Southbound

After writing the previous post about “Time Keeping”, it seemed prudent to pay attention to our timetable for the next leg of our journey.

We made it to Bar Harbor, which was as far north (or “down-east”) as we ever expected to go, and now we are on our way back. It has been a wonderful trip, and we’ve enjoyed it. The people have been marvelous, the scenery spectacular, the seafood has been delicious. As odd as this might sound, we have Hurricane Harvey to thank for bending our lifeline this direction, because we never would have cruised New England had he not come ashore on top of our previous boat, O Be Joyful.

Having said that, I will also say that I will be happy if I never see another #%*! lobster pot buoy for the rest of my life. As we crossed over from Penobscot Bay (full of them!) to Sheepscot Bay (relatively few of them), I could feel the stress draining away, my tension relaxing, and my shoulders dropping from my earlobes back down to a normal level. Also, it’s too damn cold up here. In my mind, sailing should involve coconut palm trees along the shore, and I’ve yet to see one of them.

We knew that turning back would be difficult, in terms of weather- the prevailing winds here are from the southwest, and that is exactly the direction we need to go. Sailboats can handle SOME upwind work, but ours is built more for comfort than speed, and does not handle upwind work well. Actually, the boat does OK, but not the people onboard- it’s rough and unpleasant.

So, the next part of our lives is going to be waiting for ‘weather windows’ in order to make our way south without rattling the teeth out of our heads. And therein lies the problem. We sat down yesterday with navigational charts and calendars to do some serious route planning. The results were… sobering.

For those who don’t know, we want to have Gabrielle safely tucked into an anchorage in Culebra, Puerto Rico, by December 20 of this year. We set this up last year— !!! What a great idea!!!, we’ll have a family reunion in Puerto Rico for Christmas!!! There’s nothing wrong that idea, per se- the problem is that it runs counter to one of the Prime Directives of Sailboat Cruising- “Never Make A Schedule That You HAVE To Follow”.

We have over 2600 miles of ocean to traverse. And 113 days to do it. I’ll wait while you do the math, because I’ve done it several times now, and the answer still makes me want to cry. If you did just pull out your calculator and check that, you might be thinking, “What’s the problem, 23 miles a day doesn’t sound so bad.”

And, no, it wouldn’t be, if you could count on 23 miles every single day. But it’s the waiting on weather windows that makes me…anxious about this. Unless we commit to doing some overnight trips, 50-60 miles is our (upper) daily limit. And given that we might have to wait three or even more days for a favorable weather window (if we’re lucky!) for a one day run, that makes the math… ugly.

We have both discussed the probability of having to make a 24-48 hour passage at some point. And we haven’t ruled it out- if the weather window shows that it is the right thing to do, we’ll do it. I have made such passages before- over 30 years ago. But Kate has never done anything like that, and so we’re both feeling about like she was with the anchoring thing a few weeks ago. I know we can do it, but we’re both clenching our teeth about it.

So we are Girding Our Loins for the next phase of this adventure, and accepting any positive input for the duration. And although some of you might know this about us if you know us well, I want to declare this for those might not know us- we have two guiding principles to this trip, and our lives in general:

1. We will keep doing this as long as it is fun, and when it stops being fun, we will do something else.
2. The Universe/Source/Vortex (some might call it God) will provide for everything we need to continue our journey. If that sounds too airy-fairy or woo-woo for you, just know that we have 125 combined years of experience that shows this is true. That’s good enough for us.