The Voyages of Threepenny Opera

Year Four – Tread softly and enjoy the voyage

2011-12-22T22:15:00.001-05:00

Threepenny Opera is tugging gently on her lines as the wake from a passing fishing boat reaches into her slip at Marina Darsena in Varadero Cuba. It is early December and it has been 3 weeks since we left Vero Beach and the land based life of rental cars, air conditioning and shoes. Pat and I are loath to dwell on it, lest we jinx the good vibes that we feel, but the both of us has silently noted first to ourselves and then more vocally to each other that we seem to be unusually prepared and organized as we set off on what will be our fourth year of cruising.

Our lazarettes actually seem to have space in them, unlike the jack in the box stuffed entities that we have lived with in the past. Everything has a place and so long as we remember where that place is, we can actually open hatches and locker lids without having flying objects landing on or pinching, crushing, stabbing etc. various unsuspecting body parts. Even though Double jointed maneuvers worthy of Harry Houdini and chess grand master like forward planning of our stores consumption 2-3 months ahead are still required in order to make best use of our finite space aboard, the phenomenon of crawling over the corn flakes to retrieve the Allen wrenches seems to be much less common these days.

Pat has been cooking even more gourmet meals than she has in the past. We have always eaten well onboard but the major milestone this year has been her forays into the baking realm. Now we can have an endless supply of wonderful multi-grain loaves so long as our flour and energy supplies hold out. While we might miss being caromed around in the subway rush hour like crowds that crush the counter at the local bakery when the racks of bread come from their ovens, we know that this year the experience will be by choice and not necessity.

Even the sailing itself has gotten better and seems much less frantic these days. While respect for the weather is still and will always be paramount, our minimum weather limits are broader and our ability to react to changing conditions has improved significantly. For example we broke our main sail furling line on our trip from Lake Worth to Fort Lauderdale a couple of weeks back. Instead of triggering a panic attack at the thought of an uncontrollable flapping piece Dacron, Pat and I tied off the clew as best we could, found an acceptable anchorage and made the requisite repairs. I shudder to think how we might have handled the same situation in the past, but this time, it was a non-event.

Our trip across from Marathon to Varadero saw us leaving Boot Key Harbour with a forecast of moderate winds and 3-4 foot seas north of the gulf stream with a freshening breeze and 3-5 foot seas on arrival the next morning. Our planned route was about 30 miles longer than the 92 mile rhumb line course so that we could keep the ride as smooth as possible by transiting the gulf stream perpendicular to the current. Our strategy worked as the gentle seas allowed Pat to go below and whip up one of our favorite cruising meals of Italian Sausage and Penne before sunset. The trip itself was pretty benign as a nearly full moon lit our way across the Straits of Florida towards our destination.

Things were progressing so well that by 3:00AM we were starting to slow the boat down so that we would not arrive at the harbour entrance before day break. As luck would have it the freshening breeze that was forecast arrived on schedule but with a little more intensity than expected. Once the moon disappeared behind the clouds of the approaching cold front, we found ourselves down to a postage stamp main and no head sail as we ran downwind in 25 knots of wind. Somehow Pat still managed to make coffee, although drinking it without spilling scalding hot liquid all over our chins was more difficult. By the time we arrived at the harbour entrance the seas were somewhat higher than forecast and the 4 meter high channel markers were disappearing under the breaking waves.

Conditions were not forecast to improve and there was no real alternate so our challenge was to time the breaking waves so that we could transit the outer markers and enter the relatively calm waters between the breakwaters before getting pooped or broached by a following wave. The rhythm was 2-3 8 foot waves, followed by 5-6 smaller 4-5 foot waves, so I maneuvered in idle as close as possible to the outer markers with the seas on the beam until we were rolled by the big waves. As Threepenny Opera regained her footing, I swung the wheel sharply, hit the throttle and put the bow between the markers. We were almost between the breakwaters when the next set of large waves hit our stern and pushed us around to a heading of 70 degrees off the centerline of the channel. I was cranking the wheel from stop to stop trying to maintain our position in the channel and given the amount of control I had, the experience was more like white water rafting than sailing, but in 30 more seconds we were through the entrance and into the calm water of the canal.

And so begins our fourth year on the water. It seems like yesterday that we waved farewell to our friends, family and regular pay cheques. One of our challenges this year will be to remain humble about our abilities and respectful of the sea as we continue our adventures. As the saying goes there are old sailors and there are bold sailors, but there are no old bold sailors.

I am writing this post from my sister's kitchen in Toronto. We are home for the holidays but in the New Year we are flying back to rejoin Threepenny Opera in Varadero Cuba. Our cruising plans are pretty open at the moment but generally we will attempt to circumnavigate Cuba and move towards the Exumas and Abacos as the weather warms up. Apparently there are man sized lobsters on the south coast of Cuba, so my spears are sharpened in anticipation. All in all we hope it will be an interesting year and hopefully we will find enough internet out in the boonies to share our experiences with you.

Have a great holiday season with your friends and families and of course have a good week. I know I will.

Addison

P.S. The pictures that accompany this post are of our summer road trip. We started in Vero Beach and drove to Toronto and Montreal via Atlanta, Lexington KY and Cleveland. On our way back we stopped in Dayton, Memphis, Mississippi, New Orleans, Pensacola and the Forgotten Coast of Florida. It was 6500 miles of land touring that while lots of fun, really gave us an appreciation of how fortunate we are to be visiting new places from the comfort of our own boat. Hotels, no matter how nice and restaurants of the highest caliber are no substitute for home sweet home. The pictures are largely captioned so I hope you enjoy them.

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Cuba to The Abacos - Two different worlds only a few miles apart!

2011-08-09T11:30:00.001-04:00

Huevos, huevos, uh huevos? Pat and I ran around the stallsat the Sunday market in Santa Martalike demented chickens whispering the Spanish word for eggs in hushedconspiratorial tones. We were greeted by the merchants with reactions rangingfrom shoulder shrugging indifference to amused curiosity to totalconfusion. After all why would a fruitseller have eggs? But we asked anyway because in Cubaone finds that goods are not always sold by the expected merchants. In otherprovisioning forays we found very good quality Chinese soy sauce at the servicestation, cheese at the bakery and eventually eggs at the local snack bar.

We were unsuccessful in our quest for eggs that morning, as thelast tray was being sold by the time we had figured out where they were beingsold that day. Obviously eggs were in scarce supply, not necessarily becausethey were not being produced, but because the egg sellers had chosen to goelsewhere that morning. On the other hand foods such as pineapples, mangos andbeets were plentiful and cheap. The concept of the 100 mile diet is gainingsome traction in North America and elsewhere as a way ofhealthy eating; with limited storage facilities and less than idealdistribution systems in Cubathe 100 mile diet is probably more like the 20 mile diet. Eating local is not afad, it is a way of life and the Cubans have learned to make do with what is athand that day.

For Pat and me learning to shop for food in Cubawas sort of like learning to sail our boat in the early days. We knew basicallywhat needed to be done, and we knew technically how to do it, but the executionleft a lot to be desired. We are amazed however at how much meaningfulcommunication can take place with a vocabulary that is limited to a handful ofwords, most of which were nouns or verb infinitives. It probably speaks volumesfor the Cubans and their desire to accommodate, than it did for our criticallyinadequate language skills, but in the end we were able to re-fill our fridgeand freezer with all sorts of goodies as we prepared for our exit from Cuba.

Pat found herself being led into a secret warehouse whereshe was offered 10lb bags of black market potatoes for $1, when other cruiserswere shut out of the highly sought after tuber. Potatoes are a rarity becausethe local production is reserved for the resort hotels that cater to the “allinclusive” crowd. Perhaps it was her smile, her natural charm or perhaps it wasthe confidently uttered “pappas” that ruled the day, but she proved that wherethere is a will there is a way to get the job done! We even found our covetedeggs a few days later at, of all places an egg stall where they were being soldfor $1.80 per 30 egg tray.

In Cubathere are two parallel economies. One is the convertible peso or hard currencyeconomy, and the other is the Cuban peso or monada nacional economy. As foreigners we are almostalways charged for goods and services in hard currency and usually we areexpected to shop at hard currency establishments, the one exception being theprocurement of food. While there are ample opportunities to buy imported foodstuffs in hard currency, there is no prohibition for a foreigner to shop inlocal markets and pay for their purchases in national pesos. Indeed it isimportant to ask specifically in what currency items are priced, as a few unscrupulous merchants will try andtrick a foreigner into paying 1 CUC (convertible peso) when the actual price isonly 1 MN (monada national peso) 25MN =1CUC

Most agricultural food items in Cubaare priced in Cuban Pesos with a few notable exceptions such as cooking oil, coffeeand butter. Items that are priced in national pesos are by Canadian standardsamazingly cheap. We were able to score bargains such as 5 pounds of onions for$1.00 and a gallon container of organic cherry tomatoes for $.30. We weren’t able to determine if the pricesactually reflected the cost of production, but I doubt that even a socialistwould sell goods at a loss.

We were able to fill our larder with the essential meats,eggs, fresh veggies and bread for 2 weeks of cruising for less than $20. On theother hand we also bought some beer, rum, soft drinks, potato chips and coffeeat a hard currency shop and managed to spend an additional $90 for the frills.In short if you are prepared to go Cuban, you can eat very inexpensively, butthe moment you try to be “first world”, the dollar signs start to spin prettyquickly, although not as quickly as they might back home. For example top qualitycoffee is $ 7 per pound, Rum is between $3 and $8 per quart and honey is $3 for500 gms.

The month flew by as our departure date, timed to coincidewith the full moon approached. Our objective on this trip was to scout out thecountry and to see if it was worthy of further exploration. And the answer is aresounding yes. Plans are already hatching to spend an even longer period oftime in Cubanext season with the objective of refining our language skills and discoveringother parts of the country.

Our route back to the Bahamaswill be a non traditional one, as our plan is to depart Varadero in the morningand make a land fall on the Cay Sal bank the same evening. While the 65 miletrip will technically put us back in the Bahamas,the Cay Sal Bank is a patch of shallow water fringed by small cays near thevery center of the triangle formed by Cuba,Florida and Andros Island. It is definitely the pathless taken, but Pat and I are beginning to stretch our explorer reflexes and weare anxious to apply our newly found multi-day voyage skills. The pics thataccompany this posting are a visual treat for an area that very few people see.

Enjoy and have a great week. I know that I will

Addison

Addendum: We arrived back in the Bahamasafter a 36 hour cruise up the Gulf Stream from the CaySal Banks. The winds were coming from ENE instead of the forecast E, so weended up pinching as high as possible along the Floridacoast for most of the night. It is truly a growth experience to sail past themouth of Miami Harbourat 4:00AM surrounded by multipleinbound cruise ships, and dodging departing tankers and container ships. OurClass B AIS system earned its keep that night as we were both able to hail, andbe hailed by ships to sort out the various collision avoidance maneuvers. Iwould definitely not leave home without it!

Once we were back in the Abacos, we were in familiarterritory and the heightened senses of passage making, rapidly dulled to thelaconic pace of the live aboard warm climate cruiser. The days ran together,and the anchorages, although each different, blended into a composite of sun,sea and fishing. The notable events of the summer were as always about thepeople. We reunited with our long time cruising friends Bob and Mary Ann fromQueen Angel, and we met and spent some quality time with the crews of Eagle,Aroha and Kennel Up.

A broken tooth forced us to cut our stay in the Abaco short.Even though the nurse in Grand Cay provided me with pain killers andanti-biotics which controlled the symptoms, the thought of more eye wateringpain was enough motivation to force a reluctant retreat. Despite the painhowever, I managed to keep diving and practicing my new found swimming skills.It was a personal milestone this year, that I can actually jump into the waterwith a a snorkel and spear and go hunting fish. The water wings andsupplementary flotation devices of the past, are now gone! The training wheelsare off and next season will be even better.

I am writing the addendum from our kitchen in Vero Beach. The stock market has crashed yet again, Londonis burning and the world appears to be going collectively mad. Even though Iwon’t buy a newspaper, and we don’t watch the news, the hew and cry is loudenough to penetrate our sensory defenses. I am longing for the solitude and thetruly “ignorance is bliss” life aboard.

We have been back in the USAfor about 2 weeks and it is a little odd to be wandering around 3 floors anddriving everywhere, but when in Rome…..Threepenny Opera will be hauled out at the end of August for a bottom paintingand since it is hurricane season in Florida,we may well leave her on the hard until November. In the meantime, we will belooking for land projects and activities to keep us busy…..maybe a roadtrip….hmmmmmm?

Have a great week, I know I will.

Addison

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La Vita to Varadero - Downhill sailing at its very best!

2011-05-09T12:54:00.001-04:00

I could feel the sides of my reel getting almost too hot to touch as I struggled to slow the furious peeling of the braided line off of my heavy duty salt water fishing gear. About 75 yards off the transom of Threepenny Opera was a man sized mahi mahi, or dorado as they are known in Cuba. It was the biggest fish I had ever seen that was not mounted on a wall over a bar.

Normally when one hooks a fish there is some give and take in the amount of line played out as the fish begins to tire with the fisherman gaining a few yards by cranking hard as the fish regains its breath. In this case however there was only take, as the very angry fish on the other end of my line conducted an aerial dance of cirque de soleil proportions. The best I could mange was to momentarily stop the screaming outflow of line by pinching the line between my gloved hand and the rubber of the fishing rods grip. I was alternately fascinated and horrified as I watched the show before me, all the while wondering if I was going to lose my grip on the rod and have the whole works disappear into the sea.

As suddenly as the fight began, it stopped. The giant fish gave one more flip of its tail and disappeared beneath the rolling waves. My hands were trembling as I began to breath again alternately feeling relieved and disappointed at my loss. The warm light of the setting sun highlighted the column of the Cayo Confites light house about a mile astern of Threepenny Opera as I slowly reeled in my line to see if the giant had left me any of my lure and leader. Our one sided fight had only lasted 20 minutes but echoes from Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea resonated in my head as my surprisingly intact tackle came back over the side.

Pat and I had left the mouth of Bahia Neuvitas earlier that morning, with the intention of making a 250 nm nonstop run to Varadero. Originally we had planned to day hop along the Cayos of Northern Cuba, but the tedium of checking in and checking out at every stop gave us the impetus to stretch our sea legs and make the downwind run without any further interim stops. The clearing process was not complicated, and the authorities attempted to accommodate our schedules as best they could, but it required us to be much more organized than we preferred. Perhaps our next trip we will make the coastal cruise our objective, and spend more time exploring the cays.

The Cuban military maintain a very watchful eye on the sea traffic along the north shore so while stopping is permitted, one needs to inform the Garda Frontera very specifically about ones intentions. There was no doubt in my mind that they would know we had deviated from our intentions because on several occasions we had been contacted via VHF the moment we deviated from our course. It seems that they were monitoring our AIS transponder so we made it easy to track our movements, although off the coast of Cayo Coco in the middle of the night we were hailed by Maritime Traffic Control as the vessel at a specific set of coordinates.

It was comforting to know that our progress was being monitored although the unidentified radar blips patrolling parallel and just outside the 12 mile limit, were a little eerie. For Pat and me this trip was our longest sail to date. Previously our longest trip was the 30 hour motor sailing run across the Gulf of Maine on our journey south, so the approximately 60 hour journey to Varadero represented a pretty significant increase in trip length. As an initiation to blue water passage making the sail down the coast was perfect. We experienced winds up into the mid 20’s and seas of 6 feet, but Threepenny Opera rose to the challenge and gave us an exhilarating ride of over 9 knots as we surfed down the face of some waves. Apart from some minor course changes to accommodate oncoming traffic and a flotilla of oil seeking hydrologic survey vessels, the trip was uneventful.

The arrival in Varadero seemed that it would never come because we sighted the tip of the Hicacos Peninsula, which forms the west side of Cardenas Bay just after daybreak on our third day out. Likely we were still 15 miles out as our land fall was more precisely the sighting of the upper floors of one of the larger hotels in the area and the entrance to the marina was another 13 miles beyond the tip of the peninsula. It was closer to 2:30 in the afternoon before we finally slipped in between the breakwaters of the channel leading up to the Marina Darsena which was to be our home base for the next 2 weeks or so. After a very perfunctory visit from the local Garda Frontera and Customs officers to stamp our cruising permit, we moved into a slip and went on to the docks to join our fellow cruisers for what was to become the nightly ritual of sun downers and conversation. We have been in Cuba for almost 2 weeks at this point and the vibes are great. We can’t wait to explore this part of Cuba and compare it to our travels in the eastern portion of the country.

There are tons of pics that have no captions, particularly those of the caves near Matanzas. I apologies for not being able to remember all of the details of the scenes, but Cuba is visually so exciting that I was on over load most of the time!

Have a great week. I know that I will.

Addison

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On to Cuba - The forbidden fruit

2011-04-30T11:42:00.002-04:00

The digital time display on my chart plotter showed 2:58AM as I walked forward by the light of the waning gibbous moon to pull the hook from our Raccoon Cay anchorage. The wind was a steady 17 knots out of the north east so Pat really had to goose some power to drive Threepenny Opera up on her chain. Although it was the first time we had pulled the anchor in the dark, it was really a non-starter as the moon was bright enough to cast shadows. Nevertheless I took a deep breath as Pat headed our bow towards open water because the winds were slightly higher than forecast and we were venturing out on unfamiliar waters heading for an unfamiliar country. The date was April 20 and it was our 32nd wedding anniversary!

Our plan was to have the hook off the bottom by 3:00AM so that we could make the 79nm hop across the Old Bahama Channel and arrive in Puerto La Vita Cuba during daylight. By 5:30 the sky was starting to brighten and the winds were steady at 17 knots as we approached the southern edge of the Great Bahamas Bank. In the next 30-45 minutes we would pass from the relatively sheltered waters of the banks into the deep ocean, where the depths would plunge to over 6000 feet. Practically we were floating on the surface, but psychologically the thought of being more than a mile off the bottom out of sight of any land was a little intimidating.

Although Threepenny Opera felt surefooted and stable in the quartering winds, there was a fair amount of green water splashing across our decks as periodic waves slapped on our sides. In the increasing daylight we could see that the waves were about 6 feet high but the sea appeared to be running from multiple directions resulting in triangular shaped waves, a few of which crested over our decks. Fortunately we were able to keep warm and dry under the protection of the dodger as we wedged ourselves against the coamings to prevent our coffee from spilling too much. Cuba which had seemed just a word until now, was about to become a reality.

Our point of no return was 10:30AM and as the hour approached the boat was locked onto the rhumb line to La Vita like a freight train on rails. The seas had become less confused as we moved away from the turbulence caused by the deep ocean meeting the shallow banks and the knot meter was holding steadily above 7 knots. There were still waves splashing the decks, but overall the ride was bearable, however Pat who normally has an iron stomach started to feel the effects of the sloshing, likely falling victim to a short night and an empty stomach.

Most of the morning was spent hanging on as the boat pretty much sailed herself and by early afternoon the faint smudge of Cuba appeared on the horizon. At first it looked like a series of islands, but as we drew closer it became apparent that what we had seen initially were the tops of some fairly substantial hills. Shortly after 2:00PM we entered Cuban waters and made our first radio call to the Cuban Guarda Frontera to announce our arrival.

Our guide book had suggested we contact Guarda Frontera, or failing that the harbour master or El Capitania. As I tried to wrap my tongue around the foreign syllables it was hard to not giggle. Although I knew that the business of contacting the border authorities in a communist state was not a trivial matter, the image of a couple of cigar smoking guys in military uniforms huddled around a radio trying to decipher the babble of an obviously confused gringo was too much to take! Fortunately our calls were met with silence, so either the guys with the cigars didn’t hear me, or they too were rolling on the floor laughing.

After several attempts at calling we were eventually rewarded with a response from a heavily accented voice that identified itself in English as Marina Vita, followed by a series of phrases in lightening fast Spanish. Pat and I looked at each other and shrugged. Having no idea of what was being asked of us; I announced our boat name, our destination and the fact that we were Canadians. We must have been close to the mark in our responses because the next question was “How many people in boat” I answered that we were only two on board but I was met with silence. In the absence of any further communications or instructions, we continued our drive towards the coast.

The channel leading into the harbour at Puerto La Vita is well buoyed and impossible to miss, as it is marked by a 130 foot high light house. As we entered the channel a different English voice came over the VHF instructing us to turn right at the bifurcation buoy and follow the channel past the last red marker to drop my anchor in the open area away from the channel. When I radioed back for clarification I received the same instructions verbatim, after moment it dawned on me that I was being presented with a written script.

As my anchor went down I had my fingers crossed hoping I had interpreted the directions correctly. After a couple of minutes a small runabout with two men aboard approached our swim platform. The passenger asked for permission to come aboard in perfect English. He introduced himself as the doctor for the port and informed us that it was his duty to inspect our vessel and its crew for health and sanitary condition so that we could land on Cuban soil. Pat and I were asked a series of perfunctory questions regarding our general health and when he was satisfied that we were not carriers of tuberculosis or cholera he asked to inspect our refrigerator and freezer. After a quick sniff of our refrigerated stores, he went back to our salon table and filled out a rather impressive looking form granting us a certificate to release us from quarantine. We were welcomed to Cuba with a handshake and as he got back into his boat he told us to take our “Q” flag down and head into the marina.

While we were going through our quarantine inspection the wind had piped up into the mid 20’s with gusts approaching 30 knots so needless to say I approached the marina with more than a little trepidation. To make matters worse I could tell from a distance that I was expected to turn the boat and back into a stern tie Mediterranean mooring. As I entered the marina channel, I almost turned around fearing that attempting a stern tie in gusty winds would over tax my boat handling skills, when suddenly the wind dropped to below 10 knots. Apparently the marina was set into a cove that was sheltered from the wind by a high embankment, and although the wind was still howling as it did every afternoon at that time, the area by the docks was in the lee of the embankment and almost dead calm. I am still patting myself on the back as I slid Threepenny Opera between the mooring buoys and secured the lines as if it were an everyday occurrence, even though it was my very first time.

Within minutes of shutting down the engine a team of uniformed officials trooped down the dock towards our boat. The unofficial leader of the group was the Guarda Frontera officer who spoke the best English and on behalf of the other officials asked for permission to board our boat. As they climbed down from the seawall to board Threepenny Opera, each official took the time to remove their shoes and boots in a comic gymnastic dance and shook hands with Pat and me before going below and seating themselves around our salon table. To Pat and me, it felt more like we were inviting guests into our home than submitting to a border inspection.

In the vein of entertaining company Pat offered cold drinks which were gratefully accepted and for the next 30 minutes or so I provided answers to questions on the forms proffered by each government department. Unlike other countries however, the officials filled the forms out on our behalf and presented them to us for signature at the end of the interview. I signed documents for immigration, customs, veterinary inspection, pest control and a cruising license. The entire process was conducted with the utmost in professionalism and courtesy. Once the forms were completed each official gathered up his work and welcomed us to Cuba with another handshake, and reversed the dance of putting on shoes and climbing back up the seawall onto the dock. In all the formalities took about 1 hour, but it was a completely painless procedure that left a very positive impression of the country. Perhaps the US Homeland Security dept could take note, but that might be too much to dream for!

