Sunday, September 18, 2011

Obrigado, gracias, grazie, efharisto, merci

The day after the 2008-09 school year ended, the crew of Juno set off for Bermuda and beyond. Twenty-six months, two continents and 15,000 nautical miles later, the other bookend slipped into place, as the boys began the 2011-12 school year in Virginia. The adventure, at least THAT adventure, had come to an end.

I have stayed out of the boys' blog as much as possible, but wanted to step in here to thank all those who helped make Juno's Journey a success.

To Peter and Denis and Ben and Carolyn and Matthew and Scott for getting us across the Atlantic. To Ann for seeing us to the Spanish Balearics, and to Peter (again) for coming to the rescue and lending us a hand to Italia as autumn's gales closed in. To Mark for donating many hours of sleep on the long Atlantic passage to the Caribbean.

To Tod and Matthew (different Matthew) for their stamina through the shorthanded and sadly fishless passages from Puerto Rico to the Bahamas and from the Bahamas up to the Chesapeake.

A special thanks to Edee, who not only helped get us around and through the Med and across to Bequia, but bore with our quirks and unusual requests (no heels on deck!) with admirable equanimity.

Finally, our biggest and warmest thank you to Mary Beth, aka . . . Mommy, who stayed behind to keep a paycheck coming and (perhaps even more important) get up at 0500 to gather, analyze and then break down the oceanic weather forecasts into 160 character txt msgs to fire off to the sat phone. I cannot imagine having to worry about my spouse and my sons off on a small boat in a big ocean, but that is what she did, with unending courage and grace. Those days we all shared on her visits to Bermuda, Horta, Italy, Greece, Gibraltar, Union Island and Antigua -- those will remain the highlights of the trip, and our warmest memories. Thank you, my love, for letting my dream come true.

The first cold front of the fall passed through the other morning. Orion and I walked to the bus stop, and the brisk air reminded us of two autumns earlier, as the first front passed across Sibari. The mountains that were vague, hazy shapes for our first weeks suddenly came sharp and clear and so close it seemed like we could reach out and touch the snow that covered their peaks.

I imagine there will be many such moments. I hope there will be. My sons have been to more places, seen more of this planet, than most people will in a lifetime. More than anything, I wanted them to understand all that is possible in this life, limited only by our imaginations.

I had that thought this trip would be my great gift to them, something they could treasure forever, a touchstone as they grow and move off into their own lives. I did not foresee how, instead and already, it has been their remarkable gift to me. They were my little boys when we left home. Before my eyes, they have grown up, and have come back thoughtful and capable young men. I don't know that a luckier father has ever lived.
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Tuesday, August 16, 2011

A last look at the waterfront

At least for now.

Moving van picked up all the house stuff from Tallahassee today. We drove down to Deltaville to load up as much boat stuff would fit in the car. All of it will be crammed into a rental condo in Falls Church.

Math placement test on Friday, work starts Monday, school two weeks later.

It's been a hectic month, wrapping up one adventure -- and transitioning into a brand new one.
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Saturday, July 16, 2011

Washington D.C.

This is not the first time I have been in Washington, D.C. I went here about five years ago, when we were looking for boats. We had seen a tiny portion of the Air and Space museum and the Museum of Natural History. Dad needed to go here for some job interviews, so when he was out to do those interviews, we went to the museums that we did not see last time. We went to the flight simulators in Air and Apace, for example. We also saw three movies throughout all of the museums we went to (only two, unfortunately). It was fun.

--By Rigel

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Rinsing and drying

The sea anchor which we never had to use, thank goodness.

And, looking at it now, it's clear this is probably a one-time use device -- imagine trying to get this back aboard in sloppy, 20- or 25-foot seas left over from a gale strong enough to require its use.
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Wednesday, July 6, 2011

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La fine

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Hauled out again

Well, not quite yet.
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Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Penultimate step

Fifty feet from the slipway where we'll haul out tomorrow morning. First night tied to shore since Santa Cruz de La Palma, Islas Canarias.
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Monday, July 4, 2011

25 months later,

Our final night at anchor before coming out of the water, our windscoop gives up the ghost in a summer Chesapeake squall.

