Today we leave on our second leg of the four legs of our journey. it’s 860 nm to Bermuda which should take around 5 days if the weather is favorable. We have been working on Orion’s Light pretty much sense we arrived at St Augustine April 30. We have been chasing three big problems, more or less since Marathon. The bow thruster had a leak and seeing as our plan was to cross the Atlantic it seemed prudent to have it fixed. Not so. The guy who was doing the work was in over his head and despite his best efforts and me writing checks for parts and labor we never did get it working. I finally decided it was best to deal with it once in Portugal. Having a bow thrust is a nice tool for maneuvering in tight spaces but not critical. We did stop the leak. A small victory. The Sea Frost refrigerator freezer was becoming a problem while in Marathon. Essentialy it wasn’t bring the freezer or the refrigerator down to the needed temperatures. I had a refrigeration company add some refrigerant but no luck. I made arrangements to have an authorized Sea Frost serviceing dealer meet us in St Augustine because we were burning time. We spent two days working on it before I once again threw in the towel and decided to go old school and pack the freezer and fridge with dry ice and provision accordingly. Between Marathon and St Augustine some and some skilled and not so skilled refrigeration technicians worked on it without success I was beginning to feel like I was caught up in a Three Stooges movie going in nowhere in circles!. I arranged for a new compressor to be delivered to The Hamilton Princess marina in Bermuda and we will have at it again there. If that wasn’t enough the radar stoped working when we left Marathon. The radar arch was lowered when at the boat yard in Marathon when OL was hauled for fresh bottom paint. I believe this was what caused the problem but honestly not sure. Wade and I along with Kevin, Andy and our friend Charles a gifted electrician worked for two days trying to trace the problem with no luck. At one point we thought we lost the entire navigation system and once we cleared that up I once again said enough is enough. We are going with the navigation system we have which is a hell of a lot more than Columbus, Magellan and Cook had.
We threw off our last dock line at 0915 Tuesday morning with Mia waving goodby to us. I could tell she wanted to be with us more than anything and I will sorely miss her. She is worried about our 13 year old Pomeranian Cooper. She also is training Kit our puppy Pom and is tending to our bees. This is the honey producing time of year and they need a lot of attention. In the end she just could not get comfortable leaving Coop and I get it. He is a special dog and has been with us for a long time. We do these things as humans and it’s what makes us human. Still we love sailing together on Orion’s Light. As I said I will miss her this trip and it will be a long time apart.
When backing out of our slip at the marina missed judged the current resulting very sloppy maneuvering but we got clear of the docks with only my ego slightly damaged. We waited patiently for the bridge to open at 0930 and then motored through. We thanked the tender and waved farewell. It was a lovely morning with a light breeze from the SSE. the sun was now well up and the light shimmered off the ripples on the water. Soon we motored past our house on the tip on Anastasia Island. I went slow giving Mia time to drive back to the house so we could have one last wave goodby. Then out the inlet by 0945 to make our course to Bermuda 5 or 6 days to the ENE. It is now us, me, Wade, Kevin, Andy, Orion’s Light, the wind, the ocean and the stars. The start of our adventure.
It is now 2140. we just finished some lasagna Mia packed for us. in a word awesome. We are breaking into 3 watches of 2 hours each with me floating. The winds are light the Volvo is humming along at 2100 revs, the sky is clear, temperature in the 70’s, 3kts of Gulf Stream giving us a push, a half moon shining on the horizon. We will happily accept our good fortune this day and we are thankful.
I will work on adding photos tomorrow