.  There’s no novelty (ok, maybe just a little bit) of making my morning mine, instead of waking up groggy and sitting on watch for the next for hours while trying to be as quiet as a mouse as not to disturb Matt while he sleeps.  The transition from passage to anchoring has been pretty seamless.

After saying that, let me tell you this.  We had no expectations of Bermuda upon arriving here. Or if we did, they weren’t very high. Neither of us had done any research on this island since we figured we’d never be visiting it, and the only knowledge I had of it was vaguely remembering bits and pieces from Brian and Stephanie’s visit here last year. We honestly expected it to be like the Bahamas. Dry, barren, and flat. You come for the water, but not for the land. Wow, we could not have been further from the truth. This island is amazingly beautiful, and we took a few hours today to explore the area around St. George, where we’re anchored.

Based on just a little bit of an internet connection that Matt was able to find us last night, I was able to look up and print a walking tour of the city to my desktop.  Reading through it I found this area is incredibly historic (of course, settled in 1609, it should be), an UNESCO World Heritage Site (woo hoo, another one checked off!), and had more than enough things to look at to keep us busy all day.  There were churches, town squares, museums, forts, beaches, and even a few restaurant recommendations where we could rest our weary feet at the end.  Yeah, like we can waste money on such frivolities.  Instead, I’d be hauling around a bag with a couple of sandwiches, granola bars, and a nalgene bottle full of water.

In true Jessica form, I managed to leave my sheet of copied ‘must see’ areas on the boat, and was forced to recount what I could from memory.  Sure we could still stumble upon whatever church or home was listed in the tour, but how could we look at it with the same kind of awe and reverence if we didn’t know who built it at what time, or exactly what purpose it stood?  Then I remembered we don’t always pay attention to those kinds of things anyway.  Normally just the year something was built, and most buildings should have plaques letting us know that information anyway.

The dinghy dock from St. George’s Harbor into town dropped us off right in the main town square, and just randomly picking a street right or left, we were drawn toward the brick paved allure of Water Street and proceeded to gape at the immaculate shops and restaurants that lined it.  Again, we were expecting an area that was to be just like the Bahamas, and unless you’re in an outrageously expensive resort there, all other areas tend to be a little run down and in need of some TLC.  This spot, however, was high class living, and just mere yards from where our boat was anchored out in the harbor.  No wonder all the hoity toity sailors of Newport, RI bring their boats here for holiday.

Water Street, St. George, Bermuda

 Finishing back out at the main road we pointed ourselves in the direction we had just come from, knowing that the beaches and forts were in that vicinity, and whatever else we passed along the way would just be a bonus.  We happened to stumble on a few bonuses, both in a religious background.  The first place we found was one of the major stops that had been listed on the walking tour, St. Peter’s Church.  We (I) may have left all information relating to this place back at the boat, but knowing their own importance, the church had plaques plastered from one end to the other, giving a full history.  Among many other interesting facts, we learned that this church was built in 1612 and is the oldest Anglican Church in the western hemisphere.  You could almost get a sense of early settlers attending service here, and I had a good time searching the grounds on the cemetery for the oldest headstone I could find.

Next on our walking tour to the beach was Bermuda’s Unfinished Church.  Getting back to our guide tonight I found out this church was started back in the 1870’s when St. Peter’s Church was damaged in a storm, and then gave me a link to click on to find out why it was never completed.  Thanks for the required 3G data plan to get any information, walking guide, I don’t have internet anymore! (I’ve now gone back and researched and found out it was likely not finished due to the local population wanting to repair the old church instead of building a new one.  This was decided half way through the build of the new one)  Having just walked up a decent sized hill in the blazing heat to get here, we used it as a resting spot to sit for a minute and down some water.  I wanted to get a few photos in front of it, but a (American) family that was doing the same thing never got the hint that I was patiently waiting my turn for a photo in front of it without them in the background, and ten minutes later I finally gave up and went around to the side, where I feel like I got an even better background.

St. Peter's Church, St. George, Bermuda

St. Peter's Church, Bermuda

unfinished church, St. George, Bermuda

Jessica & unfinished church, Bermuda

 Further up the road we continued to follow the signs for Tabacco Bay Beach, the only real goal of the day, where we were sent through a narrow street shaded by tall trees with meadows off to our side.  Seriously, this place just keeps getting better.  And waiting for us at the end of the road was this view of Tabacco Bay.

Tabacco Bay, Bermuda

Definitely not what we had been expecting.  Pretty much running toward this oasis now we skirted through past all the tourist laying out on the beach and directly up to the rocks behind it.  The views here were amazing and we could have spent the rest of the day staring into the bay and the waters past it.  Families snorkeled through the shallow waters, while some of the parents waded through the bath like water with extremely expensive cocktails in their hand.  We heard one man tell his wife, who almost tripped while sifting through the water with a margarita in her hand, “Good thing you didn’t drop that, it could have been a $15 mistake”.  Now you can see why we packed our own lunch.

Tabacco Bay, Bermuda

Matt at Tabacco Bay

 After our time spent staring out at the ocean, as if we haven’t had enough of that already, it was time to check out a few forts.  Just around the corner from Tabacco Bay is probably one of the more famous ones of the area, Fort St. Catherine.  At the time we were already getting a little worn out and didn’t feel like paying for the guided tour through it, but here’s what I found out about it when I was able to get a little internet again.  Originally built in 1614 for the purpose of defending from Spanish attacks, it has now been renovated at least five times.  The fort is surrounded by a dry moat and accessed by a drawbridge.  Which we actually did get a chance to walk over while checking out the outskirts of the fort, pretty cool.  Right next to the fort is St. Catherine’s Beach, another popular spot for those who don’t want to be packed into the tight quarters at Tabacco Bay Beach.

Fort St. Catherine, Bermuda

Even though we were starting to get a little tired by this point, from not having this much exercise in almost three weeks now, we stopped at a few more smaller forts that littered the coastline on our way back.  I swear, these things are everywhere on the island.  How often was this place under attack?

One of the forts that held a few impressive guns and cannons was becoming overrun with a group of school kids that arrived at the same time we did, so after checking out a few things here and there, we let them have full run of the place.  It’s nice to see kids actually get excited about a piece of history, and we didn’t want to get in their way.

The next one on the list was Gates Fort, which we had viewed from the water yesterday upon entering the cut into the harbor.  It’s a small little place, two stories high, but only about 150 sq feet on each floor.  There’s a small paved area in front with a short wall coming up two cannons facing out to sea.  I don’t know what it was about this place, but Matt fell in love with it.  As a potential home.  We literally spent 30 minutes as he wandered around talking about how we could decorate, keeping all of the current walls as not to tear down a part of history, but then adding to the top floor, combining wood and stone for a modern feel.  There would be tall glass windows giving 360 degree views, and we already had a ‘patio’ built that would only need an awning or some kind of sun protection.  It would be more than enough space for the two of us to live in, as even just one floor would give us more than we currently have.

I think he might be on to something here.  Now we just need to get into talks with the Bermudian government and take some very large donations from you readers to make this happen.

Matt in Bermudian fort

Just a little to the left.

