Underway!
14 October 2010 | Little Sodus Bay
Jill
Well, we left Wilson. Some days (many days) it felt like this would never happen. Of course there is still a list of things to be done on the boat, but we and everything we own are now aboard. Even now, after all the good-byes, after selling both our cars, it doesn't feel real. I'm hoping I start to feel like a cruiser by the time we get to Florida.
We left at 4:30 PM and decided to go right through the night. I can't say sail, because in the end the whole trip was motoring. We started with almost no wind and flat water, and that was the forecast for the night and today; however, the wind built to as much as 17 knots (right on the nose, which always happens when you have to get a particular place by a particular time) and the waves got to about 3 feet. 3-foot waves may sound trivial, but when you are venturing out for the first time with your dinghy lashed on the foredeck, the outboard and stern anchor on the stern rail, 5 Jerry cans of fuel at the mast pulpit, and the partly assembled frame for carrying your mast lashed on the aft deck along with a spare anchor, 3 foot waves are worrisome. Happily the boat and all it's deck trash came through just fine.
The photo is of our first dawn as cruisers. It was a pretty sunrise, and very welcome. I came on watch at about 5:30 and the photo was taken about two hours later. Soon enough the clouds hid the sun, the photo of the boat at the dock in Little Sodus (in the Gallery) was taken in the middle of the afternoon, though it looks like twilight.
The crew is very tired and very cold. Bud and the dog are now napping. Bud didn't sleep much the night before we left and didn't sleep at all last night. He went below from 8:30 to almost midnight and from 5:30 until about 9:00 AM, but didn't really sleep. I probably slept for about 2 and a half hours between midnight and 5 AM. I'm not sure how cold it got, but I was going to make an entry in our log and read my book once it got light out, but was too cold to do anything but sit with my hands in my pockets and make sure nothing was going wrong on or around the boat. Both Bud and I wore full foul weather gear all night.
Poor Fuzzy refused to use his Pup-Head portable dog potty. He went the whole 19 hours without peeing. I took him for a nice long walk when we got here. We had fed him a light supper, so after the walk Bud gave him several doggy snacks. Bud is trying to associate sailing with good things in Fuzzy's head. I'm not sure the dog is buying it.
Tomorrow we need to do laundry, change the oil, and do as much more of the mast frame as can be done without the mast down. Tomorrow it's supposed to be windy, and if it actually is, we won't be able to step the mast. If that's the case it will get done Saturday. Then we need to wait for a weather window to make the dash across the 13 miles of lake to Oswego with the mast down on the frame on deck. We do not want to do that with any rough water. Oswego is where we'll enter the canal. So, I'll post more when it happens.