We are safe and we are legal! Next we need to go into town to get some Cuban money, so we can pay our various fees totaling $100 to the different departments, but that will take place manana….now it’s time for a cold beer! We have arrived!

Have a great week, I know I will!

Addison

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The Jumentos - Fishing and Flashing...green flashing that is!

2011-04-19T18:03:00.000-04:00

I felt my sphincters constricting as I silently repeated the mantra of I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…..unlike the Little Red Engine that could however, Pat and I were on the verge of becoming the Catalina Sailboat that couldn’t. Up to this point everything was going perfectly, we had timed our departure from Georgetown to coincide with the tides, the weather was benign and apart from a finicky chart plotter everything on the boat was working. Now exactly 3 hours after leaving the safety of Georgetown Harbour, I found myself staring down the twisting swirling, almost dry maw of Hog Cay Cut.

Hog Cay is a non descript chunk of rock that marks the southern extremity of Little Exuma Island. The cut which bears its name is the gateway to the west side of Little Exuma and must be traversed by any vessel wishing to explore the wilds of the curving chain of Cays known as the Jumentos and Raggeds. It is a narrow 100 foot wide S shaped pass that hosts a roaring current at all times except for a few minutes at slack water. At the western end of the pass is a coral bar that carries just enough water for our 5 foot keel to pass over it if we didn’t find the odd rock or two that were sticking up. Once over the bar, there is another 3 miles or so of absolutely featureless and uncharted shallow water. The alternative to going through the cut was to take an extra day going to Long Island and then back tracking through a less threatening pass known as the Comer Channel.

Since friends whom we respect as sailors and navigators had traversed the cut recently and provided us with a series of GPS waypoints which we could use to navigate the bends, we decided to time the tides and make the attempt to get through. Of course the GPS chartplotter which had been acting up, but still functioning following a software upgrade, decided to quit working the moment we crossed the threshold into the cut. Suddenly instead of following GPS way points we were now committed to eyeball navigation with Pat standing on the bow pulpit as the lookout scanning for toothy rocks. The depth sounder numbers decreased steadily and rapidly until it showed a mere 2 feet under the bottom of the keel as we came out of the last turn and approached the coral bar. Pat was calling back steering instructions as the depth sounder dropped under 1 foot of clearance. As I held my breath, I kept telling myself that many others had made the passage without mishap, otherwise the banks of the channel would be littered with the hulks of broken boats.

Reason however has little place when your home is suddenly less than the height of a beer can off of a rocky ledge and the current is sweeping you along at several knots despite the engine being in idle. And then we were over the bar. The bottom turned back to sand, but the depth sounder stopped changing at about .9 feet and now there were only miles of smooth white sand in front of us. At least if you hit sand, you won’t break anything so I breathed a little more slowly. Fortunately I had noted a heading to steer during the planning stages of our trip and now I reverted to blind faith and pilotage as I followed a dead reckoning course towards deeper water. After what seemed like an eternity the depths slowly rose and we found ourselves on the banks heading towards our first landfall in the Jumentos.

Unlike the Abacos and the Exumas, the Jumentos are unpopulated with the exception of the small fishing community of Duncan Town at its southern extremity about 100 miles from our current position. Annually not many more than 100 cruising boats pass through the Cays in search of the clearest water in the Bahamas and the absolute solitude afforded by very few other locations on the planet.

For Pat and me the trip into the Jumentos was a logical stretching of our skills. The Florida Keys was the beginner class, the Abacos were the intermediate and the Exumas were the advanced class. By traversing the cut we were off the grid literally and figuratively as we were going to be completely untethered from any land based support for the duration. In fact the only outside contact we had during our time in the Jumentos was via SSB and HF radio back to Canada each morning.

Since few make the trip, the islands are completely deserted and the beaches are largely untouched. Most importantly however the water is crystal clear and the fish and conch are teeming in the waters. On Flamingo Cay, which is our favorite spot to-date, it was possible for Pat to pick conch in knee deep water and for me to hunt fish by walking off of the beach with my spear. We have also discovered the delicacy that our fish books call Queen Trigger fish but the Bahamians call Turbot, a fish that is as tasty as it is pretty.

As our supplies started to run down, we were slowly making our way towards Duncan Town where we had hoped to replenish our onions and eggs. The plan was to pick up a few supplies and return to the solitude of the islands for another several weeks, but serendipity marks the life of the cruising sailor. One evening I was dialing a frequency on my SSB to call a friend who was heading north. Instead of making my intended contact, another familiar voice popped on line and inquired what our plans were for the summer.

I explained that our cruising license for the boat and our tourist Visas for the Bahamas would need to be renewed by early in May, so our intention was to stay in the Jumentos until then and then either head back to the US for a day, or cross over to the Turks and Caicos and then return to the Bahamas to restart the clock on our documents. The voice on the other end of the radio said “why don’t you consider Cuba, it’s actually closer than any of the alternatives and you’ll be amazed by the warmth and hospitality if the people. And yes you can replenish your eggs and onions for a fraction of what you would pay in the Bahamas.

The light bulb in my head illuminated with loud click as my brain began to evaluate the logistics of making the 75 mile hop across to Cuba. In the end I’m not sure if it was my stomach or my sense of adventure that clinched the deal, but suddenly we found ourselves securing the boat and staging for an over night trip across to Cuba. The surprising thing was that the decision was made, the plans were finalized and the departure date was set in a matter of a few hours. It seems that the confidence Pat and I have gained from living off the grid in the Jumentos has kicked our cruising reflexes into high gear. I guess we have made the grade so Cuba here we come!!

Have a great week, I know I will!

Addison

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Georgetown - Summer Camp in Winter

2011-03-31T14:30:00.000-04:00

I knew we were in for a different kind of an experience when one morning The of Riders of the Storm by the Doors started coming out of my VHF speaker. As the music faded, it was replaced by a smooth FM easy rock type of DJ voice exclaiming “Gooood Morning Georgetown” in a cadence and volume that would do Robin Williams proud. And so began the morning VHF cruisers net, which was the electronic village square for the 300+ boats anchored in Elizabeth Harbour. All the gossip and all the news packaged up in a consistent format to help cruising veterans and newbies alike to plan their day.

Pat and I were beginning our third year of full time cruising and this year we chose Georgetown as our venue. In the previous two years we had spent most of the winter in Marathon down in the Florida Keys, so this year we decided to go a little farther afield to “see what it was all about”. Our plan was a simple one, deliver the boat to Georgetown, fly home for Christmas and then rejoin the boat in February after we had finished with our condo reno’s in Vero Beach. With the exception of a missed flight due to a closure of I95 between Vero Beach and FLL, the plan went off without a hitch and we found ourselves back aboard Threepenny Opera on February 8, 2011.

During our two previous winter seasons in Marathon we met several cruisers who had braved the transit of the Gulf Stream during the cold front season. We were regaled with tales of organized volley ball tournaments, dinghy races, food shortages in the local supermarket, long line ups for fresh water and of course good weather and crystal clear water. What became apparent was that everybody had an opinion about Georgetown, some were very positive and others were of the dead rotten fish variety, but nobody was indifferent. Of course Pat and I had to see for ourselves.

What became apparent after arriving in Georgetown at the height of the season was that many people had been coming to the same harbour for years. We heard people announcing their arrivals for their 10th, 20th and even 30th seasons of boating in Georgetown. It was a little intimidating at first to be surrounded by folks that had been cruising when we were just finishing school. In fact it felt a little like my freshman year in university when I arrived on campus unsure of what to expect and getting swept up by the waves of upper classmen hell bent on making their presence known through bluster and bravado.

In Georgetown however the the upper classmen were the committees and chair persons who volunteered to ensure that activities were well organized. Unlike school however, the bravado and bluster was replaced by mature enthusiasm so that nobody was left behind. The volunteers went out of their way to welcome the newbies and made a point of trying to include everyone that wanted to participate. The rumours we had heard about cliques and closed societies were greatly exaggerated and anybody that stayed out did so largely by choice. In fact the real challenge was to pace yourself so that you don’t get so over extended that a Black Berry is needed to run your schedule.

After spending two years in Marathon, where the biggest activity of the day was either going to Home Depot or to Publix and the highlight of the week was the arrival of the Winn Dixie flyer, the list of activities in Georgetown was overwhelming at first. Gradually however it came to pass that Pat and I found ourselves drawn into the fabric of the Georgetown cruising community. Partly by volunteering to help, I repaired a lot of faulty SSB installations, and partly by following our friends Chris and Divya aboard the Maggie M, who made our time in Georgetown so memorable. Thanks to them, Pat played the part of Zeus’ daughter Persephone in a play and I helped design and build a sailing inflatable dinghy.

For many Georgetown is as far as the cruising experience goes. For some it represents an opportunity to continue being young by acting young as they relive their youth and for others it represents the physical extent of their cruising range when faced with constraints of time and budget. Pat and I are fortunate in that despite approaching birthday’s we do not have to make an effort at staying young, and we have the luxury of time so that we can continue to explore over the horizon. Georgetown is a great place to spend the winter. The weather is good and the water, despite the swelling of boats during the season remains clear enough to swim in. After 2 months however it is time to see what is beyond the next Cay. We are off to the Jumentos and Ragged Islands next where only the hardiest and most self sufficient cruisers dare to venture. We hope we are up to the task.

Have a great week, I know I will

Addison

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We are going home for Christmas. Yeahhh. – But the road is long!!

2010-12-26T23:37:00.007-05:00

That will be $25 to check the bag. Do you want to pay cash or use a credit card? The question may as well have been asked in Martian as I stared at the Continental gate agent with a blank look on my face. Today was my first real flight in almost a year, the puddle hopper from Georgetown in the Bahamas to Fort Lauderdale not withstanding. The look of “oh brother” on her face brought on a flush of frustration to my cheeks. She was just barely professional enough to not roll her eyes! But just barely.

Luggage should be free, I screamed, in my head. Smiling counter agents should take all the luggage presented without question and priority tag it to the final destination came the echo. And where is the concierge that would direct me to the lounge for a cup of coffee and perhaps a quick snack before boarding our flight??? Instead of verbalizing my thoughts, I meekly inquired if everybody had to pay, and she pointed to a sign behind her that indicated VIP travelers were exempted from the fees. With a furious flurry of keyboard touches, she told me that her records indicated that I was no longer a preferred frequent flyer. A very brief flicker of sympathy crossed her face followed by what I imagined to be a demonic chortle as she sentenced me to the purgatory of the waiting room. Now I know what it means to be a fallen angel!

Since our last posting in August, Pat and I have been the closest we have been to civilization in a very long time and yet we were way off the grid in many respects. Our week in the Riverside Boatyard of Fort Pierce, to repair the damage to our rudder caused by the unfortunate squall off of Arthur’s Town, turned into a protracted stay in Vero Beach. At first it was because we were resting up from our ordeal in the boat yard, and then it was because we were pet sitting for friends, but for what ever the reason, we fell into a routine of going for morning walks and riding the free public bus to the Publix supermarket to visit the food.

Vero Beach is a very livable community. There is decent shopping, a real mall and a community theater that would rival the facilities in larger towns. Despite the hard economic times, people still manage to smile and carry out their daily activities with an energy that belies the double digit unemployment rates of the local economy. The one blemish on what is an otherwise perfect community is the plethora of for sale signs lining the streets. And it was because of the abundance of homes for sale that our curiosity got the better of us and we began to study the real estate listings.

There is an element of serendipity in a cruiser’s life that becomes part of the way of life. Every day is a new day and every day brings new challenges and opportunities that keep things fresh. One quickly learns that there is no such thing as falling into a rut if you are a full time cruiser, after all there are no ruts on the water! If someone had told Pat and me, a few months ago, that we would be buying real estate in Florida, we would have thought them to be verging on madness. Yet as unlikely as it may have seemed we ended up buying a little investment pied a terre in Vero Beach. So who could have predicted that one night in a less than desirable anchorage would result in a 1500 square foot condo?

After we finished the condo transaction, we closed up shop and headed back to the Bahamas via the wilds of Titusville, where we attempted to be first in line for a space shuttle launching. I think the crew of the Shuttle Discovery are really sailors because the launch date was constantly being delayed to handle maintenance issues. After a week of hanging around the word finally came through that the launch would be further delayed by at least a month and likely longer, so we took that as a sign that we were now clear to head for the Bahamas.

The pictures that are attached to the blog will chronicle our voyage across but the accomplishment worthy of mention is that Pat and I made it from Miami to Nassau in one fell swoop. In approximately 28 hours we went covered what would normally have taken us at least 2 days. Even better, I managed to survive a night passage without holding my dinner in the palm of my hands. Yee hah, I’m slowly but surely getting over the sea sickness monster. We arrived in the Bahamas in mid November and the boat is now safely entrusted to the care of Bob at Kevalli House in Georgetown until our return from Toronto via another short stay in Vero Beach to finish our reno.

Toronto is home but....I am hiding behind a column in the Fairview Shopping Center in Toronto as the waves of humanity trying to complete their last minute Christmas shopping course around me like a stream around a rock. Unlike the rock however, I am not immovable, and I am starting to hyperventilate at the thought of stepping out of the lee of the column and being washed back down the main concourse by the flood of faces. There are more people in this structure at this very moment than there are in the entire Exuma chain at anytime. If it weren’t for the joy of being with family and friends, I would gladly trade the loot from 100 Christmas stockings for the peace and quiet of the Bahamas

So it has come to pass that Pat and I are no longer feeling like novices. We are now firmly into our third year of living aboard and remembering life before cutting the dock lines is becoming a little more difficult. Of course memories of our new and old friends and fun times are much easier to pull from the cobwebs of land life, but it feels much more natural to be “on the boat” Even the relative calm of Vero Beach seems to be a little too claustrophobic after the seemingly endless living space of the boat. It is a paradox that we can feel completely at ease aboard Threepenny Opera in less than 200 square feet of living space, and yet feel crowded, even crushed in our 1500 square foot condo or the endless miles of corridors in the Fairview Mall.

The next year will bring all manner of wonders. Some events will be good, others will be challenges, but all will be enriching in their unique way. The known world is that we will return to Vero Beach after the holidays and finish the work on the kitchen and do some painting. Also we have arranged to move the contents of our storage locker from Mississauga to the new condo, so that we will have some basic furnishings in place. Our priority however is to dispense with our land duties ASAP so that we can rejoin Threepenny Opera and continue our exploration of the Bahamas and points as yet unknown. We may find ourselves in the Caribbean, and we may just hang in the Bahamas for awhile. We have the luxury of time and the freedom to use it as we see fit, so there is no urgency to formulate anything other than possible outlines of a plan.

As I type the final words of this post, I am at my sister’s kitchen table in Toronto, surrounded by the people I love and who love me. Boats, Condos and new places are wonderful, but nothing beats the glow of being content with where you are at the moment. I revel in my good fortune and wish that a little bit of it will rub off on all who have taken the time to read this far.

Have a great week! I know I will.

Addison

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This post is dedicated to our friend Milan – who tragically left us far too soon. Fair winds and following seas.

Little Farmers to The Abacos – The cycle starts again but we are older and wiser.

2010-08-19T13:50:00.001-04:00

Oh S**T we have got to get out of bed before we get thrown to the deck. My head was banging against the mast as I lay in bed and the glasses in the galley were rattling and threatening to fall off the shelf. Pat and I were on the hook off of Arthurs Town in Cat Island, but it was as rough a sea condition as we have experienced since we left Toronto nearly 2 years earlier. Reeling like drunken sailors we clung to the handholds as we pulled ourselves the 6 feet into the main salon from our forward cabin.

At about 5:00AM I had been awakened by a change in the motion of the boat. The forward hatch was open so I got up and looked outside to see that the wind had swung 180 degrees from where it was when we went to bed. The waves were short and choppy and the boat was bobbing vigorously, but not uncomfortably so. In the distance I could see a low cloud bank that contained the odd flash of lightning. Since it was still dark and the anchor was well set, there really wasn’t much to do except to close the hatches and go back to bed.

Twenty minutes later the first few drops of rain began to hit the coach roof. Within 5 minutes the squall was upon us and the deluge began. We were dry and relatively comfortable, but sleeping was out of the question as the wind shrieked and the thunder rolled around the boat. About 20 minutes into the storm, the surge began. At first it seemed like a heavy wind blown chop, but the up and down oscillations began to grow in amplitude and frequency and within 5 minutes the waves forced Pat and me to leave our bed and move to salon to avoid being tossed onto the floor. There were jarring crashes of waves against the hull and we were tugging and jerking against our anchor snubber as the boat hobby horsed. Combined with the wind and thunder and the noises from the chain there was a Perfect Storm sort of feel to things. At least we were dry and still felt safe. Less than 10 minutes later the squall passed and the conditions calmed as if a switch had been thrown

By now the sky was starting to lighten and a look outside revealed that the squall was rapidly receding into the distance and the sea although foamy from the surge, was settling down. In all the excitement had lasted for about 45 minutes. We dozed on the settees in the salon for about an hour before making coffee and preparing for our departure to Eleuthera about 30 miles of open sea away. Everything seemed normal until I went forward to pull the anchor and called back to Pat to turn the bow to port. The wheel would not turn! It was frozen into place and no amount of tugging would budge it.

I got my mask and snorkel and went over the side to investigate. I had expected that perhaps the squall had somehow wrapped a piece of line or other debris into the rudder and that cutting it loose was the solution to freeing the rudder. I was perplexed when I went under the boat and found the rudder appearing perfectly normal. Puzzled I went back on board and began emptying the lockers to make my way to the bottom of the steering quadrant, now surmising that the squall had jarred something loose and that it had fallen and fouled the steering cables, rendering them immobile. Again the quadrant appeared normal and nothing was amiss?

Thinking perhaps I might have missed something under the boat, I again donned my mask and snorkel and once I was in the water, I positioned myself to try and kick the rudder free. It was then that I noticed that the trailing edge of the rudder was touching the hull and binding, where previously there was a 1 inch gap. I used my knife and pried away at the trailing edge of the rudder where it met the hull and a small piece of fiberglass broke away.

The rudder would still not move but I went back into the cockpit and tried the wheel again. There was a slight movement, but not enough to steer the boat so a further trip below and a little more scraping removed enough fiberglass to allow about 15 degrees of rudder deflection if one really leaned on the wheel. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to allow some limited maneuvering of the boat. Since the nearest haul out facilities were in Spanish Wells about 120 miles to the north, and we were planning to head in the general direction anyway, we decided to haul anchor and head out into open water. All the while we kept our fingers crossed praying that our damaged rudder would not fall off.

We had been anchored in 10-12 feet of water over a sandy bottom. When the squall came up, the ensuing surge drew the water away from the shore. As the boat pitched up and down in the rising waves, the rudder bounced off the bottom as the water level dropped. The fact that our rudder, which is about a foot above the bottom of the keel, slammed into the bottom, indicates just how violent the pitching was. The sandy bottom absorbed the impact allowing the rudder to remain intact, but the pressure on the rudder post caused it to bend aft, resulting in the binding. The lesson here is that if an anchorage doesn’t look right – leave!

It has been a little over a month since that fateful night. I am sitting in the cockpit of Threepenny Opera as she rocks gently on the ferry wakes of Marsh Harbour. Last year when Pat and I came to the Bahamas for the first time, Marsh Harbour seemed to be a remote outpost where it was possible to buy basic groceries and have a dinner out. Compared to the hustle and bustle of Florida the surroundings seemed pretty austere indeed. Today however Marsh Harbour had grown in our eyes to be definitely the “Big” city of 5000 people. There are cars, traffic lights and even two types of lettuce in the supermarket.

Since our last blog posting our sense of time and space has begun a paradoxical shift in that time for us has both sped up and slowed down dramatically. As I write, it seems like our last posting was only a few days ago, yet a check of the log shows that it has been two months since my last update. The change in time horizons has significantly affected our traveling patterns in that we now tend to arrive in an anchorage and set up shop. In the past, a long stay was 2 days, but today anything less than 3-4 days seems like rushing. Our ten days in Conception seemed to rush by, hence the paradox. There has been a definite shift towards quality from quantity in terms of the experiences we are collecting.

The zen like shift is not something we could have foreseen in the days before we started cruising. We felt that life had slowed down when we were full time liveaboards in Marathon’s Boot Key Harbour, but we retained some of our land reflexes in that everyday had to have a purpose. Although we were much less fussed about schedules, we maintained the habit of to do lists and time tables however relaxed…..today was grocery day, tomorrow is laundry day and the day after will be the day we polish the stanchions and so on.

These days we tend to do what the mood strikes and perform needed chores only when the need arises. Surprisingly, our clothes, at least the few that we wear, are clean, there is no shortage of gourmet meals aboard and the boat is still neat and tidy. Maybe we have been doing it wrong all these years, or maybe we have just fallen into the cruiser’s groove? Fortunately for us the cruiser’s groove also helped us rise to challenges in a much more serene manner because I’m relatively sure that previously we would have been much more “freaked out” had we awoken to find our rudder bent and jammed to the point of immobility.

Our evolving time horizon has allowed us to spend over a week on Conception Island which is a totally deserted island in the Out Islands of the Bahamas. We explored isolated coves by dinghy, beach combed and horrors just stayed on the boat grabbing a few rays and reading. In the past it would have seemed like a prison, these days it was a real pleasure. We enjoyed Spanish Wells and Harbour Island, spending nearly a week in these places, exploring as the mood struck and hibernating when it did not.

Now we are heading back to the US to replace the rudder as I decided after consultation with Catalina that a repair, while feasible, would always leave me wondering if the fix was going to fail. It has taken the factory about 3 weeks to build us a new rudder, but we are installing the new, improved and much heavier version of the C42 rudder. To make the best use of our time back to the States we will also replace our refrigeration system with a more powerful and efficient one, as the Adler Barbour system installed by the factory system is severely taxed in the high air and water temperatures of the Bahamas. Best of all we get to visit with our friends Richard and Connie.

Georgetown, Long Island, Great Exuma, Conception, New Bight, Rock Sound are just a few of the place names in our log book since our last posting. Each of them have their memorable individual charms, but on the whole, they are blending into our new cruising diaspora. Until now it was always about the destination, but we are now more attuned to the voyage. We are looking forward to adding more place names into the log book, but there is no substitute for just being content with where you are at the moment.

Enjoy the pictures, they are really the chronicle of where we have been, and have a great week, I know I will….wherever I am.

Addison

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Marathon to Little Farmer's Cay Exumas - Escape from the Boot Key Triangle

2010-06-03T23:34:00.003-04:00

I am sitting in the cockpit and the air is almost still. Pat is below putting dinner together and I will set the table for a quiet supper al fresco. There is just a whisper of a breeze, but it is sufficient to bring the temperature to a very pleasant 80 degrees. A full moon is rising out of the dim shape of Highbourne Cay and the water in our anchorage is so clear that the bottom is visible 20 feet below. I have heard the cliché about water so clear that it is difficult to tell the difference between the sky and the water, but I never believed it until now.

