Get ready, get set, GO! - susan

When the sun came down over Mystic tonight and we watched the sky turn a monochromatic array of red, I thought about this precipice –
We are leaving this safe harbor in the morning. October 26, 2009.
It has been a busy year of preparation. Dan is a great organizer and he gets the job done! As we shared this goal with people along the way we would say – we are leaving November 1st. As the date neared and we became actively conscious of the weather conditions that would be favorable for the sail to Bermuda we expanded the date of departure to be: any time after October 25th when the winds and the Gulf Stream and the hurricanes are where we’d like them to be!
Those conditions are in place, October 26, 2009 and onward for the sail on to Bermuda.
Over this past week it has been our practice to borrow wi-fi connection at a local hotel. During our searches we have been studying charts like these that we get from Passageweather.com:

It truly boggles my mind that we have access to this updated information! It has taken us some practice to become proficient with the interpretation but we think we have it!
Our constant preparation took us away from sailing. We learned the nooks and crannies of our vessel and we lovingly reinforced her rigging. I am looking forward to the adventure that awaits us: Gypsy, Dan and me.

More goodbyes – dan

Our neighbors at D-dock presented us with a logbook as a going-away present. A very touching and appropriate gift for voyagers, I’ll think of them every time I make a log entry. They’re truly a great bunch of people and it’s been wonderful getting to know them. Then last night a half-dozen of our good friends joined us for a fair-well dinner on Gypsy. I didn’t know that we could fit eight people at our table but with friends this good there is always room for one more. It a poignant and heart rendering thing this leaving good friends.

Almost all of our last minute issues have been resolved. First Paul at Spicer’s Marina took care of our autohelm issue. He called Raymarine and found out that it would take another two to three weeks for the unit we ordered to come in. He then offered us an upgraded unit (S3) that he had on the shelf and was about to discount. That saved the day and us $700 along with it. They really have been good to us at Spicer’s. Our spare starter came in too - completing the last of the engine spares. Our vaccines (oral Typhoid & Hepatitis A) came in and Susan’s wonderful doctor squeezed us into his incredibly busy schedule to administer them and ordered us a bunch of other medicines that will be good to have on hand. Things like; Cipro & Penicillin (antibiotics), Compazine in oral & suppository form (for nausea & vomiting), Chloroquine for Malaria. Hopefully we won’t have to use any of it.

Our canvas worker Jim Funk brought down the last of the canvas work for us today. It was a storage cover for our dinghy and like all of his work, was done to perfection. We love our new side curtains that have been most useful it the squally conditions of late.

I’ve tested the running lights, masthead light, strobe and deck light. We just installed four new fire extinguishers and tested the smoke detectors. I’ve run the diesel in gear, checked temperature and fluids. I’ve tested the chart plotter, radar, SSB & VHF radios and AIS. All in working order. Our fuel tanks are topped off and the auxiliary jerry jugs are lashed to the stations. Last and perhaps least; the pump out boat came by and emptied our holding tank.

We’re sitting in the parking lot of a local motel, rain beating down on our windshield, picking up their wi-fi as I type this. I’ve just checked the weather forecast and is still looks good for a Monday departure. The predicted cold front, which is the “trigger” for our departure, is still on schedule to pass through on Sunday and the marine forecast for the following several days stills looks good out in the Atlantic. Like all good sailors we’re praying for favorable weather and we feel prepared for the nastys.

Oh deer – dan

We were thrilled by a small herd of deer (4 adults & 2 bambinos) as they dashed by us on their way out of the marina into the salt marsh last night. I had heard that deer lived in the marsh but what they were doing in the marina yard is a mystery to me. Speaking of mysteries we have a couple of good ones going. First there is the medical mystery; will our vaccines arrive tomorrow? The second one is a spare parts mystery; will the starter motor and back-ordered autohelm core pack (computer) arrive before the weekend? There’s a cold front predicted to move through this Sunday and we’d like to be ready to leave with it’s passing on Monday. Stay tuned...

One thing on our list that we’re not worried about is some last minute canvas work that our canvas wizard is making for us. After installing the bimini & connector Jim suggested that we might like side curtains for the tropics that would keep out excess sun and rain when we had too much of either. That sounded like such a good idea that we asked him to go ahead. Jim’s been excellent to work with and we have no doubts that he’ll deliver on time.

