Everyone has a blog, but does everyone have a log? A log for our blog, a blog with a log. That's all.
Friday, July 3, 2015
July 3rd 2015
We have to report every 24hours to Greenland's Coastal Control of position, speed, ETA etc. I was late once and an hour later they were calling us on the radio, since then I've been sending a morning and evening report incase I forget one or the other. We pulled into Sisimiut last night at 11:30pm and rafted up against some boats, we were the 6th boat across. So I thought that I could wait until the morning to give them the report seeing that I had sent out the last one just over 12hours before. Was I wrong. At 2am the police came knocking on our hull making sure we were ok because we had failed to check in at midnight. Yikes!! To start of I was soo tired because we didn't' get to bed until midnight now I had to sit up and write a report. Grrr! I won't make that mistake again. The police were very nice about it even having to board 5 other boats just to get to us. When in Greenland make sure you follow their reporting system or they'll come a knockin'!
Tonight we're going up to the Seamans Hotel for some internet and dinner at their cafeteria, I can almost taste the wifi.
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Saturday, June 27, 2015
June 27th 2015
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Friday, June 26, 2015
June 26th 2015
Today we have left and are heading for who knows where. We plan on motoring/ sailing until dinner time and finding an anchorage. We're taking the inside route amoungst all the rocks and cliffs. Some of it is unchartered so fingers crossed we don't hit a rock. It's so beautiful. Greenland isn't green, we haven't seen any trees and even the grass is brown because summer hasn't quite hit yet. There's patches of snow everywhere, even at the waters edge. The girls are just dying to get off and play in the snow.
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Friday, June 19, 2015
June 19th 2015
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Thursday, June 18, 2015
June 18th 2015
I'll be sure to post something of our trip if/when we get internet.
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Tuesday, June 16, 2015
June 16th 2015
We saw a few icebergs out but it was the growlers (smaller bits of ice broken off from icebergs with majority of size under the water) we had to watch out for. Today the swell has calmed down a lot and we are making good time sailing downwind at 8kts. Almost 24 hours down and I'm ready to get there. 600 miles to go and as the girls say 4 more sleeps.
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Sunday, June 14, 2015
June 14th 2015
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Tuesday, June 9, 2015
June 9th 2015
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Monday, June 8, 2015
June 8th 2015
Today we left out at 5:30am and are going to motor sail until the sun starts to set. We want to be able to make St. Anthony (top of Newfoundland) tomorrow but it's too dangerous to sail through the night because of the thread of icebergs. We may see some icebergs come the end of the day today but we'll definitely see them tomorrow. From the iceberg chart I pulled last night there are about 13+ just to the west of us and the further north we get there's 53 before we round the point of Newfoundland. We're all keen to see those floating chunks of ice and also want to get some for our cooler and to toast with some Baileys later on. Mmmm. All crew are doing well, we all seem to have our sea legs and don't need to take any seasick meds for a while. Today should reach into the low 50sF with maybe some frost in the morning. Our heating systems are working great, Arctic outside, Caribbean inside!
49°54N Longitude
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Friday, June 5, 2015
June 5th 2015
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Sunday, May 31, 2015
May 31st 2015
We are all a bit sleepy today. He motor sailed in heavy fog last night and into the morning until we were about ½ mile out of St. Peters Canal. We’re glad we left yesterday as the winds started to kick up and we rolled like crazy. I woke in the middle of the night thinking, is it possible to get seasick in my sleep? With our fog horn running and all eyes on the radar we made it in with no incidences. By around 9am we were headed through the St. Peters lock and are now at the fuel dock around the corner. The day started out lovely and warm, we went to the park with the kids and the grocery store. We headed back to the boat as the clouds started coming in and spitting with rain. The temperature drops so quick up here. Peter went out and bought us lobster from the local fisherman and we’re having a fab dinner tonight. All laundry is done, boat is fuelled (we’re the second boat to fuel up this year, the first boat came through the lock with us) and we are ready to leave out in the morning. We expect to run into ice as soon as 5 days as we head further north.
Saturday, May 30, 2015
May 30th 2015
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Friday, May 29, 2015
May 29th 2015
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Thursday, May 28, 2015
May 28th 2015
As for today, it's cloudy, a little chilly and we're still doing 10 knots.
