Foggy Mountain

The picture above is of the re-assembled turning block positioned as it was before it broke. Other than the blown block the passage was pretty good when you look at it from a point of sail perspective. For once we weren't beating, for the majority of the 56 hour passage we were sailing on a reach with winds in the 15 to 20 knot range. We only had to power a couple of times when we were in the lee of islands to our east. It was uncomfortable at times due to an easterly driven wind chop crossing with a northeasterly swell. The swell ran from 4 to 6 feet and the wind chop was in the 3 to 5 foot range. So at times it looked like the water inside your washing machine. Occasionaly there would be the usual larger than normal wave from one of the directions that would cause an irregular motion of the boat that tended to catch us off guard. But these are things that we come to expect in open ocean sailing. Passages are generally not comfortable, but they are rewarding when you make your expected landfall. The other good news on the passage was that we didn't have any squalls to deal with only a few rain areas that had no appreciable wind increase accompanying them. As usual, Pam did a great job preparing our food on the passage despite the rough conditions that make galley work a challenge. The meat loaf on the second night out was great. I like meatloaf normally, but at sea it tastes especially good. All in all it was a passage to be remembered especially since it brought us back to the US. It will now be interesting to see what changes have taken place here in the ten years of our absence. I will cover those observation on future blog posts, but for the next one I'll explore our block breakage a bit more along with our future plans.

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Vessel Name:	Foggy Mountain
Vessel Make/Model:	Valiant 40, Hull# 255
Hailing Port:	Boston, Ma
Crew:	Jeff & Pam Nelson
About:	We grew up in Jamestown, NY and met during our high school years. After Jeff returned from naval service, during the Vietnam era, we got married in 1974. As best friends we have always gravitated towards activities that we could do together. [...] More
Extra:	We are self-taught sailors taking our first sail aboard a Sunfish on a lake in Maine. We bought our first boat in 1975 and since then have owned seven boats culminating with our current vessel "Foggy Mountain". Each vessel was larger enabling us to expand our horizons. We learned how to cruise [...] in the beautiful Rhode Island waters of Narragansett Bay. Each year our vacations and weekends were devoted to exploring places we hadn't seen before. After 16 years we called all the waters of New England home and to this day believe it is one of the best cruising areas we have seen. To further expand our horizons we decided in 1990 to look for a boat we could live aboard with the ultimate goal of cruising other parts of the world. After a year of searching we found "Foggy Mountain" in a boatyard on Lake Michigan. Since we couldn't afford to own both our house and "Foggy Mountain" we made the big jump by selling the house to buy "Foggy". "Foggy Mountain" has been our full time home since June 1991. We moved aboard her at East Passage Yachting Center in Portsmouth, RI which served as our home port while we cruised the waters of New England for the next nine years. In 1995 we tried our hand at offshore passagemaking by sailing to Bermuda for our vacation. After that experience we started saving our money towards the ultimate goal of cruising to tropical waters. By November of 2000 we reached our financial goal and quit our jobs. First we sailed to Bermuda, where we spent Thanksgiving, followed by a voyage to St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. From those great Virgin Islands cruising grounds we sailed down the Eastern Caribbean island chain reaching, in early August, Grenada which would be our refuge for the 2001 hurricane season. With a cruising kitty in need of replenishment we knew we had to find real jobs again. So, in early December of 2001 we sailed offshore from the U.S. Virgin Islands directly to southeast Florida where we hoped to find work. Fortunately we found jobs that have allowed us to rebuild the cruising kitty and perform a re-fit of "Foggy Mountain". The refit has been based on updating equipment coupled with lessons learned from 12 months of full time cruising. Now, in October 2008, the re-fit is complete and the cruising kitty replenished so we are preparing to return to the Eastern Caribbean in early 2009. If you are so inclined, please join us here for our next adventure. More

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Our Background

Who: Jeff & Pam Nelson

Port: Boston, Ma