Have a great New Year

Sofriere, St Lucia 13°49.48N, 061°03.84W

We’ve had a pretty quick run down the islands. Seven different countries in ten days (St Barths, St Kitts, Montserrat, Antigua, Guadeloupe, Martinique, St Lucia).

Customs officers have the most elaborate signatures.

I’m working on a customs theory but it’s not perfected yet.

Greg is monitoring the Heineken Index (St Martin = US$17 for 24 @ 33 centiliters = 100).

He has had several entrepreneurial ideas since we’ve been here. The best is the CaribPass. It’s a small electronic tolling device. You sail past a buoy and – beep, beep – you’re cleared customs and all fees are charged to your credit card.

It’s a great idea, but you have to deal with about twenty satellite governments to get it rolling. Here is a sample as I see it:

Antigua: “but the forms must be filled in in six-licate (can somebody please tell me what that is actually called). Then get the form from customs, and they will elaborately sign and stamp it (a staccato drumbeat on each page, with a short pause for more ink). Bring it back to us. We’ll give you the other form which you should take to ports after you’ve paid us the customs fee. They will give you the form you need to clear in, once you’ve paid the ports fee. No credit cards. Ports will direct you to excise. Get the blue form from immigration, have it stamped, get the sticker from over there and bring it back to ports. Your crew cannot land until they are cleared, but they must sign this form – you must go back for their signature. What do you have on board?.....okay, okay, you can stop, that’s called ‘ships stores’ for next time. Before you leave tomorrow, you’ll need to do this again. Oh, and ports won’t be back till Monday”.

Anywhere in the French West Indies: ‘eet is empossible!’ (confusion, shrugged shoulders).

Dominica: (once you’ve handed over passports and all your original ship’s documents) ‘my daughter’s school is raising money for…would you like to contribute a small sum. All credit cards are accepted and we have a wireless terminal to make the transaction easier for you. In the alternative, it’s my lunch break and the same daughter has a dentist appointment this afternoon.’

We’ve just taken a mooring in Soufriere, St. Lucia. We’re not in the habit of taking moorings, but it’s a marine park and you cannot anchor. I noticed it’s also 30 meters deep despite that we are only a boat length or two offshore, so the mooring’s good and the fee is included in our park fees. As an indicator of things to come, as we sailed in a flotilla of boat boys came roaring out in their pirogues (each with a 75HP Yamaha on the back) in a big race to get the next customer. You want a mooring, ice, we take your garbage, I’ll take your dock lines. In actual fact they’re polite and it’s good fun to chat with them. You buy the services you need. I’m not sure they’d had this request before: Greg ordered up six deboned and fried flying fish! (delish by the way). It was 20EC (a little under US$7) although I noticed a few beers were expertly lobbed between moving boats to help lubricate the transaction.

[In case you’re wondering, that move requires similar skill to the Airforce air-to-air refueling a helicopter, but Greg pulls it off with a nonchalant panache.]

On the way over, leaving Martinique, we were laughing about something and telling stories; not paying attention. Suddenly we got hit by a big squall – I think it gusted to 40 knts out of nowhere - and we broached, taking a bit of water over the cockpit side. Greg hit the traveler and I steered out of it, so we were clean fairly quickly but it was a good reminder to keep a weather eye. She’s a lithe machine and doesn’t like to be overpowered. The best advice the Shafer’s (former owners) gave me was to reef early. Phil Shafer told me he started out flying a lot of sail – like we all do – to get the boat ripping, but it really doesn’t work that way. His advice is dead-on: it’s initially counter-intuitive, but the boat is frequently much faster with less sail up. We’ve found keeping the boat flat makes a huge difference to speed. It was a great 50nm reach over to St Lucia. We put in - and shook out - reefs (reduced and expanded the sail area) several times, and changed from the genoa to the jib and back again more than once, but maintained nearly 8 knots for much of the way for our efforts. And that’s fun! Surfing and carving between the ocean swells, flying fish bursting out of the bow wave!

We’ve also made a small breakthrough with our Solent jib. Although it’s our smallest sail, it’s not a small sail (it’s tacked to the bow, runs to the masthead, and is near 100% of the fore-triangle). It’s also on a self-tacking track that curves across the foredeck. This means that a single handed sailor can short tack to windward with speed and grace, and we love it for that. However, when we are reaching – the breeze is approx right-angles to the boat – the track isn’t wide enough to ease out the sail as much as you would like; the clew lifts, the leach sags, and it tends to flog and spill air in the top third. It’s meant at reaching and downwind angles we’ve had to over-sheet the sail with the dual effect of inhibiting the sail’s performance while simultaneously frustrating the skipper. So today we rigged up some tweakers through snatch blocks on the toe rail. These open the sail and allow us to maintain leach tension. It’s increased the wind angles through which we’ll happily fly the sail, and it’s done wonders for our reaching speed, especially when it’s too windy for the big-bad genoa to do it’s magic work!

28 December 2007

The Green Flash

So I finally saw it.

I've heard about this for years, and have looked and looked and looked but I've never seen it.

It's the kind of phenomena you discuss late on a winter's night while having a beer with your mates in New York City. It may be snowing outside, and this kind of yarn keeps it real as you look to the future, and everything life holds. I've been day dreaming about sailing (and yarning about it) for years, almost all my years. I can't tell you how special it is to finally be out on the ocean.

Specifically, it's called The Green Flash, and it occurs, just for a second, and only when the night is perfectly clear and perfectly perfect, and only at the absolute precise moment the sun slides below the horizon.

Perhaps you need to have had a rum punch to see it, but I haven't been able to test the alternative.

And what's more, I got a photo of it. You may need to click on the images to see it, but it's there; start with the second to last one.

My camera has one of those fast shutter things that you might use at a fashion shoot (that's, of course, where I learned to use it). Randomly I was playing with it taking photos of the sun setting off the coast of Dominica. I was really trying to record how fast the sun sets in the tropics. Then, kind of daydreaming and not really paying attention, but looking through the viewfinder...

BAM! THE GREEN FLASH!

The photos don't to it justice. It's bright, really bright, and it sears into your subconscious, penetrates your soul and changes you forever.

You're left bobbing gently in the dinghy, darkness rapidly enveloping your world, dogs barking in the shanty town behind, the smell of fried flying fish and reggae beats drifting lazily out onto the water, and the rain forest insects starting that tropical low-frequency vibration that more closely resembles a throb, and you wonder what just happened. But you know, as you gaze around, that it was special and you'll never forget it.

And then it's gone.

27 December 2007

Dominica

We are anchored in Dominica. It's beaufitul, and amazingly tropical: famous for its rain forests and waterfalls. It's also very poor. Despite this beauty, they're burning garbage on the beach. The QE2 was here yesterday when we arrived.

Today we'll sail back to the French West Indies - Martinique. Hopefully my phone will work again.

We were in Guadaloupe, Deshais, for Christmas Eve and a series of incredibly beautiful French islands called Les Saintes for Christmas; it's also part of Guadaloupe, off the island's most southern part.

I have a very bad internet connection, so will have to update this later.

Thu, 27 Dec.

Les Saintes, Guadaloupe

26 Dec 2007

Antigua 17°00.19N, 61°45.7W

We arrived in Antigua last night, having sailed in from Montserrat. We're anchored off Nelson's Dockyard in English Harbour. It's a beautiful spot: the old buildings have been restored, and there are flowers and vines growing over them. It's 29C and the Trades have moderated for a few days, so it's balmy and relaxed. Ya mon! We plan to head to Guadeloupe tomorrow, and I guess we'll have Christmas there.

