2008 TRIP #4 ATLANTIC CROSSING TRY #2

The happy family several months ago.

Proud daddy

It's cold out sailing.

Just like grandpa

I said I didn`t want a bath!

Hugh is a perfect fit for our galley sink

5/19/08 We are currently anchored in Wrightsville Beach, NC. We have found our crew! It is easy to say you would like to sail across the Atlantic, but to actually make the time and the commitment is another case. Our first crew to sign on is our good friend and neighbor near our vacation house in Hayesville, NC. His name is Nate Hope and he is a licensed Captain and has crossed the Atlantic before. We are thrilled to have him join us. Our other member is a friend of our son, Glenn. Her name is Jade Montana and she is a traveling nurse. Considering my experience on the water before I am happy to have her with us. One of the partners from my office, Mike Geisler, will be joining us for the Bermuda leg. He brags about his strong back and weak mind so we are happy to have his sense of humour join us.
We have already done our haul-out and repainted the bottom, changed the seals in our sail drives, and just generally looked over the bottom while out of the water. (I have avoided having my bottom looked at lately as 6 months at a desk is really tough on the body.) Glenn is also planning on changing the rigging as a precautionary measure. That will be a huge job. Ricky decided to do his imitation of a flying squirrel and jumped off the stern of the boat on to the hard ground. I couldn't look. It was a 10' jump. Glenn saw him land on all four feet, stomach go down to the ground, limp three steps and then trot off. Boy was he lucky. Lucy won't leave the salon.
Our son, Glenn drove 2 1/2 hours to the haul-out point to take me out to dinner for Mother's Day.
Our daughter Janine, with Hugh and Tom in tow, joined us for the day after Mother's Day and a sail down the intracoastal from our haul-out point to Wrightsville Beach. We had a wonderful time together. Hugh fits just perfectly into our galley sink. We went out into the ocean for a short sail and the motion made him fall asleep immediately. The 3 days together were very relaxing for all.
We have been busy trying to make room for 5 people on the boat. Glenn is crying as he unloads tools, equipment and "stuff" that he hasn't been able to part with in the past 3 years. I have to give up the microwave as it uses too much electricity. The TV goes as it won't get European channels. Food and drink for 6 weeks takes a lot of space.

It has been a good and bad past 6 months. Both of my parents died last year, 7 months apart. I have been dreading this time all of my life. There is just no way to prepare for the devestation. The good part of it is that they were 88 and had a wonderful life together.
The good part of our time spent home is that we got to spend time with our kids and grandchildren in Fl. We have a grandson who is 13, Jeremy, and Jarod and Kayleigh have just turned 10. We also got to see Hugh several times. He is so advanced he already has 2 teeth! The other good news is that our daughter, Germaine Catherine, is pregnant. She is due in late November just in time for our return home next year to work. What wonderful timing she has.

The other crew we are preparing are Ricky and Lucy. They have their life-jackets, windbreakers, and dressy winter outfits. We dumped them in the pool with and without life -jackets and they swam. Ricky acclimated to the boat immediately. Lucy has just recently managed to walk around the bow, but she still prefers her bed in the salon. We were bringing them back to the boat last night and Ricky just sits there for his life-jacket. Lucy planted all four feet the minute she got out of the car. I could have dragged her across the pavement with four legs still out in front of her, but to save her nails I carried her to the dinghy.

Our planned departure date is June 1st or when the weather permits as soon after. We will be making stops at Bermuda, the Azores and England. Internetting will be sketchy so I may not be able to post anything for a while. WISH US LUCK!

