Sunday, May 15
by now you probably have received a very brief note sent from our Skymate System announcing our safe and sound arrival in Beautiful St. George's Harbour in Bermuda . We crossed the finish line of the first leg of this "fun race" at 5:25 AM.... and we weren't LAST.... but, second to last. I've never seen a creature so excited to see land as little miss zoey was. though she "figured it all out" and became quite the professional little sea dog developing her sea legs on the bouncing deck. by the way, i don't know if any of you went to the http//:arceurope.worldcruising.com website, but the crew of chaliventures, including zoey of course was the first featured story, way back on may 5th i think.

So... how to summarize the last 8 days.... it was a real mixed bag. initially light winds and choppy seas (from the previous front), then smooth seas and very light wind out of the Northeast (our destination!) or, a very unexpected blow of 28 knots which kicked up the seas to a fare thee well. yuck. just think WASHING MACHINE. .... very messy seas. We tried not to motor TOO much (hence our 2nd to last position). We actually had some very pleasant sails in 12-15 knots of breeze.... but we just couldn't go the right way. sometimes we just said "screw it, let's sail anyway".... so there was a bit of zig zagging. we'd sail southeast, then motor northeast. most people just motored.

our biggest disappointment was that our brand new watermaker bought specifically for this voyage didn't work. salt content was too high. the good news is that there's a dealer here in Bermuda for this particular watermaker. so, HOPEFULLY, he'll be able to come out and figure out what the problem is and FIX it before the scheduled departure of the fleet on Wednesday. Since the St. Augustine group had a 2 day delay, PLUS since we were so late in getting here, it's a very quick turnaround. I'm personally in favor of taking our time and being READY and have the peace of mind of stuff working and not being exhausted when we start the LONG LEG to the Azores. There's a certain amount of peace of mind comes from being in a group and having radio contact... but after the first day we didn't see a single boat of our group. we can leave a couple of days late and STILL be in radio contact. But there's much GREATER peace of mind coming from feeling that EVERYTHING IS WORKING. [For our friends that we met on the NE 600 rally to Maine 2 years ago, i have to say that Jim organized a far better rally than this arc europe. there's really very little support; i wouldn't recommend it to other cruisers. AND for these same friends, we ran into the NEW giant sized"Special Delivery". we went by to say hello and saw Bill.] AHHHHHHHHHh the small world of cruising. I have a concern that one of our 2 water tanks might have a leak, so having this watermaker working is essential. We paid $39 to fill up our water tanks, and $461 for about 93 gallons of diesel. gulp. There now, don't you feel better about the cheap $2.25/gallon gas available in the US? and it would be so nice to have fresh water to hose all the salt off of Chaliventures. need that watermaker!

Monday, May 16
But.... as with most human endeavors, it's the PEOPLE that make the difference. So, although we're not overly impressed with the investment we made in the ARC Europe organization, we have met some lovely and interesting people. Ian the Brit with Ofra the Israeli on "Raw Prawn" who came in first of the st. augustine fleet (of course they have a crew of 5, so lots of help with big sail handlingand watches!), Andrew the South African/Cayman Island/33 yr old banker on "Tangerine" with his crew of 4 including Fergus the 26 yr old adorable Scotsman; Helmut and Mary on "Lady B" with Jenny,their 23 yr old daughter, who had the st. augustine fleet over to their boat last night for a potluck. They also have Max the dog on board, but he and Zoey don't particularly get along. Then there's Kay and Jim on "Transcendence" with their crew of 4 -- on a 36 ft boat!! -- who sailed from Portland, Oregon through the Canal to join this rally. They're both psychotherapists and have WONDERFUL CALMING voices on the radio nets,,,,,which came in handy especially since Mimi and Charles, french israelis on "Nous Deux" (who are the only other 2-person crew besides ourselves) have had some real challenges. Mimi, who's probably 62, is pretty much single handing her boat since Charles is almost an invalid. It's now 11am Monday, and they JUST ARRIVED. We all blasted our horns to welcome them in, and cried many tears of joy, relief and simple comraderie. She was down to about 3 drops of fuel.

And.... since i haven't taken my computer into the club yet to send this off, I'm happy to report that the mechanic just left after replacing the float switch on our bilge pump, and the watermaker technician is supposedly on his way. Keep your fingers crossed that he can fix it!

Okay, so, here i am on land, so i'm going to send this off.

Alison & Chuck in Bermuda


Alison Spinney
Aboard S/V ChaliVentures III
....Living the Dream