Welcome

These are the voyages of the sailing vessel Pétillant. Her original eight-month mission: to sail from Baltimore to France via Florida and the Bahamas, to successfully navigate the shoals of the French douane, to boldly go where few Maine Coon cats have gone before was completed in 2008. Now she is berthed in Port Medoc and sails costal Spain, France, and the UK during the summer months.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Success!!!

Success!! The parts both arrived today, and have been successfully installed. The Racor filter was easy to replace, and tested fine. The quadrant was a bit harder, but we installed it and the steering and autopilot are back in operation. We will do a quick-cruise tommorrow to fill up on fuel, and last grocery shopping, to give it a real test, and then we will be off, probably tommorrow afternoon.

The SPOT position reports will resume as soon as we start out the harbor.

See you all in Horta!!!

Rainy Wednesday

Well, we received confirmation that the parts are here, and they have cleared customs. Unfortunately, there seems to be some problem on the part of the agent here in getting them down to he customs dock for us to pick them up. The latest UPS status says that they attempted delivery last nite at 4:51 PM, but no one was there to sign for it. We will go ashore this AM to see whether they tried to make a delivery today. We will also call the agent and start to complain… And we have already sent an email to UPS complaining about this agent, so maybe we can light a fire here.

We did some provisioning yesterday, but not perishables, because we want to make sure everything is fixed, first. Today will be a day for fixing the rudder, doing laundry, hot showers (and making more water), and hopefully, final provisioning. Tommorrow we will head over to the fuel dock and top off, and then checkout. The winds towards the Azores look good for the next week.

One comment about services here – we are glad we have the genset and the watermaker, because slip space is limited, and many days the boats in the slips have moved out to anchorage because the weather made the slips untenable. Some boats tied up to a long wharf also had to move out to anchor because a second cruise ship arrived yesterday. The genset and the watermaker make waiting here at anchor much easier and less stressful.

We have uploaded a bunch more photos from the parade and other scenes around the island, but they don’t have captions yet.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

News!!!

Well, it appears that our parts have arrived in Bermuda. The Racor filter arrived last Friday, but is waiting for some sort of clearance thru some customs broker.

The better news is that the quadrant left Newark NJ this morning, and as I type this, I believe that it has arrived somewhere at the airport. Unfortunately, the UPS tracking system does not have any record of it arriving here yet. It went from St. Herblain, France on the evening of the 22nd, to Koln on the 23rd, to Louisville on the 24th, and then on to Newark the same day. It looks like it spent the Memorial Day weekend in Newark (instead of going sailing, like it should), and left for Bermuda this AM.

The weekend here was pretty good, in spite of some showers. The wind died down, and shifted to the east, so we ended up with the stern of the boat protruding into the channel. On Monday morning we were approached by the pilot boat, which asked us to move so that we would not get run over by the cruise ship, so we up-anchored and moved in about 100 yds(meters). We were not alone in being asked to move.

After lunch we took the ferry to Hamilton where we watched both the Bermuda Day parade, and all of the people who lined the streets for the event. It was fascinating to see how it seemed like every family on the island had brought out chairs, tables, food, portable tents, and whatever else they needed to have a grand picnic. There were relatively few vendors, compared to what would be seen in a situation like this in the US, maybe because no one wants to pay for food they can make themeself. We talked to some of the people after we noted that spots had been laid out on the sidewalks in duct-tape with names on the tape. It turns out that there is a first-come-first-served opportunity for people to “mark their spot”, starting at 6:00 AM the day before the parade, and evidently some people start a bit earlier. But everything was civilized and well-ordered. We were wondering how such a thing would work in, say DC....

The parade had lots of floats covered in flowers and local plants, dance groups, high-school bands, drum corps, and all the rest of the usual parade participants. It was quite nice. We took the bus back to St. Georges and had croque-monsieur sandwiches, salad, and Natalie’s pumpkin pie, all quite excellent. We are gradually working on Art’s French so that he will be able to order food in France when we get there.

I will post more when I know more about the parts. The photos on Flickr have been completely reorganized, with title and comments added, so take a look. If I don’t get the parts this afternoon I will upload photos of Bermuda and the parade. I hope that we get the Racor before the quadrant – I don’t want to have two projects to do at the same time…

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Another Day in St. Georges Harbour

Well, this is starting to get old, waiting here with the wind blowing. Our latest info from Jeanneau is that the entire quadrant will not ship until the end of this week, or maybe even early next week. And the word from France is that there is a major trucking strike in progress, shutting down transport of gas and diesel. So we don’t know when we will get this very important part.