6/01/2008 Today is the day. The weather forecast looks good. We are doing last minute preparations; squeezing in that last ounce of water, changing to our light weather sail, and plans are definitely a go for today. We will probably be back in touch in a week from Bermuda.
I forgot to mention that while I was in Vermont with my family spreading my mother's ashes Glenn stayed at the boat working. He called the first day that I was gone and told me he had taken Lucy and Ricky in the dinghy in their lifejackets with their leashes tied together. Ricky jumped out of the dinghy and started to drag Lucy with him by their connected leashes. The pull of the leash dragged Ricky under the water. Glenn, thankfully, managed to get him out. This dog must have 9 lives like a cat. When he was a puppy Lucy got his collar twisted and caught on her lower jaw. He almost choked to death. A couple of more minutes and we would have been gone to work. Then he took that leap off the boat in dry dock. Now the near drowning. He's only 9 months old.
Back to boating. We weighed anchor at 1:21 with our son, Glenn, giving us an escort out of the harbor. The seas were light, 3-5 foot waves, with the wind at 20 KTS in a good direction. We were doing 7.8 KTS under sail! Of course, that night around 11:00 a storm came in with lightening every where and 30 KT winds. Well I certainly didn't have my sea legs yet and even though I had taken medicine I threw up and hit the bed. Somehow the rough water knocked out our steering. I happened to wake up at 1:30 a.m. with all the guys in the cockpit frustrated because the steering just wasn't cooperating. I felt fine now so I took over and everyone else went to bed. We had all sails down and motors off and just floated until daylight. Then, good old Glenn fixed the steering with epoxy. A few hours later, after it dried, we were back on autopilot.

6/3 So far just perfect weather. We put the fishing lines out and just had a nice relaxing day.

6/4 We farkled today! What fun. We farkled in the cocokpit so the person on watch could join in. From there we moved on to dominoes in the salon.

6/5 Today is so light that we put up our spinnaker. Still no fish. Jade and Mike have taken over the majority of the cooking. What a life. We have had some wonderful meals and everyone feels well enough to enjoy them.

6/6 Spinnaker again. Jade pulled in this really weird fish last night. No one knew what it was. It was long and extremely skinny with a mouth like a barracuda. It almost looked like an eel. Creepy looking.

6/7 Well we have arrived at 1:15, almost exactly 6 days to the minute. What a difference a year makes! We had an absolutely perfect trip. Gorgeous weather and great crew. (Nothing meant against last year`s crew.)Everyone gets along great. Jade is just a joy to have on board. She is funny and cheerful all of the time and a wonderful help. Six days. How wonderful!
Nate, Jade and I went to the laundry. What an escapade. We bought a card for $5, then put $40 worth of time on it. We did our laundry loads and then put them in three dryers. Used the card again to get it going and we had $25 left on the card. So we sold it to a couple in the laundromat for $15. Good deal. They left, 6 minutes later the dryers all stopped. We had only bought 10 minutes of dryer time. Bought another $5 card and $10 time to finish the drying. Three loads of laundry for $45. What a deal. Then we went to a restaurant on the water and had beer and appetizers like real tourists. Everyone went their own way for a while and then back to the boat at 8:00. A real late night crowd.

Lucy feels she looks best in pink.

All dressed up

Now all we need is snow.

We can be safe and pretty too!

AZORES

6/27 We have arrived! We had 18 wonderful sailing days. It was just unbelievable. The weather was beautiful. No storms and only occasionally did we have to use our engines. We expected to motor when we got near the Azores as there is almost always a high around it, named - the Azores high! 1800 miles in 18 days, you certainly can't beat that.
We caught a small tuna which Glenn seared and then a small dolphin which was also delicious. We were sorry we didn't catch a few more fish but we were happy with the kind we did catch. As we drew to within a couple of hundred miles of the Azores the wildlife really picked up. We basically didn't see anything as we crossed the ocean, then we saw several large groups of dolphin that came over and swam wiith us. The sight of them heading across the ocean toward your boat is always a thrill. We also sighted whales a couple of times.
Jade kicked into the baking mode and made the most wonderful crumb cake. We finished it in two days. She also made cinnamon rolls, and I baked a chocolate cake for Father's Day. We certainly have been eating well. It's amazing what you can make with canned food. No one is losing weight this trip.
We only had one slight problem during the trip. Our spinnaker mast fitting broke. Glenn had to hoist himself up the mast, with Nate's help, in 4 foot seas in the middle of the Atlantic to run a temporary line. You wouldn't believe the black & blue marks on his legs. We were merrily sailing along with our spinnaker and all of a sudden, with a loud bang, it broke from the mast where the temporary block was and fell into the water. Fortunately, it was still tied on at the two sides. We dragged it back on to the boat and Glenn used our spare jib halyard to pull it back up.
We washed dishes in saltwater and basically didn't take any showers, just facecloth cleanups. We really conserved water, using paper plates and everyone had their own cup. We made it to the Azores with 9 gallons of water left. We were sucking air from the bottom of the water tank. We also used 68 gallons of fuel. Not bad for 1800 miles. We spoke to a trawler who made it in 10 days but used 1400 gallons. At $6 a gallon figure that one out. Love them sails.
We traveled all the way across the Atlantic, rushing at the end to get there before the Customs lunch break and would you believe we had to hang around outside the breakwater for over an hour as they had an air demonstration. It was really spectacular, two jets diving and doing synchronized flying. Then we came in to the harbor and rafted up to another boat as Glenn went in with our passports and the dogs papers (clean ones) to clear us in. The dogs paperwork was in English and Swedish (as that is our destination country) and the agent looked at all sides of the paperwork and said fine. We were so afraid that we would have a problem getting them in.

