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.

 

 

 

 

May 30th 2015

We woke in Halifax this morning to thick fog and chilly temperatures - not for the locals though, they were out in shorts and T-shirts. I took the girls to check out at the public wharf office and Cali informed me that I should have made her wear gloves because her hands were "FREEZING". Poor chooky. We left out of Halifax around 10am and the first few hours sail was delightful. We were sailing at a good 8 knots with minimal swell, with the fog it made for an eerie peaceful sail. Now it's 2:30pm and the wind has died down to just 8 knots and we turned on one engine and are motor sailing. By the morning we should be getting close to St. Peters Canal where we will have to wait for the loch opening. This will put us in the Bras d'Or Lake. Hopefully we won't have to motor all the way there but it's not looking good.

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May 29th 2015

The fog rolled in last night - welcome to Nova Scotia. It's now 9am and we are motoring in thick fog. We only run one engine at a time so we are coming in slow at 6knots. We all slept well last night, a slight roll but not a lot of motion so seasickness. We are making water. The water temp is 42F so the watermaker is only churning out around 30 gallons/ hr. Carl is working on a few hiccups with the Simrad, the girls are watching Doc McStuffins, Peter is on watch, Crew is making a mess in the sink and Michelle is resting in her cabin. We're all looking forward to Halifax. Depending on how much we can get done we're going to try and leave Halifax tomorrow morning.

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May 28th 2015

We left Plymouth Massachusetts yesterday and are on our way to Halifax, Nova Scotia. It's been a great sail so far, we've been averaging around 10 knots with 25 knots of wind. It's been pretty rolly but hopefully today will be a little better. We were all sporting half a patch yesterday trying to alleviate some of the nausea. The swell isn't that bad it's just hitting us right on the beam. The kids are doing great, Capri felt a little sick yesterday so it was a movie day. I was thankful that Peter, Michelle and Carl did all the night watches because Crew has been waking on average about 4 times a night due to his teeth.
As for today, it's cloudy, a little chilly and we're still doing 10 knots.

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April 20th 2015

Today has been a rough day, in more ways than one. The seas were around 8 feet and making us roll every which way. Last night was full of squalls and thunderstorms, everything go wet in our new enclosure but not from over head but from below. The water would move from one side of the boat to the other under our cockpit seas and soak into anything that had been left on the floor. I must say that the deck has had a thorough salt water wash and a rain rinse. As the winds died down (was 20-25) fog rolled in this afternoon. We have decided to pull in to Ocean City, Maryland for the night to catch up with some sleep. The plan is to go after breakfast in the morning hopefully pulling into New York on Wednesday. I've pretty much spent the day on the floor wishing to die so a night tied up to the dock makes me a happy gal. Capri wasn't seasick at all today, Cali and Crew are doing great. Making chicken vegetable casserole for dinner tonight. Yumm-o. Hopefully we'll all be able stomach it unlike the last two dinners.
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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19th April 2015

3:05am and still motoring, hopefully sometime tomorrow we can put the sails up. Kids are doing great, the girls are excited to get to grandmas house but first we're New York bound. It's a very dark night, I feel like we're the only ones out here in the middle of the ocean. The end of the earth could be just ahead an I wouldn't even know it. Trying out the seasick patch for the first time that we got in Canada, works great. I'm only wear 1/2 of patch so the side effects aren't too crazy. Feels so good not to be in the fetal position on the saloon floor. The girls saw Dolphins today while I was preparing dinner, brings such joy to hear their squealing voices.
Almost 1 down and about 3 days to go to New York.

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.