Have a wonderful Christmas!

I took the top photo into our stainless dorade; this is the anchorage in Antigua. The bottom one is our early departure from Montserrat. We had to leave early as we missed immigration, and they charge and extortionate fee during weekends -- they kind of plan it so you end up paying it. I hope there's not a Montserattian warship after us.

Montserrat 16°48.3N, 062°12.5W

We’re anchored just to the north of the volcano evacuation zone on Montserrat, having sailed over from St Kitts today, almost 50nm, much less in a straight line. A fun sail, but it was very windy – almost 37 knts as we sailed the last bit - and we were tight on the wind all the way which led to a lot of sail trimming and tacking, and the boat smashing her heart out. Because we can’t sail directly into the wind this tends to mean a slow day. We sail fairly fast in the direction we’re heading, but make slower progress in the direction we want to go! (if that makes sense).

Still, we’re here, and our anchorage is superb: we’re tucked in under a cliff. It is super calm as the cliff is blocking the wind…I know it’s still angry out to sea so it’s almost cozy, and I will sleep well tonight. I took out our second anchor to ensure we’re safely off the cliff in the unlikely event the wind changes.

You would well know that gentleman don’t sail to windward. Today was quite ungentlemanly, and in protest Greg has gone to bed despite that: a) it’s only 7.48pm, and b) it’s, coincidentally, the semi-finals of the Montserrat calypso music competition tonight, starting at 10. Perhaps he’s right: as I write this it’s pretty clear we’re going to hear the music anyway!

Still, there’s an odds on chance that after I go to sleep there’ll be a knock on my cabin door, and Greg will be there arguing vehemently in favour of calypso music.

If he is true to historical form, there’ll be:

1) at least one reference to his growing up with calypso music (he might add that he was brought up by Caribbean gypsies on a rum-running schooner; that they kept him with the animals; that they only fed him conch and Marlboro Reds);

2) at least one reference to the fact that he’s also a world class calypso musician himself, but he’s never shared it with me because he is shy. However, if I were to motivate and go to the concert, he may enlighten me (but I would have to by him a few beers at the very least for that to happen, and of course, no promises);

3) that it is highly unlikely that I will ever be in the fortunate position of being with someone like him in Montserrat ever again, and in turn this means, I won’t get the benefit of him:


a. Interpreting my Kiwi accent to the English speaking Montserratians, thereby allowing me a most basic form of communication with the locals;

b. Using his streetwise negotiating skills that can turn Euro prices into the same nominal value in Dollars on the basis that one day the US$ will be valuable again (true, he’s done this recently more than once…);

c. Protecting me as he is a World Class Street Fighting action hero…(this bit goes on for some time and I tend to tune out and think about the next day’s sailing…)

4) At least some reference to me being somewhat like, and having the characteristics of, a kitten.

I regret tomorrow may be ungentlemanly again as we’re heading to Antigua which is around 20nm directly into the eye of the wind. I’ll be surprised if we haven’t sailed 30 or more miles by the time we get to English Harbour.

Now Montserrat is very interesting. The volcano is still pumping out ash, and with this strong wind we could see a plume from the mountain’s summit at least 100nm downwind. As we got closer you could see smoldering lava flows down the windward side. The population – down to 4,500 from 11,000 prior to the eruption – now all live in the northern end kind of near where we are. Greg is very interested in ‘Conch Water’, which is a conch soup I think. He also wants to try Goat Water; I trust it’s also a soup despite that it sounds like some crazy hallucinogenic drink consumed out of coconut shells. Earlier when we asked at the little stalls near the calypso competition they had ‘only fried tings!’.

I would like to go exploring on Montserrat. Especially I’d like to go to Plymouth, the town that was buried in the eruption (our chart still shows it, but superimposed over the top in red print it says ‘Destroyed 1997’). You aren’t allowed into that part of the island, but I’m told you can go close enough that you can see rooftops sticking out of the lava flows. There’s also a famous tennis court visible from a lookout that’s still reachable. The court looks fine, until you notice that only the top of the net sticks out of the ash. For us it’s a pretty easy sail down the island’s leeward side, and it also has the benefit of positioning us on a more favourable angle for our sail to Antigua. However, there’s now a security zone around the island’s southern half that adds, I think, too many miles to make our trip one day (I try not to go into new anchorages in the dark which limits our sailing time), and I hear when you go through the plume – that is, to leeward of the volcano – your boat gets covered in ash.

That – like Saba – may sadly have to wait until next time.

So we are now 16°36’ north of the equator. Our anchorage in Mamaroneck, New York, was 40°55N. In addition to sailing south, we’ve also travelled quite a way east. We are now 062° west of the prime meridian, whereas we started at 073°W. Ultimately, our voyage to New Zealand – if that’s what it turns into, and we’ll just have to see how it goes - is a westerly trip, so we’ll reverse this and much more.

To put this in context, I must ask my parents where our house is in New Zealand. I’m guessing it’s something like 36°S, 174°W. My Mum and Dad live on Auckland harbour, and I have this dream of sailing into Auckland, anchoring off the house and swimming in.

Gidday Mum!

Water temp right now is 30.3C. I don’t remember what the water temp was in Mamaroneck, but I do remember swimming (if you can call a 0.01 second plunge swimming) with Max in Maine in 13C.

Photos show the old fella with the volcano in the background (if you look closely you can see the bandit scarf Greg bought me), and the other is of us beating towards Montserrat. Good heel on!

St Christopher (St Kitts)

A beautiful sail from St Barths to St Kitts. Fast sailing in crystal clear blue water. Now this is what we came for!

Fishing has also been going OFF!

We caught three bluefin tuna this morning. We let two go, but one became fresh sashimi for lunch. Then, just on nightfall, Greg caught a huge tuna (species: greener than the others) and we took two big fillets off it. Greg also cut to chunks of tender flesh from behind the head. We seared the fillets on the barbie - 20 second on each side - and it was simply magical. I'm ruined for other 'fresh' fish. This was all of 20 minutes old.

We cerviched the other pieces.

OH HEAVENS IT WAS GOOD!

* look at that hilarious (yet quietly disturbing) photo of Greg with his tuna. Except for when he has fresh sashimi on the mind, he's actually a quite pleasant lad. In actual fact, this technique for killing fish is called an IKI. It's Japanese, and was taught to us by our marine biologist friend Max. It's supposed to be quick and as painless as being killed can be, but I'm not certain one is supposed to have photos like this taken, and I am pretty sure it's not recommended to post them on the web.

Gustavia and Maltese Falcon.

I wanted to see Maltese Falcon and I finally did.

Very early it swept around the point, under full sail, a simply magnificent sight. It's 289', the largest privately owned sailboat in the world. Fast too: can do 18knts. The masts have no spreaders (at least in the traditional sense) nor backstays. The sails furl inwards into the mast. It's totally computerised such that, in theory, it can be sailed by one person. Till it breaks of course.

It's owned by Tom Perkins, an American venture capitalist. I dare say he had little change from half-a-billion bucks, but it is a technological masterpiece, and it's pretty striking when you see it fo' real! Under the central mast is a three story atrium with glass windows: you can look upwards from the lower deck right to the top of the mast.

I presume Perkins is a megalomaniac. I'd still love to go for a sail! Maybe there's something to be said for being a megalomaniac. I must look into that.

The other photos are of St Barts and the Port of Gustavia.

