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…

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.

It’s Sunday morning and it doesn’t look like the Salty Dawg Rally is going to get off on time, after all.   We had a weather briefing last evening and Chris Parker’s assessment of the forecast is that there is a “low” or at least something that looks a lot like one, that will migrate off of the coast near Hampton and head to the NE in the next day or so.  This will bring very strong NE winds about the time that we would be traversing the Gulf Stream.  And if there is one thing that’s clear is that NE winds and the Gulf Stream are a really nasty mix and when the wind opposes the current it kicks up big and steep seas.

Actually, the best time to have left was a few days ago as the conditions were very good but alas, we weren’t ready anyway.  Such is life.

So, what’s a Dawg to do?  The current forecast points toward a departure in a “few” days, perhaps as far off as later this week if we want to sail for the first 500 miles or perhaps sooner if we are willing to just head out with no wind behind the low and motor for the first few days.  I am not too keen on this option as it would burn up a lot of my fuel and leave little reserve for the end of the trip when we might need it.

However, I know from many of Chris’s forecast that things can change quickly so perhaps we will find that the favorable winds will fill in sooner than not.  Hopefully, we will only be delayed by a few days.  More to come on that.

On Friday morning we had visitors from US Coast Guard Norfolk who talked to us about safety and what to expect from them if we get into trouble.  They showed us some videos and also provided some insight from their experiences with those that they had to assist in the SDR rally that got into trouble a few years ago when participants left Hampton and got caught in a low that came through faster than expected.  These guys make it clear that they would do everything that they could to help us in the event of an emergency but that it costs the US taxpayer plenty.  In the case of the 2013 rally “experience”, the price tag was something like $1.6 million, a tidy sum that would buy at least couple of toilet seats or perhaps a nice package of nuts and bolts for the guys at NASA.   Editor note:  He did have his eyes open for most of the presentation.  Want give them a call yourself to request a lift?  What no Twitter?
Meanwhile back at the “Dawg House” yesterday, we had a live life raft demonstration, a sobering discussion, to say the least, of what can happen when things go badly.   It’s the whole jumping into a raft and having someone in a wet suit say “I’ll be your rescue swimmer today”, that makes deciding when to leave so important.  As much as I want to get going, I REALLY, REALLY don’t want to try out my raft any time soon.    But, it’s nice to know that it’s there is a raft if and when I need it.  On that point, I am going with the “if” part as I am hoping that there won’t be a “when”. It gets even better.  How about a video of the deployment?  It’s amazing how quickly the raft blows up. I’d hate to have one go off in my salon.  So, with another briefing tonight we wait and see what the weather will do and while we are ready, we’re not, at least not yet.

For now, you will have to settle for a shot of a good portion of “the fleet” in Hampton Harbor as shown on the tracking program.  There are 80 boats participating in the rally and this is only a part of the group, as some, including Pandora, are not in the host marina.  Don’t forget that you can track our progress in the “where in the world is Pandora” section of this site.  There will be several options, one for Pandora alone, updated every four hours, and the other for the fleet overall, updated twice a day.  For now, we wait.  I guess I’ll have to wash the boat again today.  Have to keep busy.

Ok, so the shopping is done and everything is stowed in anticipation of our Monday departure for the Caribbean and crew will arrive on Saturday.    Brenda arrives today so it will be nice to see her for a bit before things get crazy.

As an aside, I am pretty happy with myself for being able to spell Caribbean.  Until recently, I thought that it had two “r”s and one “b”.  Don’t ask me how I used to spell Bahamas.   Anyway, one more word, properly spelled, in my vocabulary.  Check…

So, back to food…

One of my loyal readers, actually, I am confident that I have at least three, asked me to talk a bit about what I cook on passage so here’s a few examples.

I am not a big fan of freezing already prepared dinners for the entire trip.  This is primarily because the freezer is already filled with meat for me and Brenda to have while we are aboard so while there’s plenty for the crew that’s frozen but it’s not in aluminum pans (aluminum is yet another word that I have struggled with), which take up a lot more room and generate tons of trash that we have to carry with us.