Everyone took a shower and then we put our laundry in and took the dogs for a walk. Boy were they excited, no land for a month. They couldn't stand still long enough to pee. We ate dinner at Peter's Cafe Sport, the place that all sailors think of when they think of Horta. We also have plans to paint our boat name on the breakwater walls. This is another famous tradition of Horta.

The language here is Portuguese. It looks so much like Spanish but the pronunciation is so different. They almost sound as if they are speaking Czech. I don't know the technical terms for the sounds but it was not what I had expected. My vocabulary so far is bom dia and obrigada. The air is so clear and clean. You can imagine an island out in the middle of the ocean. The greens and blues are so vibrant. The island beside Faial is Pico. It is basically an old volcano. It just goes up to a peak and is covered in green. There are some people living on it. We are docked in the city of Horta. All of the buildings are white with orange barrel tile roofs. The land is just covered with lush green plants. Blue hydrangeas grow wild here. They are actually used for fencing between fields.

Our second day here, Saturday, the guys shopped every hardware store in town and Jade and I walked the streets looking at the neat architecture, visited a lot of clothing stores and spent time in line in the post office waiting to mail two family birthday cards. Some things are the same everywhere, except that they were open on a Saturday.

Sunday we rented a car and drove around the island visiting two volcanoes, one several hundred years old, the other having just blown in 1958. The scenery is absolutely beautiful and they have very nice roads. We stopped for lunch in a restaurant where the locals eat and it was just a great experience. Today was a wonderful day. There were a couple of beaches with natural pools and people sunbathing on the volcanic rock. We have lots of pictures, but I don't have a resizing program in our new computer. So, I will have to wait a while to get photos loaded.

Tomorrow, June 30th, we are headed for an open air market for fresh food, top off our water and we plan on leaving. It is 1200 miles to Falmouth. The weather is supposed to be a little more stormy this leg. I'm keeping my fingers crossed as the trip has been just so wonderful.

Best of all we are all getting along great. Jade wakes up with a smile on her face and just keeps us laughing the rest of the day. Love to all.

Nate wanted to add a section in here about using the single side band and speaking to Herb for our weather and navigating. Daily contact helped us avoid heavier winds and kept us in contact with numerous other boats. It made the voyage from Bermuda to the Azores, in almost daily contact with the ham radio maritime net a pleasure. They logged our position on shiptrak.net. The call sign, if anyone wants to follow us is, KF4PNX. Glenn and Nate have been toning their celestial navigation skills by taking star and noon sun sights. They have achieved positions as close as 5 nautical miles and hope to do additional celestial navigation on the trip to England. The skies have certainly been beautiful and clear at night, cooperating with their exercises. I feel the contact with Herb has made this trip such a smooth one.

AZORES

The baking queen

It can get cold out on the ocean with the wind blowing

It even gets cold inside the cabin

Our artist at work

Jade`s design for our boat logo

This reminds me of the cows with 2 short legs joke

Natural swimming area

Quite a hike down. Absolutely beautiful

Many talented Jade

Also our driver

The harbor where we docked in Horta, Faial

Window shopping

Clothing display on Sundays for us window shoppers

All of the stores did this

The streets of Horta

Many buildings have baroque balconies

And tile fronts.

They are famous for their azule tiles

Meercat in another strange harbor

LISBON

The one euro menu

PORTUGAL

Yum, mola mola

Congratulations to us!!!!