Thank you for the many cooling breezes.
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Sunday, July 3, 2011

Wow. It looks even bigger like this.

And this is only the yankee.
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Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Back to Civilization

We are back in the United States, and our trip has come to an
end. In a few days we are going to haul out the boat and put her in a
boat yard. In a few weeks we will be back in Tallahassee, with school
about to start. We have a lot of work to do though, and we have been
very busy in the few days we have been here. So far we have cleaned a
good deal, changed the oil in the engine, replaced the broken lazyjacks,
done the laundry, taken down and cleaned the harnesses, tethers, and
jacklines, and replaced a defective pulley at the masthead. We still
have to preserve the watermaker, put antifreeze in the water tanks, stow
everything on deck, clean the bottom, finish the cosmetic work, take
down the sails, and remove the wind generator blades. Some of this we
will do in the water, some we will do in the yard, but the coming days
are going to be full of hard work.
--Orion Date

Monday, June 27, 2011

Deltaville

Well, we're at the end of the trip now. In Deltaville, Virginia. Now we are ready to start winterizing the boat. Today we worked on the mainsail (to be precise, we tucked it under the sail cover) cleaned the safety gear, and bought supplies. Before we go on the hard, we have to take down all the sails. You see, if a sail accidentally deployed when you are in the water, you would simply drag your anchor. If it deployed when you are hauled out, it would be a disaster. All the boats would fall like dominoes, damaging them all. So, the boatyard wants us to take down all our sails so prevent something very bad from happening. It looks we have a lot of work ahead of us.

--By Rigel

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Well, we're safely home. . .

Let's do dangerous things now!
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Daybreak on Deltaville

Juno's old new home. For a while, anyway.
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Saturday, June 25, 2011

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Customs man says 'okay'

We're officially home.
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Last Days

Last Days

These days in Marsh Harbor and Hope Town have been our last days in the Bahamas. Today was our last day before the passage back to Virginia, and it has been rainy and cloudy all #$@%ing day. All day, except once during the morning when we were busy cleaning the weed off the hull. It really stinks, because we were planning to go snorkeling all afternoon today, as it is our last chance to snorkel on this trip. In a matter of weeks we will be back at home with school starting, and we will definitely not be able to snorkel then. We could go swimming at the pool, but that is just not the same as swimming in the ocean, and there will definitely not be any coral reefs there.
A week ago we arrived in Hope Town. Dad had really been looking forward to visiting there, and it was a lot of fun. We got to climb the lighthouse and see the mechanism that rotates the kerosene light source at night. Apparently someone has to climb the tower every half hour to an hour to wind it up, that must be quite irritating. In Marsh Harbor nearby we made a major grocery run to load up for the passage. We made another for perishables two days ago, and one more run here in Man-o¢-war Cay for parmesan cheese, which we had forgotten. Tomorrow we plan to up anchor and start our six day passage to Virginia.
--Orion Date
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Cape Henry to port

Cape Charles to starboard. Freighters everywhere.
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Last sunset at sea

On this voyage, anyway. Vivid color courtesy wildfires of North Carolina. Just offshore Kitty Hawk.
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Hatteras rounded, onward toward the Chesapeake

The bay entrance is 52.21 miles away.
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Homeward bound

So long, Bahamas.
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Friday, June 24, 2011

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Thursday, June 23, 2011

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Wednesday, June 22, 2011

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Tuesday, June 21, 2011

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Sunday, June 19, 2011

Squally, squally day

Rain. Shifty wind. Lightning.

Maybe the weather is trying to tell us something. It's time to come home.
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Saturday, June 18, 2011

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Thursday, June 16, 2011

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Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Pack animal mode, one last time

How many times, and how many places, have we done this now? Loaded like burros, trudging back a half mile or a mile or two miles, sometimes dodging traffic, back to the dock or the dinghy? To Modelo in Horta, Morrison's in Gib, Binipreu in Mahon, Conad in Sibari, Carrefour in Piraeus, EuroSpar in Siracusa, Mercadona in La Linea, Jordan's in Bridgetown, Match in Marigot . . . and, finally, today, Maxwell's in Marsh Harbour.

