We left Portsmouth, just as we had planned. I didn’t finish everything on my to do list and neither did Jeff. Steve was joining us as crew, but his wife Wendy couldn’t make it since she had been sick and was just getting over the ordeal. Too bad. I’m sure Steve will miss her. We motored to the start line which was in the Elizabeth River. This river has a huge military presence with tall gray ships towering above us. The Elizabeth River is also an entrance to the intercoastal waterway, which Sirius can travel through because she’s too tall and draws too much.
I guess we were entered in the racing division for this rally. I thought cruising meant just cruising and the open division was for racing. I got it backwards. But Steve did the steering and we were one of the first boats off the start line. All things looked good.
The weather was very rough getting to the Gulf Stream and I got seasick. So, for the first night, just Jeff and Steve did the watches while I lay below. Then we turned to enter the Gulf Stream. I’ll always think of it as witch’s caldron as she stirs the boats about with an invisible spoon. Once I came up to get some air and we saw two boats bobbing next to us. Each boat was pointed in a different direction. Jeff spoke to one boat and they said they were detouring to Bermuda. Jeff responded, “If that’s the case, then you’re going the wrong way!”
Our boat bounced with the others. The sea was very choppy and everywhere we looked, were various shades of gray. It might have been raining too, but I couldn’t distinguish rain from the wave spray as we crashed through to the other side.
Click on this link to see the sea state after the Gulf Stream.
It took us about 8 hours to traverse the Gulf Stream. I woke up to find we had left it behind. The seas smoothed out and I got better. The weather changed immediately. On the way and through the Gulf Stream, we were wearing warm clothes under our foul weather gear. But after crossing the Stream and being out in the Atlantic Ocean, it was quite warm and humid. There were also crystals of salt everything on the decks, the canvas, the wood and the glass panels. Sirius will need a good wash when she arrives in the Caribbean.
We still had a few squalls in the days ahead, but after each one we could see rainbows! I hope you can see them in the pictures below.
Steve and Jeff changed into shorts and eventually I did too. The winds have been very squirrelly lately, coming directly from the south, which means we’ve been motoring most of the way. I made a major mistake when we filled our boat with fuel. I didn’t fill one tank because I thought it was full. Turns out there was very little fuel in that tank and we’re wondering, if we have to motor the whole way, will we have enough fuel. Such a dumb mistake. Let’s just hope winds from the east or north show up soon. These are the trade winds and blow pretty constantly, for but now there are absent.