Over halfway on this leg

Yesterday we passed the halfway point in miles from Bremuda to the Azores. We are well under 900 miles to go now. Today (Friday) has been a absolutely great sailing day. The sea has settled down a little bit and the sun has been shining all day. It has not been particularly fast but it's been steady and relaxing. We have all got some good rest with the calmer seas and I don't think we have touched the wheel or sails all day. That's the way we like it!

Life without Otto

Things have changed quite a bit around here without the auto-helm. It seems that sailing takes a bit more effort and attention than we were used to. We all miss Otto.

Life With Otto:
We were doing 2 hour watches through the night. Two hours on watch was not bad - you checked for ships, made sure that the course was good and mostly just let Otto do his thing.Most of the time you were free to look at the stars, moon, read a book or even take a quick nap. Easy cheesy - then you get a nice four hour sleep before the next watch.

Life WIthout Otto:
We went to 1 hour watches 24 hours a day. It is much more physically demanding to have to steer and navigate full time so we shortened the time. This gives us each a full two hour block of time for sleeping. Now during a watch you are generally doing some serious stuff. You have to be aware of the course, speed, weather and you have to steer. Sometimes you get lucky and the sails are all balanced and the seas are not too rough and you can lock down the steering wheel and sit down for a rest now and then. Most of the time however, you are actively sailing and it can get pretty intense. At the end of the hour I'm really ready for some rest and generally try to sleep during that time.

We are all getting pretty tired and our routines are weird. Two hours is not much time to get done all of the things one might like to get done while off watch i.e. cooking, eating, cleaning, reading, radio work, etc. But we are adapting.

Connection problems

It's been a few days since I have been able to make a good radio connection for posting and e-mail. I'm using High Frequency (HF) radio in the amateur radio bands to make the connection. The conditions of the radio bands make a big difference in my ability to connect. The band conditions are affected by many things including sunspots, magnetic flux of the earth and solar storms. These factors, in addition to local thunderstorms and on-board RFI all contribute to my sucess or failure when trying to make a connection.

I use software on the computer called RMS Express which implements the WINMOR protocol. WINMOR requires a relatively clean connection to get the data transfered. I've been able to use other methods to communicate that use much less bandwidth such as PSK-31. I made contact with someone in Horta, our current destination and we plan to get together when we arrive. So, I guess if you are reading this I managed to get through. If you are not reading this then... hmmm. Nevermind.

A moment of silence please

A very good friend has passed away. Otto was a dear friend to all of the crew. He is and will continue to be missed by all. Otto lived a great life, always willing to lend a hand to fellow sailors. He was more willing than any other crew member to stand watch for them during long nighttime watches. And up until the end Otto never complained or said a word about how hard he worked and how many hours he put in tirelessly keeping up with his tasks. I think it was old age that finally brought an end to Otto. During the final days he underwent two extensive surgeries by a dedicated and well motivated team of semi-professionals. When the team finally located the source of Otto's illness it was too late. The damage had been done. Perhaps with the help of specialists and proper operating rooms the outcome may have been different.

So now let us all have a moment of silence for our good friend Otto the Auto-Helm. Things are getting really manual around here now.

Leaving a wake

We are now about 40 hours out of Bermuda. This leg started out kind of rough but yesterday morning it settled down nicely. Conditions are just about perfect right now and looks like it will continue for a few days. Koinonia is making great time, averaging over 5.0 kt VMG (velocity made good) which is not just our speed but our speed in the direction of Horta. The nearly full moon has made it very nice on the night shift. The ocean surface is well lit all the way to the horizons making it easier to scan for ships. Actually, since we got away from Bermuda we have only seen one ship which came by yesterday afternoon. I expected to see or hear more of the sailboats from the ARC race but we have not seen any of them.

I have not been on the radio much yet, the bands were pretty bad yesterday. Today seems better and I will be on HF at 7 PM Jacksonville time. I will start on 20 m at 14.270-14.275 (there is a small window in the RFI there). If I do cannot make any contacts there I will move to 40 m at 7.234-7.239. I will call CQ Jacksonville or CQ NE Florida. The reason for my particular RF windows is that I have some serious on-board RFI issues with the auto-pilot. Those frequencies are some small gaps in the interference. We tried putting a tin-foil hat on the motor today but I think it is going to take something more serious. Perhaps some choking will be in order. It will be a good project for us.