The St Barths Airport

I know this appears to be becoming a plane-spotters guide to interesting airport experiences, but this one is mad.

St Barths has this little airport. You can see it in the top picture. To land there, the plans have to fly over a mountain ridge. They then have to go into a nose down dive, pulling out at the last minute to hit the runway. It's not so evident from the photo, but that grassy bit leading up to the threshold is quite a steep decline ending at the runway's start.

There's a cross and a windsock on the hill above - strikes me as an apposite combination!

Most planes still land around 1/3 of the way down the runway. But, it's such a challenging approach, I think it is a real test of skill for pilots, so I suspect they come here from all around the place to have a crack. In fact, if you look really closely you can see a whole bunch of tire marks RIGHT ON THE END of the runway.

The photos don't do it justice, but to hit this point you have to be completely mad and extremely skilled. You see, you would have to time your decent perfectly to run down the hill - nose down and fast - then pull up right at the perfect moment.

Look at the final picture. I took that standing at the top of the hill! How often can you look DOWN on a landing plane? This guy touched down around 1/3 of the way down the runway, so you can see how insane landing on the end is!

It's just wrong. Take the ferry.

Saint-Barthélemy

Hanging out at the beach with nude French supermodels is not to everyone's taste, but we've managed to endure it for a few days.

St Barths is beautiful. Perfectly clear water, and the land is steep and arid and covered in cactus and small shrubs. The beaches are pristine. I almost ran over a giant turtle this morning in the dinghy.

It's also expensive. Our $1 Presidente beers have turned into Euro7, but the jazz band that came with it was superb. After one round, we decided to put some beers in the dinghy and casually slipped out to drink one of those from time to time. Hilarious. My budget no longer extends to US$10 beers.

St Barths is also French. This means great baguettes and a supermarket that has fabulous food: cheese, wine, sasauge, and acres of foie gras. It also means funny protests. This morning the Port of Gustavia was blockaded by a string of small fishing boats, all tied together across the harbour's entrance. We couldn't get in to clear out of the French West Indies. I asked one of the fisherman what was going on and he said they were protesting: fuel prices are too high!

I also managed to make the muppet mistake of the journey to date. It's been very windy, and late at night I made a mistake tying up the dinghy. It blew away, and I expect it's now in Portugal.

I'm better than that. I can tie a bowline with one hand.

Still, I'm absolutely confident it won't be the dumbest thing I'll do this trip.

We went back to St Martin and I bought a new RIB and outboard. Ouch. That's a lot of Euro 7 drinks you know. But it's a cool new boat.


Photo shows Bandit lifting the standard at the dock in Gustavia, St Barths.

St Martin

I’ve been downloading GRIB files of the local weather and it looks like we may need to wait until Saturday to make a run for St Barts. Until then we’re going to get gusts around 35 knts, a little more from time to time. If that was a downwind or reaching breeze, I would feel pretty comfortable having a crack at it, but it’s really the waves that are an issue after nearly a week of strong, gusty conditions, and with SB to windward, despite not being very far away, it’s probably smart to stay put for another 24 hours. The big motoryachts are all staying put. They don’t want to damage the chandeliers.

I’m excited about moving on. Not to say life here is bad. If you wonder what we do by day, today I rebedded one of the chainplates where we had developed a small leak. Despite being very small, it just gave a little drip into that part of the boat where we keep the toilet paper. Probably all you need to know.

Later, I had a chat with a boat called Adagio. It’s an Outbound 46. I was curious about it because it looks a lot like my boat, a Saga 43. I said hello to the owners, a cool couple from Jamestown, RI. Turns out they had taken their dinghy over to us earlier and had given a rap on the hull (we were out). Their previous boat was a Saga 43, and they wanted to say hello.

Now this is interesting, because the previous owners of this boat, a fantastic, cool and very experienced couple who sail on Lake Erie, sold this boat because they were having an Outbound 46 built. I had a quick scamper over Adagio – what a boat! - it’s an absolute superb machine (you can write that, easy, but yachts when you sail one, look after one and get looked after by one, are way too personal to be machines). It’s 10,000 lbs heavier than this boat despite being only 3’ longer – for context, that’s around 40% heavier. And you can feel it: rock solid and stiff, and a very clever layout that maximized what you want, and dispensed with the nonsense. This one was new, sure, but very well maintained, and I know what that involves keeping Bandit working the way she (you would never call a machine she!) should be. A most beautiful and well designed boat.

I like looking at other boats. They did say their Saga was faster. I just smiled (but inside I thought: YES!).

Later I met a Kiwi guy called Daniel. He has a 35 footer called Fat Zoe. It looks lithe and fast, but from behind you realize how she got that name: a big fat beamy boat, it meant the interior had a huge amount of space. But what I liked about Fat Zoe (and by extension, Daniel’s whole approach) was its simplicity. Apart from the fact that he paid $1,500 for a hull that had sunk, and then pretty much rebuilt her while working in a boatyard – including adding a foot to the bow and a foot to the stern! – inside it was simple, clever, and just worked. I like that. Lots of things on Bandit are more complex than they should be, I think. As an example, we have a powerful electric motor called a windlass that pulls the anchor chain up. Sometimes we have 200’ of chain out, with a 25kg anchor on the end (sorry – after 8 years in the US I’m very confused between metric and Imperial). But if that motor fails, into a headwind, I can’t get the chain up! Madness, how stupid is that! (pass me the hacksaw please). Daniel had a simple hand operated ratchet on a lever that whipped in the chain and kept him fit too. I also spotted The Long Way by Bernard Moitessier on his bookshelf – and that’s always a good sign.

Later I chatted with a guy from Valkarie, a six-month old, almost totally carbon 78’ Swan. It’s Canadian, out of Halifax; they had just completed the Rolex Trans-Atlantic. The other boats, Med moored (stern to the pier) were rolling gently, but this boat – so light! – just danced.

They also had one of those underwater lights that shines down under the transom lighting up the seafloor. A bit powerboaty, but secretly I think it looks cool. How fun would that be over a reef? Fishy, fishy, fishies! Feel like some stale baguette?

So it’s been a busy day. I haven’t mentioned the retired halibut fisherman I met who told me how to deal with catching giant mahi-mahi, or the Swiss guy I chatted with over $1 Presidente’s during a rain shower – he works for the Victory Challenge in the America’s Cup in Valencia. We chatted about where the Cup is going while we watched a giant poweryacht gingerly, and quite poorly as it turned out, try and maneuver between two real sailboats as it docked stern to. Right in front of the bar. High pressure docking. And it didn’t go so well.

Although we all quietly nodded at each other with that ‘I could do that blindfolded’ look on (while casually having another sip of beer), I know all the sailors were really thinking there, but for the grace of God, go I!

Cross wind, cross current and as much freeboard as an average house: mate, she’s all yours.

Now I’ve mentioned St Barts previously. One of those places you really have to go (and everyone does I assume). Super chic, and you can top up your Foie Gras tanks.

But what really interests me as I look at the chart in front of me is this little island called Saba. I’ve seen it on the horizon as we sailed over. Steep and green, with its peak in the clouds – like something out of a fairy tale. Using my finger against the chart scale it seems to be no more than five miles square, yet it’s 3000’ high; it’s a mountain sticking out of the water. I’ve read they had no road until the 50’s so you walked between townships – there are two, sensibly named Bottom and Windwardside* – on a mountain track. There’s still no marina. Supposed to be the best diving in the Caribbean. Very tricky anchorage; you probably don’t want to go there. Doesn’t sound like any of the big boats are going; haven’t yet met anyone who’s been. Sounds remote. But really? It’s only 20 odd miles from fancy St Barts – how could that be?

