Boundless in 1999 Published by AIRVENTURES 5 Broadview Road Poughkeepsie, NY 12603 First Printing Jan. 2000 3 Hardcover Second Printing Feb. 2000 24 Paperback Foreword Rudy Schwenker has grown up with webbed feet. In the 30+ years that Rudy has been my friend, he has always been drawn to the water. While flying balloons, he would take every opportunity to touch down on a lake, stream, or pond, float along a while and then take off again (Splash and Dash) with the basket bottom bathed in water. Regardless of the temperature of the water, whenever there was a beach or swimming hole around he was always the first one, and sometimes the only one, in. Whenever Rudy was on a boat, he would take every opportunity to drop a line overboard to see what he could catch. So it did not come as a big surprise when 4 years ago, Rudy broke the news to me that his plan was to buy a sail boat, retire, sail to Europe and live on the boat for the next few years. On the other hand, I thought Faith was a more sensible and rational person. She had a career long passion for teaching our young, is the matriarch of a strong solid family, and also sung in the church choir. When she sold their house, unloaded almost 4 decades of collectable treasures and said, "Let's go, we're out of here!" it finally struck me that this caper was really going to happen. It all started slowly, but following a definite plan. Rudy started voraciously reading everything he could find about "Cruising". Then the quest came for the right boat to make the passage. Brokers were contacted and trips all over the Eastern Seaboard were taken until the right 47' sail boat was located and purchased near Boston. Classes were taken to learn about their new world... Celestial Navigation, Diesel Power, Communications, yadda, yadda, yadda. Faith learned and obtained her Ham Radio License. Rudy learned and obtained his Coast Guard Captain's License. They started to meet with couples that have lived the life for years and Rudy and Faith took many notes. They then started to get their own hands-on experience. Day sails in Long Island Sound, a few overnighters, a couple of week trips, and twice bringing Boundless up the Hudson River to winter. In 1998 a 3 week shakedown cruise to Bermuda added a wealth of knowledge about open water sailing. June of 1988 saw Faith retire from her 3 decade teaching career and in Feb of 1999 Rudy started to collect his pension for his 3 decades with IBM. That was the last major event necessary to launch the main part of their plan. In June of 1999 the good ship Boundless headed East out of Norwalk Harbor in Connecticut, to invoke the passage of a lifetime. For the rest of the year, both Rudy and Faith have kept their friends and loved ones abreast of their ventures by posting Log Entries onto their Internet Web Page. Boundless in 1999 is a compilation of those Log Entries. Tom Smith Table of Contents Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Trans-Atlantic Passage . . . . . . . . 7 June 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 June 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 June 11. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 June 12. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 June 13. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 June 14. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 June 15. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 June 23. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 New England Voyage . . . . . . . . . .17 July 16 . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 July 17. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 July 18. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 July 27. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21 August 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22 August 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24 August 11. . . . . . . . . . . . . .26 August 31. . . . . . . . . . . . . .27 September 2. . . . . . . . . . . . .29 September 8. . . . . . . . . . . . .31 September 16 . . . . . . . . . . . .33 September 24 . . . . . . . . . . . .34 Off to the Caribbean . . . . . . . . .35 November 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . .35 November 10 . . . . . . . . . . . .36 November 11. . . . . . . . . . . . .37 November 13. . . . . . . . . . . . .38 November 16. . . . . . . . . . . . .39 November 25. . . . . . . . . . . . .40 December 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . .41 December 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . .43 December 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . .44 December 12. . . . . . . . . . . . .46 December 15. . . . . . . . . . . . .47 1 Trans-Atlantic Passage June 8 Subject: 2 days to go. Date: 08 Jun 1999 16:18:40 +0000 From: SCHWENKER1@orbcomm.net Well, things are a lot more frantic than I expected. Faith and I are trying to fit stores for the trip.. WOW, what a job. We have made 4 car trips with 2-3 more to go. The boat was hauled out this morning for the last bit of work. It is floating again and ready to go. I wish I could say the same. Watch this space for further updates. Smooth sailing, RUDY June 10 Subject: LOG 6/10 Date: 13 Jun 1999 20:04:09 +0000 From: SCHWENKER1@orbcomm.net Yesterday saw a tremendous amount of activity. Final provisioning and prep was underway. John and Lynn Somma were with us to give Faith a hand with the final shopping and packing. My brother Kenny and I arrived at about 5:00pm with the last stuff from home and our final purchases. We all loaded the boat and went out to dinner. Kenny was very upset about the state of the boat with piles of stuff everywhere. He would have loved the last couple of days. He was ready to throw off all our paper towels and toilet paper!. Faith prevailed however. Pete and Donna arrived after dinner to help prepare for our start in the morning. Donna left late. Pete was going to join us to Newport. We were up early and pushed off about 5:30am. We were back at the dock by 7:00. The auto pilot did not work. Morgan who installed the unit was onboard by 8:30 and we were on our way again by 9:00. It was a beautiful day for a trip through Long Island Sound. We called ahead to arrange dock space at Old Saybrook. Then the engine died. It took Pete and me a while to find we were out of fuel in the main tank. The solution was to transfer fuel from my new fuel tank. It went very slowly and it took all night to move fuel to the main tank. We docked after 9:00pm and ate onboard. We left early Friday for Newport. June 11 Subject: Log 6/11 Date: 13 Jun 1999 17:39:02 +0000 From: SCHWENKER1@orbcomm.net Friday was a great day We made good progress with no problems. We arrived in Newport at 2:00pm. We took on 120gals of fuel. We spent the rest of the day with final prep and maintenance. Pete left before dinner and Jim joined us in the morning. The Schwenker's all had dinner at Christie's. June 12 Subject: Log 6/12 Date: 13 Jun 1999 21:04:56 +0000 From: SCHWENKER1@orbcomm.net With final prep complete, we said our emotional goodbyes to Stacy, Rob and Marilyn. Chris and her Mom were with us for dinner so they said goodbye last night. We departed at 11:00am. Seas were calm and the weather good. We decided to go up Buzzards Bay and through the Cape Cod Canal. We were worried about making the tide through the canal. Our normal speed of 6 knots was helped by the tide and we made the canal in plenty of time. We reached a top speed of 11 knots through the