I try to rely on simple dishes that I can make up that day.  An example is pasta with Italian sausage on some sort of short pasta.  By sauteing the sausage links in a deep sauce pan with some onions until everything is brown and setting them aside while I boil the pasta, I can use a single pan and by the time the pasta is done, the pan is pretty clean.  And, it’s a one dish diner.  Of course, we eat in bowls.

For lunch, grilled cheese or sloppy joe sandwiches from a can are good.  I think that hot meals are a must, if possible.  A breakfast favorite for crew has always been fresh biscuits.   They sound like a pain to make but I can whip them up in a few minutes.  Here’s the recipe.

Two cups of flower, a tablespoon of baking powder and a half tsp of salt along with 1/2 cup of powdered milk.  Mix the dry ingredients together.  Work in, with your fingers, a half stick of butter.  If your heart can handle more, it’s even better that way.  Work the butter in until it’s in small pea size pieces.

Preheat the oven to 450.  When the oven is hot, add in about 1 cup of water to the mix and lightly mix the mess together.   It should be fairly sticky but not slump in the bowl.   Use two spoons to scoop the soft mixture onto a cookies sheet and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.  Bake until brown and serve hot with honey drizzled on top in a small bowl.  It makes about 8-12 depending on the size you ladle out.

The key is to use good flour.  I like King Arthur unbleached all purpose.  Also, don’t overwork the mixture once you add the water as it will make them tough.  And, finally, like the whole Goldilocks thing, don’t make the dough too soft or too firm.  It’s a practice thing.  So far, everyone asks for seconds, a good sign.

Anyway, my cooking for crew s simple and always focused on a single pan.

Another good example is to saute some sort of meat, cut it up and add the chunks to a can of vegetable soup.   It makes a sort of light stew and with the meat, is much better than just plain soup.  And, it’s easy to cook the meat in advance and add it to the soup, even frozen.

Of course, I also always have fruit and granola bars along with bite size candy out on the counter for them to munch on as they feel the urge.

Sound good?  I hope so and if the answer is yes, congratulations, you could be crew on Pandora.

On another note, since Tuesday (It’s early Friday morning) participants in the Salty Dawg Rally have been meeting several times a day to hear lectures on a variety of topics.   There was a particularly interesting one entitled “a view from the bridge” presented by a retired ship tanker.  He talked about how the “big guys” look at us little tiny sailboats and how someone on a 1000′ container ship wants to interact with us.   The simple answer is that they don’t want to run over us but it’s more complicated than that.  Anyway, you had to be there…

We meet in a place that is amusingly called the “dawg house”.  Nice size crowd and most of the crew haven’t yet arrived.  By Friday and Saturday evenings (we hope to leave on Monday) there will be about 200, nearly doubling of the group, in yesterday’s meetings.   It’s a very nice group of people.As you can imagine, the logistics for an event like this are pretty overwhelming.  And the amount of free stuff is quite impressive. They have over $6,000 of donated raffle items.  I am sure that they will sell a lot of tickets.  Of course, they have a dedicated group of volunteers.  Really great people. With only a few days till we depart, weather permitting, I have decided to pull off the steering pedestal and fix, hopefully once and for all, some loose bolts that continue to cause an alarming “clunk” when we are underway.  This showed up at the survey back in May but I haven’t been able to figure out how to fix it until now.  I found an exploded drawing of the system online yesterday and now I get what has to be done.  Fairly simple, he said.  Well, we’ll see.

Still asking “what’s for dinner?”.   Well, for dinner last night I had Chinese food.  Of course, the next question that follows is “what was my fortune?”  Well, I had two as they assumed that I wouldn’t be eating alone.  But I was…so I got two. I expect that they both apply but let’s hope that life doesn’t get too “interesting”.  Not too keen on the second one, given the whole steering thing, but I am “relentlessly enthusiastic” so that’s got to count for something.

That’s all for now.  Got to get on with it, with ENTHUSIASM!.

