We are just about to leave the British Virgin Islands with the Salty Dawg Rally. Unfortunately, at this point, the weather doesn't look good for going in one straight shot to the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Our current plan is to sail to Bermuda and wait there a few days until the weather is a bit better. When we leave Bermuda we may actually go to the Delaware Bay and come south on the Chesapeake Bay instead of coming into the Bay at Norfolk and sailing north.

We hope to get to Bermuda in about six days. If the weather changes and we go right to the Chesapeake it will more likely be twelve days. You can actually track our progress a few different ways if you want to:

http://www.pangolin.co.nz/xtras/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=K3BSH or
http://www.hawketracking.org/saltydawg/files/tracking.htm

We will also be posting regular updates to this blog through our Single Side Band radio. Hopefully we will post at least once a day. You can also follow our progress there by clicking on the map to the right. If something happens to our radio or modem then none of these options will work, including email. That doesn't mean we are lost at sea it just means that things aren't going as well as they could be. If our SSB communications break then hopefully our VHF radio will still work. That has a much shorter range. In that case we will most likely use the VHF to contact a passing ship and have them report our position to the Salty Dawg Rally. The rally takes following our progress seriously. We have mandatory check ins with them, a person on land, and our weather router every day. In a real emergency, we have two EPIRBs (Emergency Locating Beacons) on board. If we activate one of them, the US Coast Guard would have our exact position within about 20 minutes and arrange help for us. The Coast Guard is working closely with the rally. To our friends and family.. please don’t worry.

If you are looking at our blog posts through Facebook, be aware that when we don’t specify a picture (as will be the case most of the time we are at sea) then a random picture from our blog is used.

We are both excited about the trip but also looking forward to being home. We will do our best to keep in touch!