Welcome to avalanche at 39 degrees 43 minutes north latitude, 70 degrees 19 minutes west longitude, (Click here to see where that is!!!) 113 miles southeast of Jamestown, 21 past the continental shelf, 50 miles short of the 9000′ depth line, 124 miles from the Gulf Stream, and 513 northwest of Bermuda! We have a crisp mostly sunny morning, the temp is a balmy 45 degrees (up from 43 overnight) with a light northeast wind. The water temperature is 55.5 degrees (also up 2 degrees overnight).

On a trip like this the most difficult part is untying the dockllines! The weather is always the biggest obstacle: not the weather that we see out the window, but the weather that is on or will cross our path to Bermuda. Weather kept us until Monday, but, truthfully, I didn’t have all the provisioning ready anyway! (Somehow getting the boat ready to go south is like Christmas: it always comes at a predictable time, I always know what I need to do, I think I’m being very organized and efficient, but I am never completely ready.)

We accomplished that difficult task officially at 17:22 EST (18:22 in our Atlantic Time Zone) on November 19. Ben was on the dock to take photographs (unfortunately it was already too dark), say goodbye and help cast off our lines. We motored away from the dock in about 15 knots of wind from the NE, avoiding all the lobster pots along the way. As we left Narragansett Bay
and the lights of Block Island behind, we really had a very nice night of sailing. The wind velocity and wind direction were just right to give us a nice ride at about 8 knots with mainsail and Yankee, without being so great that the windchill would be unbearable. We had a clear sky with stars and meteors plus half a moon alternating with a few clouds and some sort of
precipitation. I suppose it was sprinkles of rain, but there was so little moisture that we wondered if it could have been snow flurries. The very best part of the night, however, was the parade of dolphins that kept us company jumping in the moonlight. The deck watch saw the first 4 only 21 miles from home, and they continued jump, swim and play around the boat for
several hours. Because it was dark, I can’t tell you how many we had, but we had at least a eight different sightings through the night.

When the weather is this cold I always ask myself why we do this. It is so cold that we wear layers and layers of long underwear and fleece, vests and winter jackets, over which we put heavy foul weather gear. We wear some sort of deck shoes: boots, shoes or sandals with goretex socks over polypro socks, but it’s impossible to get foul weather pants over the shoes, so the pants go on before the shoes. Then there are neck warmers, gloves, and hats under a hood. For safety we wear Man Overboard watches, but they are so bulky that we have to put them on after the foul weather jacket. We also each wear a fanny pack which contains a day/night flare, laser signal light, whistle, and mirror–that goes on top of everything. And, of course, we wear an inflatable life jacket /harness, which has a tether so we are always attached to the boat. And, finally a strobe/flashlight. It takes me fully 30 minutes to get all the gear on, and then I can hardly bend my knees or move. (Heaven forbid one might need to use the toilet.) It’s a real pain!

In spite of all this or perhaps because of it, Jake will tell you that this is his favorite trip, because every day gets a little warmer, and every day we get to shed some of our gear. Once we cross the Gulf Stream we will wear fleeces and light jackets, after Bermuda we’ll be standing night watches in t-shirts and shorts! So….that is why we do this. For those of you who haven’t followed our deliveries before, we are delivering avalanche 1600 miles to Antigua in the West Indies. We leave Jamestown when weather permits the week before Thanksgiving, heading 635 miles for Bermuda where we fuel and verify good weather before heading 900+ miles to Antigua. The sailing takes about 9 days, but we plan on 14 days for weather holds. We are offshore the entire distance, there is no harbor to duck in to.

I’ll quickly introduce our crew this trip: Jake Jacobsen and me, Marnie Jacobsen; Peter Vaiciulis a friend from Westport,NY, who has made about half of our 19 trips to date, Leo Bontiff, a Dominican from Antigua, who cares for avalanche in Antigua when we’re not there, making his second trip; and Kim Hapgood, the rookie on avalanche, who is anything but a rookie, having sailed offshore, inshore and around the buoys for years and a member of the management team at Sail Newport, recognized as one our our country’s finest public sailing centers.

At 11:00 we had to put the Yankee away, there just is not enough wind. We are motor sailing now with just the main as a riding sail. We are running the generator to heat the boat and will continue to do that until we reach the stream some time tonight. When we reach the stream, the water temperature will shoot up to the high seventies and the boat and crew should warm up and begin to remove some of those pesky layers. We will start fishing as soon as we are warm enough to think about cleaning a fish on the swim platform.

Jake would like to thank all the doctors. and nurses who worked so hard to get him out of the hospital and on the boat. He is back to normal (whatever that means!) and really appreciates the extra effort to allow him to be out here freezing in the cold so quickly.

We hope this transmission to the web site works. Ben, please let us know (It did!).

All the best from the crew of Avalanche, eagerly awaiting a rise in
temperature

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