We have otherwise been productive, making water, changing fuel filters, and getting all ready for installation of the quadrant. The canvas is all repaired. We discovered some stripped threads in the vent valve for the Racor filter that feeds the main engine, so we have ordered a new one from Defender. They responded quickly to the request, but have taken a day to pick the item off the shelf and pack it, so it is still sitting in Ct., when it should be on a plane on its way to Bermuda. We could probably do without the Racor, but it would not be wise to leave with a filter housing that had a potentially significant leakage path (some training from a former career is influential here). We have also determined that the Raymarine navigation equipment on board is indeed putting out GPS navigational information on the NMEA output connections, so it SHOULD be possible to see these on the VHF and SSB radios. The next part of this task is to make sure we have the correct wires identified, and also to find out what NMEA sentences the radios expect to see. And to push the right button combinations on the radio to see if it needs this "push" to see the GPS info. The work to make the boat work never stops…

We have been having cine evenings here on board. Before we left WV, we recorded a number of films that the local PBS stations broadcast, and we have been enjoying them. First up was “High Noon”, and then last night we watched “Hairspray”, the one by John Waters done in Baltimore. Highly appreciated. We thing we may progress to dominoes tonight. I don’t know when we will get back to SG1, but we have discovered a number of Stargates on Bermuda, and they are in some of the photos on Flickr.

Dinner last night was Breton galettes de sarasin, with oeuf, jambon, et fromage, and simple galettes with butter and sugar for desert. We even have some movies of crewmembers making the galettes. We made enough for dinner last night and breakfast this AM, and were mightily satisfied. We had some nice English scrumpy to accompany them, instead of the traditional cider, but it all went together well.

The weather continues to be unpleasant, blowing out of the SW at 20-25 with gusts to 35. It makes a LOT of electricity, so that we only run the gen-set to heat our hot water, but it is getting tiring. A high is supposed to move in tomorrow and get things settled down a bit. We have seen a few boats leave from the ARC rally, but we don’t know where they are headed – surely not to the NW. The cruise ship also left this morning, with help from a tug to get off the pier.

The weather situation has also affected our internet connectivity. The best signal, with the highest speed, is pretty weak, and when the boat moves a lot, the antenna loses sight of it, or something gets in the way. This is why I haven’t uploaded more photos yet – the connection times out. There is one much stronger signal coming from Bermuda Yacht Services, but the speed is quite slow – they likely have a LOT of people hooked in. And they occasionally won’t accept our connections. We have just found a third AP, which is stronger than #1, so we have some diversity, in case things get really nasty. It is amazing how dependent we are on this technology – before it existed I guess we would all just sit on the pier and wait for the mail boat to come in with letters. And parts would be a REALLY long wait…

We are hoping for better weather this weekend, if only so that a LOT of boats that are here would LEAVE, and we would then have been internet connections….

We will set off the SPOT device later today so that you can see right where we are anchored. We think we will start doing this each day, so that this page does not appear blank. The SPOT shared page evidently drops all position reports that are more than 24 hours old, although they are still available to the subscriber.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Monday in Bermuda

Still no word on when Goiot is going to ship the part to us. We have found the part in question on a website in Europe that sells Jeanneau parts, and it appears from the drawing that the entire quadrant with its “clamp” is considered one part. The key is a separate part, which we don’t need, either. We just have to wait, but it is clear that we are not alone in waiting, because the entire ARC fleet is also waiting. Next Monday is “Bermuda Day”, so we will likely be here to help them celebrate.

The winds they are blowing again, and a trip to town in the dinghy today was a wet event. The forecast is for more of the same, getting even windier on Wed and Thurs. We think our anchor is well and truly dug in, and we don’t plan to put out a second one. The boat rides quite well to this one, with two snubbers sharing the load. We watched one other boat take down a jib today, in the middle of this high wind, and we wondered why they decided to do it now. They put it up later in the afternoon, so we can only conjecture that they needed to do a simple repair.

We ran the watermaker to make water, and the genset to make the water hot for showers, but the windmill is putting out enough power to keep everything else on board well-powered. Dinner last nite was whole-wheat pasta with garlic and olive oil, with a touch of hot pepper and shavings of parmesean on top. We started with a very nice salad compose and overall, it was quite good. Lunch today was rice salad, and we figured out a way to provide anchovies for those who prefer them, while not sullying the plates of those who disdain them, and everyone was happy.

We also finally fixed the anchor windlass control connector, which had gotten doused with salt water and the contacts corroded. It turned out to be relatively easy to remove the existing connector from the anchor locker by disconnecting the interior connections, so that the new connector could be soldered on in the comfort of the interior cabin, instead of on-deck.