N 35 36.260
W061 21.000

Azores here we come!

The scooters are turned in. The dinghy is stowed on the foredeck. We are fed and ready to go. The weather looks great. We'll be pulling up the anchor in just a few minutes. Horta, Faial, Azores is our next port. We anticipate about three weeks to get there if the wind and weather are in our favor.

I hope it's not too crowded out there. The ARC Europe racers all left today at noon (about 20 boats) so we will just be a few hours behind them. There are a couple of other boats that will be on the same route a couple of days behind us. It's good to know there are other boats close.

I'll try to post when I can via the ham radio (no pictures). Don't worry about us if you don't see a post for a few days, we'll be fine. I changed the "Where's Scott" page a little bit to try to show more than 7 days of SPOT locations. I'm not sure that I have solved it. I'll try to dribble a few SPOT locations every day along the way. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers. It's great to be back on the water again!

Back in the water!

Today is the day and a beauty day she is! We are ready to get put back in the water. Everything looks great with the repairs and we have everything put back together that we can do while on land. As soon as Craig from the boatyard gets here we will get moved in. Once we get in the water there are still a few things we need to re-assemble such as the HF radio antenna and the wind turbine. We need to test the steering and the generator and water maker. We will probably be in the harbor until the afternoon. If everything looks good we will take off late afternoon. All the shopping is done, the tanks are full and the laundry and our bodies are as clean as they get!

Another lighthouse

A few days ago I posted about a visit to St. David's Lighthouse. I talked about another lighthouse to the south and west of St. David's that we had seen the as we approached Bermuda in the dark. That lighthouse was the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse. The light from the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse is visible for 30-40 miles. Today we went to visit this lighthouse. We climbed 185 stairs to get to the top of the 117 ft lighthouse. It sits on a hill that is 245 ft above sea level making the light 362 feet above sea level. The light source is a 1000 watt electric bulb. It is the worlds oldest cast-iron construction lighthouse, the pieces were all made in England and shipped to Bermuda where is was assembled in 1844-1845. It was first lit in 1846. 

One of the pictures in this series is up at the lightbulb inside the concentric lens structure. I found it very interesting that the whole lens structure rotates around the bulb. For some reason I figured the bulb would be the thing that rotated or blinked on and off. 

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Farm Plots

In our travels around Bermuda I have seen a number of small plots of land being farmed along the sides of roads. I have not seen any large multi-acre farms that one might find in the States. The topography of the land is very hilly and the roads are twisty and narrow, frequently running along walls cut into the limestone bedrock. There just is not much open flat space here. One does see fresh vegtables and fruits in markets and stands along the side of the road so the produce must be grown in these plots. Most of the time I see them I am going to fast and there is no place to stop for a picture. Today we got stuck in some traffic for a construction project and I got a chance to take a photo of one of these farm plots. I don't know what is being grown in this particular plot. 

 

Flatts Township

Flatts township is a beautiful little village in Bermuda. It sits on the shores of Harrington Sound. There is a bridge in Flatts over the spillway connecting the sound and the open ocean. As the tide changes there is a tremendous amount of water flowing through that spillway. When we were there the water was rushing out of the sound towards the ocean. It was like a small whitewater river it was moving so rapidly. It was a very impressive display.

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Smallest drawbridge in the world

We made a quick stop today at the world's smallest drawbridge. One of the pictures is of Don spanning the whole drawbridge section. The other picture Don has lifted or "raised" the drawbridge. It is a pretty neat design meant to allow sailboats with very simple masts to pass through the bridge. The boat would slide through underneath and the mast would fit right down the slot in the center of the bridge. We could not get through the bridge if we were to try because of the configuration of the spreaders and stays on Koinonia. Even if the mast configuration were such that we could try it would still be a touchy proposition getting a boat through here because of the small margin for error. It seems like the water would have to be near to still to keep the mast from banging around in the bridge slot. 