canal. When we got through the canal it was dark and fog was setting in. We decided to spend another night at the dock and round the Cape in the morning. We topped off the fuel, had dinner and slept. We knew we would have fog in the morning but hoped it would burn off early. Well, it is 8:30am, we have been traveling for over 3hrs and we are still using our fog horn with radar for our only visibility. It is starting to lift. We should round the Cape shortly and then it is almost due East for 2747 nautical miles. Love to all and we look forward to seeing you in Europe. June 13 Subject: First offshore log report. Date: 13 Jun 1999 20:59:38 +0000 From: SCHWENKER1@orbcomm.net We are finally clear of the US. The fog is still here. Visibility is only a few boat lengths. The wind has dropped to 5 knots. All is well, just a little slow. Love to all, Rudy June 14 Subject: 6/14 Log Date: 16 Jun 1999 21:42:42 +0000 From: SCHWENKER1@orbcomm.net 42 49.56N, 067 11.55W, 0FT, WGS84, 11:20:05AM, 14JUN99 Boundless is proceeding almost due East at about 5kts. Not bad with winds under 10 knots. We are still in fog with little visibility. The radar is getting a good workout. We have traveled over 140nm over the last 24hrs. We have about 2600 miles to go. The fog is difficult to deal with. Besides not being able to see, the moisture has collected on everything, even the inside of our bimini. We typically communicate with ships in the vicinity by VHF radio to make our intentions known. Our first night of standing watch went well. Faith set up a schedule of 3hrs backup, 3hrs watch and off, with another 3hrs watch during the day. Faith has cooked some wonderful meals... I think we are all gaining weight. The total crew is getting used to life onboard as well as continuing to make the boat ship shape for rough weather. I hope this fog lifts soon! Love to you all! Rudy June 15 Subject: Log 6/15 Date: 20 Jun 1999 23:54:45 +0000 From: SCHWENKER1@orbcomm.net The fog finally lifted. While it has been overcast most of the day we did have some sun. The winds picked up to about 20kts. This makes for faster boat speed but wave size increases also. Sea sickness is a problem to contend with. Waves are 3-5ft and wash the deck frequently. Our noon to noon distance was 160nm. I expect that will be close to the best for the entire trip. We have both the main and genoa reefed. The crew is adjusting well to the watch schedule, a totally new environment and a really different lifestyle. We are working well together and covering each other as required. We heard a whale blow yesterday and got a quick view through the fog. Today we saw a couple of pods of bottlenose dolphin. There are also several types of birds way out here. All is well as we travel East. Love to all, Rudy June 23 Subject: Log 6/23 Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 20:22:51, -0500 From: MYPE43A@prodigy.com Well, its' been a while since I updated this web site and a lot has happened. Everybody is safe, a little frustrated (VERY!), tired and armed with another set of experiences. We are back at square one......Norwalk. We had some problems with our electronics that couldn't be corrected. The Auto Pilot and Single Side Band(SSB Radio) were the major problems. Without the Auto Pilot we would need to steer the boat 24 hrs a day for almost 3 weeks. While doable it would be a significant drain on the entire crew. On top of this we had not been able to get adequate weather information to insure our safety. The Magellan unit, the one for E-Mail, was extremely difficult to use. It worked fine while the boat was stationary but infrequently while it was in motion. This was primarily due to the transition between the unit getting a G.P.S. fix and finding a communications satellite. The delay was usually long enough so that the G.P.S. fix for our location was no longer valid...... the satellite was trying to communicate with where we used to be.....clear? Well, the bottom line was that we were not receiving weather forecasts via E-Mail as planned. We had planned to use the S.B. as our prime weather source. Voice communication as well as Weather Fax through SSB. Neither of these was successful either. Hence, my decision. ....turn back and try another day. We were 400 miles East of Cape Cod when I decided to turn around. I didn't like the decision but it was the correct decision. Without our weather forecasts we didn't know that we were turning back into the face of a formidable ridge of weather. We had 2 days of 20-40kt winds with max seas in the 15-20ft range. It was cold and wet and we had to steer the whole time. The boat became full of foul weather gear, boots, jackets, sweaters and the like very quickly. We were in and out of these clothes frequently so they were all piled up in the main salon..... .it was a mess but it made things a lot easier. We really didn't get this cleaned up until we got back to port. We left the US just North of Cape Cod. This was due to a weather briefing prior to our departure. The winds from the storm were out of the NE. If we went back the way we came the winds would have been on our beam....not a good situation. Therefore, we sailed a bit South East to take the wind and waves on our rear quarter.....much safer and more comfortable. We were still a little green.....except for Faith and Jim. This direction took us South of Nantucket and Georges Banks. We encountered many fishing boats on the banks. At night this is a challenge. We actually got back to land on June 19. We stayed in the Harbor at Block Island on Saturday night. We didn't know it but Pete and Donna Dayger were there the same night! The next day we left Jim off at Old Saybrook, CT. and spent the night anchored at the Thimbles.....a neat set of Islands just East of New Haven. We left early in the morning and arrived back at Norwalk just after 2:00pm on Monday, 6/21. Our total trip was almost 1400 miles. It took us just under 12 days. We spent 5 of those nights at anchor and we were on the move for 24 hrs a day for the rest of the time. Not bad as we look back at what we did. We will save the wine and champagne for Europe though. What really caused the problem? I really wanted to make the trip this year. I had continued to make significant changes to the boat up until we left. This didn't leave enough time to do an adequate job of testing ALL of the new systems and additions. I was wrong to take that risk. Many small things didn't work or didn't work correctly. We were able to deal with these as they occurred but under more strenuous conditions than required. The boat performed well. What's next? It is now too late in the year to attempt another crossing. Faith and I will likely spend the balance of the summer cruising New England, probably through Maine. In the fall, after hurricane season, we are currently planning to sail to the Caribbean. Next Spring we will likely plan a trip to Bermuda, The Azores, and Portugal. First though we are going over the boat again to strengthen the weak spots, to better organize our storage and supplies, to be sure we have gone through and verified all our systems are ready and to insure we have adequate communications to insure a safe passage. Faith and I were really touched by all of your prayers and support. It has meant a lot to us to know that all of you were wishing us the best throughout our voyage. It is changing shape a bit but we are still on our way. Thanks again! Love to you all! Faith and Rudy 2 New England Voyage July We have finally