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October 31st, Monday - Hampton, Virginia
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We
had a wonderful, if cold, sail down here last week.
The wind was favorable, for once, and we made it into
the dock at about 9am in the morning, having used the
engines just getting out of the Rhode River and then
again into the dock here in Hampton. The
temperature remained chilly for the first three days or
so, but it was shorts and T-shirt weather today, and it
promises to continue through Friday. Of course
this probably means a nasty low will be in place when we
are trying to get out of here next Monday, but there is
little we can do about it so we will enjoy the perfect
conditions and modify our departure plans as necessary.
My
three day medical course has left my head full of all
sorts of horrible scenarios of what could happen while
we are out in the middle of nowhere. We learned a
lot of very basic "this is the way the human body works"
information designed to help us distinguish between a
real emergency and a mere "logistical dilemma." As
horrifying as it may be, a hand that has been mangled in
the anchor windlass and bleeding all over the place, or
a 4 inch laceration on the scalp that is NOT accompanied
by nausea, loss of memory or vomiting, are not
emergencies. Dehydration, if not recognized and
corrected, can be a serious emergency. It is my
fervent hope that I never have to use any of this
information in the course of our travels, but I also
hope that if necessary, it helps me to remain calm and
confident enough to do the right thing in the face of a
medical crisis.
We
had a short but wonderful visit with Nana Boyle over the
weekend. We had some nice meals and hang time
together, and she got to meet some of the folks that
will be cruising down to the islands in our group.
We have met a bunch of people already who are
undertaking a similar journey and it is great fun to
compare stories. Some are truly in it for the
"race" while others are just hoping for safety in
numbers. There are five or six multihulls in the
rally, one of which is a trimaran. The owner of
the trimaran (which has three hulls compared to our two
and is VERY fast) used to own hull #1 of our brand of
boat, a Switch 51. He has done the Caribbean 1500
cruising rally numerous times and hopes to break the
record this year in his new boat. We have met two
other boats with kids so far. Paul and Michele also
on a catamaran, a Catana 431 called Blueprint Match,
with a 1 year old girl and a 2.5 year old boy.
There is also a Canadian family on a monohull (I forget
what kind of boat) with three TEENAGERS! Two
girls, 17 and 14 (roughly) and a boy 16. They are
taking a semester off of school to do this trip as a
family. It just goes to show you that it CAN be
done, very cool. Not to mention that we will have
access to some serious babysitters!
I
almost forgot to tell you the story about our radar.
After all of my excitement at having this fancy new
screen to help us track targets and identify threats, we
fired it up before dusk on the way down here only to
find that it had crapped out. We kept getting an
"antenna not rotating" message on the screen.
There is a radar dome mounted about a third of the way
up the mast that sends out a 360 degree signal that is
transmitted through a wire down the mast and up to our
screen. We had it checked out when we got down
here and found that the antenna had been totally
infiltrated with water that had leaked down through the
cable and fried everything except, thankfully, for our
fancy new screen. Well, you know what B O A T
stands for, right? Break Out Another Thousand.
More like $1400 for a new radar antenna, cable and
installation. Luckily, it was a clear night with
good visibility and we didn't miss it too much on the
way down. It sure is nice to have when you need
it, so we can't complain about the money. It goes
along with the definition of cruising: fixing your boat
in exotic locations. I'm not sure Hampton,
Virginia exactly qualifies as exotic, but soon..........
Thinking of you always,
Christy, Joe, Cassie and Juliana
Next entry
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Many thanks to our
friend Craig Homenko for his assistance in setting up
the website.
We also would like
to thank our buddy Scott Brunner who has been kind
enough to host the website on his server.
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