a heartfelt bon voyage..... susan

After I moved to New Haven eight years ago I felt the need to start some sort of music circle.Since I was just concluding an Afro Caribbean drumming class it seemed the right place to start! I shared my idea with my friend Carleigh and before long we were inviting women to my home for a drumming circle I asked a mutual friend, Evelyn, who has a doctorate in vibrational healing to be our leader. And so it started. Every month a group of women would bring potluck supper to my house and under Evelyn’s guidance we would create a circle calling in the directions and we would chant and drum and occasionally, on a full moon, howl. Women came and women went but there was a core of about a dozen of us who made sure to keep our calendars free on our designated night. Over these past eight years I have watched new friendships form and have enjoyed viewing the evolution of one particular woman as she continues to find her voice and bloom on her journey. Our beloved Carleigh moved to Albuquerque and we sent her off with high energy and good cheer; when later she became ill and was in the hospital undergoing treatment , we called her on speakerphone and sang to her – chants she had written. Our sister Emily provided much laughter and playfulness among our sisters and her recent passing has touched us all. We were much more than a drumming circle…

And it was this group that honored me with memories and gratitude this past Friday. I have formed a special connection to each and every one of these women and I shall miss the wonder that we have shared. Poetry was read and heartfelt words were spoken. These treasures will be in my heart even on my 2 A M watch.

I am blessed.

Stormy goodness – dan

We spent all day inside Gypsy yesterday storing provisions. It was a good day to be working inside as a Nor’easter was blowing outside. We had the heater going inside Gypsy, which made it quite pleasant. We took a break at noon to check on some spare parts we have on order in Noank. On the way back we picked up a sandwich to share and stopped at the mouth of the river to enjoy our meal and watch the storm from the warmth of the car. It was a wonderful afternoon; a mission, a meal to share and a storm to watch all with a wonderful partner. My life is full and good!

prepare for departure... susan

From where I stand I can see the “event” is imminent! My land house is no longer my house, I go to the post office to retrieve my forwarded mail, and every action seems to point to concluding unfinished business. Tension is mounting inside of me. Will I be able-bodied crew? How will it feel to be out in the ocean with no land in sight when the wind whips up and the lightening splinters the sky driving icy water against my face? Our dock neighbors continue to show interest in our adventure and question us as to our date of departure and assume that we are taking the coastal southern route. It seems all of our counterparts who have gone South for the winter have taken the coastal route. There is little encouragement and not much support for the offshore route. In listening to the dialogue I can see advantages for each. By starting straight off with a 5-6 day off shore trip, we will be pressed into action to maintain watches and to set up a rhythm for handling wind, weather and the ever-feared Gulf Stream! Following one of those conversations I felt compelled to check in with Dan to see if he feels our plans are on target. We discussed our intention and continue to feel we are prepared to head straightaway to Bermuda.

Last year as we were planning our “to do” list we thought we may be able to get to Maine to visit my cousin and his family. The Sabre factory is in Maine so I called to find out the hours for tours etc. We never made it to Maine but when I called it was suggested that by giving the hull number I would be able to update the ownership of our vessel. It took me until just this past week to call back with the needed information! And I am glad I did. It felt like I was calling family. We have been very happy with Gypsy and we have made some modifications to her to meet our cruising needs. Tucker Thompson who took my call asked if there was a way the associates at Sabre could follow our progress so I shared this blog address. We have been in the bilge and in the most remote crevasses of Gypsy and continue to be impressed with the quality of workmanship. It seems apparent that the folks at Sabre care about their fleet.

Provisioning has turned out to be more difficult than I ever could have imagined.
Being someone who cooks primarily with fresh foods, finding ingredients that require little preparation and easy storing is a challenge. I organized and reorganized to fit things in to accessible locations. The biggest challenge came when Dan set the level and pointed out that Gypsy is listing to port. Back to the drawing board!

Counting beans and good fortune – dan

We started the day with a flood. You might say that things could only go up from there but given the extreme state of the tide, we were hoping for the contrary. The water was axel deep in half the marina’s parking lot. Thankfully we parked in the other half, some poor folks were not so fortunate. So there’s gratitude in our good fortune there.

We’re also grateful for our new space heater that we bought last night. It’s been getting awfully cold and raw in New England and thankfully Susan proposed that we breakdown and end our suffering by splurging on a space heater. The inside of the boat has been hovering around 45°F these last few nights burrrrrrrr. Good for snuggling though. There’s something very special and even primordial about body heat, precious as gold, that is shared out for mutual benefit. It felt like cheating when we considered getting a heater because we’ve been proudly living exclusively off energy generated by our solar panels ever since we installed them and as good as they are, they can’t support a space heater. There comes a time when thoughts like that go right out the window and for us that time happened yesterday afternoon in the middle of a nor’easter that was cold, damp and shaking our boat like an angry child. It was then that our will snapped like a thin icicle and our pride melted like a last year’s New Year’s resolution. It was snowing when we picked up the heater. We rushed home with our electric wonder and were delighted as the temperature in our cabin leveled out at a balmy (to us) 61°. Grateful again for simple things.