We have heard several visitors comment that more photos would be appreciated, so this evening we will try to load a bunch of photos. This may be delayed because our latest internet connection is a bit slow, however. Photos of cats and the Bahamas will be moved to the “Moving South” folder on Flickr, while the transatlantic folder will be limited to photos of this trip. If any of you have any photos of us shoving off from Stuart, please send them along so that they can be posted on the website (we know who you are).

Enjoy the new photos.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

A Sunny Day

We were without connectivity yesterday after about noon because of the high winds. Today is a lot calmer, and we have found another unguarded access point that has a better signal. It has a name of Bermuda Yacht Services, so I don’t know when they will start to ask for money for it, but as long as it is free, we will continue to use it. We were seeing 25-30 with gusts to 35+ yesterday afternoon. The seas were quite choppy in the anchorage, and a lot of boats that were med-moored in a nearby marina moved out and anchored. We are really glad we are not tied up against the sea-wall, where there are some large boats rafted two deep. They must really have pounded against one-another yesterday. Our anchor held absolutely, and we put out another snubber to share the load, and we just rocked all day, listening to Dylan and Roy Orbison. There is a nice Alden ~50 next to us, and their bridle parted during the day, and we had to call over to them to tell them about it. It was surprising that they did not feel the change in motion. We also got a good rain-water wash-down yesterday, which was well appreciated. Chick spent a large amount of time in the cockpit, under the enclosure, monitoring our anchor situation. We also figured out a way to tie the emergency tiller to the wheel so that we can use the wheel somewhat to steer. We do not plan to really test this, though, because we plan to stay right here till the quadrant arrives.

Today the dawn broke on a flat calm and we took advantage of the conditions to climb the mast and tie off the SSB antenna to the top of the backstay, and regain use of the topping lift. We also tried to rig a second halliard for the jib, but it appears that our line is too thick. So, we need to buy more line. When we get to France… We also re-organized two of the lazerette lockers, and as I am writing this, Art and Nathalie are off hiking.

We had nachos and partied last nite while starting to watch Stargate-SG1 videos. Nathalie did not like the Goauld “monsters”, but after two episodes she may be willing to admit that the show is not just monsters and special effects. rxc told them to give it some time, and maybe this will become an evening staple for us, at least as long as we are here in Bermuda, and maybe even while we are underway.

We are also trying to find a working link to a webcam in St. Georges Harbor. There is one at the weather office, but it is too wide-angle to see any detail in the harbor.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Blowing Again

It is Saturday morning and we are all tucked in, waiting for the wind to stop blowing 25-30 kts here inside the harbor. We had planned to go ashore and buy another zipper to replace on the bimini, but with the chop that this wind is stirring up, the dinghy ride would not be very pleasant, so everyone is just reading, or napping, or just waiting. At least we are making good electricity, and water into the tanks with the power from the windmill. The internet connection is sporadic, though, as the boat moves back and forth, so I have to save messages before trying to sent them off, because they occaisionally don't make it out of the boat.

Some other boats in the anchorage have moved to the west end to get away from the chop, but since our steering situation is not easy, we will just have to tough it out here. It should blow through by the end of the day.

We had a very nice birthday dinner last nite at Cafe Gio, and tried the local specialy drink - "Dark and Stormy" - which is rum and ginger beer over ice. Nice, but not spectacular.

Ahh well, just a lazy day on the boat. And we can't even do some of the planned chores, like oil filter changes, because of the boat motion. We may start a Stargate SG-1 festival later...

Friday, May 16, 2008

Waiting for Goiot

We are still here in Bermuda, waiting for the replacement quadrant clamp to arrive. The weather is wonderful, it is quite a charming place, and we are all getting along wonderfully. Unfortunately, we all want to be on our way to the Azores, but we are stuck waiting for Goiot.

Goiot is the Jeanneau supplier for parts like the quadrant, and we have just learned from Jeanneau that they only sell the quadrant as an entire unit. And it is not a stock item, so it will take them until the middle of next week to ship it here. We are trying to find out whether (1) the parts are interchangeable, so that the new clamp will fit on the old quandrant, and if so, (2) whether they can ship just the clamp here to Bermuda, while the larger quadrant piece goes to the house in Margueron. This would have a significant effect on shipping costs. However, if they cannot guarantee that the part will be replaceable, then we will have to have the entire quadrant sent here.

We are still doing a number of chores, like replacing the connector for the windlass control, and fuel filters, and doing some work up the mast. However, it looks like we will be spending a considerable amount of the next week doing some sightseeing. Not a bad way to spend a beutiful week in the springtime.

