Day 2 November 16, 2009
Entering the Gulf Stream
38 19 N latitude, 68 58 W longitude

Today began gray, but without fog; a terrific improvement over yesterday. And then about mid day the gray overcast burned off, replaced by bright sun and blue skies with just a few clouds ahead in the Gulf Stream. The 100% humidity and fog (felt more like 150%) that we left Jamestown in has diminished and we are drying out. Yesterday every surface was wet: walls, floors, mirrors. While we still have lumpy seas and big rollers, the wild sea conditions have subsided somewhat. We have been motoring since Jamestown, but the wind is beginning to fill in. Perhaps we can sail later today.

We have been eating very well, and certainly not because we have a dedicated chef. Kim brought homemade mushroom/potato/leek soup, butternut squash soup, and apple/raisin crumble, which we have all eaten with relish. Tonight we’re having her sautéed zucchini and peppers with brown/wild rice and Mahi sautéed in garlic & onions. Don’t you wish you were here?

Leo caught a Mahi Mahi just before lunch, so Peter decided that he would first have lunch, then clean the Mahi Mahi on the aft deck and finally have a bath to clean up. So that’s what he did! Leo raised the first fish flag, a Mahi Mahi, on the port courtesy halyard. The score is now Jake and Leo 1, Peter and Chris 0. That might mean a record for swimming at the furthest north point in any of our trips: 38 degrees 28.25 N latitude, 69 degrees 06.48 W longitude. Unfortunately we can’t confirm the previous record until we get home, but this one will be held by Peter, barely ahead of Leo, Jake and Chris.

We expect to be in the Gulf Stream for about 8 hours, which puts us on the other side before midnight tonight. The current air is 69 and the water temperature is74. We are all really enjoying this fine weather. Compared to last year when we had to wear long underwear; winter hats, coats, and gloves; sea boots and foul weather gear well south of Bermuda, wearing short sleeves and swim suits is wonderful!

We are trying to upload a photo to Ben. If we are successful, the picture is of Kim and Chris smiling through the fog. We will send more if it works!

All the best from the crew of Avalanche, eating our way south.

Chris Powell sent me some shots of avalanche leaving the dock Sunday morning. I was actually up and out shooting the sunrise in Narragansett and got to Jamestown an hour late… If you want to see how big the waves were that morning, check out my shots here (they were huge!).

Thanks Chris!

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Day 1 November 15, 2009 5:15 AT.

40 31 .98 N and 70 39.78 W

Well we did it.  We got underway at 6:54 AM this morning.  Left Jamestown in the fog in the aftermath of IDA and the Assault on the Atlantic.  We just finished talking to Herb.  The seas are slowly calming down, but we are still rolling around a lot.  We are still in fog with about 1 mile visibility.  The winds are too light to even motor sail so we will be rocking and rolling until tomorrow night when the winds fill in.  Herb predicts that the seas will mitigate through the night.  We would all love to get our sails up since they stabilize the boat in this kind of sea.

Everyone is doing fine.  This trip we are trying something new.  We have upgraded to a proper yacht!  We have a chef! And our chef is an Admiral! After all these trips we all realized that it might be a lot better for Marnie if she removed herself from the watch (as only Admirals can) and did only 2 jobs instead of 3.  She is the official boat admiral and chef.  Since she has prepared almost all the meals, with wonderful help from Peter and Kim and Nikki Jacobsen, and she know exactly how she wants them served and exactly where everything is stored, she was more than happy to give this new watch a try.  This will keep our boat much better organized, keep the sailors happy and on watch, and allow Marnie to finally get her fair share of rest.  So far so good, or really so far so great!  We had a wonderful lunch with Kim’s mushroom, leek,and potato soup and beautiful roast pork sandwiches.  She is preparing beef stew as this is being written.  So we are all looking forward to the change.  The crew still has to sort out breakfast on its own, and one of us is assigned to help with the galley clean up, a very small price to pay for a wonderful meal.  And then there is all the organization and housekeeping and constant unpacking of all our stores, food, beverages and supplies that Marnie has always done off watch.  This is another big job and now she can it done on a more routine basis, rather than when she is supposed to be sleeping.

We hope to be fishing and sailing tomorrow.  The sea temp has risen from 56 to 60 and in another 3 hours or so we should drop off the continental shelf into deep water.  This too should help the seas to lie down.