Bermudian fort, entrance St. George's Harbor

 Visibly exhausted after only three hours of walking around, and with blisters already beginning to form, we followed the road back toward town, ready to hop on the dinghy and pass out on Serendipity for the rest of the afternoon.  One last treat in store for us though was the view of the harbor as we were coming back down the hill.  All the sailboats dotting the water with the historic town as the backdrop was almost postcard perfect.  So I took a photo to hopefully turn into one.  You can even make out Serendipity in it, to the far left.

Serendipity in St. George's Harbor, Bermuda

anchorage St. George Bermuda

Atlantic Crossing Days 16-18: Houston, We Have a Pit Stop

by with One Comment Atlantic CrossingPassage Making

Sunday June 30, 2014

anchorage St. George Bermuda

I’m just going to roll this all into one post instead of segregating each day, since I’ve kind of been stretching it lately trying to find something new to talk about every day. I’m starting to get to the point where if I don’t write down 1-2 short sentences of what happened the previous day, I can’t remember anything specific about it. Seriously. If you asked me exactly what happened on Friday my answer would be ‘Ummm…?’. I do know that there are three interesting things that have happened in that many days though.

1.) In getting ourselves within about 150-200 miles off the coast of Bermuda, we’ve begun to pick up their radio broadcasts on our VHF. Wow, ridiculously strong signal! We started to lose broadcasts from the US Coast Guard and NOAA about 60 miles off shore. It’s been nice hearing another live voice again that doesn’t belong to either of us, and it’s also super cute hearing those voices in British or slightly Scottish accents. All I can say is, these guys really watch the waters that surround them. You’re supposed to check in with them once you’re within 35 miles or so of shore, and if you get too close without calling in, they will call you.

Multiple times we heard a call go out from Bermuda Radio that would follow something like this: Vessel approximately 9 miles NE of St. George’s Harbor, traveling at a speed of 7.6 knots on a course of 182 degrees, this is Bermuda Radio, how do you respond? They know everything that’s moving out there. If you have an AIS transciever, they’ll hunt you down by name until you respond. Not planning on stopping there ourselves, we wondered if we’d ever get a call from them if we came too close. Vessel, or sea log, approximately 25 miles SW of Bermuda, drifting at a pace of 1.6 knots on a course of 78 degrees, this is Bermuda Radio, how do you respond?

Another thing we were able to pick up from them once we got a little bit closer is their daily weather report, which was broadcast on channel 27 about 3-4 times a day. It may have only covered an area with a diameter of 20 miles from Bermuda, but it was still nice to have yet another source confirming that we could continue to expect the 8-12 knots of wind we’ve been receiving. It also gives us…drumroll…the forecast from the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Which leads us to our next interesting item.

2. Guess what? According to a recommended article, there’s something brewing out there. A tropical storm at the moment, but based on the reports we’ve been getting from NHC and Bermuda radio, the chance that it will develop into a hurricane is growing every day. We’ve seen it on our Weather Fax reports and have been watching it for some days now. From it’s predicted path, it won’t be veering out into the ocean anywhere in our vicinity, but we did enlist my dad to keep a close eye on it and let us know if it’s course changed and we should duck into Bermuda to ride it out, or just be safe if it looked unpredictable of where it might end up.

3. Even though this tropical storm shouldn’t be coming near us, we went to Bermuda anyway. In talking to my dad, even though the tropical storm status had yet to grow into hurricane, I personally didn’t feel comfortable being on the water with it out there. And more importantly, I wasn’t comfortable with what my mental status might become if we continued on. When day 18 at sea begun, I threw in the towel. We were steadily headed toward a 45 day crossing without a break, and I couldn’t take it anymore. The calm seas and comfortable ride, I could handle that. Our slow and steady pace of 2.5-3.0 knots, I could actually handle as well. The constant, never ending racket of the sails slamming in and out, all the hardware on our boom clanking and banging, all day and all night, that I could not take anymore.

When Matt and I were doing our shift change at 4 am this morning, I kind of nonchalantly mentioned, “We’re still about 43 miles from the entrance to St. George’s Harbor right now, if we want any chance of making it there by nightfall I think we’re going to have to turn on the engine”. He just kind of looked back at me like ‘Oh, so we’re actually stopping then?’. I think he was somewhat excited at the prospect of a 45 day passage. Like some kind of right of passage into long distance cruising. ‘How long was your longest passage? 32 days? Wow, that’s a pretty long run. We had 44’. Secretly, I kind of wanted to be able to say that too. Even though it probably would cement us as the worst cruisers ever, a testament of how not to sail across an ocean.

Once we were both up for the day it was time to put the boat back together and make her presentable for any customs and immigration that might come aboard. Thankfully, not only was she cleaner than any of our previous passages because we’ve been able to easily move about the boat without getting sick, and have for the most part picked up after ourselves everyday (you should have seen the mess we accumulated on our 2.5 day sail to Jamaica), but it was calm enough to have no problem really scrubbing her clean. Dirty sheets were tossed in the laundry, the cabin floor was swept, and the counters were 409’ed. The cockpit was rinsed and scrubbed, and many items were stuck out on deck to air. Plus, a big plus actually, is that with the 1-2 ft seas, it wasn’t a terrifying ordeal to haul our 55 lb Rocna anchor up on deck and secured to the bow again.

When we were about 15 miles out and were just starting to make out land on the horizon, a terrible storm came rolling in over us. I could see it from miles away, working it’s way toward us, and soon there was nothing but black sitting between us and Bermuda. I even heard a call on the VHF to Bermuda Radio that someone had spotted a waterspout.  Luckily all that ever came of it was a good fresh water rinse for the boat and some 20-25 knot winds.  We were soon back to cleaning, and all darkness was quickly behind us.  The sun was brightly shining in the sky and Bermuda was in full view.  By this time we had already gone through the process of checking in with Bermuda Radio, who required all kinds of information, like the brand of our life raft, our satellite phone number and the ID off our EPIRB.  I guess most of this can be done online before you get there, but we had never been planning on stopping.

Pulling into the actual harbor around 5:30 in the afternoon, we were given instructions to make our way to the dock for customs and immigration.  The officer was very friendly, but a little concerned as soon as he found out we had a cat on board.  Even though we’d just gone through so much work in Florida getting all the necessary paperwork required for the EU, it wasn’t good enough for Bermuda, we needed one specific to them.  However, they told us that if we were willing to anchor out and never bring her to shore, they’d pretend she didn’t exist.  Fine by us, we prefer to be at anchor anyway.  The rest of the paperwork took less than 10 minutes, and after handing over our $35/person and getting our passports stamped, we were cleared in and ready to relax.

I have to say, this is one of the best landfalls we’ve ever made.  Possibly because we haven’t seen land in over 17 days now, but sigh, just the sights and sounds.  Immediately we could hear gospel music ringing out from the churches as we happened to have come in during evening mass.  The hills were alive with the chirp of crickets, and scents of floral blossoms wafted out onto the water.  Pouring myself a glass of wine, something I didn’t allow myself to do on passage, I watched the sun go down and looked forward to my first full night of sleep in 18 days.

storm over Bermuda

St. George, Bermuda

*Ok, there’s actually 4. For the past few nights I’ve seen what looks like a very bright star, possibly a planet, that has been coming up just before sunrise, around 65 degrees ENE. The interesting thing about it, or should I say strange, or downright freaky, is that it fades in and out. I’m not even joking. One moment it will be so bright that it’s casting a reflection on the water, the next moment it’s gone. I had thought it was weird, but just chalked it up to low lying clouds blocking it out at times. But then last night, the sky was covered with clouds to the point that you couldn’t make out any stars near the horizon (where I always see it), yet the light was still there, fading in and out. WTF?!

