We’re now on final preparation for the trip to the Azores. Commander’s Weather has blessed a Sunday departure. Of course, just to add some spice into the whole thing, the Inverter/Charger stopped working – which is not very comforting. I managed to get it going by turning it off and on a couple of times – but it seems like it’s a bit of a weak link. Adding a problem, it’s remote display is now displaying dutch – as in double – so I can’t even troubleshoot it. We considered strongly delaying until a new unit could be purchased – which would put our departure back to Tuesday, but Commanders feels like the weather will not be nearly as good then, with possible difficulties later in the week. We’ve therefore decided to press on and keep our fingers crossed. We do have a back-up plan – in that the generator also powers a separate 50A charger – and while the generator is on we can recharge any AC equipment. Fingers crossed!

We did our last grocery shop and filled tanks with water – now have to find fuel.

Departure is set for early Sunday morning and we’ll be sending out twice daily Spot signals so you can follow our progress.

Anticipated landfall in Flores is June 16^th.

Up at 5:15 on our first day of our circumnavigation!

Enclosure taken down and packed away, dingy brought over, boat made ready, we left the dock at 7:00am sharp in light breeze and bright early morning sunshine – what better start could we hope for.

We even got to sail down the normally wind devoid Sakonnet, broad reaching in light 5 – 10 knot beeze, passing by the waving Sterrets on the way, who had come out to watch us leave from the shore beside Almy Rock. As we approached the mouth of the Sakonnet, we got a little glimpse into the rest of the day as the wind built to 15kt+ and the waves were up at 3 – 4ft. We turned left and headed up Buzzards Bay with the building winds from behind us  – but made best speed towards Cuttyhunk…

We took a mooring in Cuttyhunk inner harbor at 11:30 and enjoyed a quick lunch and beer, leaving just 45 minutes later, headed for Marion. We decided to leave the main furled and use both head-sails – one on either side and made a solid 7.5kts in the 20knots of breeze.

Things got interesting as we approached Marion… dumb ass decided that we should fly main and genoa – which required furling the genoa, turning into the wind and raising the main… after furling we turned into the wind and found we were in stronger winds than we realized. It was difficult to head into the wind at all and we slowly compounded one mistake after another, finally necessitating a complete wimp out and we left the main furled and headed on towards Marion under genoa alone.

On the approach to Marion, with wind and sea being quite challenging, we decided to furl the genoa and bring out the smaller jib… but the genoa furling gear was completely and utterly knotted and impossible to clear. It took us an age of trying to untie the knots, an unsuccessful  attempt to drop the genoa halyard, another attempt at untying the know while heading in the opposite direction and finally a successful – if wet – dropping of halyard to bring things under some form of control. We limped into Marion with tails between legs wondering what the hell we were thinking about going around the world. However, after taking a mooring and cracking open a beer, all thoughts of humility dissipated and we reveled in the glory of coming to grips with yet another dire situation.

We came to Marion to meet a fellow OCC member who will be travelling to the Azores. Gianluca Fiori will be travelling a couple of weeks after us in his Hinkley 51, but we coordinated a meet on Toodle-oo! to compare notes…

“I’ve got to put things away, and go to the Yacht club – I’ll be over in 15 minutes..” Great – an opportunity to have a quick shower… 2 minutes later, the launch drops Gian off on Toodle-oo! and I’m starkers in the shower! After the embarrassing first meeting (don’t normally greet people by showing them my butt!) we settled into a really fun conversation and I look forward to seeing him and his crew in the Azores in a month’s time…

Also looking forward to the possibility of meeting and chatting with Evans Starzinger in the morning – who is anchored in Hawk just a 100yards away…