started our journey once again. We completed our repairs on Monday July 12 in Westbrook, CT. Some work was done to the Single Side Band radio (SSB) to enhance performance and minimize interference between the SSB and the Auto-Pilot. We stayed at the Pilot's Point Marina. It was probably the nicest marina I have ever seen. It was clean, well run, with knowledgeable staff and many amenities.....including a club house that we used all day long to do some additional canvas work with Pete Dayger.....he continues to be a great help with many things as well as a great friend. With all our work done we were ready to start our journey. Tuesday morning we left for Watch Hill, RI. We arrived just before dinner at low tide. I remember the channel to Watch Hill being narrow and a bit shallow. I will never enter the harbor at low tide again. At one point we had only inches of water under the keel. We stayed 2 nights on our anchor. We used our dinghy to go between the town and Boundless. It is a nice quiet small town on the water. We both walked to the lighthouse and around the town several times. Faith stopped in almost every store while I walked, watched and waited. The weather was great and the town was what we needed.......slow and quiet. Thursday morning we left for Newport, RI. It was a nice trip under power. The winds were on our nose for the whole trip. We arrived around 2:00pm and picked up a mooring. A little more expensive in Newport with less services. We used the local launch service to get to shore. Faith went shopping and I took a shower on shore. We had a lobster dinner on the strip. It was really great! Newport is one of the biggest yachting centers on the East Coast. You will always be amazed at the number and size of the yachts around the harbor. These mega yachts are beyond belief. Newport is also the home of many of the 12 meter racing sloops made famous by the various America's Cup races. We were moored next to Columbia..... they are beautiful boats. Friday morning we left for Provincetown on the Cape. It would be a 2 day trip. We were able to sail most of the day. We even flew our spinnaker for a few hours. The last couple of hours we used our engine as the winds were directly behind us. This is almost as difficult a wind direction as a direct head wind. We are currently on a mooring just before the Cape Cod Canal. We actually pulled into the harbor and anchored. I told Faith that we would need to put some additional light on the boat because our stern was sticking into the channel. A person came by in a motor boat shortly after we were done. I expected him to tell us that we needed to do something about our choice of anchoring locations. Actually he offered us an empty mooring for the night...for FREE! Typically they are $30+ a night. We accepted his offer, pulled the anchor and moved to the mooring....well out of the channel! We had another great meal on board. We are still eating the frozen stores from our aborted transatlantic trip! We are in a nice quiet secure anchorage ready to make the Cape Cod Canal trip in the morning. Timing is critical since the currents are very strong in the canal as a result of the tides. If we hit the canal with the tides against us we would only make about 1mph forward progress. With us we do 8-9mph. This is very similar to the East River and Hell's Gate. From there we will go directly to Provincetown. We hope to spend a few days and decide where to go next. We both wish you all well! Rudy and Faith July 1 Today we had a nice trip to Provincetown. We woke early and washed Boundless to remove the collected dirt and salt from the previous days. We wanted to use the onboard fresh water so that we could fill our tanks again when we take on fuel on the other side of the Cape Cod Canal. The Sandwich Marina is good and inexpensive......fuel is about $1.00 a gallon and it's high quality. We exited the anchorage around 9:00am. The winds were 15-20 out of the Southwest....on our nose. We made the 180 degree turn for the canal quickly but not before getting the boat full of salt again! We entered the canal quickly and motored through. We hit a max of 12 knots! More than I expected. Most of the trip was around 11knots. We entered the marina and took on about 75gals of fuel and probably about the same of water. Our trip across Cape Cod Bay was quiet. There were no winds on this side of the canal. I did fish while going to Provincetown with no success....oh well. We did get attacked by killer flies though. In the middle of the bay.....10 miles from nowhere we started attracting these kamikaze flies. They hurt! Well, armed with my trusty fly swatter we had dead flies all over the top side of the boat. We closed all the hatches except those with screens. Faith and I survived but the body count of the killer flies was incredible! The trip took over 6hrs. We anchored in about 17ft of water to find that the tide fell almost 10 ft. That didn't leave much water under the boat at low tide (6 « foot draft). I'll certainly be careful of the tidal range as we move North. We put the engine on the dinghy, found the local dinghy dock and toured P-Town.....quite an experience! We did some shopping, had an appetizer at a local restaurant and enjoyed another fine meal by Faith! The breeze kept us cool during the heat. July 18 We spent the day at anchor in Provincetown Harbor. We used our dinghy to make a couple of trips to shore for supplies. I also bought some aluminum and fasteners to try and fabricate a solution to enable us to move the solar panel out of the way to allow access to our swimming ladder. When all is said and done, it looks like it works! We can use it like this for a few weeks until we can fabricate a permanent fixture in stainless steel. It was hot in town but not bad on the boat. As the day wore on, the sea breeze increased and it was actually nice. We did take a swim using our ladder! It was great! Tomorrow I hope to get these logs onto the web site. When this is done we are planning to go back across Cape Cod Bay to Plymouth, MA.....weather permitting. July 27 I did drive Faith to the Kittery Malls by dinghy. No parking problem but Faith almost had to do all the walking in wet feet. I left her on the shore and motored back to the boat. Faith would take a taxi back to the dock and I would do some cleanup back at the boat. It was a nice quiet day. On Wednesday, July 28th, we awoke to a heavy fog. We had breakfast and I jumped over the side to check the zincs....electrolysis....for replacements. The water IS cold in Maine! Everything was fine and by about 11:00am the fog lifted. We left for the Saco River. It took us several hours to get there and it was low tide when we arrived. We decided to stay outside of the river close by, since we didn't have enough water to get into the anchorage. The next morning looked like another beautiful day. We were heading up towards Portland or Falmouth. I had hoped to get somebody to look at the tach in Portland and the parts for my battery monitoring system sent to Bob Kammann's house, a cousin, in Falmouth. The trip was about 3 hours with no problems. We even saw our first seals! Portland is a pretty harbor to enter. There is a lot of activity both private and commercial. On the trip up we could see several tankers on the horizon. While the harbor was busy with large ships it was still clean. There wasn't any evidence of pollution and we could see the bottom in several feet of water. We called ahead and were lucky to find a mechanic