A possible lighthouse? I don’t think so, I’ve seen it four nights in a row now. Plus there’s been nothing showing on our charts about being in that area. It’s still east of Bermuda, so it has nothing to do with that. I’m so glad I can sleep through the darkness in an anchorage tonight and not have to worry about strange lights appearing on the horizon.

Matt's birthday decorations

Atlantic Crossing Days 13-15: What Seems to be the Problem Meow?

by with One Comment Atlantic CrossingPassage Making

Tuesday June 24, 2014

It’s only 48 hours late, but I stayed true to my word to Matt’s mom and was finally feeling well enough to give Matt the birthday celebration he deserved but never received.  Still slightly getting over the effects of the waves that are still dying down, it took me two hours of sitting in the cockpit before my head stopped pounding enough to the point I could begin blowing balloons.  I think dehydration might be a part of my recent headaches, so I’ve been trying to down plenty of water in the past 24 hours.

Sitting at the entrance to the companionway with my butt in the cockpit and feet on the steps, I spent the next 30 minutes blowing up about 10 balloons, tossing them on to the floor of the cabin while Georgie looked on with curiosity, and simultaneously making myself lightheaded by depriving myself of oxygen for each balloon that was blown.  Once the ground was littered with them I brought out the Gorilla Tape and tore up a few pieces and set about with my ninja like skills to get them on the grab-rail above Matt’s head so he’d wake up to a colorful concoction of balloons and shiny streamers.  I was two balloons down when my cover was blown for this hopefully unexpected birthday surprise.  Matt’s eyes started to flutter open, and even though I tried the cliche line of ‘This is all a dream…just go back to sleep’, he knew what I was up to.

As I mentioned in the last post, he’s not into celebrating birthdays at all, so all I got out of him was a grunt and “Did my mom put you up to this?”, as he rolled back over and fell asleep once again.  Even though the surprise was ruined, I continued with my work until every balloon and streamer that was mailed to me was now decorating the cabin.  Just like two years ago when Matt woke up and wandered into the bathroom of his mom’s house (of which we were living at that time to save a little $ for the kitty), to find most surfaces covered in balloons and traditional crepe paper, it wasn’t so much for Matt as it was for us.  We like putting forth the effort and giving the surprise, even if he isn’t all that enthusiastic to receive it.  It does always bring at least one smile though.  And hey, I didn’t hear any complaints about the meatloaf dinner I made tonight, just in celebration for his birthday.

Matt's birthday decorations

 

 

Wednesday June 25, 2014

There is nothing I wanted more when I woke up this morning than to be able to relax in the cockpit with a cup of coffee while I whittled away the hours until Matt was awake again and I could either nap or just have the company. It’s all I’ve wanted for the past few days now. But just like the past few days, I’ve been on cloud watch upon waking up. Towering clouds off in the distance that I have to keep a close eye on in case they come our way, in which case sail has to be reduced right away as this new squall passes over us. It’s like the coast of Florida all over again.  At least this shift lets me watch them in the light though.  Ever since Florida we’ve both been able to enjoy lightning shows on our night shifts, every night.  Luckily none of them seem to make their way over to us, but instead just leave us squirming in our seat as we watch the flashes of light illuminate the clouds in the distance, checking the radar every 30 minutes to make sure the pink blobs aren’t getting any nearer.

I expected this morning to be like every other day, and night, where I’d watch the towering cloud while we kept our canvas to a minimum, and then it would pass 2-5 miles away from us where we never even got a gust.  This morning though I wanted to keep full headsail out unless I knew we were going to get hit, because our lack of progress is starting to get ri-goddamn-diculous.  So I sit there for the next two hours, watching this monstrous thing actually coming our way, and then I see it.  S%*t.  It’s forming into a shelf cloud.  The kind that, when they’ve blown over us before, usually bring 50 knot winds with them.  And we were finally starting to make 4 knots!

It didn’t look like the whole thing was going to hit us, just one of it’s outer edges, so I waited until it was two miles away before bringing in the headsail.  It looked like things were about to get ugly though, it took less than two minutes for winds to jump up 10-15 knots.  Realizing how close we actually were to the edge I threw on the engine, while all the noise that was being made roused Matt from his bed, and he came to put down the mainsail as well, just in case.  We were able to skirt most of it, avoided the rain, and had an increase of winds up to 25 knots for a total of about 20 minutes.  Nothing we couldn’t have handled.  But, better safe than sorry.  I just wish we could have kept those winds, although local weather had different plans for us.  Back to 6-10 knots for the rest of the day.  The way things are looking, our passage is going to be 45 days long before we get to the Azores.  Think they give out awards for slowest passage ever?

shelf cloud forming

sun & clouds on Atlantic

 

 

Thursday June 26, 2014

I can’t think of any new or exciting news to report for today. You know why? Because nothing interesting is happening here. Unless you care to hear about how Georgie is starting to go a little bezerk. Tearing about the boat in a feverish dash, trying to hunt down imaginary insects. At least, I hope they’re imaginary.

This really shouldn’t be much of a change for her though, the only thing that’s different is that she’s not allowed to go up on deck. So for the most part she’s been sleeping,…sleeping,…sleeping some more, and then throwing us glares with her eyes that question ‘Why are you doing this to me?’. Apparently someone who’s everyday living space has only been cut down by 25%, compared to ours of a much greater amount, is taking this trip much harder than we are. That’s ok though, her peanut sized brain will forget all about it once we’re at anchor again. She’s reliable like that.

Georgie

Atlantic surface analysis

Atlantic Crossing Days 10-12: Birthday Celebrations on the High Seas

by with 3 Comments Atlantic CrossingPassage Making

Saturday June 21, 2014

Some of you might be wondering how we’ve been getting our weather so far on this trip, probably actually feeling bad for us because we can’t seem to find winds to move us anywhere. The sad part is, we know exactly where they are. We just happen to not want to travel to those areas, mainly which are in the northern parts of the Atlantic, and you can refer back to my little freak out here to see why we’re so adamant about staying in the land of drifting versus following the route with more wind. As I said, we do know where the winds are, everyday, and that’s because we’ve been able to download forecast with Weather Fax, using our Single Sideband receiver. Similar to the single sideband radio, but we can only receive instead of transmit as well.

Every morning at 0800 UTC, Matt hooks up the SSB to my computer and fiddles with the dials until he can fine tune a station from Boston that transmits a fax audio signal to us for the next 24 and 48 hours*. The app on my computer deciphers the tone and turns it in into files that we can read, giving us a surface analysis of the entire Atlantic, as well as a separate wind and wave forecast. Each morning we read these forecast through the images, much the same way we’d look at the GRIB files through Passage Weather, to find out what the winds in our neck of the woods are going to be, and also tracking low pressure systems to make sure that we can stay out of their way. Here’s an example of both a surface analysis and a wind & wave forecast from our Weather Fax.** ***

Atlantic surface analysis

Atlantic wind & wave forecast

While keeping an eye on these images for the past few days we’ve noticed that a cold front is heading our way, which is going to bring us some stronger winds and unfortunately, probably some bigger waves with it too. We’re trying not to be near the center of it, but our file is telling us that we can expect 15-20 knot winds and waves at 2 meters. Treating it just like we always have our Passage Weather forecast, we’re interpreting that to mean the winds will actually be anywhere in the 20-30 knot range. To be fair to our Weather Fax though, it was showing data spread all the way across the Atlantic, and what we were experiencing was local weather which is very hard to pinpoint down to a few degrees of latitude and longitude when you’re looking at an entire ocean. But why is it that winds always seem to be higher than forecast when they’re stronger than we want them, but never when they’re forecast for 5-10?

