We arrived in Palmetto, Florida, just south of the city of Tampa on 25th May, 2012 eager to see our new vessel for the first time. So much has happened since the decision to purchase Vanish and time has flown by with the various modifications and delays associated with fitting her out.

After moving onboard we found there were many issues after living on her at the Marlow Shipyard for 3 weeks and various systems either needed replacing or fixing. As it turned out, even though I was more than ready to scream, cry or strangle the closest person to me due to the malaise I felt from port rot, it was a good opportunity to ensure that we used everything possible to find the failures and get them fixed. Everyone at Marlow Marine were extremely professional and helped us in every way possible to ensure we were comfortable and all issues were dealt with as quickly as possible. We feel fortunate in the fact that we met so many hard working individuals whose only goal was to produce a great product. Our thanks go to David and Barbara Marlow, Jarlath, Mike, Joe, George, Craig, Richard, Tommy, Phil, Mark, Cecil, Lee, Don and so many others plus all the contractors who came onboard to service electronics, boat covers and much more. If I have forgotten anyone or you haven't been mentioned, please know that we are extremely grateful for all your help.

We finally said our goodbyes and left the dock on Wednesday 20th June with Dirk and Julie Schoombee our crew when we felt the boat was seaworthy and in good working order. Luckily it coincided with Maynard finding a perfect weather window to take us from Tampa down to Key Biscayne at the bottom of Florida. We had to go overnight on our first day taking 4 hour watches with 2 up on each watch as we ended up arriving late at our intended anchorage of Port Charlotte and didn't want to risk going into an unknown harbour in the dark. We had many 30 kn rain squalls and lumpy seas and I can tell you that if we'd been on Cruz Control, it would have been an awful night busily reefing sails, getting wet, flopping around in the dark after the squalls had past and dodging lightning. In this vessel, it was very comfortable and the weather we encountered didn't bother us at all. Both Julie and I felt a bit "off" as neither of us had been to sea for many months yet Iron Guts Maynard and Dirk felt no queasiness at all. It was quite dark and gloomy and rained most of the way and the air temp was at least the same temperature as the water, if not higher, with high humidity. Hurricanes form in water 28 degrees and above. Worryingly, the sea temp in Tampa Baywas 32 deg and we found that even the ocean temp was 29.8 deg!!! Surely, this cannot be right. We had to get out of "The Box", an area known to have hurricanes with the north limit being 35' N, which runs between Cape Hatteras and Cape Lookout, North Carolina, and the eastern limit is 55' E, the southern limit around 12' N and the western limit is around 100'W, in fact most of the Gulf of Mexico.

On Thursday morning, we anchored near a town called Marathon in Key Biscayne in an ocean roadstead although it was quite comfortable as the swell was minimal. Cuba was just to our south about 90 miles away. A 25 kn southerly was forecast to come in on Sunday but as it turned out, when we got up on Friday morning and checked the weather forecast, a tropical storm had formed overnight off Belize and later named called Tropical Storm Debby. It was forecast to go to Tampa, right where we'd been sitting for the last month!! The decision was made to outrun this storm and get as far north as possible by all means before it crossed over Tampa and then onto the east side of Florida. We had intended going to the Bahamas for a couple of days but decided that it was just too risky to spend any time in these waters with record high sea temps and the possibility of more hurricanes. We kept thinking we'd call into Georgia or the Carolinas, but the track of the storm showed it going through these areas so we decided to just keep going.

Luckily, we had very good sea conditions so we were making around 300 miles per day. The most economical speed for us is around 9 knots but when you add the north flowing hot current of the Gulf Stream, we were doing somewhere between 11 and 12 knots SOG (Speed Over Ground) so there was no problem doing our 300 mile days. At times we were around 150 miles offshore going through rain squalls with lightning and 30+ knot winds which we all agreed were very welcome as they cleaned the salt off the rails and decks nicely and we didn't even have to don our wet weather gear but the sea was only up to 1 meter. We kept an eye on the Raymarine Radar which showed TS Debby steadily heading for the west coast of Florida. It definitely looked too close for comfort for my liking.