to look at our tach. We ended up staying overnight at their dock for free, waiting for parts. I took a taxi to Falmouth to pick up the parts I needed for the battery monitoring system.....Bob was away for a few days. I put the system back together and everything worked! Things looked like they were coming together! On Thursday morning we got the tach working and did some provisioning. We were planning to move to Falmouth for the night. Maybe we would get a chance to see Bob on Friday. August 3 The trip to Falmouth was short but nice. We anchored outside of the mooring field on Thursday afternoon. Bob got home in the evening and came out to see us by kayak. He convinced us to use his car to do some needed laundry and some provisioning after taking a shower (did you know that showers were a luxury?) at his home, a short distance from the harbor. We also met Luke and Emily. Bob cooked dinner for us all and we went to Boundless for dessert so the kids could see the boat. We took everybody out by dinghy.....I even made $5 by taking another boat person out to their boat.....the launch was done for the evening. We ate like royalty and had a nice evening on the boat! This was our third meal on land since we left Norwalk. We also had lobster in Newport and we had dinner with my cousin Kay in Plymouth the night of the lightning strike when she came to our rescue. It really is great to have friends and relatives around!! The next morning Bob came out by kayak to help us get under way. Faith promptly took the kayak to the fuel dock and left us to do the work. We put on fuel and water and said goodby to Bob. We left for Damariscove Island; one of the earliest settlements in the New World. Pete called us shortly after we started to see how we were doing. He asked if we had seen any whales yet. Actually Faith thought she saw one earlier but it wasn't confirmed. Within about a half hour we saw our first whale.....Faith's second. We anchored near the mouth of the harbor as there wasn't much room inside...this proved to be a mistake! We hiked around the island a bit and visited their small museum. There are a few abandoned buildings and a few people living on the island....probably not all year. We went back to the boat and had another great meal by Faith! The wind was picking up a bit blowing right into the mouth of the harbor. I checked to be sure the weather report hadn't changed. We still expected another nice evening with winds abating early and near zero by morning. The boat was moving quite a lot by the time we went to bed. All of a sudden I woke with a start. The rhythm of the boat had changed! I ran for the deck to see what was happening. I looked to port and saw that we were perpendicular to the shore. We were rolling broad side to the waves....something had changed! I looked to starboard and saw that we were quickly approaching the boat on a mooring behind us. I got to our bow in time to fend off. I also yelled for Faith to start the engine and turn on the windless. Our anchor had broken free. It was now 2:00am and we were in panic mode. Faith got the anchor up and we started out into the dark ocean under power. We were leaving an island harbor several miles off shore in the middle of the night directly into a 20-30 knot head wind in an inlet going to who knows where! many islands, lobster pots and rocks were between us and the shore. It took us a while to get the time to turn on the computer and the rest of the electronics. The GPS was the biggest problem. The boat was moving so much it couldn't make contact with the satellites required for a fix. I got out the charts and started us in the right direction. We could only tell where we were by dead reckoning because the GPS was still looking for satellites. Luckily, Faith had plotted a course to Booth Bay for practice before we went to bed. We were going to Booth Bay. We couldn't see much, there were buoys and lobster pots all around but our GPS had finally figured out where it was. We finally got everything settled down and worked our way into Booth Bay. We dropped an anchor about 5:00am. The next morning we picked up a mooring at the Booth Bay Harbor Yacht Club. It was well protected and away from most of the hustle and bustle of the harbor. We stayed at the Yacht Club Monday and enjoyed the town. Everything was peaceful! Tuesday morning we used the yacht club to shower before we left for Long Cove, about 25 miles up the coast. It was a beautiful day and we sailed most of the way. We even passed several boats! I still get competitive when another boat gets near us! I used the spinnaker pole as a whisker pole (to hold out the jib while sailing wing and wing). We took our time and everything went well. As we approached the entrance to the harbor the surface of the water looked like those carnival games with the ducks being pushed in a stream except here it was lobster pot buoys. All different shapes and colors. (there are over a million lobster pots in Maine) We managed to evade all of them and found a nice spot to anchor for the night. August 9 The trip from Long Cove to Rockland was short and quiet. Our GPS finally quit. It had been acting strange since our bout with lightning. Rockland would be a likely place to replace it. There was also a Lobster Festival starting the day we arrive. We spoke with a local marina who allowed us to use their dock while I replaced the GPS and Faith got some batteries for her camera. With that complete we took a mooring for the night....one of the last in the Harbor due to the festival. We took our dinghy into the town dock and walked into the Festival. It was kind of typical with all kinds of good things that taste great but are really bad....fried dough, cotton candy, fries, onion rings, sausage, etc. They also had lobster at $9.50 for one and $16 for two. We bought 2, a plate full of mussels and some corn on the cob for another meal on shore. There was a Navy ship anchored just outside the Harbor with a constant flow of people back and forth. The waves from their launch rocked us to sleep. The next morning we took our time getting started as we only had a 2-3hr trip to Broad Cove on Islesboro Island. We were attending a function of the Seven Seas Cruising Association (SSCA). We started the engine and got ready to throw off the mooring line when I heard a thud and the engine stopped....What now? It didn't take us long to figure out that during the night we drifted over a lobster pot buoy which got tangled in our prop. When I put the boat in gear it wound the lead, lobster pot and buoy all together on my propeller shaft. Well, to make a long story short, Jim Sutherland talked me into getting a set of SCUBA gear just in case. The wet suit kept me warm and the gear made it easy to untangle the mess once I had everything sorted out. The trip to Broad Cove was a nice day of sailing, even after my swim in Rockland Harbor. There were already about 10 boats anchored in the harbor. There was plenty of room so we picked a spot and dropped the hook. We would stay in this harbor for several days. There were eventually about 50 boats that gathered in the harbor and joined the pot luck lunch and discussion on Saturday. Friday evening we opened our boat to anybody that wanted to join us for cocktails.....actually to meet and have some boat discussions. Many people knew one another as this was the 10th year this "SSCA Down East Rendevous" was held in Broad Cove. The setting was just right for a gathering of this sort. Back to Friday night. We