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Position as of Wednesday, November 8th, 2006: 37*01.1N
76*20.5W Hampton, Virginia Cumulative Miles
Logged Since Toronto: Miles to Finish at
Tortola, British Virgin Islands: After finally arriving in Castleton, New York after a very slow and cold trip down the Erie Canal System, we were rewarded with an absolutely perfect day to put up the masts on 'Emanuela' and 'Sophisticated Lady'. We got to work as soon as we arrived and had warm temperatures, no wind, and temperatures in the high 60's. We had originally planned to put up the masts and then do the sails later so we could continue on as soon as possible. It was then that we heard that there was a major front approaching from New York City that was going to bring us very strong headwinds, and a tidal surge that was forecast to produce large local flooding around the Hudson River... great!! On top of that, once the front reached our area, they had also predicted 3-4 inches of rainfall in just a few hours... made us glad to be on a boat!!
Once we heard that forecast, we decided it would be more prudent to buckle down and ride out the weather at a floating dock! If we had carried on we would have been heading into 40 knots of wind on the nose, and huge tidal flows against us which would have resulted in us only being able to go about 2mph over the ground... not fun! We took advantage of the extra day by going into town and finding a grocery store to re-stock the boat... it had been almost 2 weeks since we left Oswego and we hadn't been able to find fresh vegetables since we left! With
the fridge finally full again, we decided it would be fun to have a barbeque
while we rode out the storm. While I was at the back of the boat manning the
barbeque, I happened to look out at the dock and notice that the marina wall
that is normally almost 8 feet above us was now completely under water! There
were even people from the boat club coming down and taking pictures saying they
had never seen it so high... that's great except now we were tied to a dock that
is trying desperately to keep from sinking since it's tied to the wall that's
under water!
The next morning we awoke to sunny skies and much milder winds... and the water was starting to drop as it ran back out towards the Atlantic. We untied the lines and were off by about 7am and ran the flood current at maximum speed the entire day making record time to New York City! We stopped for the night in Haverstraw Bay, a beautiful anchorage with a park and a little town nearby that we had stopped at last spring on our way North. The next day was forecast to be sunny and warm so we decided to spend the night here and then sail into New York Harbor by lunchtime in the sunshine.
Again we were rewarded with a perfect day and sailed the entire rest of the way into and through New York City! The George Washington Bridge is always a welcome sight as it signifies the end of the inland portion of our voyage and guides us into the next chapter... the Atlantic Ocean!
We were
already way behind schedule from all the time lost being stuck in the Erie Canal
so we decided since it was such a perfect sailing day, and we were already fully
stocked with supplies, we'd just continue on out into the ocean and begin the
two day offshore trip down to Virginia at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. We
sailed past the Statue of Liberty and finally got a picture of her on a
beautifully sunny day with not a cloud in the sky... our past couple visits had
been very overcast and stormy, so this was a real treat!
Our first day on the ocean was fantastic... we were enjoying great weather, great sailing, and pointing exactly in the direction we wanted to go! After that the wind started to build from the Southwest (exactly where we wanted to go) and the increasing wave size started pushing against us as well. We pulled in the Jib and continued to motorsail with just the mainsail up to help stabilize the boat in the waves and kept plugging along towards Virginia. We sailed in closer to the coastline to try and filter the waves and managed to get a really nice picture of the sun setting behind Ocean City.
We sailed on through the night doing our watches and pounding through some fairly big waves, and by sunrise the wind and waves started to drop and we started making better headway. After arriving at the buoy marking the entrance to the channel into Chesapeake Bay, the challenge now was to guide our way in while staying out of the way of all the tankers and warships that were coming in off the ocean headed for Norfolk. We didn't see any Navy submarines this time... but we're quite certain they saw us!
Now we are safely in Hampton, Virginia and have met up with all the other boats that will be sailing in this years Caribbean 1500 Rally. Last year was a really good year for the rally with 52 boats... this year there are 75 boats! They had a good review in Bluewater Sailing Magazine this year that really boosted the turnout, and this year Cruising World Magazine was here writing a story! Once we
settled in and got the boat cleaned up, my mother had shown up after driving
down from Canada. She was bringing Terri down to meet me for the rest of the
trip South, and also brought my kids down for a visit as well. We had a couple
of great days just hanging out and doing as much fun stuff as we could possibly
squeeze in between boat jobs. One day we went and visited the Virginia Space
and Science Center which featured an IMAX theater... we watched a movie about
walking on the moon that was featured in 3D... it was amazing... I've seen 3D
movies before, but this one made you feel like you were genuinely right there in
the movie! Brenden and Justin had fun and it was great to see them again as it
won't be until Christmas that I see them next. By Saturday, my mother had left
with the kids on their way back to Canada, and one of my crewmates, Colin, had
gone along to help with the drive. They had a good trip, and all made it home
safe and sound. Dwight from Texas, and John from St Louis, who were our
offshore crew for the trip from the BVI's North to Bermuda last spring, had so
much fun they both signed up for the passage back to the BVI's from
Virginia!
We've all been busily working on the boat getting 'Sophisticated Lady' ready for the next leg of our voyage... the ocean passage! The guys hoisted me to the masthead to do a final inspection on the rigging and I managed to get a nice picture of some of the Rally boats lined up at dock and waiting for start day.
Unfortunately, Terri came down with a bit of a toothache last week, that turned out to be a big toothache this week. She's been a real trooper and continued on with preparing all the meals that she freezes in advance so we don't have to cook on the ocean... just warm up a gourmet meal every day! The other day the tooth became unbearable so we had to find her a dentist that could perform an emergency root canal on short notice! We finally found one and she went in for the surgery yesterday. We're happy to report that everything went perfectly and she returned to the boat much happier! It was actually very lucky for us that the Rally was delayed for 2 days due to weather, otherwise we would have been left behind while we waited... I wasn't going anywhere without Terri!! It is now 7am on Wednesday, November 8th and we are all
finally ready to go! All jobs are completed, tools are stowed, everything is
lashed down and secure and after the final weather briefing at 8am we are
scheduled to leave the dock at 9am! It sounds like we'll even have wind for the
start of this one as they are forecasting winds out of the Southwest at 15
knots... perfect! Let's hope they're right this time!!
;o)
If you haven't already sponsored our 'Sail-A-Thon' for The Children's Wish Foundation and would like to, this is our most important, and final part of our journey South. To sponsor us, just follow the link below or find the same link on our website at www.WindInMySails.com . Thanks again to all those that have sponsored us so far, it is greatly appreciated! We hope this finds you all well and we'll look forward to hearing from you... just remember to delete our original message in your reply or it will take us forever to download as we are going to be exclusively on satellite from now on. Cheers, Rick & Terri 'Sophisticated Lady' |