There have now been 3 tropical storms since we arrived in Florida in the last 3 weeks. We've been really desperate to get out of Florida before getting caught. The Tampa area received inches of rain and was under a tornado watch and the wind on top of the Skyway Bridge, right near the Marlow Marina, was encountering 70 mph winds and was closed so we just got out of there with only one day to spare. We were so lucky not to get caught in all the rough seas and feet of rain they experienced. It was one of the loneliest trips we've ever made as we only saw one other pleasure vessel the entire trip which was a yacht way out to sea off South Carolina. We had a couple of uninvited guests onboard in the form of flying fish and one poor little guy must have been flying at lightning speed as he hit Vanish's hull so hard, the impact literally popped his little eyes out of their sockets. Now that's gonna hurt.

We rounded Cape Hatteras, once dubbed the "Graveyard of the Atlantic" due to its treacherous currents, shoals and storms at 4am on Monday 25th June and were looking forward to just moseying into a nice quiet anchorage in the Chesapeake Bay area. As we kept looking at our Sirius System which displays live real time national weather direct from the satellite, we noticed and heard warnings on the radio and saw a line of storms heading right across the Bay just as we were due to enter. The sky darkened and a roll cloud with low white clouds in front of it kept approaching. There were patches of light green in the cloud as well indicating hail. We were hit with 60 knot winds and with our speed of 10 knots SOG, we had 70 knots across the bow with driving rain and some hail. Being a weather fanatic, I quickly switched on the tv and saw we were under a red warning area for tornadoes too. Time to switch OFF the tv. Well that's just great isn't it!!! As if we aren't tired enough, we get a kick in the pants on our arrival. Oh yes, and there were Pan Pans every 10 minutes to keep watch for a bald black man wearing no shirt and brown shorts apparently in the water right in the channel where we were heading so we also had to keep a sharp lookout for him although we did not see him nor a reported catamaran adrift in the Bay. Suddenly we heard a terrible sound and Maynard yelled that something broke off the flybridge bow. It turned out to be a 5 ft length of lexan 1/2" thick which completely shattered in the strong wind and went sailing overboard. It was just luck that it didn't destroy our radar towers, satphone and other instruments on top of the flybridge.

As if that wasn't enough, we had a Canadian warship coming up astern and then the radio came to life again when the Virginia Pilot saw us on their AIS system and called Vanish, Vanish, Vanish, to warn us he was on a deep draft vessel taking up most of the channel coming our way. In near zero visibility and torrential rain we decided it was time to quit the channel as with the squalls and thick bolts of lightning hitting all around us. What next! Stay calm Vicki!

I always take comfort in our dear friend's, Nick Stump's, words about storms at sea. "Ah, Vicki, they're nothing to worry about; they pass in no time," and sure enough, the storm passed in no more than 25 minutes. We made our way into the Bay where we found a nice quiet anchorage just outside the Old Point Comfort Marina with one other yacht near Fort Monroe, Norfolk, Virginia which was built just after the War of 1812 in a place called Hampton Roads at the southern end of Chesapeake Bay (one of the largest natural harbours in the world). We've done around 1,146 miles since we left last Wednesday and have been travelling for 6 days. It is very satisfying to have completed our first big leg of our journey successfully and in extreme comfort even though we are currently heading away from Australia. We've had to make some adjustments to our schedule but will try to make the most of our cruising season in the northern part of the USA before heading south again in the next few months and re-aligning ourselves with the cruising seasons. Conversations have gone something like, "Um, let's go to the Bahamas. Hmm. It's in The Box. Ok, lets go to Greenland. Oh, yeah, we're too late in the season to go that far now. All right, how 'bout Belize? No, too much risk of a hurricane there too. No worries, let's try Maine and take it from there."

Our Vanish is heavy right now with a year's worth of spare parts and sufficient oil and filters to not require outside assistance until we get to Australia. We thought this was a good idea as we intended going to South America. Now that we're in the US, these spares are just non paying passengers right now until we head to more remote areas. I wonder what conversation awaits me tomorrow?