We’ve started to see an increase a little bit tonight in both wind and waves, already reaching those predicted 15-20 knots, and seas going from less than 1 meter, up to the 1-2 range. The pressure is starting to drop on our electronic barometer, and although I am enjoying logging these miles while we finally push along at 4.5 knots, I have to wonder what the next day or two will bring. Hold on to your hats, it looks like it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

*There’s also a 96 hour forecast that we can receive and sometimes go through the trouble of getting later in the afternoon.

** If you’re interested in learning more about using Weather Fax, tips and tricks, or a schedule of broadcast frequencies and times, check out a great post that our friends Brian and Stephanie wrote while they were making their own Atlantic crossing last year, here.

*** We’re also very lucky to have my dad, who’s the best for helping us out with this, send us reports from Passage Weather via a text message on our Sat phone, so we have multiple sources to confirm forecasts.

 

Sunday June 22, 2014

I had one goal this morning when I woke up. Something that’s been in the works for weeks now, and that was supposed to be decorating the cabin with balloons and streamers for Matt’s 32nd birthday while he slept. All the necessary items were shipped to me weeks ago by Matt mom and all I had to do was display them. Waking up and looking around though, I realized it was going to be a lot easier said than done.

The low pressure system and cold front that we had been watching on our Weather Fax for the past few days and were beginning to feel the effects of last night, was now in full swing. When Matt woke me up at 8 am I stumbled out of bed and poked my head out the companionway to see gray skies and building seas. Winds were now steady at 25-30 knots and waves appeared to be in the 8-10 ft range. Carrying on at 3.5 knots under a triple reefed main alone, we were looking at a long and uncomfortable day ahead. Even though I was planning on spending most of my shift in the horizontal position on the open settee below, I was still strapped into my harness in case I had to run out into the cockpit for any reason. To make matters worse, I didn’t have a seasickness patch on. After doing two straight runs of them I was not willing to become cross-eyed and I was weary about putting another one on. That’s ok, this is now 10 days at sea, by body should be able to handle a little motion, right? Wrong.

This is how my four hour morning shift passed: Lay on the settee where I had a wrist-watch next to me, and after dreading each time the clock hit the quarter of the hour, I would roll myself off the settee and onto the floor. Slowly standing up I’d walk the few steps to the companionway and rest for a moment while my dizzy head gained itself and I could trust my body to walk again. I’d go up 2-3 steps while still keeping myself in the companionway, check the wind speed, check the sail, check for boats, and then rush back down the stairs and throw myself back on the settee for the next 12 minutes until I had to do it again. It looks like the balloons were going to have to wait another day.

The rest of the afternoon and evening followed the same suit. When Matt woke up I took a short nap. When I woke up we cuddled together on the settee and I kept apologizing about what a horrible birthday he must be having, as if I had any control over the situation. Matt, not being one to care about birthdays, laughed it off. His grand birthday dinner which was supposed to be meatloaf ended up being a can of Progresso soup that he had to heat up himself because I couldn’t be bothered to move. Happy birthday my love, I’m glad you were able to spend it taking care of me.

Matt on his birthday

 

Monday June 23, 2014

Today is day 13, and the madness is beginning to set in. Not because of our time at sea. Not because I have been almost two weeks from land. It is the damn sails and their consistent flapping. 10 knots of shifty wind behind us and they are flogging all over the place. Slamming in and slamming out. Every 5 damn seconds. I could even handle the snails pace of 2 knots we’re currently moving at if it weren’t for the racket going on above my head. It makes any kind of concentration impossible. Adding to the madness are the low but rolling swells that are passing through. Our limited speed is keeping us from riding on top of them, so we are left to bob between the crest and trough, constantly wallowing back and forth. My body can’t handle it. I can’t even take up the simple task of reading at the moment. You’d think that after 12 full days at sea it would be a non issue for me now. That any seasickness would be long gone due to the length of time we’ve already been out here. Granted though, the first 8-9 days were ‘at anchor’. How could my body grow accustomed to a bobbing sea that was never bobbing? Since the real motion hasn’t started until two or so days ago, I’m praying that I only have two more days left before we can be violently thrown about and I won’t even shrug a shoulder. I’m starting to miss being becalmed.

On a different note, a fun story that I forgot to mention yesterday on Matt’s birthday, and why we’re moving at just over 2 knots even though the wind hasn’t dwindled all the way out yet, is that we were hit with another surprise squall. Just when we were beginning to think that we were safe from them. It was late in the afternoon, and since it’s been cloudy for a few days now, we had to run the engine for an hour or so to charge the battery. Just as the winds were beginning to die down again and our speed was dropping, so it seemed like a win/win. I was hoping to be able to pencil in a 100 mile day, and the extra power from the engine was looking like it was going to get us there.

Just like our first night out from Miami, Matt was in the cockpit and I was down below when it came. It took me about 2.5 seconds to realize that something seemed wrong, and then about 10 more seconds to put my harness on and race up to the cockpit to see what it was. Once again Matt had the sheet for the headsail in his hands, which he was desperately trying to release slight tension on while trying to roll it in at the same time. Unlike last time though, between the two of us, we were able to gain control of the situation before I was going to spend another week making repairs to our genoa. With daylight on our side this time it wasn’t hard to see how many degrees we needed to fall off to put ourselves downwind and take pressure off the sails. The sheet to the headsail was passed to me, and still having it wrapped around the winch, without the full pressure on it now I was able to ease it little bits at a time while Matt furled it in from the other side of the cockpit.

Phew, crisis averted. But now, just as we were starting to let our guard down about squalls and thunderstorms, we don’t trust that we won’t be hit with one out of nowhere and have gone back to keeping minimal sail up, even in these 8-12 knot winds we’re now getting after the front.

rainbow after storm

fish swimming by stern

Atlantic Crossing Days 7-9: Catch & Relase

by with No Comment Atlantic CrossingPassage Making

Wednesday June 18, 2012

We’re not alone out here! No, we didn’t find a buddy boat out on the water to enjoy sundowners with as we both sit and drift (although how cool would that be), but we’ve been joined by a family of fish that have taken to following us and using us as some sort of floating reef.  We’re not really sure what kind if fish they are, although we did see them on Monday, little babies or adolescents with what looked like two mahis occasionally swimming by as too.  Well, they’re still here with us.  

With no wind again today we decided to try our hand one more time at fishing.  According to our Cruiser’s Handbook of Fishing, drifting is almost as good as doing 5-6 knots when you’re trying to catch a mahi, so at least we’ve got that going for us.  Pulling out all of our tackle we had a bunch of new lures to try out, thank to one of our readers, Ben, so we’d spend about 20 minutes with each one at the end of our hand real.  All of the tiny fish that I’m now basically adopting and considering part of our family, would scurry to check out the lure each time it was plopped down in the water, but luckily had the good sense not to bite at it.  It could be because the lures were about 2/3rds the size of their bodies, but that’s not here or there.