Has a nice feel about it. Think it’s worth a look. What do you think? Want to come? There’s an international airport just off our port side; we can pick you up in the dinghy; you could be here by the morning!

I’ve been sailing now for seven months. I’m a different person. Really, I am; I feel changed. I even look physically different. But want to know what’s the true essence of sailing like this?

It’s simple: you have time.

_____

*One can only assume being to leeward of Bottom is unfashionable.

St Martin

There's no need to go to the airport beach to get jetblasted. Tropical storm Olga is in the vicinity, and it's making it very, very windy. We have had gusts to 50 knots which causes the boat to swerve around and blow 15 degrees onto its side. Like most sailors, on nights like this I don't really sleep...just drift a little below the surface with one weather eye open, and ears listening to every noise from the boat. Keeps you out of trouble, but not very restful.

So we're holding tight in the lagoon at St Martin. The weather is actually quite pleasant: warm and mostly sunny. It's just the wind that is problematic. The French coast guard was stopping boats from leaving bays on their side (we're on the Dutch side now) due to 6m seas.

The lagoon is a good place for boat maintenance; there's services of every kind and good hardware stores etc. But the water is not too clean: not good enough for swimming anyway, and swimming is nice in 29C. So we're keen to leave, finally, for St Barts. Perhaps Saturday?

Sounds like a fun place with great snorkeling.

Greg bought a case of Heineken and a case of sparkling water, and paid more for the water. Does that strike you as strange?

Saint-Barthélemy

Richard left this morning. Will be sad to see him go, he's a good guy and a good sailor, and he had some good knot tricks that came in handy re-rigging the boom. He's trading in 89F and sunshine for 41F and sleet in New York City; he didn't look too happy as he turned to go.

The boom is fixed, as are numerous small items that we've worn out, busted or neglected, so we're set to move on. I hope to sail next to Saint-Barthélemy, or St Barths if you can't find the key combination to come up with that thing over the e. I haven't been before, but it's supposed to be pretty fancy. We're told that at New Year's it's where all the super-yacht set go; Paul Allen's Octopus will be there (it has a submarine in which 8 people can stay underwater for two weeks) and so will Maltese Falcon. We'll fit right in of course ("excuse me, but where can we anchor out for free?")

Speaking of super-yachts, St Martin is full of them. It's one of those places that has good services, there's wine, food, fuel and provisions, and a big international airport where crew and guests can arrive. From here they do circuits of the local islands. We've met a bunch of the crews, they're almost always interesting and full of stories. There's also been a super-yacht boat show going on. It's really intended for European yacht (read: holiday) brokers to see the boats so they can go and sell weeks aboard to potential 'yachtsmen', but there have also been lots of people in the industry more widely attending; insurers, people who can get you a berth in Monaco during the Grand Prix, or a slip near the bar in Antibes. So we've had some interesting chats and hilarious stories of course. Some in fact on the back of these giant ships at parties we've managed to bluff ourselves into - champagne darling! - and at one a chef offered Greg her resume! (I think he said we were on a 43 and she thought meters).

I have asked a few of these people whether any of these boats actually turn a profit, and in every case there's violent head shaking. Hardly a surprise really - these are expensive assets, and they're mostly sitting around being buffed and polished rather than out getting some revenue over the bows.

The best parts are the names: Just Another Toy, Ubiquitous, Cocktails...you get the drift. Oh dear! Most look like giant white floating sneakers, although there's the odd more classically styled vessel, often with a Dutch flag. And every now and then you see a beautiful sailing yacht, all sails up and flying with spray everywhere. It doesn't happen often, but when it does it's a sight to behold!

Jet blast

We have a broken boom. A fitting failed where the vang attaches. So we had to take the boom off and go about repairs, and that meant moving from Marigot, on the French side, to Simpson Bay, on the Dutch side. Although it's 1.6nm between the two by way of the lagoon, we had to clear out of France before we could clear into Holland.
Course France was closed when we wanted to go, so we had to enter Holland illegally, keeping a low profile of course. Yesterday I dinghy'd back to France, cleared us out, and we then we entered formerly (a day late, but with a nice passport stamp) into the Netherlands Antilles. They didn't notice the discrepancy between the days (and the swing bridge who recorded our entrance)...but with so many forms and so much carbon copy paper -- true! the orignal CC! -- I'm hardly surprised.

It's meant we've been in St Martin perhaps a little longer than expected. Still, it's a lovely place. Each day it seems to rain for a few minutes (keeps the decks clean) and it's always hot and sunny. The water is pristine: we set the anchor by watching it fall to the white, sandy seafloor. You can see it lying on the bottom - is it set properly? Just have a look.

St Martin is also a free port. This means there is no duty. So a bottle of gin sets you back about US$8. Our water tanks hold 100 gallons. I also think we can run the engine on gin. I know Greg can run on vodka.

I still haven't told you about the giant dorado we caught.

In addition to doing boat maintenance, we also went to Sunset Beach. SB is at the end of the runway for Princess Juliana Airport. When I say it's at the end of the runway, I mean it's AT THE END OF THE RUNWAY. For starters (we're new at this) we stood on the beach and tried to stare down the little commuter planes; they come roaring in just over your head, and it really feels like you could swat them out of the air, or them you. Now you all know I am a tough guy, but I lost my nerve and had to duck a little bit (a very little bit if anybody asks).

K, so then we stepped it up a bit. You see, the two highlights of the day occur, first, at 1407 and then at 1700. The first is the arrival of the big fella: Air France's four engined A340. I thought it was pretty exciting standing on the beach as this bad-boy screams in over your head, and makes you smell like kerosene in its jet wash. But that's nothing. At 1700 it taxis out and lines up on the runway for its trip back to CDG. The pilots wave as they turn the corner. The thing is right in front of you, and you can feel the warmth of its engines blowing back at you. It's close. A reasonable underarm lob and you could hit it with a tennis ball.

Intelligently, at this moment you walk up to the fence at the very end of the runway, look the heat haze coming out of the engines in the eye, and hold on for dear life as the pilots in the cockpit push those four little levers forward. Thank heavens they have no rear vision mirrors on Air France, because that little wrist action pushes out a searing hot blast of 500 knot breeze; small stones tear at your skin, your hair - moments ago wet, is suddenly dry and coiffed a-la kerosene, your clothes whip and crackle, your cheeks vibrate, and you are really wondering if your legs are going to get whipped out from under you. And then, after just a moment, it's over, and the plane climbs up and over the peaks of St Martin, plumes of full-throttle smoke trailing from its engines. You smile nervously at each other and say, man, that was fun, and on weak legs swagger back to the beach as if you weren't indelibly altered forever by the experience. And what I love about it most is that it's simply so stupid. I mean, who really wants to stand in the jet blast of an A340? I kept thinking that this is the kind of thing that gives you an entry in one of those 'Darwin Award' emails. I certainly wouldn't have done it if Greg hadn't called me a name that would normally be associated with a small kitten.

In fact, I didn't do it at all the first time (don't tell anyone), but Greg did. And after that and more kitten calls I had a good go. An AA 757, couple of seven-sixes, laughed at a turbo-prop wash, big-pimped at a Gulfstream 3 and the new series 737, the ones with the super strong engines. After a while we were telling newcomers to take their sunglasses off if they wanted to keep them. But once a week there is a 747 that comes to town. Now that, dear friends, would be something. Expect an email showing raggedy-ann dolls (subject line: 2007 Darwin Awards), or at least a photo of Greg and I with our eyebrows seared off.

