Are we there yet?   Only 1,500 miles to go.   

It’s Tuesday mid-day and we are on our way.  We left the dock at 08:00 this morning and are now off of Cape Henry and about 100 miles from the Gulf Stream.  We were given our entrance and exit points for the Stream from Chris Parker but when we put them into the plotter they don’t really make a lot of sense.  Oh well.   I checked his messages to us and they are indeed the numbers he provided.  Perhaps I’ll check with another SDR boat and see what they have as waypoints.

I didn’t sleep much last night as I was constantly mulling over last minute details of what I might have missed.  After a week in Hampton, I couldn’t help but wonder if I had missed something, or many somethings, that I needed to do.

Speaking of “somethings”, I went up the mast yesterday, in the rain, to check and see if I could find out where the cotter pin might have come from that we found on top of the dink that’s lashed on the cabin top.  I still don’t know where it came from for sure but there isn’t a pin missing anywhere on the boat, of that I am certain.   My best guess is that it was tangled up in a bundle of straps that I used to tie down the dink and that it was left on the dink after we were finished tying it down.

We are moving along fairly well on a beam reach in fairly lumpy seas at between 6-7 kts.  Once we are further offshore and in deeper water I expect that the wave period will spread out and we will likely have a bit more wind to steady the boat.  Jerking around is a bit unpleasant when the wind fluctuates less.

There are plenty of boats heading out today and I’d say that at least a dozen are within sight as I write this.  It will be interesting to see how our speed compares to others as the fleet spreads out.  Those boats that don’t leave today will probably have to wait another week as there is a strong cold front exiting the coast later this week and going through the GS would be quite nasty with near gale force winds out of the NE.  Not a good time to be in the Gulf Stream for sure.

Speaking of “weather”, we will be watching a system that may be developing about half way between Africa and the Caribbean.  It may become a late season tropical storm or, more likely, will just dissipate.  It’s hard to say at this juncture, but if needed we will bail out to Bermuda or perhaps the Bahamas. I really hope that doesn’t happen but it will be a few days till we know more.   With all the changes in the weather this time of year, I can’t imagine doing a trip like this without regular communication with a weather router.

Speaking of communication, we have two check in times each day on the SSB radio, once at 08:30 and the other at 17:00 where we are to provide our coordinates as well as the wind speed and wave height.  There will be 60 or more boats checking so the boats have been divided into two groups, one at 08:00 and the other at 08:30.  I expect that check-ins will take quite a long time.

I guess that’s about all I have to say for now.  I’ll likely post tomorrow after we exit the eastern point of the Gulf Stream.  We’ll probably be running the engine after that as I believe that the wind might be a bit light.  Not sure though.

I’ll learn more in the morning when we listen to Chris Parker again.

Nope, we aren’t even close to “there” but it’s good to be underway.

Stay tuned and wish us luck.   Pandora out…