Boy, are we going to miss this.
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Tuesday, June 14, 2011

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Latitude:26.56165
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The beach at Elbow Cay

Perhaps the last one of this trip.
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What?! You said we were DONE climbing things!

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Monday, June 13, 2011

Finally . . . Hope Town

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Sunday, June 12, 2011

Little Harbour, Great Abaco

Hoping to see the bronze working foundry at Pete's Pub, where the Johnstons have been using the lost-wax casting process for their renowned sculptures -- but it wasn't open on weekends. And lunch sandwiches were $15 each. Priced for American tourists, but not for us.

Back to the boat.
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Saturday, June 11, 2011

Power boaters

I am not referring to power boaters in general, just these, one-two-three-four-five-six seven-eight-nine-ten-eleven-twelve-thirteen-fourteen-fifteen-sixteen-seventeen-eighteen-ninteen-twenty power boaters in particular. They raced at full throttle past us in a row, going out of their way to annoy us. And whenever they are close together, they produce constructive interference, making double the wake size. Once our stern got dunked into the water, soaking the helm seat. What word do you have to describe them?

--By Rigel
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Wednesday, June 8, 2011

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Tuesday, June 7, 2011

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Spanish Wells

Our first big city in . . . a whole month.
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Monday, June 6, 2011

Watchkeeping

Since there are only three people on the boat, Orion and I take
watches during the daytime. It works like this: Orion (or I) go up
top. Every twenty minutes or so we check the horizon, and now that we
are in the Bahamas, we check for coral heads when it is shallow. We
actually check for coral head every minute, but that is beside the
point. After an hour, we switch. This system works pretty well.
Usually, Dad is in the cockpit as well, and we sometimes play twenty
questions, or something like that. We are both extremely good at it by
now. This passage, being eight hours long (it might have been more) we
used the system the whole time. No complaints. However, the engine
started to overheat. We turned it off, as the sails were out. We
deduced that it was the raw water pump failing in some way, so we
closed the seacock and took apart the water pump. We noticed that
nothing was wrong (by the way, I was on watch this whole time) with
it. So then we put it back together and started the engine. It started
to overheat again, so we turned it off again and then saw that the
seacock was still closed. We opened the seacock, started the engine,
and it ran normally. Odd. Any ideas on how this could have happened?

--By Rigel

Two Years and Five Days Ago

Two Years and Three Days

That's how long it's been since we left Amelia Island Yacht Basin for Bermuda. Two years and four days ago was my last day of sixth grade, and my last day of regular school. I can't believe that we have been away from the United States for two entire years, but I have learned far more about the world than I ever could from a textbook. This trip has taken up almost one seventh of my life, and it has made a huge difference in my view of the world. I have actually seen the Parthenon, and The Last Supper, and Mount Etna, and Stromboli, Pompeii, the Italian Alps, the Rock of Gibraltar, Knossos, Vesuvius, Rome, the Coliseum, and countless other amazing sights I would have only seen pictures of at home. This has been a wonderful experience for me, and I am sorry to see it come to and end.
--Orion Date
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Sunday, June 5, 2011

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Saturday, June 4, 2011

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Wednesday, June 1, 2011

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Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Sandbars

They are irritating. We always have to be on a constant lookout
whenever we are going somewhere. When we were getting into this place,
the sand bar and reef were both basically invisible. We kept having to
slow down, and speed up, and loop around, and stop, and mearrgh! At
least we have the help of polarized sunglasses and charts. Without
them, it would be impossible.

--By Rigel

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Atop Boo Boo Hill

Warderick Wells Cay, trying to get a cell signal from Staniel Cay. Two bars, fading to one, then none.
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Saturday, May 28, 2011

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Friday, May 27, 2011

Trying to catch dinner

At Fowl Cay. Chicken Cay, on some charts.