Beans, we’ve got them, lots of them; baked beans, black beans, lentils and more. We’ve been counting them and stowing them along with all the other food in our effort to provision Gypsy for the journey ahead. How much will we need? Nobody knows for sure, we’re making our best guess and trust that we’ll be close enough. The sure thing is we won’t starve on this trip. Worst thing that could happen is that we’ll end up eating a lot of chickpeas. The process goes like this:

Chick Peas, 14 cans located in aft cabin, side berth cubby #3

Canned Soup, 24 cans located in aft cabin, side berth cubby #1

Apple Sauce, 4 cans, located in aft-cabin, side berth cubby #4

Tofu, 12 boxes, located in aft-cabin, side berth #2

Oyster Crackers, 2 packages, located in aft-cabin, side berth cubby #4….

And the list goes on. We had to break off provisioning today at noon in order to get our wills and health care directives (living wills) notarized. That’s proven to be more of a challenge that I would ever have imagined. We both did our own wills with templates that we got on-line. That proved to be the easy part. Next we had to get them notarized. Two different notaries told us that we had to go to probate court to have it done. New London Probate Court told us that they don’t notarize wills and Stonington Probate sounded like they do them sometimes but told us try another court. Susan finally called her attorney to see if he could help us and thankfully he agreed to see us right away.

Wills and health care directives are things that we, like a lot of people put off until, well, until just before some potential life challenging event like an around-the-world sailing trip. Thank goodness that Attorney Blaccini agreed to help us out. He did have a little problem with the part where he has to determine if we are of “sound mind”. He joked about how sound could we be - walking away from our jobs, our careers, homes and friends to sail to some of the wilder spots on our planet. Extremely sound and sane I say, but when is the subject ever considered a credible witness in an assessment of one’s own sanity? Being an adventurer himself (he circumnavigated Manhattan in a kayak) Attorney Blaccini seemed to show a very genuine interest and enthusiasm in our upcoming adventure and we were very grateful to him seeing us on such short notice and being so generous with his time. We’ve been the beneficiaries of a lot of that kind of enthusiasm and support lately. It’s a heart expanding experience every time it happens.

An interesting thing happened to me on my drive back from New Haven. We’ve been rushing around like crazy; trying to complete all the last minute things we need to do before we leave, not having the luxury to enjoy “living in the moment” as we usually do. I had the GPS on to help navigate out of New Haven and hadn’t bothered to shut it off when I got on the highway. At one point I noticed that the unit had zoomed itself all the way out to its maximum range giving me a satellite view of North America with the crazy little icon that represented my car bouncing madly along. It made me see just how small I am and all my seemingly important tasks really are tiny in comparison to the big picture. At that moment a calm came over me and I felt that we’d have enough; enough beans and enough time to stow them all.

Middle of October - dan

Clouds pass swiftly

through the autumn sky.

Like emotions

when feelings run strong.

On Saturday we had a wonderful evening with our friends - the Hills’. Ostensibly it was a birthday dinner for Tom & Susan. It was also another tender step in our long good by. Sunday followed with a visit from the McDermott’s, Susan’s cousins who were delightful boat guests. Tim left in the evening as he had to work the next day but Marion, Laura and Caroline had a sleepover!

In spite of our enhanced social calendar we managed to empty the last of the crates that have been lining the dock next to Gypsy these last few weeks. Of course emptying the crates was the easy part; it was the cataloging and storing the contents that was a real challenge. That was a big task and I’m feeling very relieved to have that behind us. Our next challenge is provisioning which we have just begun.

Our most excellent canvas worker stopped by today to take the first pattern for our set of cockpit side curtains. It’s amazing to me how Jim is able to transform something as supple and shapeless as fabric into a strong and functional part of our boat. Not only that, the end product looks great! The new side curtains along with our dodger, bimini and connector should provide wonderful relief from the strong sun and rain in the tropics. As I type this, the temperature inside Gypsy is 48°F and the thought of tropical heat is so alluring that it almost seems an illusion, but it’s not. Soon….

Thich Nhat Hahn – dan

Thich Nhat Hahn wrote one of the most moving poems that I have ever read. I’ve been thinking a lot about him since we saw him in NYC last Friday. Here’s that poem:

Will Say I Want It All

If you ask how much do I want,

I'll tell you that I want it all.

This morning, you and I

and all men

are flowing into the marvelous stream

of oneness.

Small pieces of imagination as we are,

we have come a long way to find ourselves

and for ourselves, in the dark, the illusion of emancipation.

This morning, my brother is back from his long adventure.

He kneels before the altar,

his eyes full of tears.

His soul is longing for a shore to set anchor at

(a yearning I once had).