Richard took some great photos and encouraged our stupidity.

Anchored in Marigot, St Martin 18°04.170N, 63°05.3W

We arrived in Marigot this morning, after slowing down a bit overnight so we would arrive at daybreak. Still amazes me that after sailing 1000nm, suddenly two islands appear where you think they should, and suddenly you can hear the sound of frogs and crickets, and a loom from the islands lights.

We had a fast trip. I estimated 8 days; Richard potentially up to 10-12. We ended up getting here in five and a half days, so it was a great run (albeit a little uncomfortable at times).

It's warm and fun and the water is pristine. More when I've thrown myself in!

Atlantic Ocean, reaching in the NE tradewinds

We just changed course, from due south, to a more westerly course towards St Martin. Our current position is 22N, 61W, or 257nm from St Martin, and 1300nm from Ambrose Light, outside New York harbor. We picked up the trades at around 24N, and we're now in 25 knt northeasterlies under a beautiful, warm sky with Simpson's like clouds. The boat is reaching nicely, but for the last couple of days we've had too much wind and it has led to large seas; somewhat uncomfortable sailing. As a result we have had a triple reefed main up for much of the last 24 hours; this morning we shook out the reef and we've accelerated back up to a respectable 7.8 knts. We have the fishing line out: we've decided our lure only causes amusement among the local fish; even the seaweed won't hook on it.

Over the last 24H (which has been too bumpy for me to write anything) we've sailed well below the southern tip of Florida, and we're now close to the latitude of Cuba's southern shore, Guantanamo Bay in fact, albeit it is 800nm to our west. Directly south of us, through the Caribbean, is the Rio Delta in Venezuela (790nm
south).

Greg just cooked up some superb lamb kebabs which we had with harissa and pita. I've been cleaning up the starboard bunk: I made the mistake of trying to air out the cabin by opening a hatch, and took about 150 liters through it for my stupidity. I find it hard to believe that the cabin is now almost to hot! It was only a couple of weeks ago we left NYC ice one the decks.

We've seen one sailboat (at night, and that I tried to hail unsuccessfully) and two freighters, but otherwise, it feels like just us, sliding down the ocean swells, on our own little disk of the ocean, with water from horizon to horizon.

Otherwise we've been listening to weather reports on our single-sideband from Southbound II, a service run by Herb Hilengen out of his house in Canada. Pretty fun listening to him providing wx and routing advice to snowbirds sailing south, and boats coming in from Europe via the Canary Islands. I sense the Caribbean is going to have a lot of sailboats in it this winter!

377nm S of Bermuda

We left Bermuda at 7pm on Friday night, after meeting up with Richard Jesaitis, our new crew member for the passage to St Maarten. He was able to enjoy Bermuda forabout 30 minutes before joining us to clear customs out. The reason was a weather window looked like it was about to open; a cold front was due to pass over Bermuda in the morning, and we wanted to use it to get south and east, but also to be sufficiently south when it hit so that the impact would be light.

I don't like leaving into darkness, but it's worked really well. In the 24 hrs since we left Bermuda we've clocked up 188nm; I'm pretty sure a boat record for us. Today and overnight have also been fast, reaching breezes, and Richard, Greg and I have been changing gears, reefing and shaking reefs to keep the boat carving along at top speed. And it's so much more pleasant than the run down from New York. For one, it's getting much warmer, so shorts and T-shirt weather (or foulies at night simply because it's been a bit squally), no gulfstream to deal with, and a big factor, it's a full moon so you can see for miles and ride the waves on night watches. Those nights crossing the gulfstream still fascinate me: I've never experienced such darkness!

It's great to have Richard on board. He is an accomplished navigator, and sail trimmer, and he has an intellectual interest in the boat, weather and all that good stuff; and he makes a mean toasted sandwich!

Overnight midnight-3am was my watch. Although Otto can take care of it, I hand steered almost the entire watch, listening to music on my ipod, and roaring down the faces of the big ocean rollers. Absolutely spectacular fun! Right up there with my most memorable sailing experiences (except Greg did point out he could hear my singing in the cabin; I feel bad about that, my singing is not really something you want to put your best mates through).

After consistent 20-25 knt winds this morning that had us frequently in the 8's and 9's, we're now down to 15 knts. The chop is all gone, and we're left with long ocean swells from the NE, and a beautiful sunset among high cumulus clouds. Although they're probably 8 footers, the wave period is so long we just slide up and the pass underneath us without any major motion.

We have some basmati rice on the stove, and we're heating up a chicken tikka that Heidi put together for us in Bermuda. YUM!

So in all, we're having a great passage. 377nm in slightly less than 48 hrs has us almost a full day's run ahead of our plan. We're now 26 degrees north, around 120nm north of the tradewind belt, so all going well we can use that for a fast reach into St Maarten. We'll see how that goes, but that's the plan.

We're now abeam with the top of the Bahamas, or southern Florida, and it feels great. Dark blue water that's 29.1C! But we're also 900nm from the mainland, so it does feel very remote out here! We've only seen two freighters since leaving
Bermuda.

St Georges, Bermuda 32°22.8N, 64°40.5W

We plan to set off tomorrow evening for St Martin. Should take us 8-10 days, all going well!

St Georges, Bermuda 32°22.8N, 64°40.5W

[This is paragraph one. Knowing this will be useful later.] One of the things I find most difficult about cruising is not having access to high-speed internet. I guess I’m just so used to being able to access information fast and efficiently that I find it maddeningly frustrating when I can’t. I think I’m a bit of a spectacle in St Georges harbor zooming around in the dinghy trying to ‘borrow’ people’s unprotected wireless internet, laptop in hand. Now that, dear readers (both of you), is a real mobile office.

(as an aside, if I ever live by the sea, I will leave my internet unprotected with a welcome note).

Greg has recently invested in a Cantena (the name is a pretty good description). On Friday when the essential but missing superspecialbutcostsmuchmore cable arrives, I trust we can filtch internet with greater success, and with perhaps a little more dignity than the dinghy. Greg also has a cool Skype like phone service set up – he’s a real expert in this area - and if that works, we may even be able to talk to you!

Sailing wise, Friday looks like a weather window. Right now we have a nasty low pressure system (980MB) to our northeast. It’s causing gale force winds through our anchorage. There’s superb holding here in hard packed sand (and I should add, beautiful clear water so you can see the bottom in 15’) so I’m not too concerned about dragging anchor. We also have our big Fortress FX-37 who’s-your-daddy-danforth plugged into the planet as a secondary – so we’re really not moving unless Bermuda does. But the problem is the boat is so damn efficient it insists on sailing around the anchor at some considerable pace, side to side, reaching the end of its tether with an uncomfortable jerk. It’s gusting to 30 knts and it’s starting to annoy me: you try gripping your bed with your toes!

We hope to use this passing system to catapult us out of Bermuda. Next stop is a little under 1000nm away, almost due south, a little island I know nothing about called St Maarten. To get there, we’ll use the tail end of this system to head southeast, or really to clock up as much easting as we can get. When we’re perhaps 100-150nm east of the longitude of St Maarten (St Maarten is 63 degrees west of the prime meridian - that magical line that runs through the National Observatory at Greenwich, England, and that represents 0 degrees longitude); only then will we focus on heading pure south. So why head east when your destination almost totally south? The reason for this is twofold. Most importantly, we will hit the northeasterly tradewinds for the first time when we get to around 24 degrees north of the equator, and you should know, sailing INTO the trades is quite ungentlemanly. Secondly, there is around a 1 knt east to west current for much of this trip that we need to reckon for.