I don't know if I commented about this, but there are a LOT of other boats waiting here to go north back to the US. We talked to one today, probably about 55 ft long, which lost their autopilot on the trip north from Tortola. We traded sea stories about how bad the wind was, and how high the seas were. They had to hand steer for 2 days, while we had to steer with our feet for 12 hours. Not clear which was worse. And the sailmakers are full-up with work to repair blown-out sails.

Ah well. Off to a restaurant tonite for a birthday party. More tommorrow.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Bermuda at last

This is a running log of the days at sea, from Stuart to Bermuda.

May 8, 2008

The first day of the trip started out quite well. We left the pier at 1210 pm, with the tide going out, and made it out the St. Lucie inlet with no problems, not even running aground in front of Mannatee Pocket. We turned left, put up the sail, and had a glorious beat to the NE with 18 kts of indicated wind. Art put out a fishing line and we waited. The sun was shining, we were doing 7 kts, and all was well with the world. Art thought he got a nibble around 4 PM, and then at 5, rxc saw something moving quite quickly thru the water across the back of the boat, and Art said that it looked like a fish was going after the lure. Sure enough, he then got a strike from a 4-foot long mahi-mahi. He set the hook, and off it ran, jumping and moving on both sides of the boat. He kept the pressure on, though, and after about 30 minutes, we landed him. A big male mahi-mahi, all different colors of the rainbow. He changed colors before our eyes, and it took some work to subdue him, but in the end we did, and now he is just a pile of fish-steaks waiting for the pan.

About the time we landed the fish, the wind shifted more to the NE, and the seas turned lumpy, so it became impossible to cook anything. We even had to turn on the engine to make it across the Gulf Stream, which was pushing us too far north. We eventually ended up rolling in the sails, and motoring thru the night till the wind clocked around more to the south in the early hours of the morning on the 8th. Up went the sails, and we have been reaching along since then doing a steady 7 kts thru the water, 6 kts over the ground. It looks like we have caught a back eddy of the Gulf Stream that is against us.

The noon-noon position shows us making 6 kts on average, which is great. The wind is still clocking some more, and while I am writing this, I am receiving the WEFAX on the SSB, to see what is coming.

We had a little bit of queasiness on board, and breakfast was mostly cereal. Lunches have been sandwiches, with wonderful bread from Mr. Bread in Stuart, and we hope to have fresh fish tonite. Nathalie warned us that the fish event would be messy, and it was. It was a good thing we have the salt-water wash-down, to rinse away all of the fish debris.

The boat is doing well, but we discovered some leaks up forward, through the hatch and down the windlass, whenever we get some water on-board. These will have to be looked at when we get to Bermuda.

May 9, 2008

Good night passage. Winds gradually shifting to south, and boat is riding much better. Seas are about 6 feet , with occasional larger swells, but boat riding well. Blue skies and puffy white clouds this morning. We are now thinking about installing the preventer before the winds clock completely astern. The main is slatting occasionally as the swells pass, and the jib is also starting to be shadowed by the main.

We cooked up the mahi-mahi last nite, and it was great. We will likely have more today, since the fish was so big. Breakfast included some choc chip cookies made by Mary before we left they are quite super, and I really need to get that recipe from her.

French lessons with Nathalie are progressing quite well. We are learning a number of new French words, and customs. We are also teaching her some au courant boating terms that she did not know. We are getting along quite well. Chick commented that we are also developing a routine where we don’t have to be together all the time, but are able to go off on our own to take naps or do other things. I noted that I am doing much more sleeping than I expected. It is hard to get any real restful sleep, with the boat motion and the sounds of the waves against the side of the boat, so you need more sleep to make up for the fitful nature of it all.

Our watch schedule is 4 hours each from 6AM to 6PM and then 3 hours from 6PM to 6AM. This works quite well, and Nathalie is also helping with the watches, because it is not possible to do much cooking with the size of the swells we are seeing. We are a great group, working well, and having fun.

May 10, 2008

Another great day at sea. The wind has clocked even further and we have furled the genny because it was not contributing much (we do that with things that don’t contribute). Art and Nathalie saw a whale yesterday, but I was asleep, and did not respond to the cries of “Whale ho!” They also noted that we have been attacked several times in the night by flying fish. I noted one of them on deck this afternoon when we were checking out the rigging. It had turned quite stiff, and was only usable as bait, which we do not really need now. We had more mahi-mahi last nite – still quite good, and we still have quite a lot of it. We all took showers today, and feel much better with the salt washed off. We also had to run the engine to charge batteries, and we used that opportunity to make water for 3 hours. We are still on the central tank, and it appears that this crew does not use much water at all. We could probably have made it all the way to Bermuda on the water in the tanks, but it is nice to have the watermaker available.

