Passage to BVI's begins!

Wallace's Sailing Adventure on "Arbella"
Mike and Vicki Wallace
Tue 29 Oct 2013 22:00
38:56.7N 76:31.3W The Crew has assembled, and the preparations have been
completed...and the plan has changed! The crew includes: Mike as Captain;
Paul Bulger as First Mate; and Eric ('Cap') Unterborne as Galley Chief; and
Jim Caverley ('Cav')....everyone serves as a Watch Captain in a 2 hour
rotation at night (with 2 guys in the cockpit...2 hours 'on', 2 hours
'backup', and 4 hours 'off', from 1800 to 0600), and a 3 hour rotation
during the day. Weather trumps all...and it did with us over the past 24
hours. We get expert weather advice from a service called 'Commander's
Weather'. Our original plan was to leave at 0400 on Thursday morning in
order to transit the 135 miles to the entrance of the Bay in time to exit
the very busy Bay bottom right after dark, and yet not go below Cape
Lookout, NC, until November 1 (as required by our insurance carrier in order
to limit the hurricane risk, we need to stay north until that time). But
Thursday is supposed to see southerlies (wind out of the south) coming
directly UP the Bay as we are going DOWN at a wind speed of 22 knots,
gusting to 30+...this would be very uncomfortable motoring with 'wind on the
nose'...the crew would be exhausted before the real passage began....so we
hurried our last minute preparations to leave a day early. We will then get
a berth and stay the night to leave on Thursday night or Friday morning.
So, let the Passage begin....about 1400 miles to BVI's, taking about 9 days!
After a dinner at the Boatyard, at the 'Arbella Table', we dropped lines and
left the dock at 2200!