Part 2 - How to to sail from Hampton, Va to Antigua in 18 days when it should only take ~ 11)

Day 6 - By 1am on Nov. 22nd, we were securely anchored in St. George’s Harbor in Bermuda. We slept in late that morning and used the rotting bananas to make pancakes. After breakfast, we launched the dinghy and headed to town for our first drinks in 5 days (such hardships, I know)! Enjoyed watching the World Cup and drinking Rum Swizzles at White Horse Pub and later in the day, eating the veggie curry & octopus at The Wharf.

Day 7 - Our weather router said we had a window to leave that afternoon. We went to provision and then joined Chris & Kelly (from Fayaway) for fish sandwiches (served on raisin bread… yum)! We were waiting for a custom report from the weather router before making specific departure plans but when it didn’t come by 5pm when Customs closes for departures, we decided to have dinner on board. Joe made some excellent sausage w/ grits & broccoli. It was great to have the help with cooking especially from such a creative chef! Anyway, after dinner we finally got an email from our weather guy that said we should leave by sundown, no later! Unfortunately, that was a few hours ago.

Day 8 - Thanksgiving Day! We slept late, showered, swam, walked around St. George’s, saw the oldest church in the hemisphere, hiked to Gates Fort and had another great lunch on shore at Wahoo. Later that evening, we had Skype calls with family and turkey burgers w/ cranberries and sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner.

Day 9 - Joe made his second ‘special’ breakfast comprised of every leftover in the refrigerator including onions, rice, chicken, sausage, peppers, cheese, mushrooms, etc. After filling our tummies, we set out for a hike to Tobacco Bay, a beautiful swimming hole unfortunately with a bar on premises. We spent the entire afternoon into the evening supporting the local bar tender and creating what some remember as “Tobacco Bay night” (others don’t remember it at all)!!

Day 10 - We recovered from Day 9!

Day 11 - The breeze is filling in, the Optis are out to race and it looks like we will have a weather window tomorrow so we had one final on shore dinner with Chris & Kelly as well as the good folks from Carlina, who turned out to be from the vessel we called ‘the stalker boat’ on the Chesapeake Bay! Sounds like we’ll all be heading off early tomorrow.

To be continued…

Part 1 - How to sail from Hampton, Va to Antigua in 18 days (when it should only take ~ 11)

When it should only take 10-11 days (for our boat) to sail from Hampton, Va to Antigua, one might wonder how it could take 18 days. Well, here’s our story:

After waiting for a weather window for over two weeks in Hampton, and losing our initial crew for the Salty Dawg Rally to Antigua, on Nov 15th our new crew arrived with a thirst to go sailing! Joe, a referral from a good sailing friend, is a licensed captain from Baltimore. We knew he was going to provide entertainment when moved into his bunk and set up Christmas lights. Christian (another referral from a sailing friend) & his girlfriend, Meredith, drove Joe down from Annapolis. We re-re-reprovisioned and prepared for a weather window on Nov 17th. 

Day One (11/17) - When departure day finally arrived, our weather forecaster had completely changed the expected forecast but we were ready to go regardless. The question was, which direction? Should we dive south to get behind the oncoming low or should we beeline to Bermuda to get ahead of it or something in between?? We headed out early that morning and figured we would make decisions as the weather developed. Wind was 12-16 knots, seas were 3-5 ft as we headed out of the Chesapeake with our new friends Chris & Kelly on Fayaway, buddy boating on a similar course. Another boat hailed us both (presumably just to chat!) multiple times as we proceeded into the night. At one point the other boat hailed us as “Bellepheron”, apparently knowing something about our boats namesake. Turns out, he was a professor of military history and familiar with “Billy Ruffian” being the British nickname for the captured French warship (“Bellepheron”), on which the British delivered Napoleon bound for St. Helena.

Day Two - We were in the Gulf Stream, mostly motor sailing. Seas were calm with 5-6 foot swells. This mornings’ priority was fishing with our Dolphin Delight lure. Andrew reeled in a small dorado by 10am and we enjoyed fish sandwiches that afternoon. We continued motor sailing that day and thru the night until we had to douse sails to stop the slapping main with light & inconsistent wind directly behind us.

Day Three - The guys changed to shorts and I finally took my long underwear off. Based on the latest weather reports, it looks like we are headed to Bermuda. We developed a new & exciting product for sailors that have trouble balancing a drip coffee funnel on top of their thermos offshore. It comes in your choice of 1 of 3 bright colors (pink, green and yellow) and is made of high quality, bendable cutting boards and twisty ties. You can put your orders in at BillyRuffnSailing.com. 