Lunch was steak with Roquefort sauce, and Caesar salad. Quite nice. I think that overall, we are not eating as much as we anticipated. Maybe that will change during the next leg. The boat is doing well, as are the crew.

May 11, 2008

First excitement of the trip. The wind has been gradually clocking towards the north, and we have been adjusting our course to deal with this. We have dropped the genoa because it was non-productive, and have been running thru the nite with the main up all the way. Last nite, we went to bed doing about 5 kts, with a sizeable swell running from directly astern. Rxc was awakened about 4:00 by a significant increase in boat motion, and noticed LOTS of lightning around. LOTS of lightning. He went to the foot of the hatch, and asked Art whether he needed some help, because it looked like a blow was coming on. Art thought that he could work his way thru the cells that seemed to have popped up, so rxc went back to bed. Chick has been sleeping on deck, and he was also awake, so all seemed OK. At 5:30, Chick came below and woke up rxc with the comment that they needed some help up top. The lightning was still quite spectacular, and the windmill was making some amazing sounds as it dealt with 42kt winds. Everyone agreed that they were really praying that the lightning would not strike, and it did not, so maybe there really is something to this prayer thing…

Art had the engine running, and wanted to reef the main, so rxc helped get in, at least a double reef. During this evolution, the wind wandered all over the place, and so did the boat. The movement was quite exciting, but since they had lowered the enclosure side curtains, they managed to stay dry in spite of the strong rain that had fallen. After about 45 minutes, the winds dropped to 4 kts, and it was time to roll the main all the way in, and motor. We have been motoring since the change of the watch at 6 AM, and made a lot of water with fully-charged batteries.

We had a late Sunday brunch of bacon and eggs (quite tasty!) and a good French lesson from Nathalie. We also found out that this trip with be Art’s first meeting with Nathalie’s parents, who live in Paris. He has learned how to say Bonjour and enchante, and Nathalie has hopes that he will be able to say some other things to them when we arrive. So this trip will not just serve to relocate the boat, but also to arrange for a meeting with the inlaws.

Nathalie is gradually re-organizing the galley, as we figure out what is stowed where. Now that the seas have flattened out, this is now possible. Dinner last nite was a fantastic paella with the last of the mahi-mahi. Just right before an exciting nite of sailing.

We motored quite a bit today (it is now 5:00 PM), and decided to shift fuel from the jerry jugs to the main tank. This evolution went well. Unfortunately, we then decided to check the fuel filters, because the engine was surging a bit. Rxc decided to check the pickup tube first, and found that the tank is REALLY full, because he had some diesel spill out of the tank. This caused a quick halt to fuel filter changes, until we burn down the fuel level in the tank a bit. We think we got all of the fuel that spilled.

May 12, 2008

More excitement. The first evening watch last nite was rewarded with a spectacular lightning show that lasted from about 7 pm to 8:30 pm. We watched a large squall line drift down on us from the NW, and we headed a bit more to the SE to try to avoid it. We only received a small amount of rain during this first bout with these cells, but the next watch from 9-midnite was not so lucky. LOTS of rain cells, and LOTS of rain. At midnite, the skies cleared, and we stopped motoring, putting out the mainsail and a bit of the genny. This increased boat speed quite a bit, so that when the 3AM watch came on, the boat was doing a steady 6-7 kts. The 3-6AM watch watched the winds continue to build, to 30-35 kts, and the boat speed built to 8-9 kts, with following winds and waves. The waves also built steadily, reaching easily 9-10 feet.

This caused us to reduce sail even more, to a scrap of main and a scrap of genny, and the boat speed dropped down to the 6 kts range, until about 7 AM, when the building winds(30-35 with gusts to 45 kts) and seas caused us to furl the main entirely, and just leave out a bit of the genny. We could not keep the boat on a steady course towards Bermuda otherwise.

It is now 11:45 AM, and the wind has dropped a bit. The NWS says that we should be seeing 20-30kts, with seas of 11-17 ft., and it appears that they are correct, for once. Yesterday, they said that we should be seeing 25 kts here today, and 40 kts tomorrow, but it looks like tomorrow arrived a bit early. We still think we will make it to St. Georges cut tomorrow, sometime in the afternoon before dark.

Conditions are too rough to do much cooking, but we will have cup-of-soup for lunch. The side curtains in the cockpit have been a godsend, because we have already had several breaking waves pound against the stbd quarter, and the enclosure has kept the worst of the weather out of the cockpit. We still have to wear foulies, because the corners are not installed, and the overhead zipper leaks, but we are not totally miserable, and at least it is not cold.