Tonight is the reward for the last few weeks of the trials and tribulations we had to overcome in order to get away from the US. When we were in Marathon, we often heard about people who came for a month or two and were still there after several years. Sometimes it happens because Marathon is just a really laid back place to hang ones hat, and other times it happens because the boat is in need of repairs and either the lack of funds or the maybe tomorrow attitude conspire to create terminal sloth.

For Pat and me, we arrived in Marathon last October with the intention of spending the winter before heading towards points south. It was a good plan because the winter of 2010, was one of record cold temperatures and generally unpleasant weather conditions. Our hearts go out to the minions who were on fixed schedules, and who had to get their cruising itch scratched within the confines of a single sailing season. I’m sure they eeked out some satisfaction, but not without incurring some serious challenges along the way. As we listened to the frustration building from the sabbatical crowd, Pat and I were smug in the fact that we had the luxury of time, and that we had a plan to wait until everybody left before we headed out.

Cruising as we have found out is one of those activities where patience is usually rewarded and type A do it now type behaviour can create some serious problems. It took us awhile, but Pat and I have both weaned ourselves from wearing wrist watches, preferring instead to glance occasionally at a ship board clock or just relying on our inner clocks to give us an approximation of the time. After all when one is sitting on a mooring ball in Marathon, the only really important time of the day is sundowner time at sundown, and one does not need a watch to figure out when that occurs.

The downside of losing track of time however is that one forgets how long it actually takes to get things done. Since we had a plan to leave after the end of the cruising season, we really didn’t do much to prepare the boat or ourselves for leaving until early April. I had several major boat projects to knock off the list prior to departure, but since none of them would take more 3-4 days at the most, I could afford to wait until April and still have plenty of slack. I was wrong!!

Perhaps in a perfect world where projects unfold as they do on do it yourself TV shows we could have made our schedule, but as we all know perfection is only a goal, it is never a true state of being! Once I got started on my list of refrigeration improvements, solar panel retrofits and electronics rewiring, it became obvious that things were going to take a little longer than previously planned. For example, the refrigeration upgrade, which entailed adding insulation to the inside and outside of the box, turned from a simple glue a piece of foam to the underside of the lid, into a full fledged fiberglass and gel coat construction project. I learned a lot about working with these essential boat building materials, but instead of a couple of days, the project took over a week to complete. The climax of that project, was the injection of closed cell polyurethane into the hull spaces behind the refrigeration box.

Injecting foam looked pretty easy to do in the U-tube instructional video provided by the foam manufacturer, but I quickly found out that watching a professional do it, and doing it myself was a completely different matter. Although I followed the prep stages to the letter, or the picture as in this case, I did not figure that foam spraying nozzles could slip off the end of the injection tubes, causing a geyser of chemically hot, and very sticky green foam to spray all over me and the galley. Thanks to some quick action by Pat, I was saved from becoming a permanently green foam covered bunny rabbit. I wish I could say that all of the stains have been removed but I would be stretching the truth if I did. At least the refrigeration is working more efficiently and I now have a steady supply of cold beer to help me forget.

The plague of problems continued as I moved into the other phases of our pre-departure projects. When I got to the electronics, it seemed that the pretty pictures in the Raymarine catalogues were stage props. Nothing seemed to work right, until I started over with a new wiring harness. It seems that when you are working with small voltages over very fine wires that the tolerances are very tight. Even small imperfections in wiring can cause electronics to not work, or even worse, work only intermittently. Who knew that Raymarine would design electronics that were only marginally water and humidity resistant?? All it took to overcome the challenge was 150 feet of wire and about 10 days or crawling and cursing!

As we stamped out the gremlins out one by one, our energy levels dropped. It seemed that the end would never arrive, and the smugness that I felt earlier in the year, turned into the same despondency I heard from the sabbatical sailors. Let that be a lesson kids on not gloating at others expense!!. The coup de grace occurred just prior to our setting sail, when Pat and I awoke to find that our dinghy had disappeared during the night. A subsequent search of the shoreline of the harbour by several boats revealed nary a trace. As much as I hated to admit it, it seemed that Threepenny Opera had fallen victim to petty thievery that seems to occur during periods when the harbour is emptying for the season.

Serious Kudo’s need to be given to Drew Robertson and his team at Robertson and Robertson Yacht Insurance in Toronto, because a single telephone call set the wheels in motion. The service received from Robertson was nothing short of legendary. Consider the following time line. Our dinghy was discovered missing on Sunday morning, a claim was filed on Monday AM, by Wednesday PM we had a new dinghy and motor, and by Friday the claim was approved and paid. If it were any other company, we might still be in Marathon trying to get our affairs in order.

For one last kick at the can, the dinghy that arrived so promptly on Wednesday afternoon, turned out to be a lemon. By Saturday, four days after receipt, the transom started to fall off and it appeared that the tubes were in danger of splitting at the seams. Again the vendors came to the party, and agreed to repair the transom to ensure safe operation as they sourced and shipped a new dinghy from their distribution center. While I would have preferred to have avoided the problem all together, I cannot complain about the service we received once the problem was discovered. The new floating chariot has performed wonderfully, so I'm cautiously optimistic about long term satisfaction.

It took an extra 10 days to sort out the dinghy situation from start to finish, which was extremely frustrating, but in the end it gave us time to catch our breath, so that we actually felt ready leave. When we finally put the Boot key channel markers behind us on May 18, 2010 we ready to go both physically and mentally.

We are in the Bahamas! It seemed like it would never happen, but here we are sitting on the hook in Little Farmers Cay. Our tans are evening out, and we have bee supplementing our food supply with fresh fish. In the past 3 weeks we have only spent 3 nights in marinas, and then only because there were no other practical alternatives. The cruising reflexes are starting to rebuild, and while we no longer feel like the neophytes we did when we first left Toronto, we are still firmly in the learning new skills mode.

Good things come to those who wait, and the nights on the anchorages looking at the moon rising out of the water is payment for those with the patience. From here we are heading to Georgetown for a few days in a fancy Four Seasons/Sandals resort to celebrate Pat’s birthday, and then it is back to the wild! I can hardly wait to see the largest breeding flock of Pink Flamingos in the world on Great Inagua Island. Few cruisers make it there because it is so far off the beaten track. It might take us awhile to get there, but Patience is a virtue, and I’ve been taught a very valuable lesson about gloating.

Enjoy the pics and have a great week.

I know I will.

Addison

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Cruising Just Happens. Our youngest Cruiser was just 14 months...our oldest was just...old

2010-02-24T11:24:00.006-05:00

It’s boat show season, which means that the weather is freezing cold up north and sunny and warm down south; or at least that is what it usually means. The winter of 2010 will be remembered by many as the coldest in recent memory as the Florida Keys were swamped with masses of arctic air that took our temperatures down into the 40’s for days on end. When Pat and I returned to the Keys after our Christmas visit to Toronto, we had packed shorts and T-shirts into our precious carry on space so that we could do the airport quick change upon arrival in Miami. Sadly we found that not only was Miami cooler than normal, we were quite comfortable wearing the same clothes and outer wear that we wore in Toronto.

The good news however is that cold weather causes our northern friends to start searching the internet for flights to places where the likelihood of shoveling is somewhat reduced. Perhaps it was the aligning of the required planets, or some other phenomenon of nature, but the month of February has seen a veritable horde of folks from home descending on Marathon. We like to think that they all came down to see us, but it was more likely the fact that just looking at a palm tree will make you feel a little warmer.

They came by land, sea and air, they came in all age groups and they came with very different ideas about what constitutes a good time. On a couple of occasions, Pat and I had to split up in order to accommodate everybody who came to visit. The funny thing about the visitors is that virtually every body paid a visit to the local West Marine store. Somehow they found WM, when other essentials like supermarkets and even liquor stores eluded them. I guess WM to a boater is like an elephant is to water.

PCYC cruises are legendary on Lake Ontario, as we tend to arrive in armada strength, with the logistical organization worthy of a UN Peacekeeping mission. For most of us cruising is as natural as the wind in our sails or the ice in our drinks. Therefore it should come as no surprise that if there is more than one PCYC boat within VHF hailing range of another, the old cruising reflex takes over and a cruise just happens. If we throw in a couple of retired VC’s who no longer need to maintain decorum and add a pinch or two of spirits, the cruise goes into hyper-drive.

The PCYC fleet in Marathon this year consisted of Tecumseh, Cakaro, Con el Viento and of course Threepenny Opera. Each boat rose to the occasion to host our friends from home. I think the record was a group of 12+ who gathered on Cakaro for dinner one evening. The funniest thing was meeting Meg and Ron on the dinghy dock the next day as they brought two large green garbage bags stuffed with the remains of the previous evening. As the saying goes, “A good time was had by all”, even if it means they slept until noon….

Here’s a new concoction for the Chart Room that is guaranteed to liven up a gloomy post boat show winter afternoon. Take 2 parts diesel, 1 part jet fuel and a sprinkle of gasoline, shake it well over a few thousand miles, garnish with northern gales 40 and serve with a dash of Blarney and you have the Warm-up Winter Cruising special. Maybe we’ll see you next year!

Have a great week, I know I will

Addison

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The incoming Marathon Class of 2010 - Will you be part of the class of 2011??

2010-01-20T10:44:00.009-05:00

Pat and I were in our dinghy heading to shore when we saw him. He was standing on the deck of his shiny new sailboat, his shirt was off and he posed with his hands on his hips as his eyes scanned the broad expanse of Boot Key Harbour. The sun darkened head and the white body of someone who has been outside but bundled up, was the dead giveaway of his newbie status in the South of Florida and of his entry into the Marathon class of 2010. By spring the colour of his belly will match the colour of his face. Every year there is an exodus boats making the trip from colder climes to the warmth of the promised land in the southern states and this year, despite all of the prognostications of economic doom and gloom, is no different.

I remember sitting on my boat at anchor in Pryners Cove, at the junction of the Upper Gap and Adolphus Reach on Lake Ontario, thinking that I could really get used to this boating lifestyle. (The moment is captured in our blog ID photo) It was nearing the end of our annual three week sailing vacation, and in a few days we would be back into the world of business attire, airports and incessant meetings. Perhaps it was the wine, the perfect sunset, or perhaps it was the relaxing effects of three weeks without a hard schedule, e-mail or cell phones, but whatever the cause I broached the idea of sailing off into the sunset to my wife Pat.

It wasn’t the first time the thought had crossed my mind, but dreams have a way of getting paved over by too many years of mortgage payments, raising a family and annual performance reviews. Instead of getting the “are you crazy” look, she responded with several practical questions that needed to be answered. Who will look after the kids? What will we do with the house? Do we have enough money? What if we don’t like it?

The questions were indeed practical and important, and answers were not immediately at hand, but the important thing to me was the fact that she didn’t outright refuse to consider the possibility nor did she ask me if I was “nuts”, although I’m sure the latter question must have crossed her mind. For me it was cathartic just to get the suggestion out into the open, and so our journey to become live aboard full time cruisers began. Perhaps even more importantly the basis for a successful cruising relationship was laid, because with the exception of handling the boat in an emergency when debate can be fatal, unilateral decisions ultimately tend to lead to grief when you are living within the confines of a boat.

It has been several years since that day in Pryner’s Cove, and from that first conversation we watched our youngest daughter graduate from university, we emptied the contents of a four bedroom house into a 42 foot sailboat and an 8x10 foot storage locker. We have put over 4000 miles under our keel, and in the process learned that there is a real difference between making a living and actually living. We have also made more new friends than since we started elementary school. Friends that go beyond an entry in a contact file, but people with whom you share a common bond and with whom working to get to know better is a genuine pleasure.

Over the past year we have enjoyed experiences that will last us for the rest of our lives and yet I cannot help but feel a certain melancholy. The sadness is not for ourselves but for the friends and family who are still toiling away doing the things that they feel they must. In the past 12 short months we have received news of friends and colleagues who are no longer with us and of others who are fighting for their very lives. Our hearts go out to them, and we pray that they, and their loved ones will see the light at the end of the tunnel.

As I write this, I’m sitting on an Air Canada flight from Fort Lauderdale to Montreal, and despite the minus 18C temperature that awaits Pat and me when we land, we are excited to be on our way to visit with friends and family over the holiday period. It seems like an eternity ago, but December 20, 2009 marked our entry into the Marathon class of 2009. When we return to the south we will be equally excited to meet and greet the Marathon class of 2010. Not a day goes by when we do not count our blessings for the fact that we have been fortunate enough to make a break from the ordinary into the extraordinary. Hopefully somebody who reads this will become part of the class of 2011.

Have a great week, I know I will.

Addison

I was camera challenged over the last few months. My Nikon D300 met with some unfortunate contact with water so I was out of commission for awhile. As a result there aren't as may photos as usual, but it's all good now!

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Cape Coral to Fantasy Fest, It's Hot Hot Hot - the weather that is

2009-10-27T12:38:00.007-04:00

I was on my hands and knees struggling with an air conditioning strainer that was completely plugged with barnacles. Of course it was one of the hottest days of the summer and despite wearing only a bathing suit, I was absolutely drenched with sweat. The daily high was forecast to be in the mid 90’s all week so not getting the A/C back in working order was not even remotely an option. Ironically, before we left Toronto, I had looked longingly at the premium space occupied by our 18,000 BTU compressor and almost decided to pitch the thing overboard in order to gain valuable storage space. In the end I’m not sure if it was laziness or prescience that made me put the wrenches and wire cutters down, because on the West Coast of Florida in the summer, a non air conditioned boat would become a totally uninhabitable oven.

We were tied to an end dock in the Cape Coral Yacht Basin, which is where Pat and I headed after our return from China to await the delivery of our friend’s Connie and Richard’s new boat. They had contacted us while we were in China to ask if we would help them bring their new baby from the dealer in Palmetto over to her temporary home in Fort Lauderdale for outfitting. Of course we were honoured to be asked so we jumped at the chance to take a squeeky new IP 485 out for a 400 mile cruise around the tip of Florida. As luck would have it however, the boat was not quite ready, so instead of hanging around Cape Coral for a week or two, we ended up there for almost a month.

When one is living on a boat, home is where the keel is so it really shouldn’t matter too much where the keel is lying. Well a very substantial challenge to this theory would be offered up by anybody who is stuck in Cape Coral during the dog days of summer. I am fond of calling the place the suburb without a city, because it is an amorphous blob of housing, without a real center. Since the mortgage meltdown the community, which during the boom years was the fastest growing city in the USA, has become a ghost town of bank owned homes and shuttered store fronts. On our 2 mile walk to the nearest supermarket, it was not uncommon to make the entire return trip without passing another person on the street.

In some ways the quiet streets and lack of people reminded us of our days in Mississauga, when during the dead of winter, the cold and snow often kept people indoors except for brief forays out to accomplish necessary tasks like go to work or to buy food. The big difference down here however is the fact that when the weather becomes more comfortable, there won’t be people coming out because many of the residents have left the area permanently. Fortunately we have good friends Bob and Mary Ann here, who checked in on us regularly to see if we hadn’t died of boredom, and their visits helped Pat and I maintain our sanity. Needless to say we couldn’t wait to get away from Cape Coral.

When “Sea Salt”, Connie and Richard’s IP 485 was finally ready to go, Pat and I were chomping at the bit to get going. We would have been ready to deliver an Optimist across Lake Ontario at this point, so it was decidedly luxurious to be given towels and our own queen sized berth in a private cabin with en-suite head and shower. The trip around the coast was uneventful apart from a few thunderstorms that generated waves large enough to put 6 inches of water in the cockpit before the scuppers drained it away. I discovered however that I’m still not over the sea sickness that comes with sailing after dark, so once I went below after my stint at the helm, the nausea took over. I’m determined however to beat this thing so I won’t have to live in the cockpit when we decide to take longer passages.

It’s funny how time flies once you start to get busy. We arrived in Marathon on October 1 by way of a visit to Naples FL, and a night hanging on our hook, 3 miles offshore from the Everglades. In Naples I had a chance to reconnect with my friend Vince S, who I had worked with during the high tech part of my career. It was great to catch up with Vince, eat in a restaurant that used table cloths and play tourist by visiting the local zoo. Most importantly we were underway again on our own boat and moving towards cooler weather and cleaner water.

Threepenny Opera desperately needed a new coat of bottom paint because the Micron CSC paint that we put on in Port Credit had been completely over powered by the nutrient rich 90 degree water of South Florida and the Bahamas. When we finally hauled the boat, it seemed that around the waterline the barnacles had set down roots. Even sanding with 80 grit discs did not remove all of the little spots of natural adhesive that barnacles use to hold themselves to the hull. If one could figure out a way to bottle the barnacle spit, they might find themselves onto a new IP 485! Thank goodness for the assistance of friends Mary and Wilger because without them Pat and I would have spent at least an extra day in the boat yard sweating under the now cooler 85 degree sun.

It will be several more weeks before Pat and I return to our normal colour, but every time I look at Threepenny Opera, I know that all of our efforts were worth it. She has held up extremely well over the past year, and when we had a surveyor came aboard, the only deficiency requiring immediate correction was the lack of a written waste management plan. Once we get around to writing down and signing a policy specifying who has to take out the garbage, we will be in total compliance, not bad for a 10 year old boat that has seen a few miles under her keel.

We spent the past weekend in Key West for the beginning of Fantasy Fest 2009 and next weekend we will be in Fort Lauderdale for the boat show. The weather is getting cooler, and the hatches are starting to catch some decent breeze. The harbour in Marathon is starting to see the first arrivals in this season’s new crop of cruisers, and we can still get $1 tacos and $.25 wings at the local hang outs. All in all life is pretty good.

Have a great week. I know I will

Addison

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What did you do this summer?? - We followed our roots!

2009-08-25T20:20:00.015-04:00

It was a cold morning in February of 2009, when Air Canada informed me that I would be demoted from their top tier of frequent flyers at the end of the month. In many respects it was a relief that I no longer kept a bag packed, and I was now eating more meals at home than in hotels and restaurants. My finger nails were intact, and the obsessive checking of my Blackberry had finally stopped. Seriously the phantom vibrations of imaginary messages haunted me for months after I stopped working. All good things aside however, the note from Air Canada put me into a sudden panic.

One of the hidden benefits of my work was that I accumulated huge amounts of frequent flyer miles. There were enough miles for Pat to meet me in exotic locales for the weekend and my kids always flew to and from school on dear old dad’s Aeroplan account. Now that I was getting kicked out of the frequent flyer club, the miles I still had in my account were about to become seriously devalued because non top tier Aeroplan customers have to compete for the very few reward seats, or be willing to pay 2-3 times the published number of miles to secure a seat closer to their liking. As a top tier flyer for a few more days, I could claim virtually any empty seat on an Air Canada flight so I became obsessed with the idea of spending as many miles as possible before the end of the month.

China seemed to be a logical place to go. It was far enough away to soak up a good chunk of miles, and I had a brother living in Shanghai so I had a place to land. When I considered that Pat had never been to China, despite having traveled extensively, the decision was clinched. And so as a result of a marketing e-mail from Air Canada extolling the virtues of becoming one of their second tier frequent flyers, a plan was hatched to spend the summer traveling throughout China. I would have a chance to show Pat a little of my heritage by visiting my father’s village, and the two of us would get to explore the wilds of Tibet. As an added bonus, I also decided do bring my mom along with us to act as a tour guide in the villages.

The pictures speak for themselves so I won’t waste many words describing the trip. Our itinerary was Florida to Toronto and then onwards to Shanghai. We spent a week in Shanghai resting up and playing tourist, and then we headed for Beijing, Tibet and Xian before returning to Shanghai. We stayed in Shanghai long enough to rest up from Tibet, do our laundry, complete some last minute shopping and then we headed south for Guangzhou and Kaiping. The final part of the trip was a weekend in Hong Kong, where we had a chance to play tourist for a few more days before our nearly non stop run back to Florida. I’m not sure what is more tiring, a 200 mile sail crossing of the Gulf of Maine in October, or 14 hour first class flight over the North Pole followed by another 3 hours in a commuter jet?

Anyway we are home after being out of the country for 6 weeks. We covered over 20,000 miles, using planes, trains and automobiles. We went from sea level to over 15,000 feet, and we visited places where the flies moved out because of the dirt, and we stayed in 6 star hotels. Since our return we have been holed up in Cape Coral Florida catching our breath and visiting with our friends Bob and Mary Ann whom we met in the Bahamas. They have been our saviors! Next week we will be off to help friends Richard and Connie, whom we met while going down the St. Lawrence River, deliver their Island Packet 485 home to Fort Lauderdale from the dealer in Palmetto. Pat and I are really looking forward to the trip. I just hope I don’t get boat envy and blow the RRSP for 4 or 5 more feet!!

The load of pictures in this posting is substantial. My advice is to take your time and not look at all of them in one sitting, or you might be a little overwhelmed. I apologize in advance if the albums look a little bit like a family outing, but in many respects that’s what this trip turned out to be. If you have any questions please ask.

Enjoy the pictures and have a great week!

I know I will!

Addison

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Double click on the pictures below to view the pics full frame.

Toronto to Shanghai

Shanghai Shopping and Cruising

Beijing

Solar Eclipse to Tibet

Xi'an - Land of the Terracotta Warriors and more

Guangzhou to Kaiping - Roots

Hong Kong - Home Stretch

South of the Whale - Good Friends and Fresh Fish!

2009-06-12T09:26:00.005-04:00

The singing of the drag on my fish killer rod an reel was pure music to our ears. The combination of an ocean rated reel, a 12 in lure with massive four razor sharp hooks on it and 100 lb test made it no contest for whatever took a hit. We weren’t sure what was on the end of the line, but Pat and I had whatever it was, filleted and grilled before we even saw our catch. We developed a real appreciation for fresh fish during our crossing from Florida when I nicked my first Tuna, so naturally when the opportunity presented itself we went looking for more.

The Sea of Abaco is divided into two portions, with Whale Cay acting as the dividing line. The Whale as it is known locally is a source of wonder awe and fear for boaters in these parts because it forces any boat drawing more than 3 feet ot head out into the open Atlantic in order to transit from the Northern Half of the Sea of Abaco to the South. For this reason many boaters, even the locals tend to stay in their half of the “Sea” and not cross into the other side of town.

Because of the separation, the two halves are similar in geography but very different in character. When we left Green Turtle Cay, we crossed the Whale and wondered what the fuss was all about? Apparently during the winter months, NE winds can whip the shallows along the ocean side of the reefs into a boiling surf known as a rage. While I have seen some pretty impressive photos of rages, this time of year the only activity is caused by left over surge from storms at sea. The 4- 5 foot swells with the occasional 6 footer was no worse than the passage out of the bay of Quinte back home on a typical day.