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Trip to the Royal Navy Dockyard

 

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One day last week Charlie and I set out for a trip to the Royal Navy Dockyard at the other end of Bermuda. Our plan was to take the ferry over with the scooters and then ride back. We started out our day running a little late to make the 9:45 ferry ride. However, we ended up scooting to the end of the line just as the ferry showed up. When it arrived, the ferry was packed with people and was taking quite some time for them all to dis-embark. During this time an impressive amount of liquid sunshine dumped on us. We wrestled the scooters on board and got them secured and off we went. I got a little video of some guy kite surfing in the harbor in and out of the sailboats. It was a very nice ride over, the ferry was much faster than I thought it would be. We rode around the North end of Bermuda past Ft. St. Catherine, the fort we toured on Tuesday. We cut inside the reefs and followed the coast along until arriving at the West end docks. We were just about dried from the earlier rainstorm when we arrived.

The Royal Navy Dockyard is a bustling place. There were two cruise ships at the docks and it was packed with people. The whole area is set up for entertaining tourists. There are tour trains, scooter and segway rentals, restaurants, snack places, musicians playing, dolphin shows and all manner of things to do and see. Charlie and I were interested in learning some history of Bermuda so we headed off to The Bermuda Maritime Museum.  The museum is on and around the grounds of another big fort (The Keep) and the Commissioner’s House. It was packed full of the history of Bermuda. There were a number of displays that were closed for renovation while we were there but it was still fun. I highly recommend a visit if you are ever close. 

Next we grabbed a quick lunch at the Frog and Onion then headed over to watch some glassblowing. It was a very interesting process to watch. Charlie and I were trying to guess what it was going to end up being. It turned out to be a very pretty blue-purple colored plate. We never would have guessed it was going to be a plate, most of the time it just looked like a blob of glass. The team of three artists worked well together to create some very cool pieces.

Before we started riding back to St. George we rigged up the GoPro camera on the back of Charlie’s scooter. We thought it might be interesting to get some footage as we drove back to St. George. We had a lot of fun on the ride back imagining how good our videography was working out. We ended up with the camera aiming backwards basically because of a lack of good mounting positions facing forward. As it turns out, like a lot of wacky ideas, it was a lot better on paper than it was in reality. It ended up with just too much fine-grain solid vibration. It was hard to watch and the going backward view was not all we imagined it to be. I included a short segment of this scooter-mounted video as we were departing the dockyards so you can get a glimpse of what the place was like.

Shots from around Bermuda

This is a collection of some of my favorite shots and locations from around Bermuda.

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St. David's Lighthouse

St. David's lighthouse is located at the Southeast edge of the island of St. David in Bermuda. St. David is just across from St. George island where we are staying now. The lighthouse was built in 1879 and was put in operation that year as well. It was originally a kerosene light and is now lit with petroleum vapor. It has been in continuous use since it's opening. The lighthouse is 55 foot tall to the light. The light sits atop a hill which seems to be the highest point of St. David making the light itself at 208 feet above sea level. 

As we approached Bermuda on the boat from the Southwest we could see the light of another lighthouse located further West on Bermuda called Gibb's Hill Lighthouse. We could see the light flashing every 10 seconds when we were 20-25 miles away, it was about 4 AM when we first saw the light so it was very dark at the time. When we actually entered the harbor in Bermuda we did not need the services of the St. David's Lighthouse because is was daylight. Plus we had GPS and charts.

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Unfinished Church

I drove past this beautiful old stone structure and had to stop to take a few photos. I could not tell if it had been burned out or if it had never been finished. I got my answer near the front door. The sign said "Unfinished Church"...

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Cricket match

Today Charlie and I went to a cricket match. This was the second time I have attended a cricket match that I attempted to keep up with what was going on. I still am basically lost and the more I learn about it the more lost I get. I guess I need to stop thinking about baseball and just learn cricket.

The match was held at the St. David Cricket Club. St. David is the parish closest to St. George near the North end of Bermuda. It is a really nice facility with a two story clubhouse and it is located right on the water with a beautiful ocean view.

The game today was one of four matches being held this weekend for the semi-finals in Bermuda. It was the local St. David team versus some newcomer team. The majority of the fans were rooting for St. David, of course. 

Since I have already admitted I have limited to no knowledge of the game of cricket I shall commence to share my limited and possibly incorrect understanding of some aspects of the game. The basic setup is like this: One team (the “in” team) has two players on the field and they are both batters (batsmen). The two batters are facing each other across a pitching alley (the pitch) with the opposing bowler (like a pitcher) at one end of the pitch or the other at a time. The bowling team (the “out” team) has about 11 players on the field at a time - one bowler, one catcher and the rest in field positions. The catcher is the only one wearing gloves. The ball is kind of baseball-like.