May 15, 2008

Well, it was premature to announce “excitement” on May 11, or even May 12. Rather, up to that time, our experiences should have been labeled as “unpleasantness”. We were not scared, but the motion was miserable, and we were having trouble sleeping well. On May 13, all that changed, in a few seconds.

We had been watching the weather charts coming out of the NWS, and they foresaw one low after another coming out of the US, heading east, and piling up winds of 30-40 kts down in the area where we were sailing. The winds were favorable, at least, coming out of the W-SW, but with wind comes ocean swells, and 30 kts of wind over a long fetch can generate some mighty large swells. We did not mind the wind, but the swells made the sailing quite difficult, especially since we were headed dead down-wind.

On the morning of the 13th, we were headed about 082 degrees with the wind dead astern. The winds were supposed to build thru the day, to 35-45 kts, and the seas were supposed to be 15-18 feet. We had the jib out a bit, and the main as well, but eventually we gave it all up because they were flogging too much as the boat jibed. We had lots of fuel on board, so we decided to run the engine at low speed to maintain steerage, and we let the autopilot guide us to the waypoint at Gibbs Hill. The autopilot was doing well and we surfed down the front of the waves all day. We had the enclosure up in the cockpit, so we did not feel the entire force of the wind. We also had some breaking waves over the stern and the quarters which were mostly stopped by the enclosure. The winds continued to build, and the maximum speed that we saw was 55.5 kts.

But overall, all was going reasonably well, considering the conditions. Around 2:00 PM, however, right after lunch, we were about 40 miles from Bermuda, discussing something (no once remembers quite what) when the boat took a great lurch to starboard and laid over on its side. The side curtains on the stbd side kept a LOT of water out of the cockpit, but we still got quite wet. The boat eventually righted itself, but did not steer away from the waves, so Art grabbed the helm, and found that he had no steering. Not good.

We opened the emergency tiller access and looked down to find the quadrant broken away from the rudderpost. There is a clamp with a key in it that attaches the quadrant to the rudderpost, and it fractured in two places. Photos are available on flikr. We got out the emergency tiller, and rxc and Chick rigged lines from the tiller to the winches and tried to use this to steer down the front of the waves. Art called Bermuda harbor control, and let them know about our situation. We even got out the EPIRB, and prepared for the worst, if necessary.

Art then joined the steering effort, and figured that if he sat on the deck with his back against the seat, he could push with his feet. This was a great improvement, because the previous method using lines was not able to respond quickly to the waves, and it also kept pulling the emergency tiller up off of the rudderpost. Rxc sat on the opposite side and pushed with his feet, and together they managed to steer a course generally in the direction of Bermuda. We kept checking in with Bermuda harbor control every two hours, and kept pushing the OK button on the SPOT device, and eventually we made it to the Gibbs Hill waypoint, where we were able to put up a bit of jib to make the steering easier. At that point rxc and Art figured that they could steer the boat by themselves, pushing with feet, and pulling with shoulders, so they alternated for an hour at a time to steer to the entrance to St. Georges harbor.

When we got to the entrance to the harbor, it was not possible for the helmsman to steer a straight course thru the cut, so rxc took the tiller between his legs and used thigh-power to muscle the boat into the harbor. We then had to anchor in the quarantine anchorage, because we arrived at midnite, after customs was closed. Art handled the helm while rxc and Chick handled the anchor. We set 175 ft of chain in 30 feet of water, surrounded by some very LARGE traditional sailing ships and a fair number of racers and cruisers, had a GREAT pasta meal, and then crashed for the nite.

Next day, we had to retrieve the anchor and motor over to the customs dock, where we tied up to do paperwork. We tied up ahead of a boat that had her jib completely blown out. There was also some others in harbor in the same condition who had come up from the south , beating to weather(extremely unpleasant) in the same conditions we had seen going downwind. They are still there on the customs dock today, so they must have had some other major issues to be allowed to stay on the customs dock.

We, however, being hardy sailors, checked in, cast off, and (still using the emergency tiller) proceeded to the regular yacht anchorage, where we are currently set.

We have luckily found an unguarded WiFi access point, which has given us internet access while we are here. Once again, the external antenna has proven to be a major asset. It is seeing lots of access points that the laptop cannot, even including the large cruise ship that was here till noon today. We tried to hook into their system, but it is password protected. And there does not seem to be any public WiFi service here in St. Georges, which is strange, given the wide availability of such systems in the Bahamas. There are a few internet cafes here in town, but we don’t have to schlep the computer there, with this access.