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Monday, April 20, 2015
April 20th 2015
4pm now, think we have just under 4 hours to Ocean City. If we can't make it before dark we'll have to skip it and continue on to New York. I think we'll just make it.
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Saturday, April 18, 2015
19th April 2015
Almost 1 down and about 3 days to go to New York.
Friday, April 17, 2015
April 17th 2015
We had planned on leaving out this evening at high tide but we just didn’t have enough time to get the boat back together. We only got put back in the water this morning and the place was a train wreck. The dodger wasn’t quite finished, we were having timber put up over the stove, all the floors were a terrible shade of bilge goop. This morning I had to race out and drop 2 big garbage bags of laundry off at the laundromat, go grocery shopping for the trip, come back clean up. Laundry had to be picked up, rental car dropped off. Kids were screaming, I was screaming, Carl ran from us all screaming. Let’s just say it was a hard day. It’s now 9:30pm and we’ve given up. Most everything has been put away but still need to stow the boat in the morning. Joe a friend at the yard is going to take Carl to Walmart in the morning to get some peanut butter – how did I forget the peanut butter, we live off of the stuff.
So we’ll push off at high tide which will be around 10am. It will take a few hours to get down the river and out. We should be getting some light headwinds for the first day or so before it clocks around to 35knots on the butt. We dealt with conditions like this last summer so we feel confident in Salty. We are planning on sticking close to shore in case it gets a bit iffy. We’re guessing it will take 4 days to get to New York. Here we’ll spend maybe 2 days before heading up to Massachusetts. The dodger looks great – thanks Sally and Joe – and we can’t wait to put it to use.
I’ll try and update this log every day that we’re out via either our SSB or iridium GO.
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
March 11th 2015
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March 10th 2015
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Tuesday, March 10, 2015
March 9th 2015
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Sunday, March 8, 2015
March 8th 2015
Today we are prepping the boat to leave Ft. Lauderdale tomorrow. It’s going to be a 3 day run to Wilmington NC. I have to activate our phone, make sure our inReach tracker is worker, tidy the boat, put away laundry and pull out all our winter clothes. Between here and North Carolina the temperature is going to drop. Carl is cleaning up the deck from his grinding and painting. All the kids are grumpy with colds, our little man is popping some molars so he’s EXTRA grumpy. Should be a fun day.
Monday, March 2, 2015
March 2nd 2015
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Friday, January 23, 2015
January 23rd 2015
It is our 3rd day at the dock and it is HOT HOT HOT. It got up to 99F on the boat today, we had to escape the heat and go to the pool. Pri is doing great, we’re teaching her how to snorkel and Wags is swimming freely with her noodle. Why do kids prefer to swim in a pool? This morning we did a big provision run. We borrowed our friend Justin’s car and went to Safe Way. We saved a cab fare but spend a whopping $540, ouch. A lot of it was meats for the freezer because we were running really low. 2 chicken breasts costs around $12. And of course I got a few cakes of chocolate, Cadbury, the good stuff. We will be leaving tomorrow on the boat with our friends and their kids. Probably going to go to the Bitter End for some beach time and of course some cool breeze.
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
13th January 2015
SV Mary Christine took an bus tour of St John’s today. We were meant to join them but pulled out at the last minute, I don’t think the kids would do well on a bus for multiple hours, we would have ruined the tour for everyone. Maybe we’ll do a tour of another island with just us and if the kids act up we can do it at our own pace. Ahh well. Carl finished off working on the hatches and ports, they are all now freshly painted and look amazing. I made bread, did school work. Carl cleaned the other half of the hull today, he’s going to sleep well tonight. I left Crew with Carl and took the girls to the beach to meet up with Genevieve, her two girls and Ava off of another boat in the cove. Got home and Carl had a hot meal ready. Yum. Now all the kids are in bed and we are watching a movie. Every night Crew has been waking up twice and either one of the girls cries. We never win. Time for some chocolate and a cup of tea.
