We left Hampton Virginia on Friday Nov. 11, sailed 6 days east with light winds from the southeast. We decided to turn south before we ran into Bermuda. We motor sailed south for one day before the nor'easter's blow set in with 30 to 40 knot winds gusting to 45 knots. I don't know how big the seas were, but when we went down in the troughs the waves were up to the bottom spreaders of the mast; (about 25 feet). 6 days of fast, downwind sailing and each day as we got farther south the winds decreased a little. To us, this is what we came to do. Sail across the ocean in good winds, then push the boat and see what she'll do. Our leg south was 998 miles in 5.5 days, total 13 days 1700 miles. We arrived well in the back of the fleet; most boats motored south for almost the whole trip to avoid sailing east. Gypsy had a total of 18 engine hours. With our time correction for low engine hours we placed 5 in the fleet, we are very proud of this. We were one of the smallest boats and one of the only boats to sail the whole course. What a great sense of accomplishment we feel, and the ocean always has its lessons and we learned a few. I will get to that later.

A note from Karen: I never thought in a million years I would really see waves as big. At one point I couldn't look at them for fear of having an anxiety attack. My biggest fear when we set sail was sea sickness which never became a problem thanks to scopolamine patches. When we went out though, I saw such beautiful sights. The ocean is so blue, the horizon is so big and long, there were phosphorescence in the water stirred up by our boat as it moved through the water, dolphins swim along the side of the boat, a full crest of a rainbow after rain, and there are flying fish that land on the boat the farther south you go. But the most beautiful thing I saw was the spread of stars across the sky. It was breath taking.

In Hampton West Virginia
Once arriving at the port of the start of the rally, we were visited by, Davis, member of the World Cruising Club to let us know we had half an hour to get to the welcome reception party for the Caribbean 1500 rally. We hurried to make it, I’m glad the van waited for us. We were welcomed along with other cruisers with drinks and dinner along with the schedule of events and shuttle services. We still have a list of preparations to get done before the big passage across the Atlantic Ocean, but first we have to get through the safety inspection. Our safety inspection was pretty intense and the inspector pointed something s out that we need to address. More trips to West marine and more cash to spend.

From Annapolis to Hampton
The morning we left Annapolis, it was 32 degrees and our boat was covered in frost. We motor sailed 47 miles to Back Creek off Solomon's Island for our first anchorage. We awoke to thick fog and generator problems. We motored straight into the cold wind all day. Our second night we spent anchored in Mill Creek off the Great Wicomico River. What a beautiful anchorage. The generator is giving us problems now. We had the longest day to Hampton, but the wind and the seas were behind us which were nice to have pushing us forward. We arrived in Hampton in time to make it to the WCC welcome reception.

Three weeks in Annapolis
It is a bit of an adjustment moving onto a 42 foot boat. When we first moved onto Gypsy, she was on the hard (not in the water). She needed to be put back together after being transported by a truck to Port of Annapolis. Once in the water, we were busy everyday getting her ready for the big passage she would be making and nothing went easy with that process. We have so much to do to ready the boat and ourselves. On top of that, there were computer/furuno problems from the very start. Stress, cash, more stress, and spending more cash and no-one seems to be able to figure out the computer issues. This is our biggest stress because we need the computer to sync with the GPS system to help guide us to our destination. We did have some fun, of course. The top was hanging out with Bernie and Kate. They hosted the Valiant rendezvous in Luce creek behind their house. There were 8 Valiants anchored out for the party. It was great to connect with Ken from s/v Loon and Val and Lisa from s/v Rising Star again. We also had a nice 4 day visit from Jack and Carole. I wish we could have taken some time to see the city and sights of Annapolis. We had such a long list of things needing to be done on the boat to make her sea ready, and our window was closing quickly.

We needed to go through 8 locks in the Welland canal. Many times we had to wait along a wall until freighters went by, which stirred the current some. In the locks we would drop 45 feet before the gate would open for us to move on through. We felt like we were surrounded by a huge concrete box. The lock service men and women were not as helpful as we hoped and the whole experience was very stressful and took over 10 hours to accomplish. It was dark when we were spit out onto Lake Ontario. Very scary. We needed to find a place to sleep in the dark. We finally found a mooring ball on the Niagra River at 1:00 am. Because of Hurricane Irene, the Erie canals were closed so we found a place to ship the boat to Annapolis, Md. We ended up in Rochester, Ny.