Day Four - It’s raining but eventually all sails are up and these enormous porpoises came by to play. We were still sailing around dinner time, when the boat that was chatting us up on the Chesapeake, hailed us again. Joe, our boisterous crew member, responded with his best Pepe le Pew imitation. The hailing boat responded in fluent French. These are the things you do to entertain yourself offshore!

Day Five (Nov 21) - The Sturgeon that I take for sea-sickness was working well but bringing on it’s full effects. I entertained the crew recounting my great dreams; this mornings’ was about doing a Ted Talk with Michelle Obama in which we were demonstrating the flying angel (you might recall the child’s game of balancing on your parents feet while they flew you over their heads). With 98 miles to go (for Bermuda), we shook out the reefs and sailed all day, arriving at Customs around midnight. The friendly agent greeted us (delirious sailors) with a cheery “Good afternoon”. Having no idea what day or time it was, we responded in kind and from that moment on, no matter what time of that day it was in Bermuda, we greeted everyone with a cheery “Good afternoon”!!

To be continued (in Bermuda)…

Antigua? Not yet!

On October 24th, we left our cozy mooring off Jan & Neil’s place in Annapolis to head for Hampton, Va., where the 2022 Salty Dawg rally to the Caribbean would begin. Dave, one of our crew for the rally, joined us down the Chesapeake to get familiar with the boat. We leisurely motor-sailed south, stopping each night for R & R. One of our stops was at Tides Inn in Irvington, Va, a little out of our way but an excellent restaurant and chance to take a night off from cooking. 

We arrived in Hampton on Oct. 28th, started prepping for our voyage and enjoying the company of new & old friends. The Salty Dawgs sponsored a pig roast barbecue, weather briefings, a Coast Guard demonstration and other informational seminars, while we also enjoyed our Philadelphia sports team successes, watching the TV’s at the Bluewater Marina bar & restaurant.

Nov. 1st, the day we all expected to depart, came and went with no weather window in site. Boats started losing crew and eating their provisions while the Dawgs did their best to rally with a Cruisers Net, Happy Hour jams and yoga classes to keep spirits up!

We hung out with old friends (Mike & Mary on Dream Weaver and Carl & Val on Valiana) and enjoyed making new friends (Colin & Karen). We walked a lot, sampled a number of local restaurants & brew pubs; particularly liking Mango Mango, Bull Island Tavern and the Barking Dog. We visited Ft. Monroe (the largest fort in the U.S. apparently), witnessed a Cross Fit competition at Oozlefinch Brewery and listened to weather discussions every other day, while consuming the local ciders and hoping for the next weather window.

Finally, on Nov. 12th, it looked like we were going to have our opportunity! It was going to be a salty sail but crew started arriving back in town, re-provisioning was done, the boat was filled with water & fuel, I did last minute laundry and even started my sea-sickness meds. All we needed was for our crew to arrive! We had lost one, but Dave was still committed and although he’d gone home, he was on his way flying back. Most of the Salty Dawgs had left when Dave came down the dock, but with bad news! Unfortunately, his wife had a medical issue and (of course) he had to pick up his stuff and jump right back on a train north!!

This leaves us with no crew and no known weather window but perhaps the opportunity to make new friends! We’ve already found a few other Salty Dawgs with various reasons for not being able to go. We have a bead on some crew possibilities and we will start the preparation process all over again! Hopefully, the third time is the charm!!

Where have we been all summer?

Since I last posted in early June, Billy Ruff'n has a newly leathered wheel, some expertly done welds on her mast and boom, colorful new reefing lines & high tech rigging as well as a fancy new electric winch for the main halyard and sheet. These were expensive but important improvements to keep her safe for Andrew and I to operate alone. Check out the results:

Through most of June & July, Andrew stayed in Maryland supervising this work on BR while I hung out in Devon, Pa. getting cars fixed or inspected, making Dr. appts and checking in on my mom and friends. When we weren't doing those things, we were visiting friends & family in Virginia, Massachusetts and Colorado. Some of the highlights were 1) a visit to the farm of our favorite CNN commentator in Va., 2) our eldest son's (Campbell's) surprise 30th birthday party at The Beach House in Natick, Ma., 3) babysitting our newest grand-daughter and her two older sisters in Philadelphia, 4) seeing Wicked and attending our eldest grand-daughter's Christmas in July birthday party, and 5) our youngest son's (Drake's) wedding in Colorado. Here are some of my favorite pictures from those events:

Life on land doesn't get a whole lot better than that! By early August, Billy Ruff'n was back in the water and we were headed to Newport along with our favorite canvas guy (Charlie H.) and our good friend (Michael M.). It was a pretty quick (and thankfully uneventful) off-shore sail. We arrived at Jamestown Boatyard on August 9th.