Most of the development in the Abaco is concentrated in the Southern part. Marsh Harbour is the largest size town in the Abacos, and it provides cruisers with a convenient place to reprovision before heading back out. The town itself is rather non-descript, but it is large enough to support a well stocked supermarket and a hardware store that would rival any in the Florida Keys. The myth that the Bahamas are undeveloped and scarcity is common has its orgins in days gone by, but is no longer the caset.

It’s true that some items such as ice cream and beef are more expensive, (try $12 for a quart of ice cream) but not prohibitively so as they are also plentiful and seem to be consumed in large quantities by the locals. There are pleasant surprises like fresh snow peas at lower prices than in Florida. For anybody coming over here, it is always prudent to stock up, but the provisioning should not be viewed as a mission to Mars! The only thing I would suggest stocking up on in larger than normal quantities is Beer.

Boating supplies are readily available and for those who need parts shipped in, the Bahamian Govt. has reversed a ruling requiring duty to be charged on all boat parts. As of June 1, vessels traveling under a Bahamian cruising permit can have power train and safety items shipped in duty free, providing the shipper indicates the cruising permit number on the manifest. Of course as luck with have it, Threepenny Opera required a set of windlass parts and we received them two days before the new rulings came into play. When we tried to “negotiate” a rebate, the very pleasant Bahamian customs officer smiled and said, you win some you lose some. Thanks!

As one moves away from the center of the universe in Marsh Harbour, the level of development starts to decrease but it is very obvious that the wilderness of old is gone forever. The cruising sites have developed to suit the market which at this time of year is largely bare boat charters from the Moorings/Sunsail base out of Marsh Harbour. For a boater that comes down for a week, the anchorages are nicely spaced so that one can stay up late, sleep in, and still make it to a new destination for some water based activities, before heading ashore for the sundowner. On the subject of the sundowner, beware of the concoctions known as the Frozen Nipper or the Frozen Grabbers served from their respective establishments on Guana Cay. One of these drinks will leave you numb and two can bring on incipient Amnesia….now what was I talking about???

A visit to the Bahamas is not complete without spending some time snorkeling or diving on the multitudes of reefs. We were extremely fortunate on this trip to befriend Bob and MaryAnn from the sail boat Queen Angel. They are both fish people and are as comfortable in the water as out. Bob is a natural diver and he can hold his breath for an incredibly long period of time. He scared the heck out of me, because I was spotting him from the dinghy as he hunted a reef off of Lynard Cay, and disappeared for what seemed to be several minutes. I had visions of him bonking his head on a rock and laying unconscious underwater. I was about to muster enough nerve to go in after him, when he triumphantly surfaced with a very strange shovel nosed crustacean on the end of his Hawaiian spear. Dinner that night was freshly grilled shovel nosed crustacean. We hesitate to call it a lobster, because those crustaceans are not in season at the moment.

Time has passed incredibly quickly and our time in the Abacos is almost up. Despite a little grousing about the number of boats around and the level of development, the anchorages are still pretty nice and the gentle rocking on the hook with a cool evening breeze is still spectacular. As is often the case when we are getting ready to leave a place we like, the weather is improving and we have forgotten the two weeks of incessant rain. As we turned around and headed north from Little Harbour, we decided it was a great opportunity to score some fresh fish, so we headed outside of the reef and try our hand again at fishing. Certainly there were tons of fish in the marine parks so how difficult can it be to hook something in the open ocean?? It took most of the day to get a hit, but what a hit it was.

Pat and I worked like a well oiled machine and while I reeled, she brought the boat into a gentle turn to make it easier to bring the fish in. When I got the beast alongside, Pat fired a stream of cheap vodka into his gills and he was still alive, but at least he stopped trying to tail walk away from the boat. The fight took about 20 minutes, and within 30 minutes a 38” Cero Mackerel was posing of pictures, just before being filleted. We were to meet up with our friends Bob and MaryAnn who had elected to stay on the inside for the trip back north, so finally we were able to make a contribution for dinner.

Today we head north of the Whale. We expect to be back into Florida within the next 4-5 days and we will head up towards Punta Gorda to tie up the boat while we get ready for our trip to China. Who said retirement was slow and boring?? Stay tuned. Although we are back in travel mode, we still expect to see some interesting sites between here and the West Coast of Florida so we try and post again before we head for Toronto and the Orient.

Have a great week. I know I will.
Addison
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Marathon - The Abacos. A whole year of cruising experience in one week.

2009-05-22T18:08:00.004-04:00

We are on the hook at the entrance to New Plymouth Harbour on the south end of Green Turtle Cay – (pronounced Key) I think I just saw a large rounded ferry boat go by loaded with pairs of animals and being steered by a white haired bearded old guy carring a shepherds crook …. Just kidding, it wasn’t Noah but given the intensity of the rain in these parts, it’s no wonder that the residents of Green Turtle Cay here in the Abacos gather rainwater in cisterns beside or under their homes as their drinking water supply. In the past 12 hours we have received almost 4 inches of rain. Oh well, the locals love the rain, because up until this week, the area has been very dry and the cisterns were running empty, forcing the residents to line up at the marinas with jerry cans to lug R/O water at $.30 per gallon.

To get into the spirit of the locals I had rigged up a funnel over the fill spout of one of our water tanks to supplement the output of our trusty water maker. When I got up this morning, the funnel had fallen over so all of the precious rainwater that could have been filling our tanks was sluicing down the deck instead of being directed into the tank as intended. Now it’s only about 3 feet from the cockpit to my starboard deck fill, and it was already pouring buckets, so I figured that I could go out there, make a quick adjustment and be back below deck in a flash. It seems that flashing was the order of the morning because just as I crawled out from under the side panel of the enclosure, a dinghy with two very wet but wide eyed tourists from a nearby charter boat came barreling out of the rain. I not sure who was more shocked, me who hadn’t expected any intelligent life form to be out in a torrential rain, or the two fools in the dinghy being mooned by a gangly chinaman.

Every person with a boat should make the pilgrimage to the Bahamas at least once in their life time. It is sort of a final exam and senior grad trip for developing all of the pilotage skills one needs to be truly comfortable on the water. In the past week, Pat and I have experienced some of the most incredible natural beauty on the planet, and we are just getting started.

What has become obvious to us is that there are many self appointed experts about sailing these waters, but in reality there are very few who have spent enough time here to provide more than just an opinion. As a devotee to the Ports Guide to Lake Ontario, I had expected other guide books to at least be equally precise if not as eloquent and entertaining as the “Ports Book” We have several Bahamas cruising guides on board and while they are in general agreement about issues like avoiding hurricanes and not running aground, none provide more than a potentially dangerous illusion of precision on how to successfully cruise the Bahamas. I guess it is sort of like raising kids, there are lots of books, even more free advice, but only you and your significant other can pick a path that works.

Navigation in the Bahamas is by sight. Your eyes are the only things that can really keep you out of trouble, or get you out of trouble if you stray into tricky waters. It takes a leap of faith to trust your instincts but after a few hours of picking through shallow water the difference between sand, grass and rock becomes pretty easy to discern. It took me a little longer to tell how deep the water is, but if in doubt I head for the softest option available! Please take that with a huge grain of salt, but it has worked for me. I have only been aground a couple of times so far, and I don’t think anything is broken!

If one develops the confidence to read the waters, the reward is something that many people will only ever fantasize about. There is something completely satisfying about picking your way through a rocky shoal and finding a secluded, protected lagoon of 100 foot horizontal visibility water, surrounded by miles of white untouched sand. Such was the scene that greeted Pat and me as we dropped the hook on Sandy Cay which is located in the middle of an area known as Double Breasted Cays in the Northern extremes of the Abacos. The guide books describe the anchorage almost as a footnote but perhaps their authors are trying to keep the best for themselves.

Our feat of the week was doing the anchor dance in +25 knot winds with a broken windlass. We had arrived at Green Turtle Cay during a pretty decent squall, so by the time we had negotiated the very narrow and shallow channel to get into the harbour, we were pretty anxious to get to hook down and take a warming shower. As it happened there was no room at the inn, because lots of other people apparently had heard the same weather forecast and had filled every open spot.

We tried valiantly to find a place where we could both set the anchor and also have enough scope to handle the even worse weather that was to come. I drove through two of the sets and Pat drove to 2 further attempts….The driver had the easiest job, because squinting and steering was much less difficult than sitting on the foredeck hauling up our 55lb Rocna and 40-60 feet of chain by hand. I wouldn’t describe hauling anchor by hand, in very tight quarters, while being lashed by high winds and rain as fun, but it is certainly unforgettable.

By the fourth attempt we had had enough so instead of expending what was left of our energy to try a fifth time, we headed back out into the open water outside of the harbour. Since we really couldn’t see where we were going, we headed for a space that didn’t have any boats in it and threw the hook in with 120 feet of rode out. It must have worked because we’ve been here for 3 days now and we’ve not moved in the constant stream of 30-40 knot squalls. Hopefully the skin will grow back on my knuckles before too long!

The operative word to truly enjoy the Bahamas is patience. I would hate to be the guy that spends thousands of hard earned $$ to come down for a week of bare boating, only to find that the weather isn’t good, or that a chosen anchorage turns out to be too crowded because every other bare boater read the same book. Doing things in a hurry, or expecting to do things in a hurry will only lead to misery down here, so we are learning to turn down the volume from even the relaxed pace of the Keys. Right now I am trying to eke out a WiFi signal so I can post this installment of the blog, but it seems, at best, to be like trying to milk a bull. You get all the right noises but when the moment of truth comes, you aren’t getting what you thought you would get. I could get in the dinghy and go into town for a free hook-up but that would mean more physical exertion than I really want to make….Well maybe if I can time it with Happy Hour over at Pineapples beach bar?? My multi-tasking habits die hard!

At the end of the day however it’s all about the sailing and discovering. Gentle day long beam reaches on emerald green water, mixed in with howling 40 knot squalls, flat seas and ocean swells all lead to a destination that suits the sailor. In the Southern Abacos, you can marina hop, or you can go from one isolated anchorage to another with about the same degree of effort. Whether you are looking for the latest in local rock bands or a deserted island with naked women on the beach…(and no I am not kidding, just check out the pictures), The Bahamas seems to have an abundance of all sorts of experiences to suit every taste.

It’s Better in the Bahamas is only a corny TV tag line until you actually get down here and see it for yourself. Now if it would only stop raining, I would go sailing! Have a great week, I know I will!

Addison

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Growing Roots!!

2009-05-09T01:24:00.004-04:00

It was about 12:30AM on Saturday morning and I was sitting at the nav station huddled over my laptop putting the finishing touches on my pictures for the latest installment of the blog. The atmosphere was reminiscent of the all nighters that I did many many moons ago, trying to complete term papers before the already extended deadline was to expire. The circumstances surrounding the all nighters were then, as they are now, just a matter of getting the priorities straight.

Back in the day, there was always something getting in the way of sitting down and completing assignments. Listening to a friend commiserate over opposite sex woes, or gathering at the pub under the guise of a study group or maybe straying into amateur theater, all those activities seemed to be higher on the priority list than sitting down and grinding out 1500 words for Dr. Ross. These days it seems that issues like helping a friend move his boat, or going to a cool tiki bar to hear the latest in music, or serving as the harbour computer geek seems to get in the way of sitting down and telling the folks back home about what I am doing. Instead I am just doing it!

I get asked by some, who haven’t yet embraced the cruising lifestyle, about what I’m going to do when the vacation is over. The first couple of times I was asked, I would mumble some non sequiturs about letting nature run its course. The reality is that cruising is not a vacation, it is a lifestyle choice. And by making the choice we embrace the blessings of new and interesting people. New and interesting places and new and interesting sights to see. We also accept that normal everyday tasks that would take 10 minutes to accomplish in a land life, can take all day in the cruising life.

Laundry for example, often becomes an all day affair. I have to admit that the closest thing I got to doing laundry in my past life was to not miss the hamper with my underwear but these days a team effort is required to get the job done. Food shopping is yet another chore that in the cruising life has actually become a past time. When your family car is a dinghy and a pair of folding bicycles, it is really important to make a list, check it twice and make sure that what you buy us really needed.

The pay off for the seeming inconveniences is that we have had the opportunity to meet, and really get to know people from all over the world. Whether it be the result of a conversation struck up in the laundry line, or a chance meeting waiting for the propane truck to show up, friendships start much more easily than they do in the more guarded land lifestyle.

The past few months have flown by. It seems just yesterday for example that folks for PCYC (Trevor and Eva, Jane and Paul) and my friend Randy from New Brunswick came down for a visit. Yet it has been over a month since the last one went home! By the pictures in this installment of the blog, you will see that there a many more pics of the social side of cruising. From cockpit gatherings to full fledged dinner parties, the ability to create a party never ceases to amaze me. In the Daytimer, Outlook Meeting Maker world I used to live in, it was a major endeavour to get 2 people in a room, never mind 10 or 12. These days a chance meeting or a quick call on the VHF can get crowd gathered in no time at all.

We have not been to as many places as we originally planned, but we are certainly getting to know more about the places we have been. Time is governed by the events as opposed to events being governed by the amount of time available. When I sat down to write this installment of the blog, I was at a but of a loss as to what to say because we haven’t moved off of our mooring ball since Feb 1.As I reviewed the pictures however, I realized just how full the past few months have been. Tomorrow we are off to the Bahamas and the voyaging part of cruising will begin again.

Look for another installment before the next quarter is out. In the meantime enjoy the pictures and have a great week, I know I will.

Addison

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Marathon East to Marathon West

2009-02-20T13:54:00.003-05:00

Greetings to all from Marathon! I have to apologize to our followers for not updating the blog for such a long period of time, but in our defense we have only just realized that we have been here for 2 months. We thank all who wrote, and for the stream of concerned e-mails wondering if we were still on the surface. Rest assured we are still here, and are living in a world where the saying “My how time flies when you are having fun!” is a mantra for life.

Once a cruiser reaches a particular destination, there is a tendency to stay put for a while. Everybody begins with the intention of cleaning up the boat, re-provisioning and setting off again, but there is something hypnotic about Marathon that causes people to stay much longer. It is perhaps one of the paradoxes of cruising that I have heard repeated over and over from many hardcore long term cruisers, a group in which Pat and I are still novices. So despite the fact that cruisers are adherents of a nomadic lifestyle, there is a tendency to plant roots very quickly. Certainly that was the case for Pat and me, because after arriving in Marathon Harbor on December 21 we have moved maybe a total of 12 miles. And most of those 10 miles were used to exit the harbor and take care of little household chores like flushing the holding tanks 3 miles off shore!

The mark of how long a boat has been here is by looking at the amount of sea scum that has built up on the water line of a moored or anchored boat. The fresh arrivals show up with waxed hulls, clean dinghies and clear boot stripes. The long term residents however keep their dinghies looking appropriately scruffy, so they are less theft prone and their water lines resemble a reef. Most make an effort to keep their vessels looking tidy, but there are always a few that are like the suburban neighbor who never mows his lawn, and let their vessels decay to a floating Dog Patch. The intermediate residents like Pat and me only have a thin layer of slime on the water line and the slightest hint of barnacles at the edge of the bottom paint. The bottom of our unprotected dinghy however is an entirely different story, and will require a trip to the beach with paint scrapers to get clean again.

In some respects our cruising life really only began on Feb 1 of this year. On that date, we moved onto a mooring ball in the Marathon mooring field from our fully serviced slip located behind a million dollar home on the very toni Sombrero Boulevard. We have now been on the ball for nearly 3 weeks, and during that time, we have been making our own water and electricity on our own self contained off grid island. Since our plans are to go farther a field, getting some practice in how to balance the systems to make the best use of our resources is very helpful. Between our solar panels, and a small gas generator, we are able to make water, have hot showers, watch TV, surf the internet, toast bread etc. in other words all the comforts of home provided we don’t overdo it.

The mooring field here is one of the largest in the US and holds hundreds of boats. In addition to the “official” moorings, there is also space for those who prefer to sit on their own ground tackle for free. Speaking of free, it is entirely possible to live down here for next to nothing. While every cruiser has their own sense of what “next to nothing” really means, I am convinced that there are people in the harbor who survive on only a few hundred dollars per month. For $140 per month, one can anchor in the harbor, have a place to dock their dinghy, a place to park your bicycle, free showers, and a weekly pump out of the holding tank. Food in the Keys tends to be a little pricier than it is elsewhere, Pat paid $1.20 for a single potato the other day, but with some judicious shopping a couple of hundred dollars spent on basics, supplemented by a few hours a week with a fishing rod can provide a pretty decent diet.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are many million dollar homes, with million dollar boats parked in front of them. For the uber rich crowd, Marathon offers amenities like a private 103 member golf course, an airport with plenty of parking space for your Gulfstream or Challenger, and perhaps most importantly for some, the ability to disappear into the crowd, like the Chinese emperor who dressed as a peasant to get closer to his subjects. Unless you are extremely observant it is not possible to tell the princes and paupers apart. Last night for example, a former member of the Clinton cabinet, was plucking his banjo as back-up to one of the local bar singers.

At the end of this month, we will leave Marathon for either the Everglades or we will continue down the Keys towards Key West. We are fortunate enough to have the choice and the time in which to exercise it. Several of our friends have contacted us to let us know they are heading this way, so we are looking forward to meeting as many of them as possible. I can’t promise that I will post every week like we did coming down here, but I will make an effort to be a little more diligent in providing news and pics than I have in the last month…or is it two???

Have a great week, and stay warm!

Addison

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Vero Beach to Marathon - Could this be Margaritaville???

2008-12-26T15:27:00.009-05:00

There were 4 guys standing at the bar who were well into a couple of jugs of draft beer. They were engaged in a very animated conversation about the day of fishing they had just returned from. There were loud descriptions about the number of tuna that had surrounded their boat out on the reef, but for some reason refused to take the live baits that were offered. They stopped their rising crescendo of colorful expletives just long enough to greet a large man, wearing a sleeveless t-shirt and covered in tattoos, who had walked in carrying a small terrier like a baby in his arms. The terrier was appropriately dressed for the season in a Santa suit complete with fur trim and a tasseled hat. Accompanying Mr. Tattoo was his woman friend who was carrying a drink that she brought in with her from outside and smoking a cigarette.

On the stage a solo singer piano player with a pony tail was belting out a country rendition of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer as a man in a full Jack Sparrow pirate outfit, complete with tri-cornered hat, 2 stepped with his Pirate Jenny girlfriend. I’m pretty sure he was also wearing eye liner, but maybe it was the lighting, or maybe he just had very striking features? A couple of clean cut prep school types wearing designer board shorts and flip flops and sporting Oakley sunglasses on top of their heads were huddled together completely oblivious to their surroundings.

Pat and I had just returned from a day trip by car to Miami to pick up some solar panels and we were sitting in the aptly named Dockside bar on Tuesday evening waiting for our food to arrive. Both of us were pretty tired because we had arrived in Marathon late on Sunday evening after a 5 day nearly non-stop journey from Melbourne and then almost immediately turned around and driven back to Miami. Perhaps it was fatigue, and perhaps it was the tortoise shell cat sitting on the bar but there was something decidedly surreal about our surroundings. Could this be the fabled Margaritaville?

As his friends fussed over the dog in the Santa suit, one of the fishermen made eye contact, and he walked/staggered over to introduce himself as Tony. He shook our hand warmly and welcomed us to Marathon. He was just passing through, but he had already been there for 6 months, and he had no specific plans for leaving. It seems that he had left behind a stressful life in Chicago and was on his way to Panama aboard his 50 foot catamaran. As he started to describe his journey, our server arrived with our meals, and he politely excused himself and invited us to visit him aboard his boat when we got settled. His beer hazed speech and the Ralph Lauren shirt stained with fish guts were a stark contrast to the elegant way in which he excused himself from disturbing our meal, leaving us wondering just what he did before he became a sailor on a 50 foot cat in the Keys.

Perhaps Tony’s story is an anomaly, but judging by the number of graying pony tails sported by both men and women who are as old or older than Pat and me, I have to believe that the Keys is one of those places that can draw you in and lull you into a satisfied stupor. Perhaps it is the retirement community for aging hippies or perhaps it is the true fountain of youth, but there is something about the air in these parts that just seems to re-adjust one’s notions about time.

The pace of Marathon is a welcome change and a relief from the pace of the past week. Last week, when Pat and I left the anchorage in Vero Beach we knew we were in for a week of dawn to dusk traveling if we were to make the Keys in time for Christmas. As we were caught up in the moment, once again I neglected my rule about being in a specific place on a specific date. Now when you are underway and operating under a self imposed deadline there are two things that a sailor does not want to hear. The first thing is a very loud bang coming from the engine and nether regions of the boat, and the second is the total silence that ensues.

We were approaching St. Lucie Inlet following a channel no more than 150 feet wide that was surrounded by very shallow water. According to the charts the area we were in was very prone to shoaling due to the currents from the inlet and the main channel depths were well below the ICW controlling depth of 12 feet. Furthermore the water outside of the dredged channel was left to go native and was reported to be less than 5 feet deep. Understanding that we were in precarious waters I paid extra close attention to the channel by carefully back sighting each mark to ensure that I was not drifting out of safe water. Suddenly there was a loud bang and a shudder from below and then total silence.

I was like a deer in the headlights because the information from my instruments could not explain what had just happened. The chart plotter showed we were in the middle of the channel, the depth sounder showed close to 10 feet of water, and the speed log showed we were still moving forward at a decent clip. Pat nailed the problem right away when she yelled over that we had hit something floating in the water and that our prop was fouled. As I cursed all crab fishermen, I managed to restart the engine, but as soon as I put it into gear, it would stall so I shifted the focus of my cursing to the company that manufactured my prop line cutters. I managed, after several attempts of putting the engine into forward and reverse, to create a substantial cloud of debris that looked like a mix of tree branches and bits of canvas. The engine would run while in gear, but the vibrations that ran through the hull felt as if the engine was going to come out of its mounts.

I had visions of bent prop shafts, fried engines and broken transmissions, so I shut everything down. There was not enough wind to sail and the engine was of no help, so we allowed the boat to drift and as we moved into the shallow water off the channel Pat went forward to set the anchor. A call to Tow Boat US on the VHF and help was on the way. Within 20 minutes we had a Towboat alongside and were on our way to the Marriot Resort at Hutchinson Island where a diver would meet us and check out our problem. It turned out that I had hit a submerged construction tarpaulin like the type that is used to cover the load in a dump truck. It seemed endlessly long as I took the edge from the diver and pulled it from the water.

In the end the engine was fine and we were none the worse for wear. It cost us about 2 hours out of our schedule and $50 to cover the cost of the diver. It could have been much worse, but in retrospect what was impressive to Pat and me was that the experience we had gained over the last few months came into play, and apart from my initial surprise, we handled everything calmly and correctly like we had been doing this all of our lives. Kudos to Tow Boat US for being so responsive and many thanks go out to the staff of the Marriott for providing safe haven for sailors in distress, but in the end it was Pat and me that kept a bad situation from getting much worse.