With the internet access, we were able to call Dorothy and jlm and let them know where we were, and how we got here. We were also able to contact Jeanneau in Annapolis to order a new clamp, which was supposed to be delivered here by Monday. Unfortunately, we just received an email that they sent the wrong part, and the one we want is back-ordered. We sent them photos of the broken part, which is how they figured out that they had the wrong one(!) So, we are not sure now how long we will be here. The weather is nice, but not as warm as Florida (not sultry), although we have noticed that people can grow bananas here, so it doesn’t get cold.

We did laundry yesterday, and today we dropped off the side curtains to be re-sewn at the sailmaker in town. There are LOTS of boats still here who should have left a long time ago. They are trapped by the weather, which is now showing ANOTHER LOW coming out of the US, and what appears to be a major storm developing between here and the Azores, where we are going next. Talking to locals, it appears that the weather this year is unusually rainy and windy. They said that one cruise ship had lost someone overboard between the US and Bermuda, and they were never able to find him – the helicopters could not cope with the conditions.

So, we are here for a while, waiting for parts. At least this is something we can fix ourselves, and does not require hauling the boat.

More to come as things develop.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Last shopping

We did a grand tour of the Stuart area this afternoon, stopping at several CVS pharmacies to look for extra clip-on sunglasses(success!), propylene glycol antifreeze for the watermaker when it eventualy gets winterized in France (amazingly, SUCCESS!), a reasonably-priced gaff (success!), personal sundries (success!), and lunch(success!). Chick had never been to Mr. Bread, so we went there for lunch, and he is looking forward to coming back with Dorothy. We also checked in the lawnmower store for the key, but the UPS delivery had not arrived, so it was not there. We will go back tommorrow on the way to pick up Art and Nathalie.

Now, it looks like all is set, so it is off to the pool for a bit.

Last minute preparations

Chick arrived here yesterday, and was immediately put to work hauling the dinghy on deck, securing "stuff", and stowing "stuff", and today he helped raise the genoa. His presence is a real godsend, in view of the amount of "stuff" that needed to be stowed/done.

Art and Nathalie did the shopping for provisions yesterday and we found it all in the cabin when we came back from drinks with Marty and Steve, who are supposed to be heading north on May 15. We were a bit daunted by the amount of provisions to be stowed, but we found room for it all, and now the boat is riding a bit down by the bow - on her lines more in the bow than in the stern. And to think that when we started out with this boat, the bow rode at least 6 inches above the waterline.

It looks like the SPOT device works quite well. It tracked me all the way down to FtL and back, including the side trip to PBI to pick up Chick. The shared page look great and friends and family will be able to track us as we progress. We plan to push the button every change of the watch.

Tommorrow, we will pick up Art and Nathalie at 10, move to the fuel dock as soon as they get settled in, and then shove off some time after noon, on the high tide. We are now off to do some very last minute shopping.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Preparation for Sea

rxc has been working hard to get the boat ready for departure, which is currently forseen to occur on Wednesday, May 7, around noon (high tide here in Stuart). The list of stuff to buy and stuff to do has been quite long. He recovered the genoa from the sailmaker - they just replaced the leech and foot tapes which has deteriorated in the UV down here. The medical kit is supposed to arrive tommorrow (Monday). We now have 2 backup handheld GPS units on-board, and Art will be bringing his handheld, as well. Tommorrow, rxc will go down to Ft. Laudredale to pick up the new electronic chips for the chartplotter, and Chick will be arriving at PBI at about 12:30.

The boat is quite garish at this point, with 12 bright-yellow diesel gas cans all over the place, and the dinghy engine is stowed, but the dinghy itself is waiting for help from Chick. The engine oil was changed yesterday, and the watermaker checked out fine 4 days ago, when it was un-pickled. We also have flashing lights to hang on our lifejackets, powerful SOLAS-grade signal flares, and LOTS of kitty litter and kitty food and kitty grease and a kitty dental kit for the cats that are NOT on-board. rxc will be picking up a new key for the lawnmower (in France) on Tuesday, and will also be rigging the jacklines on Tuesday. Art and Nathalie will be provisioning the boat on Monday while rxc is in Ft. L and picking up Chick.

All-in-all, quite a bit to do for the trip. But the weather looks good, and the SPOT website now has a "shared page" location that will show (I think) the location of the boat. I think that it will also show the track, or at least the history of messages sent. We will have to check this out over the next few days - maybe with some tracking messages sent from the car as rxc goes down to Ft. L and back.