eventually had 30 people on board. The boat was setting deeper in the water because of the extra weight........you could tell because the water would no longer drain from the sink...it was rising! Actually only an inch or so but it was noticeable. Everybody had a good time and were thankful for a place to gather for a few hours Friday night and make new friends. The next day we all started gathering around 11:00am at the cottage on the beach where we would spend all of Saturday eating, drinking and talking about boats. Most of the people that attended were living on their boats full time for a lot longer than Faith and I. Some for well over 15 years! In most cases these people had sold all of their "things", homes included and now spend their lives on the water. Summer in Maine or other suitable Northern location and the Bahamas or the Caribbean for the winter. Everybody seemed to have a suggestion about where we should go for our first winter on Boundless. I think we are still planning to go to the Caribbean. The real question is when will we start? Towards the end of the day Nigel Caulder, a well known author of several technical books for cruisers, joined the party. I have three of his books on board. He was kind enough to field questions from our group and plan a slide show of his trip to Belize for Sunday morning. Most of the group attended that also. It was fun and informative....another place to visit! He also signed my books! Faith and I spent the rest of the day cleaning and doing maintenance chores that were due. We were going to leave Monday morning. Well, it's Monday and we're still at anchor in Broad Cove. The high pressure system brought 20-30kt winds with gusts above. We decided to wait till tomorrow to return to Booth Bay where we'll leave the boat for a little over a week while we attend Nancy Smith's wedding and a memorial for my brother. Then it will be back to the boat. I also think I heard a good solution for E-Mail for travelers...Pocket Mail. This should give me E-Mail capability on any cellular or pay phone through an 800 number. I'll let you know how it works. Love to all!! Faith and Rudy August 11 Our trip to Booth Bay was great! It took about 9hrs and nothing broke. We sailed some, motored some and motor sailed most of the way. It was cool with a good breeze. We arrived in Booth Bay in time to find a mooring, launch the dinghy and have another real shower. Faith fixed another great meal, a little TV and off to bed. Life is good! Today is Wednesday August 11. We will be getting all of our stuff together that will make the trip home with us.....most of it won't return. The 2 months we have been on board has given us a little better feel for what we need and what we don't. The excess stuff we brought will stay in Fishkill I hope. There are only a few new things that we need to add to what we already have on board. We are getting ready for the trip back to CT, and the move South for the winter. We will take a bus to the car rental place and rent a car for the week. It's actually less expensive than 2 one way rentals. Well, we'll be home tomorrow and I hope to see a lot of you during our few days in Fishkill. I may even get my motorcycle out! Love to all, The Boundless Crew! August 31 We are now headed South once again and I have a lot of catching up to do. We spent 10 days away from Boundless. I think we both agreed that life off of the boat is more hectic with many more things to think about and do. It is also more expensive. I think I spent more on car fuel in a couple of days than I do on the boat for a full month. Well, enough rationalizing about our choice to live on a boat. We left Fishkill on Aug 20 after attending to a few family things and attending Nancy Smith's wedding. It was a great party orchestrated by Phyllis at the Locust Tree Inn. I also stopped at IBM to see how they were existing without me. It was a great chance to see many of my friends and to catch up on what we have missed. We took several canvas pieces that Pete Dayger made for us to make living on Boundless a little more comfortable. They'll help keep bad weather out of the cockpit when we are traveling and light/heat out of the spaces below deck when needed. Thanks Pete!! When we arrived back at the boat we found that we had some work to do on our 110v refrigerator and the water system pressure pump wasn't working.....oh well. I jury-rigged both systems. We spent a couple of days at the dock in Samples Marina in Booth Bay, Maine, cleaning and provisioning for our next few weeks in Maine. Faith loved Booth Bay. It wasn't all that crowded and the craft shops were exceptional with reasonable prices. We also had a free trolley to help us get around. On August 23, we left for points North. We started back to Rockland and diverted further East to Dutch Harbor and to Frenchboro on Aug 24. Dutch Harbor is a small harbor with only a ferry dock that allows access to some hiking trails in Acadia National Park on the Isle De Haut. We anchored near the mouth of the harbor with 5 or 6 other boats. The next day we arrived in Frenchboro early. It is a wonderful working harbor with nothing for tourists, just scenery and natural beauty. We met Diane and Alex on Ariel III, a 35ft Island Packet that has been their home for the last 8 years. We invited them for cocktails on our boat. On the way back to their boat they picked dinner.....Fresh mussels. They invited us over to share their catch with a nice salad. With all of their experience we wrote down almost everything they said. Anything to help us get down our learning curve. After a few drinks and many pages of notes we had a nice calm night at a town mooring. On Tuesday we headed for Southwest Harbor. Alex told us that a new West Marine had just opened and I still needed parts for the water system. It was evident that Southwest Harbor was the home of Hinkley Yacht Shipyard. These beautiful yachts and their 36ft picnic boats were all over the harbor. The Hinkley is a very pretty boat! We anchored just off of a new marina, down the street from West Marine. They had the parts I needed! I also called an electronics person and a refrigeration person. Net, it cost me $55 to get the wind gage system damaged by lightning in MA. and the refrigerator fixed. While this was being done we used the free bus service to visit Bar Harbor and travel around Acadia National Park. We did a short hike from Northeast Harbor to Jordan Pond. Like our bike trips it seemed as though it was all up hill. We spent a few days anchored in this beautiful Harbor getting the boat fixed and enjoying the area. Now it was time to head back to Penobscot Bay. We left Southwest Harbor on Friday Aug 27, to meet Pete and Donna Dayger who would stay with us through Sunday and my brother Ken who would join us for our trip to Long Island to meet Tom and Phyllis near Greenport. We arrived in Camden Harbor late in the day after several hours of motoring through many bays, passages, coves and some very exciting scenery......This is the only way to see the coast and islands of Maine. We couldn't find a mooring so we anchored far out in the harbor. We had dinner and waited for our guests to arrive. About 1:00am we got their call. They couldn't see much but their map said they were ten minutes from Camden. The fog was thick. I found this out quickly as I got out of my warm bed into the cold wet dinghy for a ride to the town dock in the heavy wet fog. I did bring a compass in case I really got lost. I left the