It was a shame that we had imposed a deadline on our traveling because the next 4 days took us from anchorages in Jupiter Inlet to Fort Lauderdale and to the strangely named but beautiful Long Aresenicker before arriving in Marathon. Each of the stops could have easily been expanded into much, longer stays, but there is always next time.

We have arrived in Marathon, where we were met by Bruce and Esther of Con el Viento fame who produced last years cruising blog. Bruce has appointed himself as the unofficial dockmaster for Canadian boats, and he has gone above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that Pat and I feel comfortable and welcomed. The holidays were welcome quiet time, but a little lonely because the usual hustle and bustle of family dinners were missing this year. Still Pat managed to put together a great Turkey dinner for the two of us

This week will be dedicated to scrubbing several months of grime off of Threepenny Opera and catching up on boat chores that have been neglected for awhile. One of the best chores will be to pack away all of the cold weather clothing that we had been living in up until about three weeks ago. These days dressing up means putting on a shirt with a collar and somewhat cleaner shorts.

Marathon is extremely cruiser friendly and both Pat and I are looking forward to integrating ourselves into the community. We are prepping for the next stage of our travels, but the current plans call for a stay in Marathon until the end of January…. Who knows, maybe we will be like Tony the fisherman and we’ll find ourselves propping up the bar and introducing ourselves to next seasons fresh faced arrivals.

Have a great week. I know we will here in Margaritaville!

Addison

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St Augustine to Vero Beach via Montreal

2008-12-17T20:24:00.004-05:00

I am warm again! After our overnight crossing from Beaufort SC, Pat and I were greeted by glorious sunshine and more importantly the real heat that comes with it. It was such a huge treat to be able to wander around the historic town of St. Augustine in shorts and a t-shirt. In fact it was the first time since we left Canada that Pat and I have been able to do so. I guess Florida is living up to its tag line of being the sunshine state. Many of the locals are still complaining about the cold, but for Pat and me anything above 55 degrees is warm and once we cross the line into the 60’s we are positively into tropical territory.

Maybe it was the heat and maybe it was because we have been town hopping on the boat but St. Augustine was one of those towns that we hated to leave. Our overnight stop turned into two, and then we added a third day just for good measure. The time that we gained by going offshore from Beaufort, was reinvested into a more quality experience in St. Augustine. It is very charming and obviously set up for a booming tourist trade, but unlike other communities that derive a good part of their livelihood from tourists, the town was not the least bit tacky. It may sound a little odd, but we were actually motivated to visit tourist attractions because they were not very touristy. And so it came to pass that we found ourselves in the Alligator Farm, the farmers market and the St. George Street pedestrian mall.

One of the other benefits of warmer weather is that we have been able to stay on the hook for several days at a time. In the real cold weather, the Espar heater draws down the batteries more than my little 80 amp alternator can replenish without running the engine an inordinately long time. When we were preparing Threepenny Opera for our cruise, I made the conscious decision to wait until we got to Florida to install solar panels but in hindsight I should have done it sooner. If I were preparing another boat for this voyage, I would definitely have my solar installed prior to departure because the lack of supplemental charging has forced us to spend more nights in marinas than I had originally planned. The savings that I would have gained by buying my solar in Florida has been more that used up on extra nights in marinas. Again hindsight is proved to be 20/20.

Threepenny Opera is actually a very good cruising boat and we proved it by leaving St. Augustine, and then staying off the grid until we reached Melbourne on our third day out. We had good anchorages in Daytona Beach and another great anchorage at my namesake Addison Point. The beauty of the last anchorage was that we were within 5 miles of the Vehicular Assembly Building, where the space shuttle is prepared for flight. It was also line of sight to the two gargantuan launch pads, so if we can figure out a way to do it, maybe we might come back up this way for the February shuttle launch. I can’t think of anything cooler than to sit on my own deck sipping on a good cabernet and watching history unfold.

It was somewhat ironic that once we reached Melbourne in, we left the boat to fly back to Canada for the annual cookie baking session with the family. While it might sound a little strange to fly several thousand miles to bake cookies nothing could be farther from the truth. One of the things that Pat and I have come to realize is that changing our lifestyle is not the same thing as changing our life. We are merely living it in a different venue and perhaps at a different pace. The importance of getting together and spending quality time together cannot be underestimated when we are out cruising and since we had not seen any family for several months, Pat and I approached the trip home with the same excitement as we did for the 4 day power weekend get aways that we used to take when we were both wage slaves. The good thing about flying home for a family get together while we are out cruising is that we did not have to fly back and go to the office on Monday morning!

As excited as we were about going home for a few days, it was still a huge shock to the system when we walked out of the airport terminal in Montreal into -13 degree temperatures. I was walking around in shorts and sandals only 5 hours earlier and now I found myself being congratulated by the local Hertz representative for being fortunate enough to get the last car that was not too frozen to rent. What the Hertz guy did not tell us was that the deadline for mandatory snow tire installation was the date I was returning the car, and since the car they had for me was to be retired from service on that date, snow tires were not installed. It did not take us long to discover that all season radials do not work very well after a week of snow, freezing rain and more snow. For once I was thankful for heavy Montreal traffic because at least I wasn’t going very fast.

Originally the ginger snap cookies and Swedish Spritz Shortbread were baked by Pat’s mom. She had passed the recipe on to Pat’s sister Ann but during the transition the hand written recipe that Pat’s mom used was torn and a couple of key ingredients were missing. It has taken us several years of reverse engineering and experimentation, plus dozens of bottles of wine and other spirits to try and discover both the missing ingredients and their correct proportions. Over the years we have produced concoctions that could rival titanium for hardness and concrete for density, but this year we finally got it right. If it weren’t for the persistence of Ann and nieces Stephanie and Karine to figure out the right formula, Pat and I would stll be buying our Swedish cookies at Ikea. Maybe it was part of Nanna Oscarson’s master plan to tear the recipe and force us to get together to figure out the mystery. In the end the cold and slippery roads only seemed to make the weekend that much better.

Pat and I are back in Florida, and it feels great. I actually put on a bathing suit for the first time and got down to the business of washing off 5 months of cruising grime from the deck of Threepenny Opera. It was not a pretty sight, and no I am not referring to me in the bathing suit. She has had a first washing to remove the big stuff, so when we get to Marathon, we will be able to get down to the business of making her shine again. Today we are rafted three abreast on a mooring ball in Vero Beach. As luck would have it our ball mates are Ken and Heidi from Rising Tide and Ron and Dawn from Dawn Treader. By this time next week we should be approaching our first stage destination of Marathon Florida. I can hear the Jimmy Buffet tunes already!!

Have a great week, I know we will.

Addison

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Charleston SC to St-Augustine FL. – Overnights…Second Time is the charm!

2008-12-04T14:37:00.006-05:00

Traveling the ICW for Pat and me has been a front row seat to help us understand the values that makes the United States what it is today. From the secessionist manifesto of the Rhett family in the late 19th century to the ever present reminder of America’s military might (not a day goes by without seeing the Navy, Air Force, Army or Marine Corp in action); from the tacky kitsch of Myrtle Beach to the refined modern chic of Charleston; and from the crews of the multi-million dollar mega yachts to the humblest of floating homes, we have had the privilege experiencing first hand modern American history by passing up close and personal most of the original colonies.

The ICW is an amazing piece of engineering and a testament to the notion that a good idea will rise above all. To even exist, it has over the years surmounted and continues to surmount the challenges of economics, politics, geography and weather. It is the Highway 66 of the cruising community and the slice of American Civilization that is served up as one travels the system of natural rivers and man made canals, cannot be rivaled. Perhaps preserving it as a national heritage site would be a way to obtain the funding needed to adequately maintain the system?

As an added bonus, Pat and I were invited to join several other crews from the cruising community to celebrate the American Thanksgiving holiday. While we all agreed that going out for dinner was not exactly the same, the logistics of large crowds on small boats dictated that some concessions needed to be made. We are truly thankful that we have made the acquaintance of Chris and Divya from s/v Maggie M, Ron and Dawn from s/v Dawn Treader, Jim and Ann from s/v Ubiquitous, and especially to Mike and Georgie from s/v Alcyone, who made the effort to seek us out to extend the invitation.

Pat and I enjoyed the experience so much that we had an impromptu repeat of the experience aboard Threepenny Opera the following night with Bob and Debbie from the s/v Valissa with whom we had crossed the Gulf of Maine over the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend in October. If it were not for the confidence we gained from following their lead, Pat and I may not have ventured out onto the Bay of Fundy alone, and we would still be much further to the North and much colder as a result.

We had not seen Bob and Debbie since the crossing but we have often wondered where they were; so it was through pure serendipity that Debbie heard me speaking to another boat and realized we were nearby. I was equally surprised and delighted to be hailed by the long lost Valissa, but that is the way things work on the ICW. It took a stretch run in approaching darkness and rain to make the anchorage, but Pat managed to get the hook down at dusk, and cook a turkey with the trimmings by 6:30. She is a miracle worker on a boat.

Despite the richness of the cultural experience however, the ICW has a tedious side that is found in the numerous uncharted shoals, the bridges that force one to adapt to their rhythm and the tidal currents and flows that can make planning a relatively simple trip into a complex stochastic modeling exercise. Pat and I entered the ICW early in November and after almost 4 weeks of relatively short day hops we were ready to get on with the business of going south. Perhaps we were motivated by the uncharacteristically cold temperatures, or perhaps it was due to the confidence that one builds from spending the last 4 months on our boat, Pat and I decided to leave the ICW in Beaufort SC and head out into the open Atlantic for an overnight passage to Jacksonville FL.

The decision to go “offshore” was accompanied by some trepidation of course, but in discussions with other more experienced sailors the feelings are normal and very common. While only a fool will do anything unsafe, anybody, no matter how experienced who voyages away from the protection of safe harbours, can only do so with the permission of Mother Nature. We have been sent to the principal’s office more than once for not heeding her lessons, so naturally we were a little apprehensive that this time we had learned our lessons well.

No doubt there will be more advanced lessons, but for newbie cruisers like Pat and me the 135nm mile passage from Beaufort SC to the mouth of the St. Johns River, which leads to Jacksonville FL, is a great mid-term test of skills. If one passes, then longer and more complex passages are within reach, but if one needs remedial tutoring, there are many less challenging day sails on the open Atlantic that one can make to gain additional experience. Unlike our first blue water night passage, this time Pat and I were traveling solo. We were in communication while enroute with other boats via VHF and SSB but the trip planning and execution were based solely on our efforts so it was comforting to know that others were also out there with us, even though they were unseen.

In the end we went to the Palm Cove Marina in Jacksonville Beach FL because the Jacksonville Marina was under repairs. The total distance was ~140 Nm and we covered the distance in just under 23 hours. For the first 15 hours of the voyage we enjoyed perfect beam reach sailing on relatively flat seas. Our biggest challenge was to slow Threepenny Opera down so that we would not arrive before sunrise. For the last 8 hours of the trip the wind died so our challenge was to try and speed Threeepenny Opera up so that we would arrive before sunset. We finally gave up at 4:30AM and fired up the iron sails to motor the last 30 odd miles. Most importantly I managed to keep my dinner down, so I am hoping that I have started a trend for future night passages….mommy I’m a big boy now!

Today we are in St. Augustine after a very short 28 SM hop from our marina last night. We are looking forward to visiting the city, but even more importantly we are looking forward to going to Montreal in a week’s time for the annual cooking baking party that Pat’s family puts on. In the meantime we will enjoy a little more of the Florida ICW which looks a little different than the parts of the ICW further north. I think we have earned our intermediate cruising badges because Pat is busy with the charts and guides planning an overnight passage so we can get as far south as possible before we take our break.

Have a great week. I know we will!

Addison

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Morehead City to Charleston SC – The scenery is the same but we are changing!

2008-11-26T07:46:00.004-05:00

When we prepared to go cruising the whole concept of basic necessities was very different than the concept of basic necessities now that we are underway. For Pat and me, we have been talking about our cruise for several years and interestingly most of the planning surrounded preparing the boat for the cruise. We have added all sorts of systems ranging from diesel furnaces to water makers and of course the obligatory suite of marine electronics that will allow us to send telegrams to Mars. What we have discovered however is that having a well prepared boat, is not the same thing as being prepared to go cruising.

There are things that I do today without thinking, that I would not have even dreamed about doing when I was a land dweller. A case in point, we will go very long distances for something as simple as a loaf of bread. Indeed the actual act of grocery shopping becomes an integral part of our impression of a community. For example, I would have to check my own blog to remember details about some of the earlier ports of call in our voyage, but I can recall in pretty fine detail where we bought food and the quality of the experience. For example Tadoussac is the town where we bought frozen ground veal and home made maple fudge in a little 2 cash register village supermarket, and Baltimore, despite the world class aquariums and museums is best remembered as the docks that were within walking distance of the Whole Foods Supermarket.

Although the willingness to walk great distances is a change, perhaps the biggest change for me is my desire to meet new people. Pat and I lived in the same community in Mississauga for 17 years. During that period of time, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that I actually entered one of my neighbours homes, yet out here on our cruise visiting other floating homes and having others come to ours has been some of the highlights of the trip.

Personally I have always characterized myself as a hardcore introvert, so my idea of a good time, is a quiet evening with a good book, or an afternoon of crawling around in the bilge installing or fixing a boat bit. While I always had the ability to “work a room” as part of my career requirements, it was always just work, something you did because you had to. It has come as a complete surprise to me how quickly friendships develop and how important these new friends are to the quality of our cruising experience.

Pat and I are natural optimists so perhaps we are just seeking out more of our kind, but we both agree that however spectacular the sights we have seen, the people are what we appreciate most. It is interesting that we can maintain a cheery outlook when you consider that we tend to be surrounded by a lot of bad news these days. One would think that with negative headlines combined with lousy weather, narrow channels filled with sand bars, and the US Marines closing the ICW for maneuvers, that any sane person would be looking for a plane ticket out at the next opportunity. Of course while none of us are immune to the events of the world, there is a “je ne sais quoi” about the attitude of cruisers that seems to find the silver lining behind even the darkest cloud. The analytical side of me is trying to understand why this is happening, but the emotional side of me doesn’t really care. I’m just happy that it is happening.

We are safe and sound in Charleston SC. I have only gone aground twice this week, and in doing so I did the cruising community a service by showing other boats where not to go…note to self, fancy electronics will not replace a good set of eyes and a little common sense. Other note to self, sailing straight and moving in a straight line are not the same thing; current can cause you to drift sideways even though your heading never changes…I’m learning!

Even though we have been making steady progress towards warmer climes, the goal of sitting in a bathing suit and having a beer is still very elusive. While “chilly” is a relative term, the majority of people we have encountered this week will agree that temperatures low enough to freeze water will almost certainly qualify. There have been a few evenings when the temperatures dipped into the 20s as well as a couple of days when there were headline making snow flurries. Oh well at least there will be another generation of Carolineans that can say they have seen snow, and an older generation that can say they have seen snow before Thanksgiving….maybe that’s not exactly a silver lining, but its gotta be close!

Pat and I are debating our next move. We can either head offshore from Charleston and be in Florida by the weekend, or we can continue into the hinterlands of South Carolina and Georgia. Since Beaufort and Savannah are both cruising highlights we are in a no lose situation. Anyway you will find out our decision next week. In the meantime, we are going to stay warm, and go looking for a turkey that will fit in our oven.

So to Sylvie, Denis, Heidi, Ken, Gerie, Bill, Georgie & Mike and to all the others we spoke to on VHF and have yet to meet, thanks for making our cruise special this week. Everybody have a Happy Thanksgiving and a great week I know I will. Please keep the comments and suggestions coming!

Addison

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Elizabeth City NC to Morehead City NC – The Epiphany of quality time!

2008-11-18T11:28:00.005-05:00

A seemingly common character- istic of the migrant sailors we have met along the way is that everybody is striving to get somewhere. The normal conversation starters when encountering a new person, is where are you from and where are you going. Names and boats enter in the conversation at some point, but usually only after the first two points have been sufficiently clarified.

While Pat and I also have specific destinations in mind, I realized this week that we are truly blessed because we don’t have to worry too much about timing. Many of our fellow travelers have a finite amount of time to cruise before they have to return to other obligations, of family or work or both. Understandably they need to “get there” so that they can enjoy their destination for as long as possible, before they revert back to being land people. Pat and I on the other hand can take as long as we like because we are already home!

On Thursday last week we were entering the upper reaches of the Pungo River from the Alligator to Pungo Rivers Canal. The canal is a narrow 20 mile long aquatic bowling alley of a waterway where a gutter ball could mean a call to the tow boat. Straight down the middle is the only marginally safe water for its entire length as even 20 feet from the centerline there are many places with only a covering of water. Even in the middle there are numerous sunken tree stumps so you often feel ghostly tendrils of something touching the bottom of the boat as you pass over. For those of us used to deeper water it is a very eerie sensation!

The forecast was for 10-15 knot SW winds with gusts to 20 and a few showers. Wave heights were forecast to be 1-2 increasing to 2-3 later in the day; all in all it seemed pretty benign. What we came to appreciate however was that in the very shallow waters of the ICW, a 15 knot wind from an unfavorable direction can have a very significant effect on water levels and wave heights. In a matter of 15 minutes the water went from relatively flat to short period teeth rattling 2 footers. Of course as we struggled with the wheel to keep the bow within 30 degrees of our heading the rain started and the buoys disappeared into the murk. Thank goodness for GPS and radar because we were able to feel our way towards the marks and stay in deep enough water to keep our keel off the bottom.

When we arrived at the River Forest Marina in Belhaven about 90 minutes later, we were met by a coterie of wet and shaking sailors who had exited the same canal earlier in the day and had experienced even worse conditions. Since the conditions were forecast to deteriorate further over the next 24 hours, we resigned ourselves to sitting tight for at least one day. The one day ended up being 3 days of fog, high winds, severe thunderstorms and tornados before we felt there was a good enough weather window to make the hops across Pamlico Sound and the Neuse River. At the end of the third day, the cabin fever amongst the migrant community was pretty evident, so by the following morning the exodus from the docks began at first light, and we were told later that by 8:00 AM the marina was deserted.

Progress and movement are synonymous, so when I sat down to write this week’s installment, I was somewhat at a loss as to what to talk about. Since the beginning of the week we had only moved from mile 51 of the ICW at Elizabeth City to mile 205 at Morehead City, which means that we have only traveled a grand total of 154 statute miles this week (~130nm). With the exception of the week we took off in Halifax earlier this autumn, the past week established a new low on the progress meter…. Or so I it seemed at first blush.

As I stewed on how to describe a scant 154 miles of waterway, Pat in her usual calm manner, started to remind me of the people we had met and the adventures that we had experienced over the past 7 days. We have been aground, caught in a blinding squall, saved a guy from drowning and shared a drink or two with new like minded friends as we baby stepped deeper into the south. Pat’s words triggered one of those flashes of the obvious where I realized that we were actually accomplishing in spades what we had set out to do when we embarked on this voyage.

For a large part of my life, my work instilled a discipline to always set and strive towards an objective. Success was defined not only by hitting the mark but also by the degree of ambition or chutzpah that was used to set the objectives in the first place. Personally I could accept that coming close, but failing to achieve an outrageously ambitious objective was better than overachieving on something I felt was ordinary. While the rewards of being “successful” are pretty obvious, there are costs that may not be as easily identified. For me one of the hidden costs has been the subconscious reflex to always set targets, and then obsessing on them, even when setting a target is not really necessary….like how many miles we are covering next week!

I’m discovering that it takes an enormous amount of discipline to focus on the now. Not to be confused with alertness and awareness of our surroundings, which is of paramount importance for safety, focusing on the now is about making the most of the present. Years ago when I was an instructor for the Dale Carnegie courses, I used to coach people on the value of making lemonade out of lemons, and yet somehow I seem to have missed my own lesson. For now I’ll concentrate less on how far we are going, and spend a little more time on reflecting about where we have come from. I’m told by more experienced cruisers that eventually I will pass a threshold of consciousness where time will be measured on a scale of weeks and months rather than days, hours and minutes….maybe that will be my next objective……..

Today we are sitting in Morehead City. The forecast is for something the locals call a Canadian Clipper to blow through here in the next 24 to 36 hours. Apparently it is a nasty dry cold front that originates in Canada and brings high winds and very low temperatures. The forecast low night is for 29 Fahrenheit which coupled with 30 knot winds should produce some interesting conditions. Pat and I are warm, dry and we have all the comforts of home including Oprah at 4:00PMso why should we be in a hurry. We’ll let you know where we end up next week, next week!

Have a great week, I know I will, even if I have to repair the head!
Addison

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Baltimore to Elizabeth City NC – In Dixieland we’ll make our stand!

2008-11-12T07:43:00.011-05:00

The world looks different from the waters edge. Local differences seem to be more acutely punctuated when traveling by water than if the same distances were covered by land. Pat and I only covered a linear distance of ~230 miles this week, but in the 4 days that we actually traveled out of the last 9 days, we passed through very different areas. Geographically the Chesapeake appears to be fairly similar from one end to the other, but culturally there are worlds apart from the northern to the southern end.

We had just left Annapolis about 2 hours earlier on our way to Solomons Island when the VHF channel 16 crackled to life with an exchange that began with “thanks for giving me so much room A**hole” The response was only partly intelligible and even less intelligent, but Pat and I could not believe what we had heard. Initially we dismissed it as mindless ramblings from two people who had spent too many hours dragging bait around in the water. Less than an hour later another similar exchange from a different pair of bait draggers was over heard. Clearly we had stepped into the twilight zone of boating, where the common courtesies seemed to be considerably less common, and Coast Guard and FCC prescribed radio protocols were out the window.

The exchanges on the radio were an unfortunate epilogue for our stay in Annapolis. While it is terribly unfair to paint the entire community with the experiences from only 3 days first impressions, however unfortunate, are lasting. So much so that it will likely be a long time before I feel the desire to visit again. Firstly the area is a little pricey, which in itself is not a reason to avoid the area. Other areas like New York City and Baltimore were equally expensive, and we are looking forward to our next visit in both places. In Annapolis however we genuinely felt like we were sources of revenue that they would never see again, so it was time too exploit whatever they could.

At the Annapolis Yacht Basin for example, the dockmaster asked us how long our boat was and then charged us an additional 2 feet because our dinghy was hanging from the stern on davits. When I noticed what he had done, he steadfastly refused to adjust his calculation, offering instead to get out a tape measure for a more precise measurement. My argument that his dock did not get any longer to accommodate the extra length did not seem to hold any sway. It was only when we extended our stay due to weather by an additional 2 days did he relent and charge us for the actual 42 feet of our boat. I could go on about other examples, but as I said earlier 3 days is not a trend, it is only a first impression. In the end however the $6.00 will not make either of us rich or poor but it will be a very cold day before he sees Threepenny Opera back in his slips.