Fuel conservation

Janice sunbathing

The sun bleached my hair

Palace turned into museum

Cloister built by Prince Henry the Navigator

Notice the stonework on the column

(I dyed my hair back to brunette)

Cathedral attached to the cloisters

Note the artwork

Burial tomb of Vasco da Gama

Beautifully gilded alcove

Square on the beach at Cacais

Just one of the many beautiful side streets

guess what

The wonderful sea show at the zoo

The Monument of Discovery

Vasco da Gama at the head

Free ranging chickens - see the smile?

SALTED cod

The cold greenhouse

The view from downtown Lisbon to the harbor

The Moorish Castle

View from the top

Pena Castle

Strange looking creature guarding the entrance

Glenn overlooks his empire

Palace entrance

Amazing stonework

I got to pet those beautiful Andalusian horses

Unfortunately, we have no photos to show how beautiful they are.

Some of the beautiful courtyards

They lead to the apartments upstairs.

Here are our crew members

Mike is trying to learn how to sail like any CPA. In a book

Jade

Wrong way Jade! Oh well, she'll learn

Nate

Ever vigilant

He's got it now

Mike is loving it

6/8 We all got on the bus and took a tour of the island stopping at a pink sand beach. What beautiful views and lovely water. Jade went snorkeling, Mike and Glenn walking, Nate swimming and Janice laying. I have to have really warm water to go in. We then went to another beach with music and and another beer. Dinner takeout at a local restaurant and back to the boat. Everyone was pooped!
6/9 Well Mike leaves today. What a shame we really enjoyed having him and I know he would enjoy just continuing on. But family and work are waiting. We are leaving this afternoon for the Azores. Wish us big luck this time.

We asked our crew to write a little note about their experience during this past week.

NATE: This first voyage on Meercat has been a delight. After 25,000 miles on the Atlantic and Pacific, I can say I have not been on a better equipped vessel.
Janice and Glenn put safety first and everything else second. But second has been exceptional too. You never know when you sign on as crew, what to expect. Crewmates Jade and Mike are the best. And both love to cook. Instead of breakfast bars, I have Jade's breakfast burritos. Mike, Jade and Janice have made some great meals.
I'm looking forward to the Azores leg, but it won't be the same without Mike.

JADE: Well, I remember trying to throw all my stuff in the dinghy and thinking OMG where is this going to lead me in life? Then thinking oh well I guess I'll find out. I had met Janice & Glenn before but only very briefly at Glenn jrs. tattoo shop (while I was in the chair, I might add). Anyway I had not met Nate or Mike before so this was a whole new crew for me. It was fun to watch over the week as we became closer and tighter as we grew into our own little culture on the water. First we all made fun of each other then we farkled. Farkeling is a dice game which we plan on continuing to farkle across the Atlantic. Glenn is excellent at it I might add. We also played dominoes which was totally fun. I've learned a lot on the trip so far like what in the world am I going to do the next 3 week stretch and what the little yellow blimpy things are on the radar (Like pirates! LOL). I learned about the sails and how they go up and down and all about peyote. Don't worry it is from the book I'm reading "The Teaching of Don Juan." It's all about reality of life and drugs. I figure it was a good book to read in the middle of the ocean. Plus my dad says things will happen to you when you read this book, but I'm still waiting. I also learned that people talk about food alot when there is nothing to do!
It feels like we have been lost at sea forever but yet it has gone by fast (such is life). The view never changes but I feel as if there is so much to see. Weird. It's always exciting to think about what I'm going to do tomorrow like, hummm, "I think I'm going to cut my toenails tomorrow (which I know my family & friends back home will be proud of me so yay me). Overall the weather's been really nice and I am working on my tan. Oh yeah, I like the PFD too, it makes me feel important. Sleeping the the coffin every night is cool but at points when the waves slam me and I wake to my body in convulsion I just say to myself, "I will live through this too" and go back to bed. I have to add I love the dogs, I will kidnap them sooner or later. They are the boat's mascots so I will obviously have to replace them. So anyone with meercats please send them to the middle of the Atlantic ocean for me, thanks. Well, I guess I'm going to go stare at the fishing lines now. We will continue to farkle on, till next time!

Jade loves our dogs

And our dogs love Jade