11/05/2007
Here starts leg 2 from Bermuda to St. Maarten. They have an estimated 855 nm to travel and hopefully, their trip will be a little more pleasant. At least it should be warmer which helps.
Andy rang in with their direction for today, which will be 176 and from Bermuda weather, they are expecting winds from the W 10 to 15 kts max. They actually left the dock at 10.20am local time, UTC. (See photo above as they left!)
I'm going to guestimate that they will arrive in St. Maarten on Tuesday 13th November, mid morning! Maybe we should all have a guess?
Till tomorrow, when I have something more to post, Joy.
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Comments [6]
Since I have never been much for ocean sailing, especially since a "memorable" a trimaran "sail" (rather soaking) off St Brelade's Bay (or was it St. Aubin's?) on a wet & windy September Sunday in 1965, we'll wish you well from beside our cozy woodstove in the terra firma wilds of New Hampshire. We'll think of you finally safe & sound on a warm Caribbean beach, when we raise our glasses later this month for the traditional Thanksgiving Dinner Toast.
Cheers to all,
Ginny & Ken
Continued good sailing, lads. All the best
Bill and Angela and gang
11/04/2007
Having remained in a safe but tight anchorage overnight on Thursday we decided to scout out a better location to weather out the impending effects of Noel. A quick check around St Georges Bay in the dinghy and we found an unused government buoy that was big enough to take a Destroyer. It was obvious that it had seen some abuse, but was more than adequate for our needs and as it was still vacant we decided to could incite squatter's rights.
Traveling into wind and swell back to Norumbega was a somewhat damp and chilling experience as no matter how fast or slow you went both Tony and Andy would only have been dryer if they had jumped overboard fully clothed. After a breakfast and a quick discussion on how to secure a yacht to a Destroyer sized government buoy, positions were dually appointed and we weighed anchor and headed off to our new home for a couple of nights.
Weather was atrocious with heavy rain squalls, but after securing here the wind had no great effect.
By this time the crew was beginning to go stir crazy and despite the poor weather the three amigos ( Tony had a stomach bug and was nominated to stand guard over the plumbing), headed off into town for a traditional fish and chips. It was just as well we had not dressed up for a Saturday night as the return journey saw us completely soaked. You would have thought we might have learnt by now.
The evening closed with a very cultural screening of Black Adder, which included the one about Sir Walter Raleigh and Black Adders attempts to sail around the Cape. Having looked in the mirror there was some resemblance to Baldric in all of us. As you would have seen from the blog we were caught on the St George's Webcam leaving our mooring and taking fuel before our return to our alongside berth. We will remain here overnight with a planned departure of Monday morning.
Chris was a little confused between flight times, flight numbers and arrival times he received via text, despite several prompts he almost missed the flight. All was saved in the end and we said a sad farewell to Chris as he set off in a taxi for the airport on Sunday night.
We have now almost finished our preps for departure (fully fuelled, victualed and upperdeck secured), and are looking forward to a quiet night alongside. As we look at the predicted weather ahead and just over 800 miles to St Martin we are a little quizzical over the math. With several days of light winds and only enough fuel to get us half way, life is still an adventure. We do however have a secret weapon onboard, courtesy of Mike, we now have secreted about Norumbega several days worth of the local version of a traditional curry; you may well be able to track our progress via our heat signature. Regards to all, Norumbega & crew.
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11/04/2007
Modern technology never ceases to amaze me. Mum told me about a web cam in Bermuda, so I thought I'd have a look this morning, to see what the weather is like. As soon as I got the picture, I saw Norumbega chugging along the harbour and mooring up on the other side along a dock. Just to check it was really them I was seeing, I rang and asked if they had finished tying up alongside. You can imagine their surprise! Anyhow, the resolution is terrible, but you can even capture still images, so here is 1 I took about 10 mins ago (0910 local time in Bermuda).
Tony, who got a 24hr tummy bug is much better and the boys were off to get breakfast.
Chris leaves them tonight and later today after they have consulted the 'weather fairies', they will decide if they are leaving tomorrow or not.
I'll write more, or maybe they will, later. Joy
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Sounds like you are having fun (at least you will probably think so when you look back on this in a few years). I hope that you have now mastered the head.
It's hard to visualise from here, but based on my very limited sailing experiences I can only imagine that some of your passage was exciting if not scary. Keep your wits about you. See you when you are back in Melbourne.
My Regards to Tony and the other guys.
Cheers
Peter.
11/02/2007
If you look to the right, there is now a link to some photos Tony managed to send me today of the trip etc. Just click on this and it will take you to a slideshow in Kodak. You don't need to sign in, just press 'slideshow'. Joy
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