sunday, february 6, 2000

hi gang. we had a great 4 day weather window all lined up with the offshore forecast, 4 days of 15-20 knots in more or less the right direction. checked again this morning just before heading out and it had been bumped up to 40 knots in the gulf stream just when we'd be in it. for you non sailorly types, that's a lot of wind, not something you'd deliberately head into especially in the gulf stream. the force of the wind increases by the square of its speed, so a 20 knot wind exerts 4 times the force on the boat of a 10 knot wind. a 40 knot wind exerts 16 times the force. a 60 knot wind exerts 36 times the force. you get the picture. you never realize how inexact a science(?) weather forecasting is until you start paying really close attention.

our friends jeff and ellen who are in the u.s. virgins on their schooner have kindly let us use one of their cars here in oriental. no jeff we didn't take the miata. so we have wheels. for a break we drove to morehead city and beaufort and discovered the wonderful nautical library at the n.c. maritime museum. what a find. i've been looking forever for a book written sixty years ago by conor o'brien with a section on square rig in small boats and when i walked in the door i knew it just had to be there somewhere and it was. fantastic.

we had a really good dinner (not shrimp again!) at the bizarrely named Sanitary Fish Market and Resaurant. it's an institution in morehead. they changed the name from the original Unsanitary Fish Market and Restaurant because business was so bad.

the lobby is filled with photos and newspaper clippings dating back to the thirties including coverage of the miss morehead pageant. now that is my kind of beauty contest. i've got my name down as a volunteer judge for next year's pageant. i can't help it. i'm a civic minded kind of guy.

saturday, february 19, 2000

hi gang well, surprise, surprise, we're not in oriental. how many of you have lost bets? we're in morehead city, n.c., at our friends jeff and ellen's dock the night before we head out to the bvi.

of course we knew that as soon as we started into big projects the weather would turn great, and it did. but we finally got the boat put back together and the weather is still great. according to the latest forecasts, it should be pretty nice along our route with nothing nasty expected. of course, weather forecasters have been wrong before....

we said our goodbyes this morning in oriental and it was particularly tough saying goodbye to captain barker and miss evelyn. they have been so good to us and concerned about us. of course, tonight it's shrimp and strawberries for dinner. what shrimp and strawberries, again???!!!

our friend paul kindly gave us a ride to return jeff and ellen's car and don, who is builing a brewer 45, hull also from custom steel boats, came down to send us off.

free car, free dock, free food, great people. remind us again why we're leaving...

we had a beautiful sunny trip to morehead and were welcomed into the harbour by dolphins cavorting around the boat which we thought was pretty thrilling.

tomorrow we go to customs to clear out and expect to leave around 10am.

hope everything is well with all you group gropesters and we'll be in touch as soon as we make landfall. love carol and john

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