Laurie here. I just dinghied Kent to the dock, and saw him into a taxi to the airport. He will be picked up in Saint John by John Fallon, and will travel in his truck back to Fredericton. He was somewhat lamenting that he is leaving 34 degree Celsius weather and palm trees to catch a flight from Fredericton back to Fort McMurray, -10 C and snow. He was also a bit concerned that little of his time on leave from his job would be spent with Michelle. Well, our gain, for sure. We certainly would
have had a worse trip without his assistance. Time was short, and we didn't have time for him to send a "guest blog", but he promises to send one to us at the first opportunity. As this was his first major passage, and a rather "interesting" one, I'm sure he can describe some of it in an entertaining way.
I returned from the dock and, with Dawn and Brian's help, set a second anchor just before we had a sprinkling of rain and an increase in wind. I have made arrangements for tomorrow to meet an employee of Bermuda Radio (the people who use their far-reaching radios to control traffic near their dangerous little island) who has a couple of moorings for rent. Hopefully, before the peak of the building storm, we'll be securely tied to something substantial.
So, the passage. Dawn says the 2004 trip was about as scary as she could stand, so if that was an 8, she says this was a 9 and 10 would be an airlift for her. For me, I'd say that the true enemy was motion and fatigue. The wind stayed almost continually between 20 and 32 knots (that equals 23-37 miles per hour or 37-59 kilometres per hour). However, the problem was the sea state. As the wind clocked around from NE through to E over the 4 days, and as it reacted with the gulf stream and other
waves from far disturbances, the seastate was confused. It had waves commonly over 8 feet, with other waves at other angles roaring through them, making some peaks well over 10 feet, and some instantaneous and deep potholes. Cat Tales rattled, rocked, roared down some waves, and often banged to a half-halt at the bottom as solid water came up to slam the forward crossmember or the bridgedeck. The steep, square, smaller waves would miss one bow and slam into the inside of the other bow, throwing
great volumes of water onto the top of us, after a scary and significant jerk.
Watches were informally apportioned, with whoever was willing and healthy enough stepping up and taking them on. Most of the time the person on watch would lie on the salon seat, braced behind the table, and jump up every 10-15 minutes to look around for boats that might run us down. A cheap windup timer helped the watchman stay sharp. All others would stay in their bunks; the safest place if not the most comfortable. The slamming of the boat lifted the prostate crewmember at least once per minute,
and readjusted any rhythm in his/her breathing. Eating was a problem, and we may have missed a few meals. Counting the ones we gave back to the sea soon after eating, and it amounts to quite a significant diet. Dawn, who was the only one who stayed on the recommended cycle of Stugeron, was the only one who kept it all down. She was extremely nervous when I became the third one to succumb, and initially was the most incapacitated. It was just as Herb was telling me that the worst was about to
happen, that I said "all heard and understood" into the microphone, turned green, opened the cockpit door, and let fly into the cockpit sump.
Kent was the first to be ill, with Brian a very quick second. Brian was also the first to recover. He probably had the best appetite during the trip, as well. Kent relied on the "patch" for the first part of the trip, and supplemented it near the end of the voyage with gravol. The combination left him less sick but not in an enjoyable state. He had the most stark diet during the passage. Dawn helped clean up after us, as not all our little mishaps made it over the side.
The cockpit was off limits for almost all of the voyage, and the sail changes were miserable. Luckily there were few sail changes. The vast majority of the sail was done with 3 reefs in the main and less than a third of the jib. At times we were underpowered, but squalls and quick wind changes would bring us back to 30+ knots. One only has to run out into the dark and wrestle a reef in the sail in the blinding saltwater once or twice before one decides to live with a little less optimization.
(Although most of you know how that would bug me) As we were doing our best to keep the interior areas and our clothing dry and salt-free, I took on the bits of foredeck work during the worst of it.
Was it all bad? We were optimistic and apprehensive when we started, and even annoyed when the winds Herb told us would propel us forward during the first day subsided and we were forced to motor with both engines to try to stay on the schedule he had set for us. We were told we had to make near 7 knots to stay ahead of real gales forecasted for Wednesday in one area and Saturday for Bermuda. The middle of the trip was all bad. Even I, who should have had the most confidence in Cat Tales, started
getting nervous about the violence by late Wednesday. I blame it as much on the lack of sleep as the violence, however. Dawn and Kent enjoyed very little of it. Brian and I spent most of Friday in the salon, used to the violence and reasonably sure the boat was going to survive, and started to get some fun out of the "sledding", as the boat jostled up down and over the waves.
Last night, we had our "arrival party", actually starting it mid-afternoon in the White Horse Tavern. We toasted Cat Tales, Herb, the journey, the team, and especially "Otto". Without the autohelm, it would have been a truly grueling voyage. We may have toasted a bit too many times, but today's hangover seems to be a fine way to go through life compared to the previous days.
Well, that's enough reading for you for now. We have more to tell, but we'll save it for you.
Dawn here: Well, I have to add a comment to the end of this piece. I will call it: "My Moment of Dispair". At the end of the second day, I was getting pretty scared. Both Brian and Kent were sick and were starting to spend almost all their time in bed. I kept telling myself to calm down, and that Laurie and I were doing fine and the drug "stugeron" was working really well. I didn't feel even the slightest nausea. Brian pulled himself out of bed and visited me in the salon and managed to get
a bit of water into him along with 2 crackers. I thought he was on the mend, but he went below to change his clothes in order to go outside to help Laurie, when a teeny cough snuck up on him and he tossed his water and crackers. I helped him get cleaned up again and we settled down to talk to Herb on the Ham Radio. I was taking notes on his comments and was becoming very shocked by what he said. He said that the easy day we just had was coming to an end as nasty weather would hit us between the
hours of 6 and 10:00 that night. He said that if we could manage to get through the next 24 hours, we'd have an easy 2 days after that! Now, I have to tell you that the "easy day" he was referring to was absolutely horrible. We had wind on the nose as we headed directly south, and the boat was bucking like a wild stallion! Just at the end of the conversation with Herb, I could see Laurie clawing on his face and I wondered what was up, other than receiving the bad news about the upcoming weather.
Laurie laid the mic down and headed for the door and as you know already he joined the boys in their state. I had been taking the recommended dose of stugeron, while Laurie, being Laurie was taking half doses because he thought that too many meds would be hard on the system. I rushed over to hand Laurie kleenex and he looked up at me and said, "I'm so sorry Dawn, I'll be able to make this work...don't worry". I could have cried! He threw up 4 more times, pulled on his wet weather gear and went
outside to reduce sail for the upcoming storm. He then sat in the cockpit staring into the salon through the closed door while the waves crashed down on him. While he was outside, I managed to plot the course on our Garmin GPS that Herb had suggested to cross the Gulf Stream. I then drew it out on paper, showed Laurie the plan and asked him to dial up the course change on the autohelm while he was outside. Changing course at that moment immediately calmed the boat down and we were in a much better
state to handle the wind that came that night. From that point on, the crew started to come around and I felt a little less lonely. So there you have it...just one of the experiences of the crossing my my point of view.
