Martin celebrating
the big 5-0
We had hoped to be in Tampa to celebrate Martin’s 50th
but the weather had other ideas. So Martin spent his birthday sailing Blossom
across the gulf. We both decided that this is a fine way to spend a birthday
and begin a new decade of adventure J We’ll have a more formal celebration later
this week with Sean & Louise.
This was our first overnight passage with just the two of
us. We were looking forward to this milestone as it would be a good indication
of how well we’ll manage long range cruising without a third person with us. The
passage went very well and we changed up our watch schedule. We like the 3 hour
shift schedule when we have three people. This assures that everyone gets a 6
hour chunk of time to rest. This time, we worked on a more natural schedule and
stood watch until we got tired. This worked out to us both taking a 5 hour
shift to get through the night. We’ve decided this is a good system for us as
long as we’re clear that as soon as someone is tired, they call it in. I imagine that you’d fall into a fairly set
routine on a multi-day passage as each person settles in to their own rhythm.
The passage itself went well. We left at first light. It was
bumpy for the first 7 hours or so with 2-4, leaning towards 4 and a short frequency it was just up and down. It was too bouncy for me to sew or read without
feeling queasy so it was a bit boring. By late afternoon it had calmed down to 1-3
and was easier to move around the boat and read (and type!) We only had two
dolphin visit the bow(that we saw). Satellite radio “saves the day” during the
night. We were quite a ways off shore
and I was surprised how little traffic we saw. Other than two fishing boats
fairly early on, we were alone with Vector for the vast majority of the trip.
It was nice to have a buddy boat along with us to chat with throughout the
trip.
We arrived this morning in Tampa and are anchored out in the bay...
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