Now, I trust this discussion has left you with the impression that I know precisely what I am talking about (I know very well that those of you who know me are working hard to stifle your laughter, so don’t bother to email). Well, whatever, when we end up in the British Virgins or perhaps even Puerto Rico, or maybe even Miami, just know I PLANNED IT THAT WAY.

We thought the fishing was better over there.

If weather and catapults and prime meridians interest you, or at least if you want to see what we are sailing in, than you will find the weather data at GRIB.US of interest. You will need to download some software – and register first – but it is free. The interface brings up a map of the world. You select the area of interest, and it will download five days of gridded binary files, or GRIBS, that provide a model of the region’s forecast weather. Once you are rolling, you should click the ‘animate’ button in the top right so it will present the progression of forecast weather every three hours over the next five days.

If you do this, you will see a bunch of weather arrows. These show the speed and direction of wind. IMPORTANT: although wind is described from the direction from which it blows, ie, a northerly wind is blowing from north to south, with weather arrows, the head of the arrow shows in which direction the wind is blowing. I learnt this during our summer in Maine when I had hoped to be in the Caribbean. In addition to the direction, the weather arrow also shows you the strength of the wind. Each full barb represents 10 knts, each half-barb 5 knots, and I hope it's not in our sector, a pennant (triangle) represents 50 knts. The grey stuff is cloud or rain.

Have a look at Bermuda – that’s a pretty big system!

Ultimately our navigation relies on the settle of tea leaves, and stuff we overhear in bars, but this stuff makes you sound knowledgeable to your friends and I strongly recommend it.

If you’re wondering why there are no photos of Bermuda, please revisit paragraph one.

Safely anchored in St Georges Harbor, Bermuda

Time for a dark & stormy!

Dan, Tom, Sylvain and Greg, taken at the Bermuda Customs dock. Smiles don't get bigger than that!

Last beat to Bermuda

One interesting aspect of our first ocean storm is how it changes your parameters. Leading into it, 25 knots was pretty exciting, and 30 knts made us a little apprehensive. Having sailed for a number of hours in 40 knts, with seas to boot, 25 knts now seems quite routine.

Tuesday night remained amazingly dark. The weather systems have totally changed from those on the continental shelf. Now we have starry skies, but dark, anvil-headed thundersystems patrolling around in isolated patches. The dense rain within them is reflected in the radar, and the lightening is of course visable. We were back into reaching mode - fast and flat - and it was fun to steer between the systems keeping out of the wind blasts and rain.

Finally, Thursday morning dawned with clear skies, almost calm seas and a 15 knot breeze (close hauled). We continue our watches all day to allow everybody to catch up on sleep, but in the afternoon, the warm sunny day, beautiful blue water and fun sailing had us all on deck laughing and wearing shorts and t-shirts. I think this is what we came for. We even had dinner together - the first time since leaving NYC.

The night watches are hilarious. We're so tired we're almost delirious, and tonight Dan broke out some of those Dutch schtoopwaffle things, a delicious hyper sugary treat. In combination, between trimming the sails and watching the horizon, the tiredness and sugar-rush conversation swings from absurdity, to absolute seriousness, to way-out humour - out of context not really funny, in fact outright silly, but doubled over laughter funny at the time. I distinctly heard Dan singing Eye of the Tiger at one point.

Through the night the wind has clocked to the south. We're now close hauled and smashing uncomfortably to windward, periodically burying the nose in steep waves. But we can hear Bermuda Radio on the VHF, and although we can't see it, it's only sixty miles over the horizon. I think we'll have to motor or motor sail the last bit to ensure we're safely inside tonight, the next big system is heading in from the northwest, and Bermuda weather forecasts 8-13' seas and gusts to 30.

We're very excited. The Q-flag is ready. We've previously faxed our details to Bermuda radio, and now we're just praying we can get in before customs closes for the day. I expect we'll see the lighthouses guarding Town Cut and St. Georges harbor anytime soon.

One of the photos shows Dan pointing at our hitchhiker.

Storm

Tuesday saw us on the eastern side of the stream, deep reaching across the deep blue Atlantic, six, seven's even long surfing periods at above eight knots, plumes of white water flowing out from the bow. This favorable 20 knot breeze had whitecaps rapidly forming, but over the afternoon the breeze continued to increase from 20, through 25 then 30 and as night came we were in consistent 40 knot blow. Ultimately we saw a brief 55 knts on the wind indicator, and Sylvain and I, on watch together, both looked at each other with a 'did you see that?' look. With hundreds of miles of fetch, and after twelve hours, we had huge, steep ocean breakers cracking the side of the boat, and occasionally dumping into the cockpit. I guess they were about 15', but when you're in the trough of a wave, and looking up through the icy blue colour near the wave's top, they seem to tower above before the boat rises up to meet them. We kept reducing sail, from the morning's second reefed main, to our deep third reef, while also furling up a few roles of the jib every few hours. Once the waves started to break, collapsing down on themselves in big flowing piles of white water, I started to get a bit nervous. We hoisted our storm trysail, and reefed the jib down to a slither the size of a folded hankerchief, and tried to choose the least difficult course.

The effect of the trysail was amazing, the boat stayed upright, slowed to about five knots, and we could steer a path around and through the wave crests, and still largely head in the direction of Bermuda. Ultimately, inside these super dark moonless nights weve been having, nothing but the howl of the wind and the roar of breaking waves (their breaking tops causing a glow of phosphorescence), we were still able to hand over steering duties to the tireless Otto (Sylvain's nickname for our autopilot, it's full name actually Otto P. Lot) and work through our three hours on, three hours off until the western horizon slowly appeared.

East of the Stream 36 32'N, 068 54'W

Slipped into the gulfstream under the cover of darkness entering at 37 30'N, 070 30'W last night at about 2145. The darkest night I have ever been in. Water temperature rose sharply, from 14C in New York harbor, and 16C up to the continental shelf, right up to 28.8C in the middle of the stream!! Amazing phosphorescence - we had a tail like a meteor that stretched out towards the horizon. I got splashed by some water from a misbehaving wave and it's like bathwater. We raced across all night and exited the stream just after 6am this morning, as the first hint of light hit the sky.

One consequence of the stream is that each of us came on deck, and over a period of time, everybody finally said 'I am so hot!' and removed a few layers of clothing. We were still wearing hats, gloves, longjohns and so on. Now it's not quite t-shirt weather, but we're just wearing light clothes under our foul weather gear, and that despite 30 knts and a bit of spray.

Haven't seen another boat for two days.

After looking forward to seeing the color of the stream for ages, we kind of missed it by crossing at night. Still, now on the eastern side, the water is a dark purple colour - really quite amazing. I referred to it as aubergine which has caused hours of entertainment for the boys at my expense.

Right now, 1030 on Tuesday, we're in a squall, breeze to 30 knots and around 8-10' seas. We've triple reefed the main, and have a sliver of jib flying, but we're still cruising along in the 7's. Lots of spray, but it's nice to see again after such a dark night. I'm also relieved to be over the stream: we're out of the zone that has a reputation for becoming dangerous. So for now a bit bouncy and uncomfortable, but boat feels fine and balanced, and we're tearing down the rhumb line for Bermuda.