All the best,

From the Rolly Polly crew of Avalanche

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For our November 2009 delivery from Jamestown to Antigua we have a wonderful, competent, fun, fun-loving, exuberant, capable, experienced!  In addition to Jake and me (making our 24th trip!), we have Peter Vaiciulis (trip #16), Leo Bontiff (trip #6), Kim Hapgood (trip #2) and Chris Adams, this year’s “rookie”.  You all either know Jake and me  or you can read the introduction on the web site, so I’ll skip our introduction.  But I’d like to tell you a little about each of the other crew members.

Calling Chris Adams a rookie is incredibly ironic because Chris has spent over half his life on the water.  He tells me his family lived on a boat until he was 10, and that the other kids teased him because his mother rowed him in to the bus stop each morning.   He raced sailboats on the Newport, RI high school team, he has raced to or from Bermuda about 20 times, and he has built boats, taken boats apart, rebuilt boats,  bought boats and sold boats.  He has just bought a motor sailer called Mirage, which he brought home to Newport from Lake Ontario via the New York State canals and the Hudson River.  Once he gets Mirage squared away he will probably once again live on a boat!  Meanwhile he works for the local marina, where he is admired for his work as a rigger.  He has already proved his worth getting Avalanche ready by helping diagnose and fix a  mainsail furler swivel that wouldn’t budge!  Chris is cheerful, fun loving, ready to help with anything.

Kim Hapgood first went sailing on a sunfish with her Dad on a lake in Indiana, learned to sail at the Chicago YC, and really got into it when her family moved to England.  Since then she has done lots of racing, both match racing and sport boats around the buoys and offshore races like the Newport-Bermuda race and the Halifax race.  Now she’s turning more to judging and race committee work.  She says that as much as she prefers to sleep in her own bed after racing, she really looks forward to being in the middle of the big ocean with stars above, and no one else around.  It’s a total change of pace and allows her to put things in perspective.  She has been program director at Sail Newport, the local public sailing facility, since 1996, so she spends a lot of time on boats and on the water.  Kim is also incredibly well rounded:  she’s a super chef, and has rebuilt her house doing much of the work herself–even the exterior shingles and for any of you who followed our trip south 2 years ago, she is skilled in first aid. It was Kim who pulled together Peter’s sliced finger with steri-strips after he sliced it open with a filet knife!  She also happens to be a fine sailor who can be counted on to get a couple extra knots of boat speed out of the sails!

Peter Vaiciulis has been sailing with us since we raced our J-37 on Lake Champlain.  He came to help us when we purchased Avalanche and has learned about sailing Avalanche and her numerous systems just as we have.  He is a terrific friend who will drop everything to help us move Avalanche.  He’s also a creative carpenter and scientific thinker.  Those traits have helped us on Avalanche  many times when we’ve had to find a solution to a problem offshore.  Peter is married to a wonderful gal from Tonga and has 2 sons, Peter Sione, age 8 (who was able steer Avalanche from Block Island to Jamestown following a compass course at age 7)  and Thomasi, age six (who caught a 4′ shark off the transom of Avalanche at Block Island at age 5).  They are at home reading about our adventures.

Leo Bontiff is 3/4 Carib Indian, someone who truly belongs in the West Indies!  The Caribs were very fierce  warriors, whom even the Spanish couldn’t defeat, so Leo has a very proud heritage.  He comes from Dominica, where he was raised by his grandparents until he turned 18.  At fifteen he left school to fish with his grandfather in a skiff offshore around the island.  Because of that training, Leo is a very good fisherman, so Jake makes sure Leo fishes on his team.  At 18 Leo left Dominica for Antigua, where he began working for a local Antiguan boat yard owner.  He has learned so much and is so good at what he does that he has become the lead worker in the yard.  Leo has been looking after Avalanche in Antigua for about 5 years, and we can’t thank the yard owner enough for loaning him to us!

This fine group will be gathering at the boat at 6 am tomorrow to depart on our 12th trip south!

November 11, 2009

Still tied to the dock in Jamestown

Hello everybody!

This should be day 1. And indeed,  it appears to be day 1 of several, waiting for Ida to make up her mind!  Currently Ida is stalled off the east coast with high winds and huge waves–nothing we’d like to go to sea in.  We are watching the weather and communicating with our weather guru, Herb Hilgenberg, and it appears that the first opportunity to leave will be Sunday.  However, that is subject to change.  As a result this will probably be one of the best prepared trips we’ve ever made.  We already have everything loaded, much of the food in the freezer, even crew clothing aboard.  We  only have the final grocery run for produce and dairy.  It looks as if I will even get to bake chocolate chip cookies.  They appear on the list every year, and I think the last time I had time to bake them was May 2000.

Keep checking the site.  I should get the crew introduction up before we leave.

All the best from the crew of Avalanche, waiting.