All afternoon we’d toss the lure out and reel it back in, as the peels to our oranges floated within eyesight of us since we’ve been cursed with no wind again today and have gone back to locking the wheel and drifting.  There had been a few times that a larger mahi would swim by the boat but seemed to have no interest in the multiple lures we were tossing out, covering every color of the rainbow as we tried to attract him in, all to no avail.  Then as evening fell and I was getting ready to prepare dinner, the mahi was back and we decided to take one last shot, wrapping sliced ham on the end of the lure to see if it was any more appealing to him.

The ham did help us to catch a trigger fish that was also hanging around the boat, but the mahi was impervious to it.  And then…I threw some tomato scraps from my dinner prep out into the water and a second mahi came shooting out of nowhere to eat it up.  I threw tomato slice after tomato slice into the water, and once that was what the mahi was expecting to hit the water in front of it, we threw the lure and it clamped right on.  What the what?  It’s actually on the lure?  We were not actually expecting this and were fully unprepared.  As Matt pulled the huge fish in, who was surprisingly not putting up any kind of fight, I scrambled around the cockpit trying to find our gaff hook.  After Matt had been holding the fish on the side of the boat for a minute I ran back up to him with the gaff, and just as he was about to pass me the line to hold while he gaffed this golden meal in front of us, it was gone.  Giving itself a few shakes it managed to release itself from from our line.  Huh….there goes our dinner.  I guess we’ll have to be quicker with the gaff hook next time.

fish swimming by stern

caught & lost mahi

 (sorry for the bad quality of photos, these were transferred from video)

 

Thursday June 19, 2012

worked on headsail, patch made me sick. Watched Law Abid Citz & Dex. Made chx tacos, winds 15-20 after 7 pm.

As much as I keep trying to put this task off, and without any good reason, since really, what am I doing anyway?, today was the day to hunker down and get as much work done as possible on the headsail so we can finally get it flying again.  After about an hour of work though, just as I was about to stick it away for the rest of the day, just like I’ve been doing every day so far, I realized the reason I can’t work on it is that it’s hurting my eyes.  I think it has to do with the scopolamine patch I’ve been wearing for seasickness.  Usually I only have one on for 1-3 days and get to tear it off before any kind of side effects begin to mess with me, but I had a plan of keeping one on 24/7 for this trip so that no matter what kind of weather arose, I would be covered.

Nope, not going to work out anymore.  These things are seriously messing with my head, so I decided to rip it off, possible seasickness be damned.  Since the relief isn’t immediate though I was able to talk Matt into letting us use up our full battery banks to plug in the tv and watch a movie while we just kind of drift around out here.  And I figured since we were lounging around watching a movie, what better time to break into my 64 oz bag of Skittles than now?  I’m actually surprised I’ve lasted this long without tearing into them yet.

Tonight we’ve finally run out of already prepped meals, so I decided to try my hand at cooking again since conditions are so calm.  Not knowing how much longer we’ll have flat seas though, I went through and made one of my favorite meals, tacos.  I have no idea what it about me when I set out to make a meal, but I swear, each time I do it takes about 60-90 minutes.  You’d think I was making my own tortillas or something.  I guess I’m just really slow at chopping vegetables.  When I finally had dinner on the table it was only 30 minutes before my bedtime.  Guess who went to bed an extra 30 minutes late because they wanted to make sure they had a clean sink?  This girl.  Normally I’d let them sit until morning but winds have actually picked up into the 15-20 knot range, and for once I’m hoping that because we’re going so fast I won’t be able to get them down tomorrow.  I think we could use a little speed in our lives right now.

 

 

Friday June 20, 2014

It’s taken me a week worth of work, with nothing but time on my hands, but I’ve finally gotten the headsail finished. I’m still amazed at my personal level of laziness and keep thinking to myself that faced with the same project back at anchor, I would have completed it in two days max. With taking plenty of breaks in between. I really do blame the scopolamine patch for messing with my head and my vision. Things were getting to the point that even though I haven’t touched my contact lenses and have been wearing my glasses since the day we left, I was starting to do ALL my tasks with my glasses resting on top of my hair, a makeshift headband, since putting them on made my eyes almost cross, as if my horrible prescription was non-existent and I was trying to view the world through Mr. Magoo’s goggles.

Through an hour here and an hour there though, we are back with our genoa, and holy crap, I tell tell an immediate change. Our speed went from it’s usual 2.5 knots up to 3.5. There is hope after all. Now if only one of us had the guts to jump in for an mid-ocean bottom cleaning, we could probably gain that other half knot of speed and begin traveling at our conservative estimate of 4 knots. At least our ride is still as comfortable as ever. Even with the extra knot we still feel like we’re in a fairly protected anchorage. Which means I might still be able to cook a few decent meals on this trip before resorting to cans of Progresso, or worse, Chef Boyardee.

sewing genoa

trying to cross Gulf Stream

Atlantic Crossing Days 4-6: Roads? Where We’re Going, We don’t Need Roads.

by with 2 Comments Atlantic Crossing

Sunday June 15, 2014

There aren’t many milestones on a trip like this (are there?), so I was very excited this morning when we hit one of them. Time to turn east. No more following the coast of the US, but time to break off and venture into the open ocean, further than we’ve ever gone before. At least, that was the plan. Based on our trip from Ft. Lauderdale to Bimini two months ago I knew that just ‘pointing east’ would not be that easy. Not when you’re fighting against one of the world’s strongest currents. I knew that even with our bow pointed at 90 degrees we’d probably only hold a course of 45. I had the idea last night of telling Matt that we should do just that, slowly making our way NE out of the stream until we could break free of it, but worries about the weather seemed more important and I wanted to wait until our 4 am download of the Weatherfax report before making any decisions to get ourselves further from land.

So just as predicted, at 8:15 this morning when we turned east, our course was between 55-60 degrees. Considering that we were actually moving more east than north I was satisfied with it.  Speed was still minimal at just over 3 knots, but I was ready to sacrifice about a day of getting anywhere for meandering, and pick it back up once we were in current free waters. I had no idea how lucky we were the first few hours of the morning to be making that kind of speed and that kind of heading. When Matt woke up at noon we were down to 2.5 knots. By three o’clock we were down to 2 knots, and barely holding a course of 35 degrees. So maybe this day of pitiful speed was about to turn into a day and a half. That’s ok. With so many miles and weeks ahead of us, the loss of a half day doesn’t seem quite as dire as it used to, back in the days when we could calculate down to within an hour or two of when we should be arriving to a place.

Trying to take my mind off our pathetic pace and do something I little productive I moved myself below deck for a few hours in the afternoon to work on the headsail. We finally took it down yesterday and found out there is some mending needed, but it’s only on the leech of the sail, and that’s good. Even if it is the entire leech, where the colored fabric needs to be reattached to the sail.

If I have one thing to be lucky about with these light winds it’s that it’s also making the seas quite calm and therefore not giving me issues for trying to concentrate on things like sewing. No motion sickness for this girl. Boredom though?, big problem. For some reason I can’t hold my attention to anything for long while we’re traveling. I don’t know what the difference is from being at anchor, but my attention span for any single project lately seems to be about one hour. Looks like this sail is going to take just a few days to repair.