A bit hard for me to write, so will leave it here. 312nm to Bermuda; we're just passed half way. Water temp still 25C.

[some of Sylvain's photos attached]

The eastern side of the stream

Tuesday saw us on the eastern side of the stream, deep reaching across the deep blue
Atlantic, six, seven's even long surfing periods at above eight knots, plumes of
white water flowing out from the bow. This favorable 20 knot breeze had whitecaps
rapidly forming, but over the afternoon the breeze continued to increase from 20,
through 25 then 30 and as night came we were in consistent 40 knot blow. Ultimately
we saw a brief 55 knts on the wind indicator, and Sylvain and I, on watch together,
both looked at each other with a 'did you see that?' look. With hundreds of miles
of fetch, and after twelve hours, we had huge, steep ocean breakers cracking the
side of the boat, and occasionally dumping into the cockpit. I guess they were
about 15', but when you're in the trough of a wave, and looking up through the icy
blue colour near the wave's top, they seem to tower above before the boat rises up
to meet them. We kept reducing sail, from the morning's second reefed main, to our
deep third reef, while also furling up a few roles of the jib every few hours. Once
the waves started to break, collapsing down on themselves in big flowing piles of
white water, I started to get a bit nervous. We hoisted our storm trysail, and
reefed the jib down to a slither the size of a folded hankerchief, and tried to
choose the least difficult course.

The effect of the trysail was amazing, the boat stayed upright, slowed to about five
knots, and we could steer a path around and through the wave crests, and still
largely head in the direction of Bermuda. Ultimately, inside these super dark
moonless nights weve been having, nothing but the howl of the wind and the roar of
breaking waves (their breaking tops causing a glow of phospherescence), we were
still able to hand over steering duties to the tireless Otto (Sylvain's nickname for
our autopilot, it's full name actually Otto P. Lot) and work through our three hours
on, three hours off until the western horizon slowly appeared.

200nm South East of New York

It now feels like we're a long way from anywhere. Our current position is 200nm South East of New York. We're under a big high-pressure system that has led to nice sunshine, and only a little north-west breeze, a pleasant consequence of which is that we're right out in the ocean but the waves are mainly a long, uneventful ocean swell.

It's 3pm. Sounds early, but we are planning for our night watches, storing stuff and getting headlamps and the like ready. I just took in the poled out genoa. It's a strange effect, but by day we occupy a huge disc of ocean, perhaps 50nm wide, and you can of course see from horizon to horizon in every direction. As dusk falls and the sun drops below the horizon, the disc rapidly narrows until our world becomes simply that little area across the cockpit and to the tricolour light on the masthead, swinging back and forth against the stars. No moon at the moment, so it's very, very dark at night, but you can stare at the stars and meteors arching across the heavens for hours.

We haven't seen another boat for at least 12 hours.

We just ate lunch. A delish (and wonderfully warm)chili that Greg's girlfriend Heidi made for us and froze. Although conditions today are quite mellow, it's nice to have a few pre-made meals in the freezer: certainly makes life easier, and in any kind of blow will be fabulous.

Last night we sailed over Hudson Canyon, a giant trench in the seafloor at the edge of the continental shelf. The depth then was less than 200' but is now 10,171'. Of course the sounder stopped receiving an echo long ago, so that number is from the chart. We're continuing to work south-south east (154 degrees)and will do so for another 45nm; by then we should enter the gulfstream. It's about 60nm wide, so it'll take us until the morning to get there. I'm eager to get across due to the sudden and highly uncomfortable storms the stream can dish up in a very short time, but also because it's still very cold at night. We've already seen the water temperature climb from 14 to 16 and now 18C.

Much of last night we were reaching at 7-8 knts with the full main and genoa out. I'm currently doing watches with Sylvain, and on our 12-3am we were visited by two dolphins who played in the pressure wave for more than on hour. It being dark we couldn't really see them but for the plumes of phosphorescence that was streaking off them. I went and lay down in the bow, and watched them swimming and jinking back and forth seemingly an arms reach away. Like all good people, I tried to make dolphin noises at them; these ones were not chatty, I suspect were deaf or mute.

Once we hit the stream, we'll adjust our course a little more east. We're trying to ride a meander, or eddy, in the stream to get a boost across. Unfortunately we're unlikely to see the dramatic change in water colour that the stream brings until dawn tomorrow morning. We're also told the fishing in the stream is amazing...we'll see, today we've had the line out and caught some nice seaweed, in keeping with this summer's experience.

Behind me in the cabin Greg and Dan are sound asleep. Three hours on, three off takes a bit of getting used to, so everybody is getting ahead on points in this calm weather. And also because around 3am we expect a squally front to pass through with winds to 30 knts and associated waves. Being dead smack in the middle of the gulfstream when it hits may make those conditions a little more dramatic than they would normally be.

We're having a blast. Great teamwork from everybody, lots of jokes and good feeling, and I'm enjoying watching Greg and Dan (on the other watch from Sylvain and I) confidently throwing this 43 footer around like a dinghy. Greg is currently in my sleeping bag. Only his face is sticking out of the full head covering and I keep thinking of Kenny from South Park, and giggling. I must look equally stupid when he's awake and I'm asleep!

I'm sending this to my sister in Auckland to post onto the blog. We shoot a digital signal from our single-sideband radio off the atmosphere, and to a base station in Nova Scotia, Canada. It then puts the message into the internet in the usual way. It's a bit fiddly, but so far seems to be working pretty well.

40 degrees 01 min North; 073 deg 13 min West

Rushing downwind with the genoa poled out. New York is well over the horizon, and we're about 60nm offshore. It's sunny, all this morning's ice has melted long ago, and we have a 18-25knt breeze directly astern; so we're wing-and-wing and rushing down the miles. Right now we're doing just under 8 knts, well above our targeted 6 knt average estimate. A reasonable swell, but nothing to bad and the boat is riding it nicely. We've dropped quite easily into our watches; I think I had a little nap this morning, and I noticed Dan and Greg both passed out after lunch this afternoon.

Apart from sailing and navigating, we're sewing our drogue together. It's all set to be bolted onto the boat, but we're still splicing the parachutes onto the line - there's 120 or so of them - but we're almost done.

We have a little hitchiker. A small sparrow chick that looks a little lost. We've given it some bread and it looks happier, but of course nowhere near as happy as it will be flitting around in semi-tropical Bermuda. Hold the course little fella!

We're expecting a very cold night. There is no cloud to hold in any heat, so I think it'll be freezing, but equally some good stargazing. I think we're about 200nm from the gulfstream now, so if we keep up this pace we could be in it by tomorrow night. It is of course much, much warmer that what we're currently sailing through (the water has gone a darker blue and is 16C, up from 14.5 in New York harbor). Also not too deep yet: only 150'.

So all good. We're having a lot of fun so far in what is almost perfect conditions.

I have the graveyard 12-3am watch with Sylvain, so I'm going to try and have a little nap now, or at least read a bit of Shantaram.

New York City

Sailing out of New York City for the last time. The sun is reflecting on the skyscrapers, it's cold, frost on the decks. Eight magical years.

Bermuda here we come!

Mamaroneck, New York 40°56.9N, 73°43.8W

A frenzy of preparations: no matter how long you prepare, I think setting off for a sail like this always ends this way - desperately getting spare fuel filters, organizing a little bit more food, and Greg trying to find his special wind-stopper fleece hat.