Let him kneel there and weep.

Let him cry his heart out.

Let him have his refuge there for a thousand years,

enough to dry all his tears.

One night, I will come

and set fire to his shelter, the small cottage on the hill.

My fire will destroy everything

and remove his only life raft after a shipwreck.

In the utmost anguish of his soul,

the shell will break.

The light of the burning hut will witness

his glorious deliverance.

I will wait for him

beside the burning cottage.

Tears will run down my cheeks.

I will be there to contemplate his new being.

And as I hold his hands in mine

and ask him how much he wants,

he will smile and say that he wants it all—just as I did.

--Thich Nhat Hahn, 1954.

Thich Nhat Han in NYC – dan

On Friday, after a half-day of sorting and loading gear onto Gypsy we took the train to New York to see Thich Nhat Han. It was hard to pull ourselves from our task but it proved a worthy diversion. Thich’s dharma talk was inspiring and the trip, like all trips to NYC was exciting. A couple blocks from Grand Central station we walked by this beautiful park on 42^nd street.

Further uptown we skirted Central park.

At Columbus Circle we walked under a giant globe which made me think about our upcoming journey; doesn’t look that big”. It’s all in the perspective I suppose; you just have to zoom out a bit to make those big things look not so overwhelming.

The whole day turned out to be an inspiring and surreal experience. The juxtaposition of the peaceful Buddhist monk in the rancorous city was quite thought provoking. It was also quite fitting given Thich’s message that “We are all one, leaves from the same tree, waves in the same ocean”. After the dharma talk one of the nuns traveling with Thich mentioned that he’s 83 years old. You could have fooled me; he seemed much younger in appearance and energy. I wondered where the next generation of Buddhist world leaders will come from given that the Dalai Lama is approaching 75. Who will match these great spiritual leaders in strength of character and possess such fierce conviction in the propagation of peace?

On our walk back to the train station Susan suggested that we swing through Times Square and the place was hopping even after ten o’clock at night. It wasn’t until 2:30am that we were finally home again, snug in our bunk, making for a long and exciting day.

The third house – dan

The third and last of our houses sold yesterday leaving us free as birds. This is a major milestone on our journey, bigger that anything we’ve done so far. By all reports the closing on Susan’s home went as smoothly as those things go thanks to guidance of Susan’s realtor Gayle and a huge amount of support from her neighbor Barbara. It was a huge task to prepare three homes for market, sell them in a down market and then empty them of furniture and all the other stuff we fill our homes with. We’re still trying to find places for all the things that we brought from home; boxes of clothing, food and kitchen things, sports equipment, more spare parts and one violin.

Fall in New England – dan

It’s a magical time in the land of steady habits. The time when leaves go psychedelic and the people start mixing summer clothes with winter things; sandals, shorts and a jacket are not an unusual ensemble. Susan and I both have more clothes then Gypsy has room for so today we took a serious look at our wardrobes, pondering what to take and what to leave behind. We’ll need some warm things for the start of our trip when it could be wet as well as cold. After that it will be all shorts & sandals until we reach New Zealand although a light jacket or fleece might come in handy in the highlands of Guatemala. It’s interesting to see what has been making the cut and what’s being left behind. One thing I noticed during this process is that I have more underwear than Susan but I must admit, hers are much more interesting. Quantity never trumps quality.

We ordered a bunch of spare parts last week and good old Spicer’s Marina really did well by us, shaving a thousand dollars off the discount marine price for a backup autopilot. I got a call from Mystic Stainless that our security grates are ready; I’m excited to see how they came out. We’re still waiting for our canvas worker to finish up the last few jobs for us. Susan’s house closes this Tuesday and we still have tons of stuff to move onto the boat. Right now it’s all in boxes along our dock.

Our friends on Right’s of Man are considering joining the NARC Rally (North American Rally to the Caribbean) and asked us if we wanted to join too. Although we can see that the rally offers some benefits we’re not really the cruise-in-mass type of people. We had been planning on buddy boating with them to Bermuda but if they end up joining NARC we’ll wish them the best of luck and hope to see them in Bermuda.

Our target date for departure has been November 1^st but we’ll actually be watching the weather very closely starting October 25^th and leave with the first good weather window after that date. Several friends have expressed interest on seeing us off on the date of our departure but we don’t think that is a good idea. Actually the vision of us departing with a group of close friends waving bon voyage from the dock in very beautiful but the reality is that we need to be ready to leave on such short notice we won’t be able to wait for well wishers. So dear friends, feel free to stop by the marina any time during the next couple of weeks or if you’re more adventurous, meet us in Bermuda.

27 days...till November 1st, 21 days till October 25th our earliest possible departure date...