The batters are trying to accomplish a few goals - the primary goal is to keep the bowler of the other team from knocking over the wicket (taking the wicket). The wicket is 3 sticks in the ground about 28” tall (stumps) with two small sticks (bails) balanced on top of the three stumps. So the batter stands in front of the wicket with his bat trying to hit balls that the bowler is throwing. If the bowler knocks over the wicket then that batter is out. If the ball is hit and a pop-fly is caught then the batter is out. There are a number of other things that can make a batter go out that I don’t understand yet.  

One revelation I had today was the origins of the term "sticky wicket". I get it now...

When the batter hits the ball he can either run or not run, whatever he wants to do. I personally find this hard to understand but I’m working on it. If the batter does decide to run, his teammate batter at the other end of the bowling pitch must also run - they are each running to the other end of the pitch - they are exchanging positions. It is essential that there be some coordination between the two batters about when they are going to run. While they are running, the wickets are unguarded and can be knocked over by the fielding team. Each time the batters exchange positions that counts as a single run. If a good hit is made it is possible for the batters to get a number of runs on a single hit by running back and forth between the ends of the alley while the ball is being fielded. If it is a really good hit (similar to a home run in baseball) and the ball rolls over a rope or boundary marking on the ground that is a big oval around the field then four points are awarded. If the ball flies over the boundary of the field then six points are awarded. The radius of the field from the pitch to edge of the filed is about 400-500 feet.

I did not really catch on very well to the whole flow of the game. I have learned from several informed Bermudian sources that six successful pitches is known as an “over”.  I think the key is “successful” here because it seemed to be a long time and many pitches between overs. I guess a pitch must be deemed hit-able to count. At an over, another bowler takes over, pitching from the other end to the other batter. The same two batters stayed on the field until they were put out, then a replacement was sent in. 

The teams stayed in their respective positions for a long time. We watched for over three hours and the same team was still batting. I guess all of the batting team members have to be put out before the “in” team goes “out” and the “out” team comes “in”. There are apparently some other ways to cause an inning to be over that I did not understand.  A match can take a long time. When the first inning was over today, everybody came inside to the clubhouse to eat lunch. I heard the game would probably last into the evening. Some matches go on for the whole weekend. 

So anyway, I obviously have a lot to learn yet about the game of cricket but we sure had fun watching and learning about the game. I think some of the locals were quite entertained by my grasp of the game and I'm not sure they were as forthcoming as they could have been in telling me about the rules. One of the best summaries of the game I have found is a bit comical yet entirely accurate goes like this:

 

“You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.

 

When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out.

 

When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game.”

Home Sweet Home!

It's a little messy but it's home!

 

Tour of the Neighborhood

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This video is a quick little tour of our neighborhood. The boatyard is in kind of an industrial area of St. George but the area around it is a nice little neighborhood with colorful houses with white roofs typical of Bermudian housing. In the center of the route that I took is the local cricket field complex. You can see just a little bit of it on the right side, the big blue buildings and fences. Near the end when I turn to the left is into the boatyard which is our current home. I end up parking under Koinonia. And yes, I had a very tiny camerman duck-taped to my chest.

Tuesday morning in Bermuda

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On Tuesday we had a pretty busy day. There was a little storm early in the morning which left behind a nice rainbow right over Koinonia. You can see the stern of the boat just below the end of the rainbow. She was parked there while we were waiting to get her hauled out. We had a couple of hours to spare before the yard was ready for us so we went out scootering around. We ended up at Fort St. Catherine and decided to explore it a little bit. It's a very strategic fort for Bermuda and protects the Northern side and all the settlements on the Western edge because any attackers would have to get inside the reefs on the North. Fort St. Catherine proved to be a very effective deterrent and no actual attack ever occurred. Our tour guide guy, Patrick was very helpful and filled us in on many interesting details and history of the fort and the soldiers manning it.

New movie release!

This is what happens when you have access to a cool new camera and too much time on your hands.

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Cooking at Sea

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People have asked me how we cook at sea if the boat is moving around as much as it does. I thought a quick video of food on the stove might help. This is a pot of rice and beef and some Brunswick stew. The videography is a little rough because I am trying to stand up while holding the camera and it's really rocking.