Back in Stuart Again

Well, it has been a while since we updated this blog, but it has been quite a busy time, with amazingly good results. We spent 2 weeks here cleaning up the boat and getting ready to move the kitties, which included a last-minute trip to the vet to get an up-to-date health certificate. This was a good practice session for the big trip, and everyone seemed to do quite well. Dante caused a stir in the vet office when we let him out of the carrier – one person asked whether he was really a domesticated cat.

On April 17, we left the boat with 4 kitties, 7 bags, 2 bicycles, and 3 carry-ons, for Miami airport. We were joined in Hobe Sound by our friend Karen, and we had a limo-service pick us up there for the trip to the airport. We had an entire full-size van and a trailer to ourselves, which was good because of the large number of bags, and the 2-hour drive passed with no delays.
At the airport, we found Jim and Patty, who had flown down from Jacksonville, almost immediately, and we merged all of the bags and presented ourselves to the Air France check-in. We wondered, at first, whether we might be able to get the kitties on-board without declaring them, because the initial check-in person did not say anything about carry-ons, but the ticket person noted that we had told AF that we would have a cat, and she asked us to weigh them. Our original plan had been to check in two cats with two people, and then switch the cats in the carriers, and check them in again, with two different people, but because things were going well, we decided to play it straight. We put the first two kitties on the scale, and they were under the 4kg limit. Then, Calypso went on the scale, and she registered 6kg. The agent looked hard at this, but didn’t say anything, and just asked for the fourth cat. So, next was Dante, and he tipped the scale at 9.6 kg (21 lbs, with the carrier). She looked at this, furled her brow, and said that he was too big to take inside the cabin. We responded that he was in the same carrier as the other cats, who were below the limit, and she insisted that he could not go in the cabin. We insisted that he could not go in the hold, and this started a review that escalated through 3 levels of AF management until we found a sympathetic manager who was also a cat owner, who decided that we could take him along. rxc asked at one point whether they wanted to see him, outside the carrier, and this was met with a firm “NO”. They clearly did not relish the thought of a monster cat loose in the check-in area.

With this approval, and boarding passes in hand, we moved next to security, where we had to remove the cats from the carriers and hand-carry them thru the metal detectors. The TSA people were quite amused by this procession of people schlepping cats, and of course, the big red slug attracted the biggest attention. The four felines did not complain at all over this handling, but Dante did resist a bit going back in the carrier. In the end, we made it to the gate about an hour before boarding. Boarding went well – no one wanted to see anything, and we settled in for the trip.

The kitties stayed quiet for the whole trip to Paris, getting a few reassuring pets through slightly opened zippers, but otherwise just accepting their fate, whatever it was to be. In Paris, we passed through immigration quite quickly, and then changed terminals, and had to go through security again for the connecting flight to Bordeaux. Security in Paris was a bit more exciting than Miami, because the supervisor of the screeners there was highly allergic to cats, and when we brought them out to go through the metal detectors, she fled in terror. She came back as rxc was trying to get Dante back in the carrier, which took a bit of time – he seemed to want to get out and take a look around this new world. She told us to move the cats out of the area quickly, in quite a nasty tone. A true Parisian…

The connecting flight to Bordeaux was uneventful, and we landed about on time. We picked up all of the luggage, which all made the connection with no issues, and then proceeded to customs. They saw all the baggage, and started to ask questions about where we were from and where we were going. We explained about changing residences, and that the cats were going to their new homes. They next asked for their papers(Papers pleaze), and we were so glad that we had had them chipped. They pulled out their chip reader, checked the batteries several times, and verified that we had 4 cats with the same chips that were listed on the papers, and wished us a good trip. It seemed like they were quite happy to be able to use their chip reader on a real animal. We then picked up the rental car, which was a medium size VW van. Unfortunately, because we had so much luggage, and 5 people, we had to rent another small car to get it all to the house. But we loaded it all up, and headed to the house, where we arrived about 3:00 pm, and let the cats out of the bags. They immediately headed for the litter pans we set up (everyone held everything for the entire trip, except Zabelle, who had to let loose on the absorbent diaper we installed in the carrier), and started to explore the house.

We then spent nearly 2 weeks getting installed at the house. We showed Jim and Patty and Karen around the area, with trips to St. Emilion, Marmande(which included our first French traffic accident), and up the Dordogne as far as Domme. A great time was had by all. Jim and Patty left to go up to Paris for a few days, and Karen stayed to help unpack and enjoy the French countryside.

On April 29th, rxc and Karen came back to Florida, and rxc has been working hard on getting the last bits ready for the crossing. More in the next installment.