Fortunately we met up with John M and wife Alex for dinner in Solomons Island which changed our mood considerably. We had a great evening out, and with a little local knowledge from John, we saw a very different perspective of Maryland. So now our position has changed from we will never be back, to we will never be back in Annapolis!. Thanks John, it was great to see you guys!!

The universe has a way of evening things out. As we moved further south and into the Intra Coastal Waterway there was a dramatic change in the attitudes of the people we met. From the lockmaster at Deep Creek who provided a history lesson as the locks filled, to the volunteers at the Dismal Swamp Visitors Center, everybody was genuinely interested in making us feel welcomed. Since we have entered the famous “ditch” we have encountered nothing but the famous southern hospitality.

The highlight of this hospitality is in Elizabeth City NC. It is the only major town on the Dismal Swamp Canal route through Virginia to the Abermarle Sound area of NC, so geographically it is a logical place to stop. In other words we were a captive audience, but despite the natural advantage given by location, we were welcomed by town volunteers who waved us in and helped us tie up to free docks in the middle of town. Each slip had been donated by local businesses for the purpose of attracting boaters to stop, re-supply and to visit.

One of the greeters was a well groomed gentleman whom I saw several times during the day. At about 4:30 he stopped by Threepenny Opera to ask if we had everything we needed and if there was anything he could do to make our visit more comfortable. We chatted for a while and during the conversation it turned out that our greeter was none other than the Mayor! To apply proper perspective the town has a population of nearly 20,000 residents and is home to the largest US Coast Guard training base in the country. Without a doubt we will be back if only to experience the welcome.

The pace of travel will change now that we are in the ICW. We are no longer going point to point, but rather we can adjust our daily travel to suit our mood. Since the waterway is largely protected for the next several hundred miles, we can stop almost at will and drop the anchor to spend the night. Our initial goal of the Florida Keys is tantalizingly close, a mere 1200 miles from where we are today. Hopefully we will find more gems like Elizabeth City along the way!

Have a great week. I know I will

Addison

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New York City to Baltimore - Doth spoke the raven...

2008-11-03T11:58:00.003-05:00

Years ago when Pat and I moved to Toronto we were appalled and intimidated by the price of local real-estate. Fixer uppers were selling for staggering amounts and anything “nice” was in the stratosphere. Shock, however severe, never lasts very long and we knew we were getting acclimated to the “big city” when we started using the terms “only” and “$300K” in the same sentence. On our current adventure we have had a déjà vu experience when it comes to marina space.

Sure I know that true cruisers are more likely to spend their time on the hook and eschew the requirements to hook up to shore power and water, but Pat and I did not set out on this trip to go camping on the water. The real cruisers can call us wimpy, but as November unfolds, we like to have hot water, central heat and wifi. While we are all about independence, neither of us have any real desire to be the poster child for self sufficiency, while scraping the icicles off of our noses. So the sign that we are overcoming sticker shock at the marinas is when we can say “its ONLY $3 per foot”.

And the $3.00 per foot seemed like a real bargain as we huddled in the salon of Threepenny Opera on Tuesday morning. Yet another cold front was coming through the New York area and this time, the forecasters were taking no chances. The gale warnings were upgraded to storm warnings and the wind gusts were predicted to exceed 40 knots. Portions of the city were without heat and light due to wind damage, and a mere 75 miles north, there was 20 inches of fresh snow on the ground. For Pat and me the predictions of dire gloom meant that we were making contingency plans to stay put for an entire week in New York.

By Wednesday however the worst of the weather had passed by, and while some residents of Queens were still without power, the weather forecasts had improved significantly. After the drubbing of the previous weekend we were understandably more than a little bit skeptical that we would actually get decent traveling conditions. The alternative to leaving however was even less desirable as staying put would mean increasing the odds that the next snowfall would not be 75 miles north. So with more than a little bit of fear and trepidation we made plans to leave our cozy, but expensive, berth in New York for the exposed weather beaten shores of New Jersey.

The coast of New Jersey from Sandy Hook, just outside of New York Harbor and as far as Cape May at the entrance to Delaware Bay, is essentially a 155 mile long sandbar. In the summer time, one can tell, from the numerous beach houses and amusement parks along the coast, that it is an extremely popular place to spend a few days roasting on the beach. In November however the roller coasters and ferris wheels are still, and the beaches are deserted. The only real signs of life, apart from the casinos of Atlantic City, are from the fishing boats that live here, and from the steady procession of pleasure boats heading south.

For a sailor this 155 mile sand bar, represents a gigantic lee shore, and it is very easy to imagine your own boat adding to the numerous wreck symbols that seem to dot the entrances to every inlet. Since the sand shifts with every Atlantic storm, the charts do not illustrate precise locations for the channel buoys. Instead of precise depths, there are notations that were likely written by lawyers, warning mariners of variable depths and channels that are constantly being redefined. In so many words the advice is go see for your self or ask somebody else who really cares. In uncertain environments like this, one discovers that sailing is like raising children. There is a ton of advice around on how to do it correctly, all of it conflicting, and potentially dire consequences if you get it wrong.

Pat and I agonized over the charts to try and solve the problem of sailing down 155 miles of coastline with limited and possibly unusable shelter due to lack of water. It appeared that we had two choices. We could bite the bullet and gird ourselves for an overnight sail, provided the weather held, or we could duck into spots like Manasquan Inlet or Barnegat Bay. If it weren’t so personal, the indecision and debate would have been comical, but since the dilemma concerned issues very close to home, the humour was lost. In the end the prospect of a freezing cold overnight passage in temperatures in the low 30’s seemed more onerous than becoming a table ornament on a sand bar, so we elected to tackle a stop at Barnegat Bay as way of breaking the trip into two daylight segments. If we did not have the unlimited towing option from Boat US, our decision might have been different.

The trip down the NJ shore and then back up Delaware Bay into the Chesapeake was marked by some of the nicest and calmest weather we have had in weeks. All of the angst was for not. Despite a few white knuckle moments when channel markers disappeared into the glare of the setting sun, and when the boat seemed to develop a mind of its own during docking in a tidal flow, the trip was pretty boring!! The highlight of the week was spending Halloween night with our friends Connie and Richard from the trawler Active Assets in a Cape May, NJ Karaoke Bar. By the fourth beer, the talent, many of them rough and gruff local fishermen, were starting to sound pretty good. It wasn’t fantasy week in Key West, but it must be experienced to be appreciated!

We are now in Baltimore, the home of Edgar Alan Poe. Our intent is to visit with friends in the area as we meander down the Chesapeake towards Norfolk VA. The temperatures are forecast to be fairly forgiving, even though the next few days will be overcast and potentially wet. By the weekend however we will be below the Mason Dixon line and officially in the South! For the now we will play tourist in Baltimore where the docks are only $2.00 a foot!

There are 3 major airports in the area so if the mood strikes to go sailing, we are only 90 minutes away. Have a great week, I know we will!

Addison
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Plymouth MA to New York City - The Big Apple - or how we avoided becoming Apple Sauce

2008-10-26T23:42:00.005-04:00

I have been accused of not knowing what I was doing once or twice in my life. I have been accused of not knowing where I was going a few times and I have even been accused of not knowing what was going on around me. At various times the accusations may have had a smidgen of verity, but for the most part I have managed to shrug everything off as the ramblings of lesser mortals. This past weekend however I had to openly admit that I had no idea where I was, That I had only a slight notion of what I was doing, and I could only pray that I was going to be forgiven my trespasses during the latest installment of the Mother Nature’s lessons on life. Indeed this week has been a week of contrasts. Just when there was enough bad stuff happening to encourage a prolonged session of thumb sucking curled up in a fetal position, great things would happen that would cause us to stand tall and go just a little further.

At the beginning of this week we were pinned in Plymouth MA waiting for a Nor’easter to blow itself out. The weather was as cold and as miserable as we have seen to date, and Pat and I were not motivated to leave the boat, except for a quick dash out to see the fabled rock. In fact even leaving the boat was somewhat hazardous as we were out at the end of the dock system and the wind driven waves were washing over. Threepenny Opera was caked in salt spray from the 30 knot winds that blew whitecaps through the very shallow Plymouth Harbor. It wasn’t a huge hardship, but our Espar heater ran nearly full time. We were warm and snug but frustrated that we were stuck.

While the old wives tales promised good weather immediately after a Nor’easter, there was no stipulation as to how long the period of good weather would last. Mother Nature must have been a lawyer! As we were preparing to leave Plymouth on Tueday AM, the revised forecast was for another cold front to sweep through, bringing heavy rain and high winds. Since we had already experienced a little taste of down east weather, we revised our plans to clear the canal and hang an immediate right into a place called Onset Bay. It is hard to imagine a town that closes at the end of the season, but Onset Bay made Summerside PEI seem positively effervescent by comparison.

It occurred to me the other day that Pat and I have been playing a game of cosmic Frogger. Like the little animated amphibian of video game fame, we have been metaphorically negotiating a watery highway that is fraught with hazards, while similarly packed with hidden prizes. In the game of Frogger, timing is everything. There is a rhythm to the game that once mastered will advance a player by several levels. A mistake however will leave a little stain on the road and the life count goes down by one. Since we had become pretty good at timing the cold fronts, Pat and I were waiting for the appropriate gap in traffic to make a run down the length of Long Island Sound for the prize of The Big Apple. It was a shame that we ended up bypassing great sailing destinations like Newport and Mystic Seaport. Actually we stopped in Mystic for the night, but since mother nature had given us a 2 day pass, we did not want to insult her kindness by dallying and playing tourist.

By Friday night we were in Norwalk CT and well within striking distance of NYC. Perhaps it was due to the tantalizing closeness of it all, perhaps it was the frost on the boat or maybe we were just fixated on a single point oblivious of the hazards around it? Like an ill timed frogger jump across the highway, Pat and I dismissed the Gale Warnings that were effective on Saturday PM for the New York and Western Long Island Sound forecast area. I can rationalize our actions by observing that up until now the forecasts had been very precise and that the forecast conditions of 15-20 knots with gusts to 25 after 12:00 noon were becoming fairly routine conditions for “experienced” cruisers like Pat and me! But rationalization is the lament of fools.

Since the forecast was for the weather to worsen in the afternoon, we cast off from Norwalk shortly after sunrise, expecting that a 3 hour trip to City Island in the Bronx would be fairly uneventful. And uneventful it was for the first 2.5 hours of our 3 hour tour! In fact I would go so far as to say that for 2.5 hours it was totally blissful! The seas were flat, the winds were as forecast in the mid teens and coming from our port quarter. We were slicing through the water at nearly 9 knots, absolutely convinced that we were both Master and Commander!

Little did we know that the first 2.5 hours were the climb up to the apex of the roller coaster. When things started to go down hill, they went down hill very quickly! First the wind increased to 20-25 with gusts to 30. Secondly it started to rain, virtually obliterating any forward vision. Then I discovered that despite the latest in electronics I found myself on the wrong side of a mark and of course the furler would pick this exact moment to get sticky and require a winch to bring in the head sail. At times like this you really want to press the reset button and start over, but unfortunately real life ain’t like that. In the end we did not go aground, we did get the sail put away and somehow I managed to put the boat into a slip despite a +20 knot cross wind and driving rain.

When the boat was secured into the slip, Pat and I thought we had been through the worst of it. Little did we know that when Mother Nature teaches a lesson in humility, she wants to make sure her points get across. As the day wore on, the local weather channels started to hint that the convergence of cold fronts in the NYC area was going to create an intense weather phenomenon. Translated it meant that the winds were going to exceed 40 knots, the local airports were going to suspend flight operations for a time, and that thunderstorms would bring flooding and power outages. For Pat and me it meant being banged around at the dock in a way that was positively scary. At the peak of the storm the wind was 47 knots, which was 7 knots more than we saw during Hurricane Kyle.

The boat was leaping and surging in the wind driven tide to the point that we needed to wedge ourselves against the table to remain sitting in an upright position. When I looked outside I could see the rudder of the neighboring boat as it surged out of the water. At about 7:10 in the evening, after we had been hanging on for dear life for the past couple hours, a blinding flash of light followed by what I thought was a carbon arc spotlight illuminated our boat. The source of the light it turned out was a 60Kva transformer melting before our eyes, and about 10 feet from our boat.

Suffice it to say that we are now duly humbled and will repeat 100 times that we will be more conservative in our weather decisions in future. Mother Nature you got your point across!!

The trip through Hell Gate and the East River on Sunday was almost anti-climatic, although it was hard to be nonchalant about sailing past Manhattan under gloriously clear skies and relatively calm waters. We are now in Lincoln Harbor Yacht Club, which is in Weehawken NJ, directly across from the Empire State Building. It is only a 15 minute ferry ride from Manhattan, and we can catch it from the pier just at the end of the Yacht Club. Today we were wandering outside in our shirt sleeves for the first time in weeks. We are in a world class city, and we have a world class view. It doesn’t get much better than this. Our plans are to hole up here for a few days, and let our mail catch up with us. Towards the end of the week we will be off towards the New Jersey Shore …. If Mother Nature thinks it is a good idea.

Have a great week. I will think of you when I chomp down on a Carnegie Deli Super Corned Beef Sandwich!!

Addison

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Addison

Rockland ME to Plymouth MA – We are heading due South…finally!

2008-10-19T13:00:00.006-04:00

I am a creature of habit. Since we have started cruising full time, it is a little weird to change gears and to develop a new set of habits that work with the current circumstances. I no longer check my Aeroplan statement daily, and the compulsion to pull my Blackberry out of its holster and spin the magic thumbwheel has finally subsided. In the past my morning would revolve rigidly around a cup of coffee and a few minutes of peace and quiet with my newspaper. I have to confess that in the past month, I do not recall actually reading a newspaper, at least not on the day it was published. While the coffee ritual remains sacrosanct, I have substituted the Business section of the Toronto Star with a daily pre-departure perusal of the weather pages.

Pat and I have become aficionados of weather sources. Instead of putting our ear to the VHF and listening to the drone in both official languages of the forecasts and current conditions from what feels like half the planet, we log on to a few choice web sites and make our “where do we go today decision. Some of our favorites sources are the US Navy Forecast center and of course the pages of NOAA. They both have an experimental marine weather section that provides graphical representations of wind strength and wave heights. We have come to appreciate that for the US Navy, dark blue or black represents the “good stuff, whereas lighter shades of blue and other warmer colours meant varying degrees of the “go back to bed” On the NOAA site the opposite is true so its really important not to mix the two up.

Normally I make the coffee in the morning, but this past Saturday I was feeling lazy so Pat, was up first. Her exclamation of “ohmygod its only 6 degrees” shook me wide awake. In the time that it took for me to get from our cabin to the salon, the temperature actually dipped to 5.9 degrees. Naturally I headed for my computer to check the forecasts and sure enough we were in the grips of a pretty solid cold front. In addition to the cold front, the US Navy site was getting decidedly lighter and NOAA was getting much darker. The long and the short of it was that Pat and I did not have to make a “where do you want to go today” decision, but rather a “where do you want to get stuck for a couple of days decision.”

Originally we had planned to stay in Salem for a couple of days expecting the town to live up to its guide book descriptions and provide us with some interesting excursions. While the town itself is quite charming, it has, like many tourist destinations over done its franchise to the point of tackiness. Without a doubt there are more fetish shops, disguised as occult stores, per square meter in Salem, than there are anywhere else in the world. For a kinky weekend of velvet pointy hats, fishnet stockings and dungeons, Salem is just what the doctor ordered.If however your expectation is more in line with the true history of the Scarlett Letter, a weekend in the equally tasteful Niagara Falls, ON should provide an equivalent level of disappointment.

To put matters into perspective, we felt that 2-4 foot seas building to 3-6 and higher were a preferable alternative to another night in Salem. The barometer was dropping and we have had to face the cruel irony that despite the onset of a genuine Nor’easter in October, Pat and I have slowed our pace from 50-60 mile days down to 35-40 mile days. Perhaps the change in pace was due to the adrenalin of saying awake for 40 hours wearing off, or perhaps it was due to the terminal hangover from the mixing of post crossing celebratory champagne, with several red wines and several types of local beers. Or more plausibly it was because the geography and tidal ranges of the Atlantic coast require navigators to enter or leave most ports at high tide, or at slack tide. Places like Newburyport on the Merrimack River for example have a 4-5 knot tidal flow that makes Dalhousie with the sluice gates open seem like child’s play. Whatever the reason however, the fact is we have slowed down this week.

Today we are in Plymouth MA, where we will stay until Tuesday. Since arriving here from Salem yesterday afternoon, after rolling through several hours of 3-6 footers, we have not left the boat. At least most of the trip was on a heading of 180, a due south course finally. The weather is miserably cold, and the NE wind is howling. During the night my instruments recorded a peak of 31 knots and the average wind is still in the mid 20’s. Hopefully we will get a chance to visit the famed “Rock” but a part of me is dreading the onslaught of Pilgrim t-shirts, Puritan hats and fake blunderbuss rifles. Perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised and the spirit of Miles Standish will in fact be preserved with some dignity, but I am not holding my breath. By next weekend, weather permitting, we will be in New York, so our goal of making the ICW by early November is still very much within reach.

Stay warm, and have a great week. I know I will….no matter what Mother Nature serves up.

Addison

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Halifax to Rockland Maine - Blue Water, Black Night

2008-10-13T13:27:00.011-04:00

It was about 6:30 on Saturday evening of the Thanksgiving weekend and I was lost in thought as I wedged myself against the dodger frame of Threepenny Opera. We had been underway since 7:05 that morning so it had already been a very long day and despite the serenity of the golden glow of the setting sun, which illuminated Seal Island, I was more than a little bit apprehensive about the night to come.

Seal Island Nova Scotia is a little bit of rock that is approximately 15 miles WNW of Cape Sable which is the southern extremity of Nova Scotia. It has very little to offer, other than to serve as a pedestal for the light house that serves as a warning beacon for the super tankers and other commercial shipping traffic that plies the Bay of Fundy. For Pat and me, the added significance of Seal Island was that it was the last bit of land we would see until about 9:00AM the next day.

We have both made significant advances as sailors, but the coming night was to be our first blue water over night passage. It was not just any overnight passage, it was an October crossing of the Bay of Fundy/Gulf of Maine during the time of the highest tides. No matter what the weather forecast, there would be a couple of periods of significant wind against 20 foot tides that we would have to deal with. Seal Island represented the last opportunity to save ourselves and change course for Yarmouth or even to return to Shelburne, which we had left earlier in the day.

When we arrived in Shelburne from Liverpool on Wednesday afternoon, we met up with several other cruising boats that were also headed in the same direction as Pat and me. We had met the crew of Active Assets (Richard and Connie), a beautiful DeFever 49 Trawler in Taddoussac more than a month earlier. There was also the crew of Valissa (Bob and Debbie -friends of Dave F) and a single hander on Adena (Milan...like the City) Since we all had a common objective of getting away from winter, we immediately bonded into a tight cohort. Like the pilgrims of Chaucer’s Cantebury tales, we were each unique in our own way, with our own stories to tell and reasons for doing it, but in the end, we found comfort in just having kindred spirits nearby.

The original plan was to leave on Friday AM, so Thursday gave us a whole day to re-provision and to finish a couple of small boat projects that I started during our week off in Halifax. Plan “A” was to leave very early on Friday AM to catch the tide for Yarmouth, and then to continue on to Grand Manan Island New Brunswick on Saturday AM and finally to Bar Harbor Maine on Sunday. Each leg would have been ~65 miles so taking the timing of the tides into consideration no more than 2-3 hours of any portion would be traveled in darkness.

By late Thursday afternoon, it was becoming obvious that the weather was not materializing as forecast. Well perhaps for a land lubber it would have been pretty close, but we sailors watch for winds and waves more than temperature and UV index. Give me an overcast day with a flat sea and a steady wind any day over the brilliant clear blue skies and gale force winds, accompanied by the confused 1-2 meter waves that are so common in South Western Nova Scotia this time of year! Debbie from Valissa was one of the most experienced sailors in our group and she kindly offered to re-check the forecasts when Environment Canada and NOAA reissued them at 3:30AM to confirm our weather window. If the weather was good enough to go, she would be the “she rooster” and wake us all up with rapping on the hulls. When I awoke at my usual 6:30AM the next day, all of the boats were still on their finger docks, and “Camp Shelburne” would not be struck for at least another 24 hours.

Friday turned out to be a beautiful sunny day but with winds that were gusting up to the mid 20’s within the well protected confines of Shelburne Harbour. There was a certain smugness amongst our little group that our finely honed “sailor instincts” had made the correct call. That same “sailor instinct” however was looking at Saturday as an “even better” weather window that should not be squandered on a mere coastal hop to Yarmouth. With 2 days of good weather in the forecast, winds NW 15-20, diminishing to NW-N 10-15 and seas in the 1 meter diminishing to 1 meter or less by Sunday, we were convinced that a Fundy/Gulf of Maine passage was a very real possibility.

It was a very interesting linear programming problem. We had the constraints of weather window, viable ports and distance, balanced against the resources of vessels, crews, winds, tides and fuel. In the end, through science, instinct and prayer we all reached the conclusion that Rockland Me, a town on the Maine Coast ~ 185 miles from our current docks, was the perfect next stopping point for the wannabe-soon sun worshippers of Camp Shelburne. The route was to leave Shelburne before high tide at 7:00AM on Saturday -Cape Sable-Seal Island NS-Seal Island ME-Rockland ME by mid-Sunday afternoon with the most challenging leg to be the crossing of the Gulf of Maine between the two Seal Islands during the night of Saturday to Sunday morning. The total travel time was estimated to be in the order of 30 hours at 6.5 knots.

The Sirens were singing the next AM as the brightening pre-dawn sky revealed flat water with just the slightest ripple of a breeze from a favourable direction. Their songs rose to a crescendo as we sailed out of the harbour beam reaching at 7 knots under full sail in brilliant sunshine and calm seas. When we turned the corner at Cape Sable however, the Sirens stopped singing and began giggling and pointing Gotcha! The winds did not clock to the NW direction and stayed more westerly, so the motor came on and we created our own NW apparent wind! – please see my definition for apparent wind in the Bienvenue a L’Acadie post. Adena decided wisely that as a single hander, 30 hours of open water would be a bit much and left our group to follow the original plan A towards Yarmouth.

As the day progressed the wind stubbornly refused to clock as forecast, but all of the other variables remained constant so we pressed on by motor sailing, and tacking back and forth across the rhumb line. Since route planning was done collectively and sailing was done individually, it was a relief and confidence booster to see that everybody else was also adopting a similar technique….but then misery loves company. So by 6:30 PM after a full day of close hauled motor sailing, my thoughts revolved around what I would do if something on boat broke in the dark, that the forecast would fall apart completely and that I would be sea sick!!

Pat is a miracle worker on the boat. In the fading light of day and bouncing around in 3-4 foot waves, she prepared a hot meal of beef and broccoli accompanied by steamed jasmine rice. The rest of the convoy were discussing various ways to do ship to ship transfers via VHF when Bob on Valissa suggested we just throw some over the side so dinner would drift back to them. Poor Valissa was having some engine overheating problems and the crew was nursing her along at 4.5 knots instead of our 6-7.