security of Boundless and started for the mouth of the inner harbor and the town dock. I had a general idea of the direction I needed to go and after several minutes that seemed a lot longer, I could see the glow of lights from the town through the fog. I made it to the dock.....now to get back. We actually fit all 4 people and their luggage into the dinghy so I only had to make one trip. It would be slow anyway because of the visibility. We pushed off into the dark fog. This time I wouldn't have the lights of a town to guide me. I recognized a couple of boats and knew that I had started in the wrong direction. I made a course adjustment and hoped that I would be close. All of a sudden I saw a glow blinking ahead of us somewhere in the distance....it had to be Faith! It was! She had taken our 1,000,000 candle power searchlight and was blinking it on and off so I would be able to find our home in the dark......she is good! We packed everything into Boundless and bed down for the night. The fog was a little slow lifting Saturday morning. Pete fixed a great breakfast and we tried to get everything out of the way so we could sail towards Belfast, Maine to meet Diane and Alex once again. On the way we anchored in Broad Cove in Islesboro for lunch and bought 5 lobsters for $20 from a lobster fisherman near where we were anchored. What a dinner we had in Belfast. The winds were with us all day....it was nice sailing between the islands. September 2 The engine has certainly gotten a workout these last couple of days. From Booth Bay to Provincetown there has been no wind. At least we don't move fast enough to spend a pile of money in a day. The weather has been great. No fog, cool nights and nice days. We have had some neat experiences even though we were running the engine. The other day we were overtaken by a huge pod of dolphins. They were all around the boat for over 15 minutes. Usually these encounters are short. Faith stood on the bow and watched as many as 15 animals at one time riding in and under our bow wave. They would jump and dive all around the boat. A hard experience to top! Today we knew we would be traveling across a shallow bank (100') about 10 miles from Provincetown that is known to be frequented by whales. We left Isles of Shoals ME. early this morning. Shortly after we left we saw two whales swimming side by side...What a site! A few hours later we saw another. We also saw a shark that had to be 20ft long...a great white? We still hoped that we would see a few more whales. About 12 miles from our destination we started to see more of these large magnificent animals. I am sure we saw over 100 animals. They weren't just there for us to see, they were putting on a show! We watched them feed....launching themselves through the surface and back down in a tremendous splash. We saw them trying to clean barnacles from their flippers by laying on their side, extending them straight up and slapping them on the surface several times. We saw tail slaps and many doing everything the dolphin were doing but not under our bow. At any one time we could look around and see up to 20 animals sunning, jumping, diving, slapping, etc. What a day! We could not believe the number of animals in a relatively small area. How can we top this? Sunday morning we visited with our friends and toured their boat and another brand new Island Packet 43. Nice boats! We started our sail back to Camden. On the way we saw this huge sail coming towards us...maybe it was the "J" boat that was anchored near us in Camden....it was! This is about 120ft of pure sailing machine. Long, sleek and beautiful with thousands of yards of canvass on a sloop rig. The wind was 15 to 25kts with almost no waves. She was eating up the distance between us quickly. Everybody dove for their cameras. She was beautiful! You could see the spray off of her bow as she sliced through the water. We had a chance for a couple of pictures and she was gone. She is turning! She is coming back....can we beat her? Trim the sails! Put up the stasail! What else can we do? We ran parallel for the rest of the trip to Camden but she was docked and well settled before we could even see the harbor.....oh well. We pulled into the harbor and said goodbye to our friends. We had shared a great weekend on the water. It is great to have friends! On Monday we left for Booth Bay Harbor. What a sail! 6 to 9kts all day! A great beam reach. We showed Ken the town, had dinner and enjoyed a quiet night in Maine. We were ready for our trip South! I hope all is well with you! More to come. September 8 The last several days have been a bit different. We have generally been sailing and we have been looking for safe harbors because of the threat of bad weather due to Hurricane Dennis. We left Provincetown a little late because we were only going through the Cape Cod Canal to a small harbor that is well protected. There wasn't much wind on this short leg so we did motor all the way. The forecast the next day was for possible showers so we decided to see what it looked like in the morning and make a decision. We woke to a great day with a nice breeze. This carried us into Woods Hole on Cape Cod. We took a mooring and went into town. There isn't a lot to Woods Hole but it does have a neat aquarium. They also let you go behind the displays to see how everything that you see is maintained. Since it is also a teaching aquarium they had ponds that were full of local sea life that you could get very personal with. We went back to the boat where my brother Ken and I spent several hours chasing snappers, baby blue fish, all over the harbor. We eventually caught enough for dinner. These fish aren't very big but they are very tasty. We cleaned them and Faith cooked them immediately. Couldn't be any fresher. They were great!! The next morning it still looked good so we left for Cutty Hunk....a small Island at the Western end of the chain running from Woods Hole West. We picked up another mooring so we wouldn't worry about our anchor holding if the winds picked up....They didn't but it was a nice harbor anyway. The next morning it still looked good so we left for Block Island. This was the Tuesday after Labor Day. We arrived around 3:00pm to an empty Great Salt Harbor! Everything was getting ready to or already shut down for the season. It was strange to see this very busy harbor almost empty. We went ashore but didn't find much. We all had a snack before dinner on board. The next morning it still looked good....Were we ever going to get the bad weather? We started for Cutchogue Harbor to meet Tom and Phyllis Smith. It was about a 40 mile trip so it took most of the day. We had patches of fog but the winds were still in our favor in fact even a little too much in our favor. Actually we took the sails down as we approached Greenport because we would need to negotiate a narrow channel around Shelter Island into the Peconic. The winds eventually increased to about 30 but we were in the lee of islands or the South Fork of LI so it wasn't bad. Small choppy seas. We picked a spot just North of Robins Island that was well protected to anchor for the night. The next morning I took my brother Ken to shore so he could get a cab to the Orient Point/New London CT Ferry to start his trip back to Rochester, NY. We went back to sleep for a couple of hours to wait out some rain and a thunder storm. We then went looking for a marina that had access deep enough for our boat. We found the Cutchogue Harbor Marina. They were