Newly Updated
October 21st, 2005
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Our
Adventure Began on September 12th, 2005 as we left Georgian Bay heading South
for
the Caribbean!
We've gone live with our new satellite system and will be
posting updates
with position information as we travel.
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October 17th, 2005
"Escape From New York"
Position at 9pm:
39* 34.97’N
74* 08.93’W
Hello Everyone!
We finally managed to ‘escape’ from New York City… the weather had been holding us there all week! We waited for a break in the weather, and finally the wind turned from the Northeast to the Northwest yesterday… we gave it a day to let the 20 foot swells die off from the East, and finally pulled the anchor this morning!
New York City was fun, but we were happy to get on our way… the harbor was very bumpy, and a real tough ride for our dinghy everyday! We had several visits into Manhattan, and New Jersey… we even met Sponge Bob! Finding groceries turned out to be an all-day event!
Marco on ‘Elixir of Life’ held out for the weather shift as well. Paul, his new crewmember, show up late last night. Paul is someone else I’ve known via ‘correspondence’ for several years from the CS Yachts Owners Association… we’ve been swapping emails about boats for years, and I finally got to meet him this morning at 9am as Terri, Marco and I had just finished loading our mainsail into our ‘stackpack’ getting ready to set sail, when Paul came back from dropping off his rent-a-car. That was great… nice to finally be able to put a face to the name!
We had a beautifully sunny day, the wind was howling out of the Northwest as forecast, and we set out to sea at about 11:30am, passing Sandy Hook about 1pm, and off into the Atlantic from there! I can’t tell you how good it felt to finally be back out on the water… and on the Atlantic no less!! We’ve had such an amazing sail today… the wind was perfect, the sun was out, the waves were light… it was just perfect! Terri made an amazing Pesto pasta dinner (perfect before a night at sea!) and it was great... yes, life is good!! We watched an amazing sunset to the West, while the full moon came up at the exact same time out of the East! The full moon came up just as ‘Elixir’ passed underneath it as Marco was sailing a couple miles West of us… we took some pictures hoping to capture how breathtaking it was! I’m going to attach one of those pictures, hopefully it turns out!!
A week was definitely a long time to wait in New York Harbor for weather, but it was definitely worth the wait! We’ve been sailing along on a beam reach all day, and even with the mainsail double reefed we’ve had a hard time keeping ‘Sophisticated Lady’ under 7 knots! We didn’t really need the double reef, but I wanted to keep the ride ‘smooth’ since this is Terri’s first time out on the open Atlantic Ocean, so an enjoyable ride is a good thing!
We’re heading for Virginia on this run, but if time allows we’re going to stop in Ocean City… someplace Terri would really like to see. She’s offwatch right now having a nap, so I thought I’d send out an update since so many were wondering what happened to us, lol. It’s a beautiful night, the full moon is gorgeous, and we’re still speeding along in perfect wind towards our destination!
We did get a chance to upload all our new pictures from the Hudson River and New York City, so you can check them out on the website anytime under the Ships Log. I’m sure we’ll send out another ‘He Said, She Said’ within a day or two… when exactly just depends on the weather! Lol
Atlantic City in all its lighted glory should be on our Starboard Beam by about midnight, with the full moon brilliantly lighting up the other side of the boat… should be a bright night! If you’re looking at the full moon tonight, think of us! We should be quite a bit farther South on the Atlantic in a couple days, so take care everyone, we’ll look forward to hearing from you as always.. and wish us Luck!
Cheers,
Rick (& Terri….. zzzzzzz…
sleeping..)