Andrew and I made trips to Bristol, Cuttyhunk, Dartmouth, Marion and Edgartown and visited with our former boat partners (the McCarron's) and other friends from the Corinthian Yacht Club of Philadelphia (Dick & Cathy, John & Carolyn, Katie & Tyler). 

Our son, Campbell & his family visited with us in Jamestown. The older girls enjoyed exploring the boat; opening every cabinet and pushing every button. They even asked Andrew to see what was underneath the floor boards (in the bilge)! After lunch in town, we drove to Beavertail Lighthouse where the girls enjoyed walking out (too far for my comfort) on the slippery, wind-blown rocks.

Son Drake and his new bride, Ashton visited the following weekend and we had a lovely sail to Cuttyhunk, complete with oysters & clam chowder delivered to the boat once at anchor and lobsters cooked onboard. Ashton appeared to enjoy her first time on a sailboat and proved to be pretty good at steering!

Andrew and I drove home in early September for our dear friend Fran's funeral service and then back to Jamestown for the Cruising Club of America's 100th Anniversary celebration in Newport. We had the incredible pleasure of having dinner with 2 Bluewater medal winners (Bob Shepton and Randall Reeves) and 1 Far Horizons medalist (Steve Brown) on the first evening of the event. In fact, we got to know Bob quite well since someone miss-booked his hotel room and he took us up on the invitation to stay on board Billy Ruff'n his last night. Bob is probably the most famous modern rock climber known for sailing to his climbing venues and being an adventuring Scotsman (at age 86), he was full of amusing tales. Sadly, I neglected to get a good picture of us but I did capture this one of his backside as he and Andrew walked to the Castle Hill lighthouse before having lunch there. I did have to restrain Bob from climbing back up the rocks next to these steep stairs!

Other notable events during and after the CCA celebration included visiting the Sailing Museum in Newport, a great party for Chesapeake Station CCA members sponsored by Jack, Laura, Cathy & Dick and hanging out on the boat with my neice, Kate. 

On 9/19, I drove our car back to Devon and the following day, Andrew and Charlie headed south (to Annapolis) with Billy Ruff'n. They had waited for a weather window that left them with no wind (or opposing winds) so mostly motor sailing at best but they timed the currents up the Delaware, through the canal and down the Bay so well that they made the trip in 46 hours!

Andrew is currently on the boat in Oxford, Md. getting the engines tuned up for our next adventure to the Caribbean. We are looking forward to heading south again on (or after) November 1st, when hurricane season has hopefully concluded!!

On the hard in Annapolis

After 11 days hanging out in Beaufort, NC, punctuated only by a surprise visit to mom on Mother’s Day, on May 14th, we finally got the weather window we needed to head on our last legs ‘home’ to Annapolis, Md. We left the dock the morning before in order to get under the high tension wires at low tide and facilitate a late afternoon departure from the harbor.

We started 3 hour watches almost right away with ~250 miles to go. The first night out we both got to see different phases of a fabulous blood moon. 37 hours later, we arrived in Hampton around 7am on May 16th and anchored off Bluewater Marina, waiting for them to open.

We were greeted at the dock by our Salty Dawg boat buddy friends, Mike & Mary from Dream Weaver and enjoyed a reunion dinner that evening at Fuller’s Raw Bar in Hampton. We spent the next day resting and trying to get our Navionics charts updated, in preparation for a day trip up the Chesapeake to Mobjack Bay.

After an uneventful trip and quiet night in Mobjack Bay, we continued north to Fishing Bay the following day. It’s amazing how many beautiful anchorages can be found up and down the Chesapeake and this was no exception with the lovely homes on it’s wooded shores.

The problem with sailing on the Chesapeake this time of year is the flies and the inconsistent breeze. We spent two days motoring north and killing flies from Mill Creek (where the only fun we had was running into CYC friends Bill & Barbara on Shearwater) to Solomon’s Island (where we had a midnight fire drill to re-anchor in a 40-45 knot blow).

On May 22, we arrived at our friend Neil’s neighbors’ mooring in Aberdeen Creek, where we began provisioning for the Corinthian Yacht Club cruise. Our friend, Christine Faris joined us for the cruise and we thoroughly enjoyed the cocktail party at The Annapolis Yacht Club, hanging out with the crew of Akela, watching the races to Little Choptank and Solomon’s Island and rafting with the fleet.

Days after the cruise, we moved Billy Ruff’n to Bert Jabin’s Yacht Yard, where she was hauled and is currently getting work done on her mast and boom, among other things. We will be hanging out in Devon, visiting friends & relatives and supervising boat work for the next month or two, while Billy gets her facelift!