Waiting game

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Sun 3 Nov 2013 16:53

Tues 29th Oct to Saturday 2nd November

 

I do not think that there is any real need to expand on events here in Hampton.

 

The Salty Dawg Rally gathering here has been huge fun and we are very much amongst friends old and new. There are various seminars and social events running and it has all been very entertaining, but probably not the perfect way to prepare for 10 or so days of ocean sailing.

 

The important news  though is that the weather has not done anyone any favours and we have delayed our departure now until Wednesday. The forecasts are a bit inconsistent about conditions even then, but the key to this passage is getting across the Gulf Stream in reasonable conditions after which things become a good deal less fraught. It is probably going to take some 40 hours to get to that point and so we have to plan this very carefully. The weather models at the moment cannot agree if it will be blowing 15 knots or 40 knots – and believe me in the Gulf Stream this makes an ENORMOUS difference.

 

I would like to report that we all set and ready to go, but somehow there are always distractions that stop you getting everything done. This is not helped by the uncertainty of a departure date and so we are holding off the final provisioning for example.

 

So all being well we plan to set off to Virgin Gorda which is in the British Virgin Islands on Wednesday, but will conform this in the next blog hopefully.