very accommodating and in fact allowed us to spend the night at their dock! This was great because Tom and Phyllis were at the other end of the same road. It certainly made it convenient since we would spend the day with them. The marina gave us the opportunity to leave the boat with no worries. Tom and I flew his kite and spent some time on the beach. A good time was has by all!! September 16 We spent several days with Tom and Phyllis in Cutchogue. We caught some fish as well as some Blue Claw Crabs and several soft-shell Crabs. Nature's bounty provided a couple of nice meals for us all. The weather was good for most of the week but it did start to deteriorate Tuesday as Hurricane Floyd approached the US. We left for Port Jefferson, NY, on Wednesday, September 15. The hurricane was due to hit the US on the day we arrived and due to hit LI on Thursday. Thursday morning we moved Boundless into the Danfords Marina to secure her for the storm. We removed everything possible above the water line (canvass, sails, dinghy, etc.) to reduce windage and minimize the impact of the predicted wind. When this was done and all of our dock lines double checked we went inland to Nana and Nino's, Faith's parents, who live about 20 minutes from Port Jefferson. We would spend the day there for a nice visit and make several trips to the marina to check on our home still tied up in Port Jefferson. The ferries stopped running around 2:00pm. The rain was very heavy a times and the wind steadily increased during the day. We last checked the boat at 8:00pm with wind gusts over 40mph. All was secure. Thanks to Gail, my sister-in-law, who loaned us her car, we were able to visit as well as monitor status during a nasty storm. Gail joined us in Cutchogue on Monday and made the trip to Port Jefferson with us. She was also a big help in getting Boundless ready for the storm. She also has several boats that she and her family needed to secure. I hope they had no problems also. Floyd is gone! We are ready to continue our voyage! We are planning to leave during the first week in October to start our trip South. Till then, Faith and I wish you all well. September 24 The day after Floyd passed, we were going to move out of the marina onto a mooring. I woke early to check on the boat. When I got to the marina I was astonished to see the drastic movement of all of the boats in the harbor including those in the marina....The floating docks were moving at least 3ft vertically. I added several lines to Boundless to better secure her to the docks and pilings. The net of all this is, we sat on the boat all day and had no problems. Several boats in the marina sustained some damage from hitting the docks or other boats. Several boats broke free from moorings and one ended up on the rocks. It was pulled off at high tide with little damage. The others sustained minor damage also. The problem was the high wind and the direction. Port Jefferson is a protected harbor but it is big. There is enough room for a significant wave to build when the wind is from the North. The wind was from the North all day with gusts in the 40mph range. The trip across Long Island Sound to Stamford was almost uneventful. We motored all the way as the winds were light. It was a relaxing ride until we were ready to enter the breakwater that protects the harbor. There was a sudden sound of water gushing and steam from inside the boat. We immediately shut down the engine and verified that the water was NOT coming into the boat. We quickly put up the main sail and started into the Harbor. We called Stamford Yacht Club to request a mooring with easy access from the channel. They had several moorings open and we could use any of them. Shortly after I signed off we got a call from another sail boat already in the harbor. They offered to tow us into a mooring. We declined their offer but requested that they point out a reasonable mooring for us to approach by sail. This would be the first mooring we approached by sail. We started down wind and made a 180 degree turn towards the mooring. The wind came out of the sail and our momentum carried us to the mooring.....piece of cake! The problem was caused by a key way disintegrating inside of the water pump. We are now almost ready to head for Annapolis, Md. A little more work to be done next week and we will be on our way. 3 Off to the Caribbean November 9 Subject: Log 11/9 Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 09:18:27 -0800 From: We caught the 7:00am bridge opening in Beaufort. We motored through the inlet by Ft.Macon, just down the road from our old condo. The trip into the ocean was easy and we spent all of the day motoring SE to get through the Gulf Stream ASAP. We figured we were through the stream a little after midnight. We turned due South and continued motoring. There wasn't much of a problem with sea sickness since the winds were light and the sea mostly flat. We spent most of the day getting ourselves acclimated to life at sea again. All alone with our focus on base requirements. The nights grew dark and ominous. We have only seen a couple of passing ships and no voyagers. We did see a pod of porpoise. Wish us well! November 10 Subject: Log 11/10 Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 09:18:22 -0800 From: Not much has changed. There is still no wind but the ocean is flat. We continue to motor due South towards the Bahamas. It looks like we will arrive late Saturday or early Sunday. November 11 Subject: Log 11/11 Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 09:18:19 -0800 From: We are continuing to motor South. Flat ocean, no waves. We are getting used to our watch schedules. The necessary systems are functioning well; engine/fuel/cooling, water maker, refrigerator/freezer, navigation gear, Auto Pilot, and most of all, Faith. She is learning how to cook in a rolling sea. She is using the pressure cooker and her meals continue to be great. She also has a full watch schedule and me to worry about. She is great!! There is a tropical disturbance that we are continuing to watch. It may create some disturbed weather as we approach the Bahamas. We will divert East or West as required to evade the low if it grows into a storm. We continue to have problems transmitting on our SSB but we do receive well. If we can't figure out the problem in the next few days I'll try to get it looked at in the Bahamas. I plan to send these as soon as possible when we reach George Town. Love to you all November 13 Subject: log 11/13 Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 09:18:14 -0800 From: We are sitting in the Bahamas! We arrived at Cat Island about 5:00pm today. We didn't motor all day yesterday but we did again today though to get here before dark. We haven't gone through customs yet so we are stuck on board till we get cleared into the Bahamas. The winds were a little high and the seas made for an uncomfortable ride especially at night. Sleep was hard to come by but we all did catch a few naps. You really do forget about the total darkness and things like the violent movement of the boat. We only saw a few boats for the entire time we were at sea. The ocean is not only big and dark but it is pretty empty also. We should get to George Town tomorrow and start exploring the Bahamas. We are all looking forward to it. Faith and Rudy November 16 Subject: log 11/16 Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 09:15:01 -0800 From: George Town is less than what we expected. I think we have