Heading towards Bermuda - farewell to the USA
Ninaofsouthampton
Sun 3 Nov 2019 21:27
James asked his crew for a volunteer to write today’s blog, and so you find yourself reading Phil’s commentary on the last 24 hours.
Having rapidly recovered from the disappointment of watching England lose the rugby World Cup to South Africa, we set off on our adventure early yesterday morning in bright sunshine, modest winds, and an eager sense of anticipation.
The day gave us all the opportunity to get to know one another and become familiar with this splendid yacht. We had a pleasant sail south through Chesapeake Bay which has an intriguing tidal flow with eight hours of incoming water followed by only four hours of current in the seaward direction at a similar flow rate. This makes for both a brain teaser wondering where all that water goes, as well as a slightly slower passage to the Atlantic Ocean.
When darkness fell Nick provided a delicious paella which fortified us for a night shift which contrasted sharply with the relaxing day. By day we had seen very few vessels and the water was benign, but once darkness fell navigation lights appeared in all directions, the wind built up, and we became alert to the sometimes unpredictable manouvering of tug boats pulling long barges. We passed the Potomac river which flows into Chesapeake from Washington, avoided a Kamikaze tug driver who decided to turn across our path, were received to observe that a row of commercial vessels pointing towards us were in fact at anchor, and after 20 hours of sailing reached the narrow passage between two causeways where the bay meets the Atlantic Ocean to be greeted by a beautiful dawn.
We turned half east, pointed to Bermuda some 600 miles distant, made use of our last cellphone connection, and headed out into the ocean with a strengthening wind, rolling waves and a clear blue sky.
Tomorrow James will tell you about our course and the weather we expect to encounter.
Phil
Sent from my iPad