Aahhh!

Aahhh . . .

. . . the sound of cans of diet & regular coke opening.

. . . a two a.m. mug of hot chocolate on a cold, wet, foggy watch.

. . . finally shutting the engine off after 12 hours of motoring and feeling the wind become our engine.

. . . the swish of water along the hull.

. . . watching dolphins playing.

. . . the sound of a whale’s exhale.

. . . seeing land right where you expect it to be.

. . . stillness.

Arrived in Halifax Wednesday morning after a night at anchor behind Little Sambro Island. Tucked on a mooring at the Armdale Yacht Club for tonight. Hot showers! Yippee.

It was a great passage even with a fair amount of motoring.

A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words

Captain Russ, First Mate Alison, Deckhand & Nephew William Carrier

We've been saying for a few months . . . if we could just leave the slip we'd be on our way!

William was great! Easy going, helpful, good at fixing things and most importantly fun and game for just about anything.

Andante at anchor in Lagoon Pond, Vineyard Haven, MA

Rest stop

Made it through the bridge into Lagoon Pond last night after a roaring sail up Vineyard Sound. Hit 9 knots over the ground with a boost from the tide. Long list of boat chores and will post some pictures tonight and hopefully a map showing where we've been so far.

Leaving on a sailboat

Don't know when we'll be back again.
Oh, Babe it's time to leave . . .


Today's the day!!! We're very excited to be starting this journey and thankful for all of the help and encouragement that's been passed our way. It's very cool to look and use certain things on the boat and know that so-and-so made that or painted that or whatever. So very appreciative of the good vibes, especially as we frustratingly untangle from land!

Enjoy the journey ~ even the frustrating parts!

Plan is to head up the Chesapeake, down the Delaware to Cape May, NJ where we'll wait for a weather window. Probably head off-shore from there to Martha's Vineyard for a few days. Then we'll point our bows North and see how far we get.

Roots to Fly

I'm editing my Mother's letter to her grandchildren.  It's more like a book and is a delightful look at her growing up years.   It's gotten me to thinking about my roots.  The faces in the old photos look out in an unblinking stare at the world.  What were they thinking?  What were their lives like?

This is my Great-Grandmother, Maggie Barton Mahaffey. With hands folded in imitation of his Mother's is my Grandfather, James Wylie Mahaffey. Before them stand generations of Mahaffey's, Barton's, Robert's, Harper's, Phillips', stretching back to the late 1600's when my ancestors stepped on a ship to cross an ocean. Once they arrived in upstate South Carolina they stayed put for another 400 years.  

So what motivated those people that stepped foot on a ship to cross into the unknown? Courage, desperation, a search for a better life? What drove them to leave behind all they knew to sail to foreign place? What were their hopes, dreams? What were they striving for? What made them different from the generations before and after that they would undertake what had to be an exciting, but frightening, journey? Leaving everything they knew behind. Knowing they would never see their families again and journeying to what had to have seemed like jungle wilderness . . . it's hard to fathom the guts it took to do that.  

Our summer adventure pales in comparison and I'm taking heart in that and sometimes feel their presence standing at my shoulder. What would they think of our trip? It's not done out of desperation but we are seeking something ~ a little adventure, exploring our personal limits, living a little closer to nature and getting away from some aspects of modern life for starters. But it's really a luxury in a way. Not something we have to do to survive, to eat, to put a roof over our heads. What would they think of an era where people have the luxury to do something like this? I hope they would smile and say the 17th century equivalent of "Go for it! Live the dream. We did and it turned out stupendously."

List Management

So you're going along doing things.  Checking 'em off the list.  You keep doing . . . then you realize the very important things you've just spent the last 7 or so hours on aren't even on the list!  Do you:

a) add them to the list so you can have the satisfaction of crossing them out 

b) have the task, and the doing of it, remain anonymous by not adding it to the list

c) fall to the floor in a hysterical mass because of all the things left on the list

I go for A!  

Ice, Ice Baby!

We've been prepping for the trip, looking at charts, getting the boat ready, trying to finish up some niggling work projects and entertaining ourselves by looking at the ice conditions around Newfoundland & Labrador. Some years there's a lot of ice, some not so much. Some years a lot of ice comes down the Straits of Belle Isle which separates Newfoundland & Labrador. Some years not much.   We're aiming to head up through the Straits first and go around Newfoundland clockwise so it's important how the ice is doing.

The Canadian Weather Service has done a terrific job with the ice reporting. I'd like to think they're doing it for us but mostly it's for the off shore oil rigs that dot the area.

Visit the website at Environment Canada and you can see 5 day animations of ice movement (click up near the top where it says view); satellite photos of different areas and you can learn about the Petermann Ice Island.  It broke off from the Arctic shelf last summer and is making its way south.  Currently moving at 9 nautical miles a day, it's at the end of Baffin Island.  The size of Greater Toronto, it'd be pretty stunning, and more than a little scary, to see.  Something that large would make its own weather system.  Also check out the Ice Tongue Development.  Evidently the ice has extended out further than is normal and gotten pretty close to some off-shore rigs.  

We've also been learning how to read "ice eggs".  It's a way of reporting ice conditions & types that's displayed in an oval.  If interested in the details this site is helpful:  Ice Chart Symbology

That's all for now . . . back to sorting, packing, and making lists!

Connections & Communities

Some think of cruising as a solitary pursuit but, especially in this wired age, it's first and foremost a community. Last week our land and cruising community got stronger and bigger.

Sailing is tied to seasonal weather patters so cruisers, and the ships of yesteryear, move in groups as they avoid winter storms in one hemisphere and seek out good wind in another. Ships used to meet on the high seas and exchange mail, gossip and occasionally visit via riding in a barrel on a line between the two. Today, boats hopscotch around the world encountering each other in various ports. And often you'll meet a boat who rafted up with the people you rafted up with 2 years ago. The other thing that quickly becomes apparent is that cruisers don't have last names it's Russ and Alison from Andante or Nat and Betsy from Bahati. Boat names morphing into surnames.

When we cruised to Maine in 2007, we docked at Mystic, Connecticut's Mystic Seaport Museum. We met Rachel & Claus from Kyanna and began following their blog. On hearing our Newfoundland plans, they e-introduced us to Jim & Ellie aboard Meta Fog who have cruised extensively in Newfoundland. They've been a great resource of practical tips, e-introductions to others in Nova Scotia & Newfoundland and lots of encouragement along the lines of "Just go you'll love it!" Last week they were in Washington, DC touring and picking out where to bring their boat this fall. We were able to meet over coffee and put faces to those internet identities!

Saturday was dinner with some dear friends who'll be keeping an eye on "the store" while we're gone. Always great food, conversation & laughter. We're hoping they'll join us for some part of this sailing adventure.

Do you have a friend that you see once in a blue moon and you're able to pick up like it's been yesterday? Terri's that kind of friend. We interned at the Pee Dee Area Health Education Center in Florence 25 years ago. Yikes! We stayed in touch and began writing real letters. She was in DC a few years ago and we met for breakfast. That's the only time we've seen each other in that 25 year period. She and her family were in Annapolis yesterday and we met for an hour at City Dock. Our husbands came along and it was instant fun, catching up in person.

So take a minute and get in touch with someone you haven't chatted with in a while or make a connection with someone new or have pure fun with someone you see every day! Cheers