Sunday, January 11, 2015
10th January 2015
Today was a great day. We moved over to Charlotte Amelie on St Thomas. Dropped the hook and went into town. We caught a bus to customs where we were met with 3 mega yacht crews. Funny enough I found a girl that was from my home town there. She graduated high school 2 years earlier than me so I didn’t know her but man was it nice to meet another person from Coffs Harbour, didn’t know whether to hug her or cry. After that we jumped back on the bus ($1 each) and got off at McDonalds – I now ewww! But the girls got to play while we got some adult time. So worth the scuzzie food and the play area that smelt like wet socks. Next was Kmart. We got diapers, pull ups, razor and a phone so Carl could keep in touch with his mum better. From there we headed to the grocery store which was only a few blocks away. We stocked up on fruit, vege, flour, milk, eggs and of course cookies. Mmmm. We looked today redneck pushing the shopping trolley all the way back down to the dock and loading up our dingy. We had no room left on the floor of the dingy so we had to put our legs up on the tubes. Few things got wet on the bottom of the dingy but no casualties. Lifted anchor, headed back to Christmas Cove. Ordered a pizza from Pizza Pi. Had Peter and Jody over from SV Mary Christine (www.wherethecoconutsgrow.com ) and they ordered a pizza too. Great day.
11th January 2015
Today Carl worked on grinding the rust from the hatches and patched porthole in Crews room. Loud, loud, loud. I had to strip everything down after he was done because it was covered in a fine dust of metal, rust and paint. He also scrubbed half of the hull. The other half probably tomorrow. I did school work with the girls, made bread, painted, colored and played. After quiet time Genevieve, Eben, Ellia and Arias from SV Necess (www.itsournecessity.com) came over to hang out. We had a blow up pool on the deck so they had a great time. Eben and Carl decided to jump off the spreaders which was fun to watch. Peter came over and jumped as well. Just before they left poor Ellia slipped on one of the house windows and split her little lip open. Lots of blood and lots of crying. We called Carl’s cousin Brittany for some advice. All is well, poor Ellia will be dosed up good for pain and hopefully will be a little better tomorrow. Sucks when accidents happen.
Thursday, January 8, 2015
8th January 2015
Today we woke and started to get the boat ready to leave the Bitter End. Carl took the girls over to Virgin Gorda to check out of customs. We had a fun time pulling anchor which another boat decided to park on. We had to be oober careful not to hit them. We had a great sail down to Christmas Cove, mostly downwind. Crew got in some good deck time outside and the girls play happily inside and out. At Christmas Cove we met up with some cruisers we met in Nassau. Brian and Jennifer from SV Blue Moon. So neat to see familiar faces, makes it feel like home if you know what I mean. Tomorrow we should be heading into St. Thomas to do some grocery shopping, we are in desperate need of diapers and fresh produce. I should get off my butt and check how many miles we did today but I’m lazy. We left roughly around 10am and got in around 3:30pm. Probably averaging 6 knots
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
6th January 2015
The typical 15-20 knot winds. We are still anchored at the Bitter End. Woke up made bread and apple sauce. Did a couple of hours of school work with the girls. After lunch I took the kids to the beach. Eben was teaching Peter how to kite board. Carl met us there an hour later. We left back to the boat for Crews second nap. Carl stayed for some kiteboarding time. After Crew woke Carl returned and I took Capri in the dingy across the bay to find a grocery store. It was rough and slow going in the dingy. Seaweed kept getting caught in the prop and the following swell wanted to bury the outboard every few seconds. Quick walk up the hill to a grocery store. Pears were .90c to $1.20 USD each. Pineapples $1.25 / pound, I didn’t’ dare look at the price of strawberries. Bread was stale and milk sold out. Nothing else to do but head for the chocolate isle. Chocolate bars $1.25, SOLD! The dingy trip back was worse. Got drenched by a cigarette boat passing by. Chop too big and wind too strong to get on plane. A local drove his boat in front of us to create a smooth path but I still couldn’t get on plane due to the head wind. The boat left us because we were to slow. It took us about 30 minutes to cross the bay. Pri said the trip over was a lot more fun than the trip back, I concurred. Carl cooked us dinner and we ate upon arrival. Chicken, potato slices and beans. Yummo. Hailed Nesse and Mary Christine on the radio to see if they wanted to go for a beer, I needed some kid free time. Peter and Jody from Lady Christine picked me up and we went to the Bitter End. Great evening. It’s amazing what some good ole adult talk will do to morale. Nesse and Mary Christine are leaving out in the morning, they will be missed but the Virgin Islands are small and I’m sure we’ll run into them again. Not too sure what we’ll be doing tomorrow, either sticking around or heading to Tortola. Winds have eased a bit. Christmas winds.