With the contented feeling that comes from a full belly and a nearly full moon, night fall seemed to be palatable even though I was fighting the incipient nausea that comes with a less than distinct horizon. The seas, although a little rougher than forecast were bearable and as long as I stayed at the helm I was fine, but in the back of my mind I was having the no win pee or puke debate.

The details of the next 12 hours could fill volumes, so rather than bore all with a wave by retching wave description; suffice it to say that the wind was higher than forecast, and from the wrong direction, the waves were higher than forecast, from all directions and that incipient sea sickness became a full blown (bad pun) case of heaves. What was good however is that we survived the night, snug in our heated enclosure, comforted by the steaming lights of our companions and the knowledge of that which does not actually kill us makes us stronger… so the theory goes.

In the end we took 33 hours to cover the distance from Shelburne to Rockland ME. We buried the bow into 6 foot waves in pitch darkness, ran a gauntlet of lobster traps and discovered that regurgitated beef and broccoli is not runny in the palm of your hand. We are now in a foreign country and have an official cruising license in hand, delivered to the boat personally through the courtesy of USCBP officer Stan S.

Today is Thanksgiving and Pat and I are doing just that as we have a lot to be thankful for. Tomorrow is another day, and our destination is not particularly clear. All we know is that we are proceeding in a southerly direction and that we will end up somewhere interesting.... after all we are now Blue water cruisers!

Have a great week
Addison

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Halifax - From Hurricane Hole to Shore Leave!!!

2008-10-03T22:18:00.011-04:00

The big weather event of the week was the passing of hurricane Kyle. At first it seemed that Nova Scotia might get a miss, but as hurricanes are totally unpredictable, Kyle took a last minute turn and slammed into Shelburne. We are told that the docks at the Shelburne Yacht Club sustained serious damage, but remain serviceable. Hopefully they will still be available to us when we pass through next week. In Halifax, at RNSYS, the event was reminiscent of riding out Hurricane Ernesto which passed over PCYC on the Labour Day weekend in 2006. Even though we were securely tied to a dock, Pat had to free the gimbal on the stove to cook dinner because during the height of the storm we were heeled about 15 degrees? In the end most boats were unscathed, although our boarding steps are now at the bottom of the bay, a victim of the wind.

We broke our rule about meeting people at a specific place on a specific date this week. I had promised my mom that we would meet in Saint John, NB on our way south, and since I left the planning up to her, she suggested the weekend of October 4/5 as the ideal time to meet. I had used the visit back to our old haunts as a carrot to ease her fears about us sailing off over the horizon, so I could hardly back out of the bargain now. Since taking Threepenny Opera to Saint John in time was not possible and also because the ports further along our route were not conducive to leaving a boat unattended for several days, we decided to bite the bullet and stay put in the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron. By staying put, and flying back to Saint John instead of sailing, we knew the first rate dock staff would look after the boat in our absence. In the end everything will work out, but when I get my Visa bill, the additional costs incurred will be a good reminder of why I had the rule in the first place.

So instead of Halifax being only a hurricane hole, it became a shore leave of 9 days. And yes as Gene J and probably Rhonda would attest to, sailors who have been at sea for several weeks can find themselves in all kinds of interesting predicaments, when they finally get a few days off duty! Since children might read these words, I cannot even begin to reveal the details, but if you ask Gene or Rhonda, I’m sure they could help you speculate! What I can tell you is that I rented a car and we were able to explore. Our conclusion is that Halifax and its environs are a great place to visit and we could easily have spent another week if the opportunity presented itself. All you have to do is look at the pictures of Peggy’s Cove and you will appreciate why we feel that we have only scratched the surface.

One of the highlights of our week was meeting Win H. in person, a man who has been very much a part of our cruising experience from the outset. One of the constants on our trip thus far is the group of volunteer ham radio operators that make up the Mississauga Maritime Net. Every morning between 8:30 and 9 AM EDT, the net of amateur radio operators from Lake Ontario to Jamaica, call for and record the position of any vessel that cares to check in. They also provide message relaying if needed, as well as providing any other type of information that might be required. When Win heard we would be in Halifax for a few days, he made a point of coming down to make sure we had everything we needed.

It is not uncommon on the route that Pat and I have followed to date, to be in places were there is no cell coverage, so the call to Win (VE1WIN) and gang was the only contact we had with other people. It’s a great and valuable service and we are grateful for their dedication. For anybody contemplating more remote cruising, I would highly recommend the effort to obtain an amateur radio license and to install an HF radio on their boat.

As luck would have it, our alternator started making very funny rattling noises on our last leg into Halifax. Since stopping short of Halifax was not really an option, we pressed forward, weird rattling noises and all. The culprit was the nut that held the alternator to the engine block had vibrated loose, so the alternator began to vibrate. The vibration had elongated the mounting holes in the foot of the alternator, making them oval instead of round. As the vibration continued the size of the holes grew, the more play there was, and the louder the rattling became. It was a vicious cycle. Lady luck was with us once again, because if one is to break a major part like an alternator, (even though I had a spare)it is better to do it in a civilized place like Halifax, than in some fishing out port in the middle of nowhere. The fine folks at Rob’s machine shop in Dartmouth fixed things up exactly to spec, so now the mounting foot on the alternator is as good as new. Trust me, checking the tightness of the alternator will be added to my morning pre-start checklist.

Next week we are off to Lunenberg and Shelburne and points South. With fair winds we should be in the US by the time we post our next update. The weather windows are getting shorter but the urgency to get away from the cold is increasing, so it will be a tight rope walk between expediency and comfort.

Have a great week, and for those who are going on the PCYC Thanksgiving weekend cruise, have a piece of turkey for us.

Addison

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Shediac to Halifax - The Ocean at Last!!!

2008-09-27T11:49:00.002-04:00

We had just finished reefing the headsail in a 26 knot wind the other day, when Pat turned to me and said “we’re getting pretty good at this”. That simple statement from a lady whom you all know as being gentle and modest, really encapsulated our personal growth thus far. The cruising books, seminars, and magazines provide knowledge, but in the end the only thing that really counts is getting started and doing something…. anything! The confidence comes from the figuring out process, not just from the end result.

We were crossing the Northumberland Strait from Charlottetown to Ballantynes Cove N.S., not a particularly interesting trip because it was a 65 mile run which was too far offshore to really see anything, but far enough offshore to get the winds and waves of the southern reaches of the Gulf Magdalene. In the past, a trip of 65 miles would have been a major endeavour requiring days, if not weeks of preparations. Moreover the strong winds advisory which forecast winds of 20-25 knots with gusts to 30 would certainly have kept us tied to the dock. Yet here we were, surrounded by water, motor sailing on a run with a full 155 headsail. The furling of the head sail down to a more manageable size was a non-event. The true accomplishment was getting to the point where it was a non-event.

When we turned the corner into the ocean at Canso NS we went from reaching and running to hard core beating. To make matters a little worse, there are not very many viable ports on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia, so we had to stretch our legs somewhat and make longer trips than we would normally have chosen to take. The water is a different colour here, and most interestingly it sounds different. In Lake Ontario, you can judge your boat speed, by the gurgling of the water against the hull. In the ocean, the water does not gurgle, it hisses and foams. Previously sea foam green was the colour of a paint chip, but this week, I know that it is actually the colour of the wake of a sailboat in the ocean. The paint designers must be sailors!

We had left Canso early to make the hop to Liscombe about 70 miles away. Since this was our third day out from the relatively civilized confines of Charlottetown, I was in desperate need of a shower. The fishing ports we had been using were not exactly marina grade and so it came to pass that I got up the nerve to take my first shower at sea.

The sails were set for a close haul in about 15 knots and the motor was also running in order to make decent speed over the bottom. With all sources of power, we were only making about 6.5 knots against the current. Everything seemed stable, so the itchiness of my scalp, urged me to take the plunge so to speak and head for the shower. As you may recall, Threepenny Opera had a very nice shower compartment in the very bow of the boat. You may also recall that I am blind as a bat without my glasses on, so once I got into the shower, I was pretty much doing everything by touch….to bad I was alone.

When wet gel coat, is covered with shampoo, it produces a totally frictionless surface, so I suddenly found myself bouncing around in the forepeak, stark naked, soaking wet and desperately trying to find some position stable enough to both enjoy the relief from the stinging hot water and to scrape off 3 days worth of sea grime from my person. It seemed pretty easy when I got in, but once my glasses came off and the water went on, I became an oyster sloshing around in the shell.

After I finally dried off and got dressed. I went back into the cockpit and found Pat straddling the winch and grinding in a few last turns. The incline-o-meter showed we were at 25 degrees of heel, and in the few minutes that elapsed during my shower the wind had veered forward even more and increased to 20 knots. What a difference a little experience makes! In the past, the mainsheet would have been out of its clutch and the screams of reef, reef, reef would have been rising! Instead here was Pat trying to eke out the last possible bit of drive from the shifting winds so we could keep our plans intact.

My theory is that the 1500 miles we have covered thus far have been just the ticket to building our skills and confidence gradually. Many people were surprised to hear that we were planning to descend the St. Lawrence and go around the Atlantic Coast instead of the usual snowbird route of the Erie Canal to New York City. I could tell by some of the polite murmurs that many people thought we were either swashbucklers or crazy to follow such an ambitious route. I am almost certain that if we had used the canal route, our first ocean experiences would have been much ruder and certainly less comfortable

We are in Halifax this weekend after covering over 75 miles of windward beating yesterday. It is our intention to hide from Hurricane Kyle by taking the weekend off and maybe even seeing a movie! Hope you guys have a great week, I know we will.

Addison

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Rivieres Madeline to Shediac - Bienvenue a L'Acadie

2008-09-22T20:01:00.006-04:00

When we left Toronto we had visions of tropical beaches and palm trees in our heads. The visions are still there, but there are days when they seem more like the mythical pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, then a realistic objective. I know the beaches are still there, and the palm trees are still swaying, but for now we have to contend with 30 knot winds and temperatures that are more conducive to thermal underwear than bathing suits. The simple fact is that cruising is hard work.

The theme for last week was into the wild. This week we went from wild to savage. The remoteness of the Lower St. Lawrence gave way to the undeveloped reaches of the Acadian Coast of New Brunswick. When we were in Quebec, we followed the “Corridor Bleu” which is a Quebec Tourism sponsored network of member marinas. Although the facilities are primitive at times, they still create a trail of safe harbours for the cruising community. A voyager could at least count on a reasonably secure dock, and some type of electrical connection…very important at night when temperatures drop into the single digits.

As Pat and I headed out from L’Anse a Beau Fils, our last port of call in Quebec into a building SW wind, I had the unsettling realization that we really had no idea what was on the other side. Sure we had the place names, and the charts, but there was very little information describing what was in store. The quality and depth of information contained in the Ports Guide in Ontario and the Guide Nautique in Quebec was replaced by a few photocopied pages from a fellow sailor’s notebook. Perhaps it was better than nothing, but incomplete information sometimes is more stressful to deal with than no information at all. At least when you have nothing, you either accept the void as a fact and move forward, or you stay home. When you have partial information, you start to fill in the gaps in the information with visions of sea monsters!

Certainly the quality of the ride on the voyage across the Bay of Chaleur, did nothing to dispel the uneasiness of heading off into the unknown. When you are standing at the helm for extended periods of time, you have lots of time to think. My ah ha of the week relates to the difference between true wind and apparent wind….please note that you will not find this in a textbook on sailing theory.

True wind, is the wind that God, or whatever supreme being you subscribe to, gave you for a smooth and comfortable voyage. Apparent wind, is what you get when you don’t listen to God, and end up with a crashing, banging, stomach churning roller coaster that lasts for 9 hours. The lesson is made even more poignant when we suddenly realize that for the first time since we left home on August 12 that we were finally heading in a southerly direction. Only 2500 more miles and we will be in Key West!!!! As the lurching belly slapping square waves, splashed over the dodger there are a few additional moments that revolved around the theme of “what the hell were we thinking???”

In New Brunswick the boating facilities are designed for shallow draft fishing vessels. In the harbours we visited, a low tide water level of 5 feet was considered to be pretty good. In Shippagan Gully for example, the fuel dock is only accessible at high tide. If one needs fuel you need to wait until the tide comes in, or you do without the fuel. After my experience at st-Anne-des-Monts, I waited. The good news is that when you finally get to the fuel dock, you are paying fisherman’s prices from the local Co-op, which means something around $1.00/L.

The lack of facilities however creates a closeness amongst the people that live here that is both astonishing and heartwarming to an outsider. There is a sense of community and looking out for one another that simply does not exist in larger more ”civilized” centers. We had total strangers drive us around like family, and in Shediac, we were brought into the local yachting community as if we were long lost relatives. In the space of 30 minutes while doing our laundry, Pat and I were welcomed into a circle of friends that turned a trip to the laundry room into a very late evening by the fire.

Thanks to Diane, Daniel, Richard, Marco, Sylvie, Odette, Alan, Elizabeth….. and the names that I can’t remember but who’s warmth I will never forget. The clams at Goulds were wonderful and yes we are looking forward to returning for an Acadian Poutine in the future. Next time we’ll call ahead! We are off to PEI and Nova Scotia, next week and hopefully we will be able to stay ahead of the frost. Have a great week.

Addison
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Cap a L'Aigle to Rivieres Madeleine - Into the Wild!

2008-09-13T19:10:00.005-04:00

So today is the 12th of September which marks our first month away from home. Very gradually Pat and I are making the transition from recreational pleasure boaters to liveaboard cruisers. The transition in many respects has been subtle, but on other dimensions there is clearly a synergy that can only be attributed to new routines, somewhat harsher conditions and a lack of the resources that we tend to take for granted in the pleasure boating realm.

We have all seen the cartoons of the sign that says “last gas for 200 miles” with a pair of hungry vultures perched on top. This week, we figuratively passed such a sign, only to find that the last gas station was actually closed. The result was we squeaked into the tiny, but charming village of Ste-Anne-des-Monts, with only fumes remaining in the tank.

Since all is well that ends well, we fully expected to refuel and were frankly a little puzzled by the cryptic message from the harbour master that we were to enter the harbour and tie up to a quay that was not exactly a fuel dock, but we would know what he meant when we saw it?? What we saw was JP Letourneau, the assistant harbour master waving his arms from a long quay that was to port. We were to turn around and tie up on starboard. The not exactly a fuel dock part referred to the multiple trips up and down the quay to a 45 gallon drum of diesel, from which jerry jugs were filled and hauled back to the boat by hand.

The first trip was pretty easy, but by the 4th trip carrying a 20liter jug in each hand, I was not moving nearly as fast as the old man who was watching me work from the side of the main wharf. It is truly an acquired taste to fill a 42 foot boat with diesel, by carrying 20 liter jugs 2 at a time. Now that the boat is full, I have not missed an opportunity to keep the tank filled, even if it means hauling the dreaded 20 liter jugs, because 1 or 2 trips is much better than the experience of the other day. My back will never be the same, but then neither will be my perspective on what it means to be prepared.

We are getting a taste of the rougher conditions of the lower St. Lawrence and the Saguenay River fjord. The pictures will tell one story, but for the past week, the only English conversation I’ve had has been with Pat. Even with the linguistic challenges aside, it is pretty clear that we have stepped into another world. Fuel, going out to dinner, decent docks and power are pretty much hit and miss. The compensation however is the privilege of experiencing some of the most beautiful settings in this country, from a front row seat. A week ago we were wandering around Quebec City in shorts and t-shirts taking in the sights as tourist. This week, we are in multiple layers of technical underwear and polar fleece, tied to an anchor ball that is in front of a 1500 foot cliff and relying on Threepenny Opera as our personal biosphere.

Threepenny Opera has proven to be a truly cruise worthy vessel that is ready to accept all challenges she has met so far. The long hours invested by yours truly crawling through the bilges and getting fibre glass rash from reaching into tiny spaces along the hull to install heat, ventilation and electronics has paid its dividends. We are truly comfortable, even if we have to make a few compromises now and again.

Not all has been perfect however; as she has a few battle scars to show for her first week in the wild. In the end however there was nothing too serious, and nothing that will do anything more than to keep her crew a little sharper and a little more cautious before settling in for the night. Who knew that the wave action from tidal surges would work all of our fenders up and cause gel-coat to rub against a wooden wharf. Or that tying a dinghy up on davits requires horizontal as well as vertical support. And of course bits and pieces for the boat, like oil filters and even plain old motor oil are just not as readily available as they are when Mason’s and Bristol are just down the street.

The Gulf of St. Lawrence awaits as tomorrow we prepare to round the eastern extremity of the Gaspe Peninsula and head south towards the famous Perce rock. Yes Tom we will crack the champagne that you gave us as we round the fabled cape. This week it is Gaspe, tomorrow maybe the Horn??

Best to all. Please write and let us know what you want to know.

Addison
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Trial by Fire - Trois Rivieres to Cap a L'Aigle

2008-09-05T07:21:00.006-04:00

Brown water sailing, in a river estuary, is an acquired taste! As we rounded the mark at Cap Tormente, coming out of the North Channel at Isle D'Orleans, we got our first taste of sailing in salt water. At first it seemed easy enough, the water was flat and the wind, although on the nose, was pretty light. About 10 miles up there is a small island call Isle aux Coudres, that one must go around in order to continue up the north channel. At the entrance to Isle aux Coudres there are these squiggly lines on the chart, that sort of look like the stylized waves one would expect on a paper placemat at a cheap roadside seafood restaurant.

Not realizing what they meant, we pressed on, not that we really had a choice because there are no tenanble ports of call or anchorages between Quebec City and Isle aux Coudres, and even then Isle aux Coudres is only to be used in emergencies. Well it turns out that the lines meant tidal rips, which of course do not exist in Lake Ontario. What is a tidal rip you ask?? It is where the sea bottom and the land features conspire to create a very fast current that can catch a large ship and push it around like a dinky toy. Seasoned mariners on the big ships know to either avoid these squiggly lines or approach them with great caution.

As it tuened out in our case we approached the current at full ebb, which is when the current was at its strongest flowing out to sea. Initially it was a quick ride, but at a place called Cap l'Abbatis the wind picked up considerably. Those of you who speak a French will realize that Cap L'Abbatis translates literrally as Cape Beaten Up. When I saw it on the chart, I thought that this was just one of the many colourful place names on the chart. Little did I know that in this case there was real reason for the name.

The St. Lawrence is oriented in a SW to NE direction, so when the tide is going out in the estuary, there are billions of gallons of water flowing at 3-6 knots in a NE direction. On the day we came through the wind piped up from 3-5 knots to over 20 knots out of the NE at, you guessed it, Cap L'Abbatis. We have all heard of standing waves, but you haven't lived until you have found your self in a situation where wind against tide creates 4-5 foot waves that look like the peaks in a bowl of whipped cream. It is impossible to steer with them or around them because they appear out of nowhere and disappear as quickly. Poor Threepenny Opera was like the proverbial Coyote running out over the cliff, when he suddenly realized there was no longer any support. We have been in situations where the boat slapped on the bow, but on this auspicious occasion we had most of the hull slapping into the water as the waves receded out from underneath the boat. We were like a giant wakeboard.

In the end we had about 90 minutes of this action and while it was uncomfortable, it was a huge confidence raiser, because now we know that ship and crew can hold together under some pretty uncomfortable conditions. Jest let me say that words like tidal rip, katabatic winds, and standing waves, are just glossary terms when you read them in the pages of Blue Water Sailing or Cruising World. They are a little different and much more acutely defined in the real world.

Fortunately for us the earlier part of our week was pretty easy. In the previous post, you know that we had spent 4 days in Pat's hometown of Trois Rivieres. Its a great town for boaters that has nice facilities both in the form of the municipal marina and in the many local anchorages in the river. I took advantage of the downtime in Trois Rivieres to get caught up on some boat chores and I now have a copper ground plane on the bottom of TPO. A nasty hot and dirty job to be sure, but worthwhile if we are to ever get our SSB to work properly.

On the trip from Trois Rivieres to Quebec City we got our first taste of working with the tides. All of the sailing directions specify a time to depart a location based on boat speed and the time of either the high or low tide at your destination. In the case of Trois Rivieres to Quebec City, a distance of 67 miles, we had to leave at 6.5 hours before the low tide at Quebec. By catching the tides right, we had a beautifully smooth sunny ride (no wind however) and covered the entire 67 miles in about 6 hours.

Quebec City was a tourist treat for Pat and me. After the weekend of family, and having people around all the time, it was good to catch a little downtime and see a few sights. This year is the 400th anniversay of the founding of Quebec City so the town was at its very best. What was so striking about the festivities was that everybody we met, from young to old were universally positive about their town and the arrangements that had been made to support the celebrations. A must see is the incredible Moulin a Images, in which the grain elevators in the old port are transformed into a HUGE 600 meter long multi-media show depicting the history of the city in animation, still images and 3D stereophonic sound....all for free!!!!

The Yacht Club de Quebec, QYC is one of the oldest in Canada. The current location is about 3kms upstream of the old city which means it is close enough to everything, yet far enough away from the hustle and bustle. If you know the geography of Quebec City, you will find the QYC at the base of the extreme Western end of the Plains of Abraham. For Pat and me our welcoming committee consisted of Pierre, Claude and Charles, who were our slip mates on the Hunter 37.5 Impulsive. We didn't know it at the time, but our welcoming committee were all past and present flag officers of the club. Charles, as the current VC house, (Commodores Immoblieres)immediately offered to drive Pat and me into town, and in the process gave us a mini tour of places we needed to go and see.

Thanks guys for the hospitality, it won't be forgotten!!

We are off this morning for Tadoussac so hopefully we'll catch some whales on the way. I'm sure there are some more interesting things about cruising that we'll learn today and in the days to come. Right now we have to deal with the 9C water temps and the small craft warnings about wind on the nose. I guess we will find out what the warnings about arriving at the mouth of the Saguenay River at precisely the correct time are all about.

Until next time

Addison
"click on the pictures for the captions"

Three of everything!

2008-09-04T22:33:00.009-04:00

The visit to Trois Rivieres was a major milestone for Pat. It was a home coming like no other and it was celebrated in Threes! How is it that the number three seems to figure so many times in a single visit?? First of all there are three rivers, (actually there are only two, but three islands split one of the rivers in two, so there are three rivers in the end) hence the name, but who could guess that the triple phenomenon would extend to other things as well.

For example we had three Karine's at the same party. So confusing that we went to numbering them karine 1,2 and 3, or rather Karine Une, Deux, Trois. There were three brothers and sisters in the Oscarson clan, Mark, Ann and of course Pat. And finally there were at least three distinct family trees present at our party at the Three Rivers Marina. Jason, who is Pat's nephew is expecting his first child with significant other Karine 1, or is that 2...3? anyway the couple seems very happy and throughly committed to each other and the idea of becoming parents.

