Ok so my plan here is to do a journal entry for each day of this passage. There will be 5 posts in all and I suggest reading them in order. They will be text only; however, I will post a few others shortly that will be summaries of our collective experience and will include lots of pics so stay tuned!

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Journal of November 4th, 2019 (written on November 6th, 2019)

As I write this I am looking out on the ocean…it’s a deep purplish blue and we have light grey skies all around us. There is a freighter on the horizon behind us – so far we’ve seen about one a day and it’s become a big event. We’ve been sailing upwind all day and we just depowered a bit because we were cranking and it felt a bit too hectic in case the wind came up more. It’s part-way through Day 3 of what is projected to be a 5 day passage…we are about half way. So I thought I should get some of the departure details down before they became a blur. I’m already having a hard time holding on to which day of the week it is ;).

 It’s our first ocean passage as Harris Crew and so far, so good !

Day 1 had us leaving Norfolk around 7:30am with our 3 additional crew of Andrew (Greg’s brother), Heidi (sister in law) and Bill (Greg’s dad). Right up to that morning we were still unsure if that was going to be our departure day as Predict Wind called for 10-15 knots from the NE as we would be reaching the Gulf Stream…that’s not a great combination. It looked like the wind was going to swing around and die off a few hours into the Gulf Stream so we were trying to time things well. However, on the end of the model we downloaded at 2am on Sunday morning before we left we also saw a big front moving in on Friday which meant either we leave now and beat it, or wait it out another week or more…for potentially not any better conditions.

So Greg and I discussed with everyone and we decided to leave asap Sunday morning. Don’t get me wrong, we were prepared to do this (it wasn’t spur of the moment). We had filled up our water tanks, all taken a good long last shower on land, did our last laundry including all of our linens so we could have nice fresh sheets for this week, emptied the garbages and recycling and all the other dozens of things you do before you leave somewhere on your boat. But when you can download the weather at 2pm and 2am everyday you are open minded about changing plans as you get new information.

Once the go-decision was made, the dinghy was ratchet strapped down and last items stowed and we left the dock we had for the night with our hydrogenator down for the first time ever. Which actually create some weird drag as Greg was trying to back out and so we ended up backing up down the channel instead of going forward :P  It took us about 2.5 hours to make it out the river and past the last break walls (not to mention the copious amounts of naval ships including destroyers, battleships and air craft carriers..) and out into the Atlantic. That stretch was a bit hairy actually as we had about 20 knots apparent and a countercurrent with some 1.5 meter waves on the beam…not the most comfy start. Aden puked just a few hours out of the gates. So I broke out the Gravol and gave each kid a dose for good measure…the result? No puking and 3 very very sleepy kids…miracle drug!!  Greg and I had slapped on each half a patch of anti-motion sickness meds the night before and the rest of the crew we similarly drugged up so there were no other (and haven’t been yet for that matter) pukes…which feels like a bloody miracle given that 3 of the adults stepped from land to boat and were on the ocean within 20 hours…not much time to acclimate. The wind started to taper off and soon we found ourselves motor sailing in order to catch the Gulf Stream on Day 2 at the right weather window.

Our watch schedule seemed to be working out ok prior to getting into the night shifts:

• First: 2100-0000 Megan and Greg

• Middle: 0000-0300 Andrew and Heidi

• Formorning: 0300-0600 Megan and Greg

• Morning: 0600-0900 Bill and Liam

• Forenoon: 0900-1200 Andrew and Heidi

• Afternoon: 1200-1500 Megan and Greg

• First Dog: 1500-1800 Bill and Liam

• Last Dog: 1800-2100 Andrew and Heidi

 Despite all of the food I had carefully selected and stored…guess what these people choose to get into for dinner while I took a pre-night watch nap??? Freaking raman noodles. It was pretty funny actually so I joined in. Proper food could wait for Day 2.

Much love,

M