For the third night in a row tonight I haven’t been able to go to bed at my scheduled time of 8:00 and stay there. Once more there were thunderstorms off in the distance and we wanted to be prepared if they suddenly came up on us. Which meant that instead of wrapping myself up in a blanket in my bunk I was instead wrapped up in fowl weather gear out in the cockpit. Other than being awake when I should have been sleeping though, the night was beautiful. Where we were sitting the weather was calm and we bobbed around on glassy waters while the stars and moon reflected in them. Sprawling out in the cockpit and kicking our feet up while we gazed at the stars above us, it was actually a nice chance to enjoy each other’s company and actually have a real conversation that had nothing to do with speed or sail changes. An hour later we realized the storm was moving behind us and it was safe for me to go back to bed. Turning the conversation back to speed, we decided this 2 knots just wasn’t doing it for us and it would be worth it to turn on the engine and try and motor the rest of the way out of the stream. Here’s to better sailing and pointing in the days to come.

trying to cross Gulf Stream

Georgie on torn sail

 

Monday June 16, 2014

I shouldn’t have spoken too soon. Why did I speak too soon??!! Oh, what I wouldn’t give right now to be able to maintain 2.5 knots. The forward momentum! The breeze(ish) in my hair! No, there is no longer any of that. When I woke up this morning at 8 and made my way to the cockpit I found out we were not moving at all. Alright, that might not be completely true. We were drifting. Honest to God, autopilot had to be turned off because we couldn’t hold a course, drifting. Do you know what boat speed our autopilot stops working at? 1.5 knots. Yes, we couldn’t even hold 1.5 knots. A little worse than we’d be doing with the genoa since we’re just working with our staysail forward now, but I mean, come on!

Sometime in the wee hours of the morning the wind had dwindled out to 3-5 knots. I’m honestly not sure I’ve ever even seen it that low while out on the water. Those truly windless days actually exist? I kind of wanted to cry. Here I was hoping for a 30 day passage to the Azores and now on day 5, after having already only made 300 miles in the past 4, we were d-r-i-f-t-i-n-g. At this rate, we’ll never get there. To say that I wanted to gain speed in anyway possible was a little bit of an understatement. When Matt woke up from his afternoon shift I begged him to put the spinnaker up, which he normally gets very excited to do anyway, so we ran it up the hatch and 15 minutes later had it’s bright colors flying above us and moving us along at those 2.5 knots I had been craving earlier. With only 5-6 knots of wind behind us I was quite content to take what I could get. Until the storm clouds started coming in. Again.

Through the next few hours we raised the spinnaker, lowered the spinnaker, raised it again, lowered it again, and tried our our stormsail just for fun while a myriad of different storms swept over us, sometimes bringing the wind up to 20-25 knots while they lasted, but ultimately leaving us with nothing in their wake. At some point in the afternoon we became lazy with the constant sail changes and just went back to drifting, while both the main and staysail flogged in the lack of wind.

While having dinner tonight out in the cockpit while I seriously contemplated motoring up to Charleston to refuel and wait for a window that actually has wind to propel us across the ocean, I saw a group of dark bumps surfacing out of the water. Getting super excited, because we’ve never spotted any before, I yelled out “Whales!!” as my bowl of food almost clattered into my lap. Down to the cabin and back to the cockpit in a flash, I had the binnoculars in my hands and was quickly searching the water for the same spot I had seen movement. Hmmmm, were these wales? We were still some distance away, and they don’t quite looks as massive as I thought they might be, but dolphins don’t just hang out at the surface not doing anything, right? Matt and I passed the binoculars back and forth between each other for the next twenty minutes but had to shrug our shoulders in defeat. I guess we’ll never know for sure what was out there or if we can add a whale sighting to our list of creatures from the sea.

**Editors note: After looking up a few different types of whales online once arriving to land, I’m pretty sure they were Minke whales. So yes, we did actually have our first whale sighting!

reflection of sail in water

 

Tuesday June 17, 2014

I will fully admit it. After 1 month of sitting at anchor in Miami and then spending the last four or so days traveling with winds under 10 knots, when they jumped up to 12 today my stomach started to clench. What if they get…higher? What if they get up to 20? Ugh, I hate what I’ve become. We’ve spent the past 18 months cruising in nothing but 20-30 knot winds, constantly, and here I was frightened that we might top out in the high teens. Dios mio!, what might become of us in those kind of conditions? I blame all these sudden and forceful storms that we’ve been getting. Already my brain is beginning to associate any kind of gust with a gale that’s going to take the boat down. Or maybe in the recesses of my mind I know that my comfortable passage complete with moving about the boat as if we are at anchor will be disturbed, and it can’t stand the thought. But the gales make me sound much tougher, so I’ll go with that.

This afternoon Matt and I found ourselves participating in our new favorite pastime of this crossing so far. Trying to decipher the clouds. I may have mentioned in a earlier post how much I’d been studying weather and weather patterns before we left Miami, and I’ve found that clouds can be big indicators of current conditions and what’s to come. I had been so sure of my new skill that two evenings ago I saw a string of mares tales coming from the west and proudly pointed out to Matt that we should see deteriorating weather, coming from that direction, in the next 12-24 hours. Most likely that a front was headed our way. So we waited, prepared, kept an eye on the sky, but other than a few passing showers it never changed from it’s brilliant blue. What the…? Not that I’m sad we never got the bad weather supposedly heading our way, but I had been so sure, according to all the books and articles I had read.

Time to break out the big guns. If I couldn’t figure it out just by looking up and guessing, I was going to match them to a cloud chart I had on board. A large sheet of paper that had photographs of just about every type of cloud along with a quick description of it. Couple that with a notebook full of information I had complied way back in Michigan of what kind of weather each of these clouds brings, and it would be a foolproof plan to see what we could expect in the next day or two.

You know what I found out? That while sitting on your boat and looking up to the sky, Altocumulus and Cirrocumulus clouds can look very similar. According to my guides, Altocumulus will usually precede a cold front, bringing crappy weather your way, and Cirrocumulus usually means fair weather. So we were still completely confounded.

Then I realized I’ve been doing this all wrong. I don’t need to try and read the clouds based on how they appear to me in the sky. I need to make a proposal to the great minds of the universe to come up with the best invention ever. Are you ready for it?: AIS For Clouds. Imagine being able to select a cloud on your chart and be able to see it’s speed, it’s direction, and if it’s actually going to pass over you. To know what kind of winds are coming your way, and to be able to exactly identify it to see what kind of weather is on the way.

Yes, I know that this will never happen, or if it could, it would be years and years and years away. But a sailor can dream……

calm waters on Atlantic

 

 

 

 

shelf cloud on Atlantic

Atlantic Crossing Days 2 & 3: Be Careful what You Wish For

by with One Comment Atlantic CrossingFloridaPassage Making

Friday 6/13/14

It turns out Matt was right when he said a few hours sleep would bring about a bit of perspective. Not only were last night’s events more distant and a little less terrifying in my mind when I woke up, but it also came with the realization of how much I do want to get to Europe and what comforts I’m willing to sacrifice to get there. It did not mean that my wishes would give us an expedient arrival though. Even though I told him to turn the bow north again as I went to bed (Europe if I changed my mind or New York if I still felt the same) we should have been getting pushed along by the Gulf Stream all night, we somehow must have wandered out if it for we had only gone a distance of about 12 miles in the 4 hours I had been sleeping. The rest of the morning and early afternoon was spent pointing the bow NE and and trying to find our ticket back into a speedy ride north.

