It’s Monday mid day and all crew is present and accounted for. We had a last minute provisioning trip and with a cart flowing over you’d never know that I had done any provisioning along the way. For sure, we won’t run out of food.
“Do you have enough yogurt? What brand? No, I don’t eat that. I like this kind? Granola bars? Not those, what about protein bars…” Hell, I don’t even know how to spell protein…
I am pretty confident that, if we should decide to divert to Spain, we will arrive with plenty of food left over. Brenda and I are going to have a LOT of dinner parties, or should I say “snack parties”, this winter if we plan to come back to the States with less than a season of food. “Would you care for a protein bar with that glass of wine?”
Unfortunately, it’s raining now and it is expected to continue for the rest of the day. That’s problematic only because I have to go up the mast to see if I can find out where that cotter pin I found on top of the dink when we arrived here. I doubt that it fell from the top of the mast and just landed there, but I HAVE TO BE CERTAIN. I expect that it just landed there in a bunch of tie-down straps that I used on the dink.
We will have another weather briefing later this afternoon and will then make a final decision on a go-no-go. I expect that it will call for an early to mid day departure Tuesday. According to Chris Parker’s net this morning, that’s the way it looks, for now.
Chris just sent out this information a few hours ago so I thought that I’d repeat it here. He said…
DEPARTURE RECOMMENDATION for vessels yet-to-depart Chesapeake/BeaufortNC:
I think Tue3 is the day I’d recommend most folks depart. What’s changed some since yesterday is a better-defined HI shifting SE from Maine toward Bermuda Wed4-Fri6…and this supports more clocking E<SE<S wind…so the opportunity to make South-ing to get clear of GulfStream is for 36hrs from Tue3 morning thru Wed4 afternoon.
During Wed4 night-Thu5, wind clocks E<SE, and allows vessels to TACK and sail ENE-E near 33N Thu5…and continue sailing E along 33N in SSE wind Fri6…and sail ESE-SE in SSW wind Sat7. This may get vessels to within 100mi-or-so W or SW of Bermuda before S wind dies late Sat7, and you can motor S for 2 days to (hopefully) reach the Trades.
Delaying departure till Wed4 or Thu5 may make it difficult to get far enough S to avoid heavy weather ahead of (and behind) the strong ColdFRONT exiting Coast Sat7 night.
There is a small front/trof exiting right over us this afternoon and a shift north or south, even a little, will have a large impact on the wind direction. If we are south of the trof, the wind will be from the SW and if we are north of the trof, from the north. Of course, heading out into the Gulf Stream, with 15-20kts of wind opposing the current will make for a very rough crossing with waves in the 10-15′ range, with a short period. Sort of like a washing machine.
Oh yeah, don’t forget to check “where in the world is Pandora” for several options on tracking our progress.
So, that’s my report for now. More to come.
One response to “Leaving Tuesday, it seems.”