We don't care, so long as it's Grouper Cay, for us.
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Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Another cloudy day

Which means that navigating around sandbars and reefs can be hazardous, which means we're not moving, which means, time to go exploring ashore.

That pink church, by the way, is the landmark on Staniel Cay with which one lines up the vertical stick at the tip of the islet at the south end of the harbor in order to gain the entrance channel and avoid going aground on the rocks and sinking.
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Monday, May 23, 2011

Thunderball Grotto

If you have seen the movie Thunderball, then you know of the scene of James Bond being dropped by helicopter into a cave. That cave is now called Thunderball grotto, and we've been there. Twice now, actually. It is only accessible by water, and perhaps, air, but it is quite fascinating underwater. There are tons of fish, including sergeant majors, grouper, and snapper. The thing is, they are very brave, and a little aggressive. They are used to humans feeding them breadcrumbs. There are three entrances into the cave. One is always above water at low tide, and involves no diving at low tide. At high tide, it is still possible to get in, but kind of hard. Thunderball grotto is not a place to miss.

--By Rigel Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Sunday, May 22, 2011

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Saturday, May 21, 2011

Imagine all this chain

Twisted up into a massive, 150-pound ball. Imagine trying to get it out through a three-inch hole.

For the gory details, see Orion's entry today.
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The Monster in the Anchor Locker

The Monster in the Anchor Locker

The Monster to whom I refer is, or rather was, the giant ball of twisted chain that took up almost seventy feet of chain that we could not use. This morning Dad and I launched a determined assault on the dreaded ball of chain. First step: pull all the chain out on deck. More difficult then it sounds, because to do that you have to pull the chain up through the hawse pipe. The hawse pipe is the tube that leads from the chain locker up to the windlass on deck, and if the chain is twisted, it will jam in the pipe. The only other way is to empty the fore cabin, where Dad sleeps by the way, remove all the mattresses, and pull the chain onto the boards beneath the bunk. This is rather extreme, and would require the whole day to do properly, so we proceeded with the original plan. Dad untwisted the chain in the anchor locker and I was on deck, pulling the chain out. It took us about two hours to get it all out, and as dad untwisted the chain, the twists moved down the chain and added to the dreaded ball. To properly untwist the ball required lifting it up, and the thing weighed more than thirty pounds, and in the anchor locker, you get very little leverage. Then, we had to completely untwist the chain on deck, not an easy task, we had to untwist almost ninety feet of heavy chain. Feeding it back in was easier, but the whole task took more than three hours, but it was a big task that is now out of the way, and hopefully we won't have to do it again.
--Orion Date
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Thursday, May 19, 2011

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Wednesday, May 18, 2011

The flood tide

Doing its crazy, swirling, twice daily, anchor-yanking insanity here at Little Farmer's Cay.
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Orion's snapper dinner

That which he caught, right off the boat.
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Monday, May 16, 2011

Little Harbour

LFC.
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Downtown, Little Farmer's Cay

Pop. 70.
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Getting in was easy

Getting around inside . . . well, that's another matter. Sandbars and coral ridges all over the place. As this big sport fisherman found out this morning. Next high tide: 2030 this evening.
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Sunday, May 15, 2011

Stale Golden Grahams and a Spreadsheet

That is what we used to determine the freakish speed of the current here. It was purely out of curiosity, but it was fun to find out. First, we made some calculations. Then, we started to test. We used the stopwatch on my wrist watch to measure the amount of time it took for the stale golden graham to get from bow to stern. As it is hard to determine exactly when the golden graham passed the stern, and it is impossible to make it land directly at the bow, we did several tests and determined the average amount of time it took. We used the spreadsheet program to find the average, and then used our calculations in the spreadsheet to find the speed of the current (it was about 1.2 knots).