So we had a BBQ that was attended by all of the family and the extended family members, many of whom were meeting each other for the first time. In the end it was Pat and me, Lise, Christian with girlfriend karine and sister Karine, and Mark and daughter Stephanie, with new beau Raymond and daughter Karine, and Ann with sons Jason and Karl. Like all events in the Oscarson clan, there was plenty of food and drink, and despite a little thunderstorm, we still manged to stay dry and feed everybody without missing a beat.

The pictures say it all.

Addison

Click on the picture and run the slide show for bigger pics

The Voyage Really Begins Now!

2008-08-29T10:04:00.005-04:00

What I am really starting to appreciate about this cruising lifestyle is that there are no two days that are the same, and that rules are more like guidelines. Since I have the attention span of a gold fish, and have always been accused of colouring outside of the lines, I think that cruising is becoming a pretty natural fit, right down to having to adapt to locking through St. Lambert at night and then beating our way upstream through 5 knots of current to discover the very well hidden entrance to Yacht Club de Montreal. You haven't lived until you hit an eddy that swings your boat through 90 degrees in the dark!!!

I had my last offical duty as an employee this week, when I returned my company issued computers to the Montreal Office. Now I am officially free, and to that end we have been slowly coming to the realization that we can pretty pick and choose what we want to do and when. The only person we can't disagree with, at least not without suffering some consequences is "mother nature"

I've been the Montreal many times, both as a student and as a work slave, but never as a tourist. The city is very different when you are wandering around in old Montreal looking for a place to have lunch or to take a glass of wine. Maybe it was our mood, but Pat and I found the city to be much more mellow than we have experienced in past trips.

We met up with our son Richard, his girfriend Michelle and Pat's cousin Ellen. It was Michelle's first day of a new job and it was the day of my last official duty, so a celebration was in order. Even better, Richard picked up the tab! If I had known that my son was going to foot the bill, I would have picked a better restaurant. Still there were important milestones to celebrate and I couldn't have imagined a better group to celebrate them with!

After a taste of city life, we left Montreal for the St. Pierre Archipelago which is a collection islands in the St. Lawrence just east of Sorel. Even though we wern't very far from Sorel ~6 NM, it may as well have been on another planet. We had the anchorages to ourselves and yes yours truly actually went in for a swim. Everything is better on a boat!! Nudge nudge wink wink, eh!!

For those of you who laughed at me for buying a hand held depth sounder, I can tell you that it is an essential piece of cruising gear. Pat and I used it in the dinghy to plot out places where we could fit Threepenny Opera and places where we could not. Ince the charts do not provide the kind of detail we would like, gunkholing with a dinghy and depth sounder helps avoid getting stuck in the mud. BTW the Rocna anchor is an absolute marvel. It is easy to set and relatively easy to set. when combined with an electric windlass, it is easy to become a pin point anchoring specialist. I drive, Pat hits the switches and we stay put exactly where we want to be!

We took advantage of the pin point anchoring capabilities again this week when we arrived in Trois Rivieres. We had reservations in the the local marina, but at $1.50 a foot, things can add up pretty quickly. I am still stinging over the nearly $300 bill in Montreal, so we were somewhat motivated to find an alternate place to spend at least part of our visit to Trois Rivieres. It is not shown on the chart as an anchorage but the west branch of the St. Maurice River, just south of the Duplessis bridge is an excellent place to drop the hook. Turn left at the first red bouy downstream from the Coast Guard station. Watch your depth sounder and favour the west side of the channel staying 200 feet offshore. You should see at least 15 feet of water, at the current chart datum of +.8 meteres.

It was even better when we discovered Serge M, who's home was a former pump house for one of the local paper mills. It turns out that Serge is also a sailor and keeps a Beneteau 40.5 down in Lake Champlain and a power boat in a slip at his front door. Serge kindly offered us the use of his dock to tie up our dinghy so we had a landing place to pick up Pat's brother Mark who visited us onboard last night. Thanks Serge for the hospitality.

I guess we will end up in the marina eventually, because some of Pat's family would be pretty challenged to ride across in the dinghy, but since we have to fuel up and pump out, a day or two in the Marina won't hurt. I'm sure we are going to have a pretty busy Labour day weekend of visiting, entertaining, provisioning and boat chores so heading out to Quebec City next week will be a good time to rest. We sail with the tide!

Addison
Brockville - Trois Rivieres PQ... click on the picture for more pics

Just call us Lock Smiths!

2008-08-29T09:04:00.006-04:00

So this week we sailed off the face of the known earth! Perhaps our travels have not been on the same scale as those of Christopher Columbus or Ferdinand Magellan, they have been truly voyages of personal discovery.

We had received so many warnings about the locks that we were both pretty apprehensive about the upcoming experience. All of the guide books tell us that we chould obtain the Canadian Government Publication - The St. Lawrence Seaway Pleasure Craft Guide. In it there are comprehensive descriptions of light signals, instructional signage, fees and tying up procedures. Since the price of the book is free, I guess we can't really complain too much, but much of the information in the book is either incomplete or wrong!!

Here's the stuff that is correct:

The light signals - seem to be used most of the time. Red for stop, Green for Go, flashing yellow to give a count down time to lock being ready.

The bridge signals - most accurate of the signals

Commercial traffice comes first. If you hit the seaway on a busy day, your turn is when all of the commercial ships have transited, even if a commercial vessel arrives at seemingly the last minute. Pleasure craft are tolerated, but they would not miss us if we decided not to show up.

The location of the pleasure boat docks, and the direction of tying up at the pleasure boat docks. The challenge is to remember that you as the skipper understand more about how your boat handles at low low speeds and in tight quarters so dock accordingly, and not just because the book says use a starboard tie.

Do check in by telephone using the call box on the dock, if you land at the pleasure craft dock, otherwise follow the leader.

The order for entry in the lock is power boats first, sailboats second, with the largest of each type going first. In the US locks, rafting is only done when the positions on the side of the locks are filled. In the Canadian locks, everybody rafts.. power to power, sail to sail with the largest of each along the wall.

The tie within the lock is specified in the booklet. Most are starboard, but Beauharnois locks are Port.

Here's the stuff that is wrong or incomplete:

The fees are $25 per lock for Canada and $30 per lock for the US. In local currency of course.

The ticket dispensers are more trouble than they are worth. Just have cash ready to hand to the lockmaster in each lock. exact change is helpful, otherwise you have to cling to the wall while they are making change....slowly.

The sign boards that are supposed to give "clear instructions" in both official languages, are about 24x36 inches and the words scroll from right to left. They are not visible from the water so you must dock to see them, and they contain a minimal amount of useful information....in both official languages. Do not expect signs like the airport signs in the Western Gap, the Compass highway signs or the Jumbotron. Think more like the signs that show the weekly 649 prize at the local lottery kiosk. As for the information, they basically tell you to stay with your boat and wait for the lock master to yell at you through loudspeakers. The sound is about as clear as the station announcmemnts on the subway!

Contact the US locks on channel 12 VHF and announce your arrival time at the lock. The US will actually answer your radio call and give you some decent instruction on your locking through times and procedures. Call sign is "Seaway Eisenhower", no matter which direction you are going in. Canada provides illuminated sign boards in both official languages and do not seem to have radios.

In the US locks, have two lines long enough to run from midship to either the bow or stern and back to midship. Lighter lines are easier to handle than heavy and you won't need to tie tightly. The lines are more for steadying the boat than anything else. Canada provides lines of triple strand polyester to the inside boat of the raft. everybody else uses their own lines.

At the end of the day, locking through is a bit of a non event. Once you've done one lock, the rest are pretty much the same. Just don't expect to be marshalled with any degree of precision and you'll be fine. There are obviously some procedures that have been developed to handle pleasure boats, but they should be considered as guidelines and not as the abosolute law. Just use common sense and the locks will not be a problem.
Panama here we come!!!!

Locks - click on the image for more pictures

A Tale of Two Cities

2008-08-21T08:39:00.005-04:00

It never ceases to amaze me how far we have advanced the art of staying in touch. Or is art the proper noun to apply, to what surely to some must seem something like black magic? I mean here I am sitting in my cockpit, snugly tied to the guest wharf at the Crescent Yacht Club in Chaumont Bay, NY, typing a post for the blog. The scene couldn’t be more idyllic, there is a full moon rising over the bay, a couple of candles are burning in their lantern fixtures, soft country music playing on the stereo and Pat is busy below making a cup of tea to help us digest a wonderful meal. As I wait, I haul out the IBM and start to reflect on the events of the weekend.

Blogging I’m finding is very therapeutic, it is a sort of free association of ideas, emotions and perceptions that are a product of the moment, it’s no wonder they use the technique for treating certain types of mental illness. Sometime they are wine mellowed ramblings, and at other times they are poignant insights into current events of the here and now. Whatever they are, the fact that I can sit here in complete comfort, only an off button away from being totally isolated, and share my thoughts with whomever is within a TCP/IP throw, is truly a miracle.

So Pat and I have survived our first week out as fulltime cruisers! Last Tuesday, 8/12, we just had to get off the dock and head out, otherwise, the load of impending boat projects would have held us back for a day…maybe two,,, maybe more…We have had the usual bits of Lake Ontario cruising, you know lots of motoring, and farther a field, but familiar ports like Cobourg, Rochester, Oswego etc. But after Oswego, we started into some newer territory, which I guess was part of the purpose of going cruising in the first place!

This past weekend has been one of extremes in terms of the places we have visited. It was our first time to Sackets Harbor and to Chaumont Bay. For the sailor these two locations are the antithesis of each other. Sort of like the difference between a power boat and a sailboat,. Sackets is flashy, in your face and all about style, in a contrived Disneyesque sort of way. It does have a certain esthetic that some will find appealing but the charms are not for the faint of wallet. Chaumont, only a stones throw away is simpler, but no less elegant and exudes the kind of warmth that begs for a second date.

Chaumont Bay has to one of the best kept secrets on Lake Ontario. It is an easy day sail from Oswego, Wapoos or Kingston. It combines the best of Adolphus Reach with the interesting features of Georgian Bay. The wind is steady in the mid teens and the water according to the locals in almost always flat by virtue of the excellent protection from all point of the compass. For a real treat you should plan to visit Crescent Yacht Club at the tip of the bay. The club is one of the oldest in the US and is operated by a highly motivated membership. The fact that were mgreeted on the dock by Peter H, and Tom, B the Commodore and Vice Commodore respectively, just capped off the experience. If you want some quiet downtime to sail, race, or just drop the hook in a quiet cove, Chaumont is definitely a must do.

Monday was as close to blue water sailing as you can get, without getting salty. There was a small craft wind warning out when we departed CYC, but we figured that a mere 20-25 knots of wind would be child’s play for Threepenny Opera. What a play it was! As we rounded the Point Peninsula mark, we fell off onto a broad reach with a reef in the main and several rolls taken up on the genny. The result was a screaming sleigh ride of 8-9 knots as we headed up towards Cape Vincent. Apart from the corkscrew effect of sliding off the building 4-6 foot waves, the sailing was the stuff they write books about. One sad note, I have a 44lb Bruce clone anchor, that is sitting in ~400 of water, but it'll take single malt to tell the story. At least the Yellow Perch at the Thousand Islands Inn in Clayton made it worthwhile.

Tuesday was about playing tourist, as you can see from the pictures of Boldt Castle. It’s worth the trip to see how much a mere $2.5 million could buy in 1900….and this was just his summer house!

For all of us who are used to sailing in Lake Ontario, we are spoiled by the wonderful information provided to us by the good folks from the “Ports” book. I know about all the disclaimers, but there are two kinds of sailors, those who admit to using the pictures in the Ports book to navigate into harbours, despite the warnings, and those who won’t admit to doing it, but do it anyway. I am posting this from Brockville Yacht Club, just prior to our departure for our first set of St. Lawrence Seaway locks at Iroquois Falls. The locks don’t scare me nearly as much as the fact that we are running out of Ports book pages. By this time tomorrow, we are going to be in completely uncharted waters so to speak, so I am expecting the next week to be veeery interesting!!

Wish us luck!

Addison

Click on Pat for more pics

Week 1 PCYC-Brockville

So thanks for the memories!

2008-08-15T09:40:00.001-04:00

So here I am, in my new position, standing at the helm of Threepenny Opera. Today like all of the days before and likely all of the days after I will be the master of my own destiny. The main difference will be the types of constraints that I will need to deal with as I shape the future in a way that makes sense!

I've been asked many times over the past days why I am doing this now? Believe me when I say this, but there a days I wonder the same thing. I worked for the largest software company in the world (The pic should give you a clue as to which one) I had a global responsibility, I am at the top of my game, I enjoy the respect of my peers, and I made more money in a month than I made in previous years, when my wife and I were raising 2 kids. So why then am I chucking this fabulous opportunity that so many people would give part of the family jewels to get?

It all comes down to making a life, instead of just making a living. The actor James Dean, spoke about living hard, dying young and leaving a good looking corpse. Perhaps there is some merit to his sentiments, when we look at our own lives. True he was a bit of a rebel, he definitely lived hard, and while his corpse may have been good looking, I am not at all convinced he was ready to die young. He too was at the top of his game, and now 50 years after his untimely departure from the planet his legend lives on.

Personally, I have always felt that the time to quit is when things are going well. I have no desire to become a walking example of the Peter Principle. My accomplishements, meagre in some eyes and substantial in the eyes of others, are what they are. I feel good about them, and over time, they will age to even greater proportions in my mind, much like a vintage Cabernet. While I am slowing down to see the world at 6 knots instead of 600 knots, what I have done, what I will do, and with whom I do it, is what makes me truly happy. Thanks for the memories, as they do influence the shape of the future.

Auf Wiedersehen to all the fine folks in the best software company in the world....you know who you are!
Addison 8/15/2008

Escape Velocity!!

2008-08-14T10:50:00.003-04:00

David Frid came by the slip about a week ago and spoke about the concept of escape velocity as it relates to cruising. Apprently there are hundreds of crews out there who have all the latest and the greatest toys, but somehow never break free from the gravity of the dock! Pat and I were determined to not become one of those types that always had one last thing to do...tomorrow.

I am posting this from the guest wall at the Rochester Yacht Club, and I can finally let out the breath that I have been holding for the last 3 days. We are only 100 miles from home, but 100 miles qualifies as a true low earth orbit. As I try an concentrate over the roar of the dredging derrick in the Gennessee River, I am slowly awakening to the fact that I am in a foreign country and that we have truly left. Although there are a ton of boat things to do...maybe tomorrow, and I am still on the payroll until August 15, we have started and that is the main thing.

Thanks to all who came to say goodbye on the morning of departure, and a special thanks to Dino Marcuz who came down to the dock to snap these pics for the blog.

A blast of a blast off

2008-08-12T00:23:00.009-04:00

And so it has come to pass. The departure date is set, at least as far as any departure date for a cruiser can be set, so the next order of business is to say our goodbyes and thank-you's. The landlubber types who buy the cruising mags and dream of sailing naked amid islands dotted with palm trees and white sands, think that cruising is about the boat and the destination. Those of us who have cruised even a little, know intuitively that it is really the people who make cruising what it is! Boats can wear out, skin will sag, but the spirit will always live on! Note what happens when flag officers let their halyards down!!

I have a very clear recollection of the 2003 sailing season when Pat and I were neophyte cruisers and we finally mustered up the courage to join our first club cruise with our friends Dennis and Marilyn. Dennis and I had passed our ASA bareboat courses together, and so when I bought a boat, it was only natural that I turn to a more experienced partner to help with a major crossing to 50 Point.

It was imperative that we do it right, because Jan, from the cruising committee had called us at home to confirm our attendance and to advise us important details like the times for the happy hour and the frequencies we were to monitor on the VHF. As a pilot of many years, I interpreted the precise directions as something like an IFR clearance, and I felt compelled to readback and acknowledge the directions from the cheerful Jan. In hindsight, she must have thought I was something of a nut case when I suddenly started speaking in the clipped phrases of ATC speak. Somehow I felt it was going to be OK despite the trepidation of navigating across almost 20 miles of open lake. After all we had the cruising committee looking after us!

Upon arrival at 50 Point, after a journey of epic slowness, something like 8 hours if my memory serves me correctly, (who knew that it was OK to use the motor in a sailboat for more than leaving and entering harbour?)we were guided efficiently into our slip by hordes of people screamining directions and pointing at what seemed like several slips at the same time. While the illusion of ATC precision was shattered, the enthusiasm of the day was infectious. Everybody was so willing to lend a hand and go out of their way to make the newcomers feel welcome. Right down to John Williams emptying the cutlery tray of Allegro to help Pat serve her chocolate cake.

So here we are 5 years later and about to embark on a trip almost as significant as that first foray across 19 miles of open lake. Pat and I have gained confidence and we had our lives enriched by the people we have met cruising, and particularly from the open arms of the members here at our home of PCYC. Hopefully our travels in the coming days, weeks and months will live up to the expectations of those who helped us prepare for the journey. We don't know what the final destination will be, we aren't sure about the route. What we are sure of is the fact that we would not be doing this if we hadn't gone to 50 Point, if Jan had not called to check in and if John had not emptied the galley of Allegro.

For those of you who came to our party on Friday, August 8, thank-you for giving us a boost of energy and enthusisam. For those who could not make it, please know that we missed you. Thanks to all for the good wishes and encouragement. Thanks to Eva Robinson for being the chronicle, as all of the pictures below are from her, and a special thanks to Roseanne who rose to the occasion and made a short but heart warming speech... we know the effort it took!

The blog is a two way street. We will respond to your comments and feedback, so please keep your cards and letters coming. Suggestions, questions, ideas are all appreciated and to the extent that we can, Pat and I will try and make the blog a living breathing thing. I look forward to my next update in a week or two, and in the meantime, enjoy the pics.

Thanks to all who have made our cruising what it is. Tomorrow we will leave the slip and the journey will begin.

Enjoy the pics. Click on the faces for even more pics.

Goodbye Party

The die is cast

2008-07-25T15:19:00.002-04:00
So its been over 6 months since the last update. The point is actually moot because most of the people that would actually take the time to read the blog would have received in person briefings from either Pat or me, or both. Family and friends have been following our story almost more closely than we have!

If I had a nickel for each time we have been asked when we are sailing off, I would not be fretting nearly as much about our financial situation!! BTW I keep telling myself that money is not an issue, my accountant tells me that money is not an issue, and my financial planner has produced multi-coloured best case, worst case curves and in every circumstance short of a total meltdown of world financial markets, we will be fine. Even in the instance of a total meltdown we will be better off than most. So why then am I feeling so out of sorts????

I guess its because I've never been in this situation before. I used the "R" word (retirement) for the first time the otherday and it felt sort of strange. I mean isnlt retirement what people do just before they croak? I hope not. In a past career I worked with a very wise fellow named Jim P, who had a saying about retiring to something rather than retiring from something. The message obviously struck a chord because nearly 30 years later, I can still see him saying it to me at breakfast while he munched through his dry rye toast. His other saying was the whiter the bread the faster your dead... another ditty that stuck.

I gave notice at work the otherday. My boss handled it pretty well, even though I'm sure he would rather not have to deal with finding a replacement when everybody is stretched pretty thin. Its rare to come across someone who genuinely respects people and acts accordingly. Sometimes in business you meet some people who are about as sincere as a Hallmark card, and just as substantial. When you meet a good guy, it makes the leaving harder to do.

In hindsight, I knew that cutting the strings was going to be tough, so the plan to breakaway had several key points of no return, each point moving me closer to setting sail and farther away from the way it was. First there was the purchase of the boat, not exactly a point of no return, but it was several hundred thousand reasons to stay committed. Then came the upgrades to the boat, heaters, radios, wifi, computers, radar, water maker etc, all installed by yours truly. To turn back now would be difficult, but still doable. I'd just have to live with the stigma of the guy who figures wearing the latest fashions from the West Marine catalog makes him a real sailor.

Selling the house in June, was getting pretty serious. For those of you familiar with Canadian winters, you know that living under shrink wrap, hoping the lake doesn't freeze around you, is not a Club Med type of experience... By selling the house, at least we had narrowed down the time of departure to sometime before the canals to the Hudson River close.

So with the tendering of my resignation we now have another significant strand of umbilical cord cut. August 15 is my last day, and it will be interesting to see how the next few weeks will turn out. I'm usually the one to turn out the lights so to speak, so it will be interesting to see how focused I can be, given that the page is about to turn. I'll take it as a personal challenge to make this work for the best....who knows I may get bored with the cruising life and someday I may look to re-enter the rat race as perhaps a line judge or a referee, or even a water boy, rather than a full fledged contestant.

For those of you who like technical bits, I'll post some more over the next few days to illustrate the iimprovements I've made to Threepenny Opera.

Bye for now!

Anybody who thinks traveling for work is glamorous needs to try this...

2007-12-23T15:16:00.000-05:00

Visit each of the cities pictured below within a six week period. Return home to change your clothes and freshen up your carry on between each city. For good measure, throw in a couple of repeat cities in the next 6 week block and add 3-4 new destinations.

I can almost guarantee that the glamour disappears about half way through week 2, so imagine how you would feel after a career of doing this! It's no wonder why I'm fixating on watermaker brochures these days!

For bonus marks, name the cities in the order which they appear...... but then if you do, you'll be fixating on watermaker brochures too!

Just because it isn't finished doesn't mean we can't enjoy.

2007-12-23T14:25:00.000-05:00

The spring of 2007 was totally hectic. We had a ripped up boat, and as luck would have it, I became incredibly busy at work. So it was a miracle that we managed to get Threepenny Opera back together, but miracles do happen!!

There were a gazillion boat chores to be done, but getting away for a few weeks on the hook at various stops along the lake made it all worthwhile. Sure there were a few too many wire ties sticking out, but with a 12-15 week sailing season, who is going to sweat the details. Getting out is the first priority. As you can see we have pretty varied tastes in sailing destinations. It's incredible the amount of ground....bottom you can cover if you are motivated. From Camelot Island in the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence River to our own back yard of Toronto Island, its all good!

The photo of Threepenny Opera on the hook was taken at a secret location, revealed to us by Margaret and Alan Gibson. We can give you a hint and tell you it's somewhere on the Bay of Quinte, but it'll cost you a beer if you want more!

From Chaos Comes Order... or is it the otherway around?

2007-12-23T13:50:00.000-05:00

We are still waiting for the order to arrive! The main salon of a sailboat when it has been stripped down for renovation is kinda like a wet cat..... you know there's a boat in there somewhere, but it sure doesn't look like the brochures. Still we have to start somewhere, and with a little bit of skill, a lot of luck, and undying faith, something good will come of this.... we hope.

Mark's Visit

2006-08-29T23:07:00.000-04:00

A visit from Mark and Louise. Both first time sailors. It was just a short visit but we managed to
create our version of planes trains and automobiles! Yes officer it was just orange juice.......

Threepenny Opera at the dock

2006-08-27T14:52:00.000-04:00

Like babies, there are no ugly boats, but some are much prettier than others.

Yup we designed the logo all by ourselves!!