At Sea
Trip Start
May 07, 2007
1
25
28
Trip End
Jun 15, 2007
The Atlantic,
Bermuda
Saturday, June 16, 2007
The weather has changed again today. As I sip my coffee, its grey with thick low clouds. It's the kind of stuff you might imagine in North Sea WWII movie. Its as if you might see a mighty grey armada of destroyers come over the horizon.
Its been cool and getting cooler. Even on last night's late evening watch it was too cool for me to open the doors. But when Sue went up at 0300 to relieve Mike, she found he had both door wide open and the 50+ degree air filling the wheelhouse as "Mikie" stood there in his shorts and tee. "What the heck are you doing Mike?", she ask. "Hey, Im from Maine this is what we live for ...warm weather", he replied. We knew at that point that Mike would not last long in out habitats of Arizona and South Florida.
We haven't said much about how we like this experience. To this, I have a three reactions. First, seeing far away lands is not something I'm ready to set aside yet. While Sue and I have over 40 countries on our "been there" list we are far from burned out. Besides, seeing the world in a small boat provides a whole different view and experience. Making landfall in Bermuda gave me a serious rush. Seeing that island look small, get bigger and get near put chills up and down my back. I think Jimmy Buffett said, "this puts liv'n in life for me". I agree. You don't get this landing on a plane.
I glanced through the book entitled "Ocean Voyages", that we have here on the yacht. It's a reference book that articulates scores of world cruising routes along with their favorable timeframes, distances, currents etc. It made me salivate to think of taking a boat out of Key West and south to Jamaica and then west to central America.
Secondly I have developed a much bigger perspective and view of what it takes to do this. These boats a complex, sophisticated and demanding. And being on the ocean or in a distant land means that they have to be maintained to near perfect levels.
The physical intensity of sailing is replaced with mechanical intensity. This is especially true if you have an expectation of having all the comforts of home as we have here on New Frontier. I cant imagine having the financial resources to keep a Nordhavn 62 running. Two generators, 6 AC units, two hydraulic alternators, dual radar/plotters, dual VHF, dial hydraulic auto-pilots, Sat TV, bow and stern hydraulic thrusters, 15 major pumps and on and on. Each of these components has a time to next failure and that is often short on a boat. When you put them all in one place, something is in need of work all the time. I know that from First Forty, but my boat is perhaps 1/10th the complexity of this one! Perhaps I could find a way to buy one, but the thousands of dollars a year to maintain it are well beyond my expectations. And, boats of this scale run 12-15k a year to insure. This is beyond my wildest dreams. S
But then, I look at Beso. Beso has all the basics: solid hull, great engine, electronics for sure. But they also have the sat phone, global email, water-maker, wing engine, cabin heater. Hey......that's the boat I ready own plus several thousands of things I don't have. First Forty is just not really equipped for taking us to far away places. We would need to invest over $50-70k to bring her up to the level of Beso. But that is an option.
I guess my third learning is that a big part of cruising is the cruisers. Facing the challenges and the adventure of doing this breeds a strong sense of comradery. While I miss my dear friends at Desert Mountain, it is much easier to strike up a friendship with a fellow cruiser than a fellow golfer. Although there is still a speck of "mine is bigger than yours" but here we may compare vessels and not drivers. There is a unique bond that is formed when people face the challenges of going to sea or for that matter going to Florida on the inter-coastal. Sue and I have made more friends since we owned our boat than we have made in many years of being landlubbers. That counts. Still I know nether Sue and I are ready to sell Desert Mountain and move aboard.
So we will see how this all goes. I do know that at the onset of this adventure I thought that it would either deepen our commitment to cruising or turn it off. With 2 more days to go, its been a very positive experience.
Joey's cooking continues to improve every day. A big help has been Mike. Joey has a good sense of food prep, but this is his first time being "chef". He is well aware that Con and Jerry have very refined tastes and high expectations so he works hard to meet that expectation. But making "near gourmet" meals in a small, pitching galley is harder than it looks. So when it seemed Joey had bitten off a big task, Mike stepped in to help. As a result, Joey and Mike work together prepare the meals each evening. It starts with 'cocktails at 5' and 'dinner at 6' per Con. For example, yesterday we had Jerk pork chops. Lunch was a great chicken salad. No pain here. This is good living. Sue and I know we are fortunate. We keep remembering, next week we will be back on First Forty and chicken on the Barbie. It's no N62 and feels more boat than yacht, but it is both strong and proud.
I spent an hour yesterday looking up things in the Nautical Almanac. I looked up the passage up to NYC, New Jersey etc. This will be a test of our planning and seamanship. Its going to be a step up in challenge from last years trip up from Florida and summer on the Chesapeake. The sea lanes will be packed with commercial traffic and currents will be less predictable. Our tentative plan will be to 'beat feet' up to Maine and then take a more leisurely trip back down to Florida.
We got emails from the other parts of the fleet and there have been some mechanical problems. Bluewater (N47) heading to Europe had an overheated stuffing box which is a serious problem. It was fixed by an able crew with the support of a Sat call to the US. Blue Pearl (N62) enroute to Annapolis had an exploding alternator belt described as "rubber bullets" in the engine room. Again a prepared crew addressed the problem underway. In both cases, these are superbly equipped and prepared vessels. While not all in a day's work, they generally took it in stride.
So we now show an ETA of Sunday morning around 0900. One more watch this evening and our voyage ends. Our weather router was spot on. Today's seas are 2-3 feet which makes for a smooth ride. I am sure that both Sue and I will be sad to see this end. Its been a terrific opportunity and a terrific experience.
I miss reading the blog of Kosmos, the Nordhavn 43 that just made the trip to the south pacific over three weeks. The idea is appealing although I know three weeks underway would be really hard. The six day trip out to Bermuda was about right and tripling that would take a lot of mental focus.