I know that there are lots of folks that are obsessed with food.   You know,the kind of person who “lives to eat”?  As I have said in the past, I am more of the type that “eats to live”.  If I am hungry, I eat and it doesn’t make that much difference to me WHAT I EAT, a source of continual frustration to Brenda.  Most anything tastes good when I am ready.

But, that’s not what I mean by my being “nervous” about food.  In this case, it’s all about WHAT AM I GOING TO FEED MY CREW!  With the four of us aboard, it’s going to be crowded and perhaps the most important part of making passage is the whole question of “when is my next meal and what are we going to have captain?”.

As past posts have outlined in nauseating detail, we have a lot of food on board for me and Brenda to use over the winter aboard and I am not too keen on having it all vacuumed up in the ten days or so that it takes us to make our way to the BVI.

Anyway, I was going to wait till at least Cathy, one of my crew, arrived on Friday to begin getting the major supplies but now realize that to wait that long is making me just too worried about getting everything ready in time.  So, today it will be, shopping SOLO with the knowledge that what I have on board to feed my crew will have a lot to do with how well the trip goes.  Of course, weather and keeping things from getting broken is job #1 but keeping them fed is right up there.

However, for reasons that have always baffled me, I have found that when someone is on a boat they are somehow less gastronomically sensitive and that a meal they would send back in disgust at a fine dining establishment brings them to near-rapture when it’s served to them on the high seas.   As the late Andy Rooney might have said, “why is that”?  Who knows…   But, I cling to the hope that this trip will be no different.

An additional source of anxiety for me is the fact that our trip  is probably going to take us a week to ten days (I sure hope it’s not two weeks) and I have never had to provision in advance for that many meals in a single voyage.   To date, the longest trip I have taken without a stop was a week and 1,100 miles, from Nassau Bahamas to Essex CT.  And that was with two crew that I knew have the the discerning taste of your typical feral canine.    This crew?  They are a bit more high-brow.

Well, wish me luck today as I try to sort through all of this.  For sure, pasta will be high on the list.  “Ok Crew, repeat after me, I love carbs, I love carbs”  And the funny thing is, they will.  Well, at least that’s what they will probably say.  Perhaps they just want to encourage me for fear that the food will get worse if they don’t gush.  Whatever…  Works for me and I am sticking with that.

Enough about food.  How about a few cool boats.  The marina is full of boats ready to cruise.  Not a lot of day sailors in these parts now and a few really stood out to me.

How about this aluminum one?  My friend Chris, who doesn’t want to go to sea in anything that can’t be dropped into the water from 100′ and live to tell the tale, would love this one.  Very powerful. It was fun to run into our old friends Rick and Julie who recently took delivery of a brand new, really red, French built catamaran.  “Rick, your boat is really, really red and amazing.”   They took delivery in France, sailed in the Med for a bit and then brought her to the US.  Ten thousand miles of sailing and they have only had her for a year.  Love the “lawn furniture” on the side deck.  Not too exposed to the weather.  Right?And, perhaps the “belle of the fleet”, this terrific Gunboat.  She looks like she is screaming along standing still at the dock.  Not even sure if “she” applies unless she is one tough woman, and she is.  What a remarkable machine. Yesterday I posted a shot of a “Hampton/Salty Dawg” burgee.  I thought that it was pretty neat.  However, through some sort of quirk of the rally, you can participate in the rally and not technically be a “Salty Dawg” by membership.   And frankly, the additional benefits of membership are a bit blurry to me.  However, being the “I want to be part of the club” sort of guy that I am compelled me to join as an “official” member.  And, I got this terrific burgee.  Now, that’s a burgee.  And it’s big, which is good as I have always been a bit peevish about boats sporting a teeny tiny 8″ burgee on their starboard spreader.  Now, this is a proper burgee and I am happy to be a “dawg”.   Nice, shiny and new.  We’ll see how it looks after 4,000 miles of sailing come spring. So, enough of that for now.  In a few days I’ll have a pack of hungry “dawgs” aboard.  Yikes…  I’d better get my yellow pad out and start making a grocery list.

Besides, I have a reputation to uphold.