October 19th, 2005, 2:30am
Progress Update from the
Atlantic
Hi Everyone
Terri and I are still on alternating watches and haven’t had any time to write our next email yet so I just thought I’d send out a quick update that yes, we are still alive and doing well out on the Atlantic! We’ve been at sea for two days now, heading South from New York to Virginia. We expect to sail into Virginia by tomorrow sometime, we’ll be stopping in either Hampton, or Norfolk, not quite sure which yet… probably the one with the best access to groceries since we haven’t seen a grocery store in quite some time! Lol
The sail has been great so far, yesterday was picture perfect… it just doesn’t get any better… but then around 3am, apparently it was time to pay the piper! The wind turned right on our nose and the waves started picking up fast, before we knew it we were pounding upwind into 6 footers which later grew into 10 footers! That grew tiresome pretty quickly but the only option would have been to head out to sea to keep the wind in a usable direction, and that would have lengthened our course too much so we pulled in our genoa and motorsailed with our reefed mainsail. ‘Sophisticated Lady’ has been holding up very well… and usually better than the crew! Lol She’s a very steady, rock-solid boat, and even pounding upwind she takes it well. Yesterday we had a hard time keeping her under 7 knots, even with hardly any sails out… we covered 185 miles in our first 24 hours, I think we’re at 280 miles total so far since we left New York, but we’ve had to do some ziggin and zaggin to get around the weather.
The weather eased up again this afternoon and we both felt much better. We were planning on putting into Ocean City for a visit, but once we checked the updated offshore forecast, decided against it. The weather was forecast to turn to the Southwest, then to the Southeast in a couple days, and a Southeast gale while on approach to the Chesapeake Bay area was not a very attractive option so we decided to press on all the way to Virginia and take advantage of the current window of Northwest winds. We should be at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay by 7am this morning (Wednesday), at which point we’ll decide which port we’ll be putting into. We’re still traveling along with Marco and Paul on ‘Elixir’, they’re doing well, but according to Marco, he’s “had better passages”, lol. We’ve been staying in touch via our long range radios which have been working great for us! We get in touch 2-3 times a day and report position, heading, and weather to each other… it’s always nice to hear from someone else out there in the dark, doing the same thing we are!
Thanks for all the nice emails we’ve been receiving, it’s great to read everyone’s nice comments to us… Terri really likes them as it makes her feel closer to everyone while we’re out here sailing on the Big Blue Pond!
Take care everyone, we’ll talk to you soon!
Cheers,
Rick (& Terri…zzzzzz…
sleeping)
October 19th, 2005, 1pm
Update
from Virginia
Hi Everyone
Just another quick update…
We arrived safely in Hampton, Virginia at about 10am this morning under beautiful sunny skies. The weather has been beautiful, although a little light on the wind for the end of the trip so we ended up motorsailing into the Chesapeake… they say there are only two kinds of wind for a sailboat… too much wind, or too little wind!
The full moon was absolutely spectacular on the ocean last night and it was cool to find that we weren’t all that alone out there. We had been in contact with a couple other sailboats taking advantage of the same weather window we were following, and a quick scan with the radar revealed about 6 other boats within 20 miles of us, all heading south like a flock of geese! Marco fell a little behind, but we’re expecting him to arrive in Hampton this afternoon around 3 or 4pm. We arrived at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay around 5am and immediately started dodging markers and staying out of the way of tankers and warships… we are just across the bay from Norfolk which is a huge Navy base with an entire fleet of US warships. One slid past us in the dark like a big stealth monster! They are quite intimidating, even when they aren’t shooting at you!
We received a flood of emails warning us about the coming hurricane which we appreciate tremendously… that’s why I figured I’d let you all know we were in harbor and safely tied up. We are at our slip that was reserved for us by the Caribbean 1500 Rally in the Blue Sea Yachting Center in Hampton River. It’s a huge marina designed for large boats, all the docks are brand new, and there are huge pilings driven into the ground at end of the slips to secure the boats to… aside from the fact that we are quite a few miles inland and in a very protected area, we’ll definitely be safe here whatever the weather brings.
The marina also has high-speed internet available that we are going to try and subscribe to, that way we’ll be able to keep in touch, and track the weather from our slip.
And so ends Leg 3! We’re a couple weeks early, but I’m sure we’ll find something to do… the boat project list hasn’t grown any shorter, that’s for sure! With any luck, we’ll get out and explore a bit of the Chesapeake after the weather goes through, but for now, we’re still wearing our shorts and T-shirts, it’s about 80 degrees outside, and we’re quite thrilled about completing another major portion of our adventure successfully!
Cheers,
Rick (& Terri… sleeping again… I
think this is becoming a habit! Lol)