been focused on our destination for so long that we didn't think about what we would find. The water is beautiful and warm. The weather is beautiful. The anchorages are just what we expected. The town is an Island town, not a US town. We will be in George Town a little longer than expected. We are now waiting for replacement parts for our water maker. It is both difficult and expensive to find good water here. This is a pretty good place to wait for anything. More to follow. November 25 Subject: Log. 11/22, Log 11/25 Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1999 11:51:13 -0800 From: Log. 11/22 We waited in George Town for the hurricane to move farther away, a High Pressure that brought high winds and a part for the water maker. Ken and Chris couldn't wait that long so they left Wed. Nov 17 for the Dominican Republic and their Condo. Chris has to be back to work by Dec 1. Rudy and I went for a dinghy ride to a small island to climb a hill. The view was magnificent!! On our way back we saw a dolphin swimming in a small inlet. As we approached him, he swam toward us and came right next to the dinghy. I put my hand in the water and he came close enough for me to touch him. He swam and dove next to us and then swam away. We saw him later swimming out of the inlet into the ocean again. On Thursday Nov 18, Rudy got the part for the water maker and had to take the whole thing apart. He replaced all the O rings. He fixed it..I knew he could...MY HERO!!!!!! He is so handy!!! Thank goodness!!!!! I know now what they mean by the definition of Cruising...."Repairing your boat in exotic places". Good thing Rudy is so handy! We may run out of exotic places however. We left George Town on Sunday and stayed at an anchorage off Long Island. It was the most rolling anchorage we stayed at so far. Neither of us got much sleep. Today we are in Rum Cay and tomorrow we are headed for Mayaguana. We want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and eat some turkey for us. Rudy and I will probably be sailing thru the night and only will be able to dream of turkey and stuffing. Log 11/25 We passed Mayaguana at 3am and decided to keep on going to Luperon. So instead of 24 hours of sailing , we had 48 hours....and we sailed. We had all three sails up until about 50 miles outside of Luperon. When we anchored, Rudy found a flying fish on the deck. The poor thing! The country is beautiful and the people are very friendly. December 5 Subject: Log. 12/5/99 Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1999 From: We left Palmas Del Rey a little after first light due to a squall passing through the marina. Actually I was glad to leave there. The cost to stay in the marina was about the same as home but the amenities were lacking. The water finally came on before night fall but all of the shower heads were missing in the mens room. I was determined to have a real shower so this was the first time for me to do anything inside of a ladies room! Actually, the showers were significantly better than any mens showers I have seen. Maybe I'll make a practice of using the ladies room showers. Our passage to Culebra, another Spanish Virgin Island, saw a few squalls and winds to about 25kts. Mostly though it was a benign passage of about 15 miles. We were planning to stop at a small island close to Culebra to do a little snorkeling before lunch. The winds were from the wrong direction which made the anchorage untenable. We chose to continue on. We anchored in the harbor to Dewey, the main town. We were close to some coral reefs so we did get to do some snorkeling before lunch after all. After our swim we went ashore. Faith did some shopping for Christmas presents for the kids. We actually landed our dinghy at Mamacita's dock so we didn't need to walk far for lunch. Culebra seemed like a nice island. After January, I really want to try to set our agenda on a day by day basis so we can spend a few days in a place that looks neat.....we'll see! After lunch we left for Dakity Harbor, a quiet anchorage on the Southeast corner of Culebra. We were planning to meet another boat we met a few weeks earlier. They were coming from Viequez. They actually followed us into the harbor and anchored close by. We got together for a few snacks, drinks and some friendly conversation. They have been sailing since June from San Francisco. They are friends that just had the opportunity to dropout for a year or so and took it. They are in their mid thirties and are sailing on a 42' Swan. Saturday morning we again left our anchorage after the morning squalls had passed by. We had a nice motor sail, sails up!, to St. Thomas. It is now Monday morning. We are still anchored at St. Thomas close to Sassey Too. They will be picking up friends here tomorrow and we will leave for Tortola. The town here is scheduled around the many cruise ships that stop here on a weekly basis. The passengers have a day on St. Thomas and the shopkeepers see how much money they can entice from them. It is a real cruise ship economy. The harbor is clean and the weather is perfect. December 1 Subject: Log 12/15 Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 09:15:54 -0500 From: W2LSI@cho.win-net.org We are in the British Virgin Islands! It is Wed morning. We will meet Jaclyn, Stacy and Rob on Sat. We are on Jost Van Dyke. They will arrive Saturday afternoon on at the East end of Tortola. We plan to anchor in a harbor on Tortola tonight. We have been doing well. Our trip from St. Thomas took about 3 hrs. We traveled in the lee of St. Thomas most of the way. We are still traveling mostly East into the prevailing winds. The open water passages are still a little rough but we don't have much open water amongst these islands. Customs and Immigration tend to be no problems just time consuming. At the end of the Government dock on Jost Van Dyke they have 2 decorated Christmas trees to greet voyagers. It is hard for me to believe that it is only 10 days till Christmas. The daytime temperatures are generally in the mid 80's and drop to the high 60's with a nice breeze at night. At dinner on St. Thomas last Sunday we saw a little football, the Jets beat Miami, and some commercials with SNOW. It just didn't click. There are many boats decorated with various lights and designs. We will put our lights and banners up when we get to Trellis Bay on Beef Island. We also see real Christmas Trees being transported out to boats on Dinghies. I don't think we will have a tree this year. We saw some for sale in a supermarket on St. Thomas. A 6' tree cost $40. Really not bad when you think about how it had to get here.The stores are all decorated so I guess everybody here is ready for Christmas except for me. Oh well. I expect that to change quickly when we do our decorations and the kids arrive. We are really looking forward to having them with us. It will be different to have three more people on the boat again. Faith and I are getting comfortable living aboard with just the two of us. With five all of the systems will see higher demands. Food and therefore trash will increase significantly and space will again become a premium. We still can't wait!! Since Stacy is the person who logs these onto the Web Page we will not add any logs until after the New Year. Then we'll start keeping an update of our travels again. So, Faith and I want to wish each of you a very merry Christmas, a safe and healthy holiday and all the best for the New Year. God Bless you all! Your friends, Faith and Rudy