--By Rigel

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Piloting

Piloting

In marine language, piloting basically means navigating by landmarks rather than latitude and longitude. To get in and out of Elizabeth Harbor, that is just about what you have to do. When we left this morning, getting out into the open water involved following the coast of Stocking Island until a stone tower on Stocking Island and several pink houses with white roofs on Great Exuma were in a line, then following that line until the bearing on the radio towers in George Town was about 180°, then turning to a course of 308° until the we had a bearing of 173° on the houses, then keeping the stern on the houses until we had a bearing of about 130° on the tower on Stocking Island, then keeping the tower on our stern until the houses were at 165°, then keeping them on our stern until we were clear of all the reefs. Kind of complicated, right? According to Dad, we'll be doing that a lot in the Bahamas.
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Saturday, May 14, 2011

Look what we caught!

So some fish comes along and nibbles and nibbles and then chomps down hard, biting our €9 lure from Marigot, St. Martin, using the last of our Euro notes, clean in half -- and then spits it out and swims off!

Of course, a fish with teeth that sharp . . . do we really want him thrashing around in the cockpit?

And then to cap it off (and before we realized the state of our feathery pink "squid"), we catch -- a clump of sargassum! Yeah!
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Thursday, May 12, 2011

One last run to Exuma Markets

No idea where the next fresh milk, veggie stop might be.
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Wednesday, May 11, 2011

The micro dinghy

On our boat, we have three dinghies. One is the main RIB, another is the fully inflatable one under the cushions of the fore cabin, and the third is the micro dinghy. It is fully inflatable, and Orion and I occasionally inflate it, and row to the beach, or something like that. We have been doing just that lately, but the wind is now up so we can't. It has only oars, is very light, and can beat the RIB in a rowing race with no wind or waves.
--By Rigel
¤¤¤
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Monday, May 9, 2011

George Town

Well, we are finally in George Town, the place where we can get the things that we can't get in the rest of the Bahamas. Most of the things anyway. Elizabeth Harbor, at the island of Great Exuma, is also a really great place to swim, as it is protected from just about any direction. Anyway, it is really nice to finally be here, but we now only have about six weeks left.
--Orion Date
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Sunday, May 8, 2011

Bringing the dinghy around

To collect Dad from the Shell station dock on "Lake" Victoria, George Town.
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Friday, May 6, 2011

At anchor off George Town, Great Exuma

Pondering the clouds shaded green at the bottom -- reflecting the shallow water on the bank?
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Thursday, May 5, 2011

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Tuesday, May 3, 2011

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Monday, May 2, 2011

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Sunday, May 1, 2011

There! Leak into THAT!

For the second time in a year, our sea water cooling pump on the engine began leaking. And while we appreciate the drain holes that prevent sea water from getting into the crankcase, we're not so crazy about the drip-drip-drip onto wiring bundles and the transmission case -- which after a prolonged period of motoring adds a not-so-nice cake of salt onto those and other engine parts.

Hence our attempt to divert the NEXT leak directly into the bilge. We almost hope the newly replaced pump leaks, just to see if our contraption works. ALMOST hope.

The water pump was one of two must-fix items before leaving here. The other was the ripped seam in our mainsail. After eights hours of hand stitching, that's done, too.

So, it's off to Conception Island tomorrow, first light.

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Silence at last... Almost.

Place after place we've been to, we have been surrounded by other boats, often charter boats. Now, at San Salvador, there are no other boats in the anchorage. So silence at last... Almost. There is a big, loud generator on shore that runs all the time. And there is the constant whir of the windmills as well. But at least it is better than constant noise...

--By Rigel
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Saturday, April 30, 2011

Cristobal Colon

Cristobal Colon

We have now visited the four main points of the journey of the man we know as Christopher Columbus. We visited the Ambassador Room of the Alhambra in Grenada, Spain, where Columbus got support from Ferdinand and Isabella. We also visited the harbor of Cadiz, where he assembled his three ships before starting out. We spent about two and a half weeks in the Canary Islands, where he started his famous ocean crossing. And now, we have recently arrived at the place where he landed, San Salvador, in the Bahamas. There are actually two monuments on opposite sides of the island, both commemorating his first landing. One is a large cross monument on the west coast of the island south of our current anchorage. It is the more likely spot for the legendary navigator to have come ashore. The other is ridiculously situated atop a reef bound headland totally open to the prevailing winds, and probably with heavy breakers. If Columbus came ashore there, he either had a weird front or storm on his hands, or his boat went to shore in pieces. There is little chance that a great sailor like Columbus would have needlessly endangered his crew by anchoring on the wrong side of the island. The monument was probably put there by people who had zero knowledge or experience of the sea, and reasoned that if Columbus had been coming from the east, he would have landed on the east side of the island. Never mind the dangerous reefs and violent breakers that are capable of smashing any boat or ship of the time to bits, no, anyone can see that he would have come ashore on the east side. As if. Columbus was a legendary sailor, he would have come ashore in a nice, sheltered anchorage, not one open to Atlantic rollers.
--Orion Date
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Downtown Cockburn Town