Later in the afternoon we were convinced that we may have found the outer edges of it as our speed jumped to a whopping 4.5 knots as a gentle breeze of 7 knots came from behind. When both of us were actually up for the afternoon after trading hours of sleep shifts and naps, we turned to something that’s hopefully going to keep us entertained every few days for the remainder of the trip. Back in Miami I had drafted Matt’s mom to put together a series of small gifts to be opened by us during the passage. She had come through with flying colors and sent us a bag full of wrapped presents to be opened every five days, beginning on day two, for the next thirty-seven days. Just as excited as if it were Christmas morning, I tore open the first gift to find two books of puzzles and a little bag of treats containing things like mini candy bars, gumballs, and single serve instant coffee. I set about right away on the puzzles while Matt decided that he had been awake entirely too long and needed another nap.

Compared to what our other passages had been, and with the exception of the storm last night, we’ve had nothing but light winds and calm waters. By late afternoon I was praying for some kind of wind to pick up and speed us along, but as the saying goes, ‘Be careful what you wish for, it just might come true’. No sooner had I started to lament our lack of wind power when a set of dark clouds formed off to our northeast. Winds were still steady out of the south and I assumed this dark mass would be coming nowhere near us, until 20 minutes later when the winds shifted to the north. Again.

Now these are the kind of situations I hate. Everything was still calm…for the moment. Do I bother waking Matt and telling him that something might be coming our way?, or wait until that ‘oh shit’ moment where it’s too late and I can no longer handle it on my own? Luckily I didn’t have to worry, for two reasons. Matt had just roused himself out of bed as I was contemplating what actions I should take, and the dark mass of clouds moved just enough to our east that we only caught the very tail of the storm, winds only jumping into the high teens and nothing more.

The late afternoon and evening remained calm, and once again we were able to enjoy a nice dinner out in the cockpit.  One I would have been fully capable of making from scratch since the water around us was so calm that it was like being at anchor and my seasickness would have in no way been aggravated, but since we now had six days of meals already prepared I just threw a few slices of our remaining Domino’s pizza in the over and filled our glasses with Coke.  Everything was pointing toward us continuing to have a calm night where I could actually sleep through my entire shift without storms blowing our way, but once again, that was not the case.  Just as the sky was growing dark and I was finishing up the dishes before I hopped into bed, the sky in front of us was alight with lightning.  F*@k.  Just after that, our VHF began it’s loud siren alerting us to bad weather, and after last night’s episode we were glued to each word, listening to the county names and trying to find them on our charts to see what was coming our way.

Since I was caught so off guard last night with our storm which left me scrambling into the cockpit in the midst of all hell breaking loose without any clothes or a harness attached to me, I decided tonight would not be a repeat performance.  Putting on my foul weather gear and a harness, I arranged a group of cushions and pillows on the floor as a makeshift bed and tried my best to go to sleep.  Every time I heard the wind gust up I would whisk up the companionway steps to see what was happening.  Both of our nerves were on terror alert high.  But…since we were prepared this time, nothing came of it.  By the time my shift began at midnight all the dark clouds had disappeared and I was able to enjoy my shift in relative peace, where my only worry was the speed and direction of the dozens of tankers out on the water with us.

shelf cloud on Atlantic

AIS traffic in Gulf Stream

 It’s a party out here on the Gulf Stream!

Saturday June 14, 2014

We were comfortably sitting in the cockpit enjoying our afternoon and trying to make our way north when that now dreadful and heart thumping siren went off from our VHF, signaling more severe weather in the listening area. Being 30 miles off shore now we were starting to lose the signal just a little bit and had the volume all the way up as we strained to hear the forecast. Beginning to catch the words, I wish we hadn’t, although ingnorance isn’t always bliss. ‘Destructive winds, 50-60 knots, 52 knots recorded over land, seek shelter inside a sound structure’. These were the words broadcasting themselves into our little cockpit. Did they just say destructive winds? Seek shelter inside a building? If they were giving those kind of instructions on land, what the hell was to become of us in our little 34 ft boat, out to sea with nothing to protect us?

Catching the names of towns that were being listed we figured out that yes, we were just east of these areas, and yes, this storm was headed right our way. Again, I looked around and noticed that if we were to get hit, our saving grace would be the fact that we were once more starting with clam seas. The oncoming storm might build them up, but not much, so luckily the winds would be our only concern. Over the next hour we watched the sky turn from bright blue to partially overcast on the horizon. At first it didn’t look like much, more of a haze than anything, but as it came within 10 miles, the menacing traits came along with it. Up close and personal, we could now well make out that this was a shelf cloud, and it spanned the horizon for as far as we could see. Even the power boats had no way of racing around this one. If you check the image of the shelf cloud we were just able to skirt around yesterday, this one extended even further out, with the rolling clouds on top appearing as if they were extending out miles to us. I took a spot behind the wheel and clipped my harness in while refusing Matt’s offers for a jacket, or even to take my spot while he sat next to the companionway and listened to Georgie’s meows while she was locked down below. It is the best to see the website for the best jackets and vests.

Turning on the radar to judge when it would hit us along with how long it would last, we brought down all sails when it was within just a few miles of us and decided the best course of action would be to motor right into it. The winds hit us before the rain, a sudden and angry gust causing our guages to jump from 13 knots to 58 in one swift blow. The intent had been to point the bow directly into the wind, but once the winds started in, even with the wheel hard over I was struggling to keep us within 45 degrees of it. Small whitecaps started to roll on the water, and, shortly after, the rain set in, pelting me with a ferocious force as the winds subsided into the mid 40’s and stayed there. Based on how much rain was showing on our radar, and the broadcast’s stated speed of which the storm was moving at, I figured it would all blow over in 30 minutes, and as uncomfortable as it was I could handle that.

Keeping the wheel hard over, I fought to keep our spot 45 degrees into the wind instead of being pushed beam into it. That work wasn’t so hard, but as the rain battered down on me at well above gale forces, I began to regret turning down the jacket from Matt. My body wasn’t too bad though, it was mostly my face that was stinging from the drops, my eyes luckily protected by the glasses that were now fogging up and blinding me. It wasn’t too bad, and I counted down the minutes as the little whitecaps began to turn into small swells, all the while thinking to myself, ‘Only 20,…15,…,10 more minutes. You can do this.’ But then the original five miles of storm in front of us extended into five more. The pink blob on the radar just wouldn’t end. Jesus Christ, 30 more minutes of this? I give up. Finally relenting my position behind the wheel, I let Matt slide in as I sought shelter under the dodger from the wind and rain. Also slipping a jacket over my wet body I was immediately warmed up and begged myself to answer the question of why I always put myself through so much unnecessary torture. Oh Captain, my captain…I guess I feel I should be the one to experience the brunt of it all.

As soon as those next 30 minutes were up the storm was gone with it, and we were back to our measly ten knots of wind.  Back to going nowhere.

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Georgie’s so proud of providing her own meals when a flying fish ends up on deck.