Over the last couple of days we've been at a boatyard having two padeyes installed on the stern. These aren't just rusty old D-bolts, they're super strong Harken units that have a breaking load of 20,000lbs. They're bolted through one-inch thick solid fiberglass and have large stainless steel backing plates that give them a huge load bearing capacity. To put this in context, the whole boat weighs just over 20,000 lbs (about 9,000kg), so we can almost hang the boat from the stern off either padeye (a potentially novel way to save on winter storage costs)!

The reason for all this is a device called a Jordan Series Drogue. In essence this is a 200' long piece of rope. The start of the rope connects to the boat (the new padeyes) via a bridle and some giant stainless thimbles; above is a photo of one next to a quarter . But the key to it lies in a series of around 120 small parachutes, each a small drag device, that run down the rope. In series they provide a huge amount of resistance.

It's one of those things you hope you never use (having paid for it today, I thought just for a moment: we'd better use this damn thing. But it's a day or two before we leave and I'm getting superstitious - I took it back very quickly and hope nobody up there heard).

You see, a potential risk to a sailboat like this comes from large breaking waves. Big waves are fine, we just sail over them, but breaking waves can sometimes, when they're big enough, catch the boat and propel it like a surfboard. The boat takes off, essentially in a falling body of water flying down the wave, and can hit 70km/h before crashing into the wave's trough. I'm told this is not recommended. Either the boat breaks up, or the bow can plant into the trough with the following wave flipping it end-over-end, a situation known as pitchpoling. I'm fairly confident that is not recommended either.

So this is where the drogue comes in. It keeps the boat's stern to the waves. When a big wave hits, it allows the boat to accelerate a little (diffusing the impact) but then gradually the chutes open and - like a bungy going tight - you're pulled back through the whitewater and over the wave's top. That each side of the bridle needs to be rated, in our case, to 14,000 lbs gives you a sense of the loads potentially created. There are other versions in more common use - one giant parachute etc - but this one intuitively sounds safest to me: the loads on any one chute are small, there's almost nil chance of the series getting reversed (a risk with just one chute), and it's so long there's little chance of it being in the same place on a following wave.

So it's a pretty useful device. My friend Dan, a willing volunteer to Bermuda, spent a good part of today helping connect the chutes to the line. We've done about 30....only 90 to go...

...but for now it's not so much a problem that we're still finishing off our preparation. The weather in the stream is awful. It looks like we'll be here another day or two at least. Here's the forecast for the offshore waters outside NY...not even in the gulfstream yet [1 Fathom is 1.8 meters or 6']:

GALE FORCE WINDS EXPECTED SAT INTO SUN

FRI
WINDS BECOMING NE AND INCREASING TO 15 TO 20 KT
LATE...EXCEPT W OF 1000 FM 10 TO 15 KT. SEAS BUILDING TO 4 TO 7
FT. HIGHEST WINDS AND SEAS SE.

FRI NIGHT
NE WINDS INCREASING TO 20 TO 30 KT. SEAS BUILDING
TO 7 TO 11 FT.

SAT
N TO NE WINDS INCREASING TO 25 TO 35 KT...EXCEPT E OF 70W
TO 35 TO 45 KT. SEAS 8 TO 12 FT...EXCEPT E OF 1000 FM BUILDING
TO 12 TO 19 FT. HIGHEST WINDS AND SEAS SE.

Mamaroneck, New York 40°56'N 073°43'W

Although hurricane season is officially over (Nov 1) the weather window to Bermuda and the Caribbean is firmly closed. North of us is a deep low pressure system causing strong winds, and heading towards us there's a tropical cyclone (which until very recently was hurricane Noel). In any case, we're still doing last minute jobs getting the boat ready to leave. Greg is shopping for food, and we've a million small tasks going on. But we hope to be ready to depart in the next week.

This is a technical passage. The gulfstream is flowing north between us and Bermuda at up to 4 knots. It's also much warmer than the surrounding water (indeed, it's the most severe temperature gradient anywhere in the world). For these two reasons the gulfstream is famous for 'making its own weather'. From our perspective, what we're most concerned about is a northerly wind shift. This causes a wind against current situation, which in the gulfstream can mean almost survival conditions - with large, triangular steep waves - in only about 25 knts of wind.

While we've all been doing our best to study the weather and hone up our forecasting skills, I can only say that my skills are marginal so far. So for this trip we've hired Commanders Weather - a professional weather forecasting outfit - to give us some guidance on a good weather window, and the best way to approach the eddies and counter-currents of the stream.

The photos show an infrared satellite image of the gulfstream, and below that, visual satellite imagery of the storm currently affecting the New England coast.

So we're very close now. I'm excited, but a little apprehensive too.

I turn 36 tomorrow. I've finally grown into my gray hair after years of trying. At these moments I'm always reminded of a comment my Dad once made:

The funny thing about growing older is that we all do it at the same rate!

Stratford, Connecticut

Steep, sloppy seas and a cold, wet wind right on the nose. Not the best sailing conditions (gentlemen never sail to windward!). My friend Sylvain has come up to help me get the boat down the Sound - a tremendous help - and we're crashing into it.

Earlier today, while motor-sailing, we appear to have sucked up some dirty diesel. Suddenly the engine died, and a look at the fuel filters showed a dark gray sludge clogging every pore. Oh man, why does this kind of thing always happen in rolling, corkscrewing seas? Still, better than an engine failure just at that point-of-no-return while approaching a dock I guess!

We changed the filters without too much problem. Those of you who have been up to the elbows in a diesel engine will know that they don't work if there's any air in the fuel lines. You also can't just crank away to get the fuel flowing as you might in a car. So when you change the filters you need to pump fresh fuel through the system while bleeding out the air bubbles (typically, in my case, with diesel flowing down your forearms). We had a bit of trouble getting the pump to prime, and I was getting frustrated after nearly 40 minutes trying that we're about to set off half way around the world and I can't even fix a blocked fuel line.

The diesel fumes and rolling conditions also left me a bit seasick. But ultimately we got it sorted with some creative use of the pump normally used for the transmission fluid, and Sylvain and I both pumping away at these silly little priming pumps. But as it burst into life, confidence was restored, and we pushed onwards towards the rapidly darkening horizon.

When we get to Mamaroneck another task will be to pump out and clean the tanks. At least I've changed the filters! This is really how it is: you cross one item off the to-do list and add another at the top. It really never stops!

En Route New London, CT 41°17.6N, 71°51.6W

I left Newport this morning, single handing towards New London, Connecticut. Right now I'm abeam Block Island heading west at 7.2 knots, riding the current beginning to flood into Long Island Sound. We're on our way!

It's been an eventful few weeks, the details of which will have to wait until some other time. For now, I think we're almost ready to head out to Bermuda and the Caribbean. We've got new storm sails, Spectra halyards, a watermaker and a liferaft (and ropes, books, clothes and foul weather gear everywhere). A few last minute jobs, most importantly food and a mounting bracket for our Jordan Series Drogue.

Given I'm single handing, I should probably keep a lookout rather than updating this (in truth, I do pop up every few minutes, and I am watching the radar and chartplotter in front of me) but there's one cool thing I've added to this site that I wanted to tell you about.

If you look in the top right corner, there is a new section called LINKS. Here there is a link to YOTREPS (Yacht Reports - see "where are we...") a website that superimposes our position on one of Google's maps. The exciting thing here is that we can update it via our single-sideband radio, so we can continue to send position reports even though we're well out of internet range. From here on in our access to the net will be infrequent, and certainly only when we are anchored at some destination.