After bumping plenty of elbows with other boats in the Virgin Islands, we seem to have this island pretty much to ourselves.
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Thursday, April 28, 2011

The road Columbus must have walked

To clear customs and immigration at the airport.
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The Fore Cabin

The problem with Orion and I playing is that we don't have much room on the boat to do so. But, when it is not being used, we can use the fore cabin, the biggest bunk we have. It used to be V-berth, one bunk on each side, but we put in a trapezoidal piece of wood in, so now it is one big bunk in a trapezoid shape. Usually, Dad sleeps up there, but when we are on passage, he sleeps on my bunk when I'm on watch, and when I come of watch, the port settee. Anyway, the fore cabin is a good playing space, because it has an enormous hatch on the deck head, one of the biggest on the boat.

--By Rigel

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What Cristobal Colon saw, 519 years ago

San Salvador Island, Bahamas -- aka, India
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Wednesday, April 27, 2011

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Tuesday, April 26, 2011

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Monday, April 25, 2011

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Sunday, April 24, 2011

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Saturday, April 23, 2011

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Friday, April 22, 2011

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Thursday, April 21, 2011

That @$%#ing Winch

That @%$#ing Winch

On the cabin top just to port of the mast, there is a smallish winch used for hoisting the staysail into the roller furling. Two days ago we lowered the sail to re-sew some of the seams. When we tried to hoist it back up, we found that the hoisting winch was frozen, no matter what we did, it wouldn't move. In addition, it was supposed to be a two-speed winch, yet the winch handle spun freely in the slow direction. When we took it apart yesterday, we found that a pair of pawls were nonfunctional, and that the interior was covered in corrosion. We tried to take the drum off, but it stubbornly refused to budge. We ended up having to tie a spinnaker halyard to the top of the drum, tension it, and beat on the underside of the drum with a hammer. When it finally came off after literally hours of banging, we discovered that the drum bearings were firmly corroded in place. Dad and I got most of the corrosion off with a flathead screwdriver and some sandpaper, and Dad greased all the gears and bearings inside the winch. When we put the drum back on, it required still more banging to get it onto the mechanism. When we finally finished, we came below to find the entire port half of the main cabin covered in a fine layer of dust from the cabin top.
--Orion Date
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Wednesday, April 20, 2011

The WWII-era tank

On Flamenco Beach. From the days of using Culebra as a training range for Pacific Theater beach landings.
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Oil change done,

Corroded staysail winch rebuilt -- time to go to la playa!
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Monday, April 18, 2011

Landing

Landing the dinghy on the beach was exiting before, but now it is so easy that it is not an event anymore. We do it just about it every day now. It involves this: Orion gets out of the dinghy when it is a foot or so deep, takes us in a bit, and then we all get out, and haul the dinghy about seven feet or so up the beach. When we get the dinghy back in, we pull the bow around until it is pointing at the water, then we pull it down into the water, get in, wait for it to drift out, then Orion lowers the motor in the water and starts it. Then Daddy says, "Engage" Picard-style.
--By Rigel
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Saturday, April 16, 2011

At anchor in Ensenada Honda, Culebra, Puerto Rico

For the first time in nearly two years, there is no foreign ensign on our starboard flag halyard.
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Passing Sail Rock

En route to Culebra.
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Friday, April 15, 2011

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Thursday, April 14, 2011

Running to Jost Van Dyke

To avoid the squall.
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