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Atlantic Crossing Day 1: Never Leave For a Passage on Thursday the 12th

by with 10 Comments Atlantic CrossingFloridaPassage Making

Thursday June 12, 2014

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They say that you should never leave on passage on a Friday. Sailor’s supersition that it’s bad luck. We were almost caught leaving for our Atlantic crossing on Friday the 13th. Does that make it doubly worse? Or do the two negatives cancel each other out and make a positive? I wasn’t sure and made SURE that we busted our butts so that we wouldn’t have to find out, leaving one day earlier on Thursday the 12th instead. I think we would have been better off taking our chances with Friday the 13th…

The morning should have started with relaxing, enjoying our last cup of coffee for the next month where we didn’t have to hold everything down on the counter to make sure it didn’t slide off, before completing last minute projects like stowing everything away and deflating the dinghy. It did not start like that. Just as we were going to bed last night we realized that the fitting on our bow water tank had broken, leaking all of it’s contents into our bilge. Since this was to be our back-up source of water for our crossing, only taking from and refilling our port water tank, this was an issue we needed to fix right away.

The new goal was to wake up first thing in the morning and walk to the local Ace Hardware to pick up the replacement part. Knowing that we were already going to get very little sleep as it was, since we had stayed up well past midnight since we had pushed off all that evening’s projects to enjoy a hot pizza and an episode of Sherlock, I was vexed, and truthfully, terrified, at the thunderstorm of epic proportions that rolled through our anchorage at 5 am, bringing with it 50 knot winds and leaving me wondering if something similar could roll through the next night while we were on passage. Letting ourselves sleep in just a little bit longer we ended up with a late start to our morning, but we were back to the boat with the issue fixed by 11 am. The other small projects took a little longer than we anticipated, as they always do, and the anchor wasn’t weighed until 1 pm. Spending another 45 minutes circling the anchorage as we calibrated our autopilot we were finally off, exiting the Government Cut at Miami just after 3 pm.

Even though the sun was shinning down on us on our way out it didn’t take long for the clouds to roll in, and we watched Miami become consumed by darkness and rain which we were soon swallowed up by as well. It wasn’t anything more than a nice rain shower though, and winds continued to stay around 10 knots and we glided up the Gulf Stream in glass waters at 5 knots under headsail alone. Based on sheer excitement about the journey ahead of us, we even frolicked out in the rain for a bit (or Matt doing whatever the manly term for that would be) while taking in a free shower during the downpour. Things cleared up a few hours later as we passed Ft. Lauderdale and we even managed to catch a decent sunset while enjoying left over pizza in the cockpit.

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Before I even knew it my eight o’clock bedtime was before me and I was more than ready for it. I’ve learned that the key to a good first night on passage for myself is collecting no sleep the night before we leave so I am more than ready to conk out at such an early hour. Sliding in behind the lee cloth that we’d set up on the starboard bunk in the salon, I slid easily into sleep. Something that normally takes me three hours to do our first night out.

I had been lying in my bunk for just over an hour when I heard a loud ruckus on deck. I knew it was Matt messing with the headsail, and even though all sounds are amplified below deck, this seemed much louder and as if something were wrong. Jumping out of bed I raced over the companionway boards and into the cockpit. It was immediately evident to me that we were in trouble. I looked at the chartplotter to find winds nearing 60 knots and we were being pushed so far over that our rail was in the water. Matt was feverently working to get the headsail rolled in, but had enough good sense to yell at me to get back in the boat and get a harness on before I could topple out the boat and into the Gulf Stream.

Rushing back below deck I tore through the cabinet to search for our second harness. Usually we never have both out at the same time unless we know bad weather is coming, normally just trading off the one harness between ourselves, but this storm came upon us so suddenly that we barely had time to react.

Finding the second harness I raced once more into the companionway where the headsail was still being overpowered by winds that were now sustained in the upper 40’s. With the furling sheet in hand, Matt was still trying to save the sail by bringing it in, asking me to gently release the sheet for the headsail still wrapped around the winch. The strain on the line was so heavy that I couldn’t even loosen it from the teeth that hold it in place, all the while trying my best to work it free while we’re still heeled all the way over in Force 9-10 winds. Finally Matt realized this was not going to work and it was very likely we’d tear the sail in half while working to winch it in. Looking up through the dark and thinking that we’d already blown it out he slid over to my spot he released the sheet from the winch and let it flap in the wind while he quickly grabbed the furling sheet back to get it in. Eventually the sail was rolled in, though the lines were a knotted and tangled mess that would have to be saved for another day.

Now at hand we had to deal with winds that were still blowing in the 45-50 knot range and showed no signs of relenting. Not wanting to keep any of the sails up we turned ourselves downwind and began to ride the storm out with bare poles as we were pushed along at two knots of speed.  The winds were coming directly out of the north which meant that we were now moving south, working against the current of the Gulf Stream, had absolutely no sail up, no engine on, and were still making that kind of forward progress.  Bolts of white and pink lightning were crashing down on each side of us as buckets of rain began to pour down.  The whole experience was miserable and I think both of us began to start rethinking this whole ocean crossing.  As I stood behind the wheel to hand steer us, Matt sat clipped in under the dodger and confessed, “This just isn’t for me.  I can’t do this anymore.”  Can’t do an ocean crossing?  Or can’t do cruising?

Seeing that we were only 12 miles north of Ft. Lauderdale we tried to start setting a course there to ease our nerves and see what steps we wanted to take next.  As I tried to keep us ass to the waves, I was going just by feel for the wind direction and slipped up a few times where we took the building waves on at a bad angle and they’d crash over the stern and into the cockpit, soaking me in the process.  Yes, a break from cruising sounds pretty good right now.  Immediately my mind went to us leaving the boat in Ft. Lauderdale while we hopped a plane to Guatemala to backpack for a few weeks while visiting friends, and then returning to Michigan for the rest of summer to spend it with friends and family.  It all sounded so tantalizing that it was probably one of the only things keeping me from breaking down while we continued to fight this monstrous storm which was showing no signs of letting up.

For another hour I stood behind the wheel, knees growing weak and teeth chattering until the winds finally let up into the mid 30’s and the autopilot was able to go back into use.  Somehow I was still wired even though I’d only gathered about 5 hours of sleep in the last 30 hours, and sent Matt to bed while we pushed on toward Ft. Lauderdale with the engine on, still fighting the Gulf Stream and moving at 2 knots.  Two hours later, while he was resting his nerves and gaining a little perspective while I stood awake and continued to daydream of a life back on land, he came to relieve me and discuss our rash decision.  By this point I was beyond exhausted and finally started to break down.

I complained about how it seems like everything for the past six months has been working against us and maybe this is a sign that we should stop before something really awful happened.  He told me to grab a few hours of sleep, but for him, removing himself from the situation for a little bit made him realize that it was just frazzled nerves that made him want to quit before, but he thought that moving forward and continuing our crossing was still the right decision and what we really do want.  He made the comment that it was extremely unlikely that we’d go through anything like that again and the worst of it was probably out of the way.  We might hit the random storm here or there in the future, but none of it would likely be worse that what we’ve already seen in our cruising history.  Hmmm.  Guatemala, Lake Michigan, friends, family…….or 3,000 miles of open ocean and uncertainty ahead.  I think a few hours of sleep might be necessary to make that decision.