Wow!  This is what faced us this morning.   Just before sunrise and just at sunrise.  Absolute silence – it’s good for the soul.  Pope’s Harbour served us well – A gentle rocking of the boat lulled us to sleep early and all hands are well rested and rejuvenated and ready to set sail.  Hope the sea outside this haven is kinder to us today.

Late last night we checked the weather which didn’t sound promising for leaving West Jaddore. So we committed to doing some other things aboard the boat like reorganize the junk drawers, set up a little clothesline for all the wet clothes we accumulated from yesterday’s sail….that kinda thing. But low and behold when we checked the weather again this morn, it had changed.

It still called for 35 knot wiinds with 3 meter seas – not nice – but it was supposed to back northerly and reduce in the afternoon. And we would have a late start and seemed to have a window in which we could chase the gale, so after much debate we decided to push on. This debate also included a local gentleman, John, who happened to own the mooring we hooked onto last night. We would have loved to stay and hang out with John – he is a well experienced sailor and he had a wealth of wisdom and tidbits of info for our consideration.  And he took our garbage !  (Thank you John V – if ever you want to sail to Newfoundland again, we would be pleased to host you).

We slipped the mooring at 9:30 and at 1:30, after it became

clear we weren’t chasing the bad weather anymore but well into it, we decided to back track and tuck into Pope’s Harbour for the rest of the day. It was beautiful, sunny and tranquil – hard to believe this water was part of the same angry sea from whence we came.

So we are half a day behind, but had 3 days in the bank remember. But looks like Wednesday is another doozy and we will be landlocked again so have decided to go to Liscombe Lodge tomorrow anyway, rather than beyond it. It has laundry, showers, fuel, and cold beer 🙂

Not many pics taken today – all hands busy with the sailing.   Considered a game of eye spy with my little eye to pass the time but as you can see from the pic, there were but 3 colours to be seen – two shades of grey and white.  Game would be over in 3 seconds.

The weather was forecast to be dark and stormy, so much so, only one stalwart crew and boat left the docks this morning. Come What May set sail this morning at 07:20 on the brink of a dirty forecast. But now, sitting tight and cozy in our hurricane-hole of an anchorage, we’re sitting mighty sm(n)ug having made on our first day’s objective. Belly’s full of fresh, gourmet pasta and meatballs, green salad, quinoa salad, wine, dark and stormy’s and homemade fudge we sit enjoying the drying heat of our diesel, forced-air furnace.

Bravery, bravado, foolishness, or all of the above? Or, a tiny bit of wisdom, well applied. Accurate, timely forecasting, routing, and knowing your boat, all adds up to miles gained. Bravo crew!! Accomplishments by all!! Along the way we saw seals, porpoises, a shark and some whales. No pics – too rainy and fleeting.

Today we started learning the new systems installed by Super Dave and Neil the real deal meal boatsman and their talented cohorts, Kenny Diesel and Muff the diver (honest). Genny, who tirelessly fills a 500 amp house bank (how’d you do it Super Dave?) purrs in 15 knots tonight. Genny of course is our new wind generator – WOW – that’s all there is to say about that. All new rigging and sheets (ropes to you non sailors) as well as a new radar, made for a nice ride in not so nice weather.

Made West Jaddore 1 1/2 hours ahead of schedule, 69.7 nm, avg speed 6.4 knots. Safe and sound.

Internet is too sketchy to add some pics tonight.  Maybe tomorrow.

Too tired to write tonight – hard work today – getting the boat geared up.  Enough grub to last at least 3 months.  Finally able to sit down and relax.  Checking the weather.  Nippers eatin’ us alive.   Captain got sunburned and elbow gashed.  Everyone’s feet and back hurts.  Otherwise uneventful.  Will set sail early in the morn to beat the weather up the coast.  Great fun.

The Halifax crew are busy bees doing the last minute things that always seem to come up when planning a trip.   The Captain had some important business to take care of in Corner Brook and yesterday left the other half of the Mount Pearl crew to finish up the Newfoundland preparations by herself.  Hmmmmm……….  The Captain is heading to Halifax from Deer Lake just as the last of the tasks was being completed on the Eastern side of the island of Newfoundland.   Was a very necessary preparation but one that Giovanni Caboto and his crew probably did not fret about.

Before he traipsed over to Corner Brook, the Captain gave stern orders to one crew member (who still can’t believe he got to “dart” over to her beautiful native hometown of Corner Brook instead of her) to “take care of those fingernails”.  By that he meant “get rid of them”.  Well… not in their entirety.  Pretty sure he meant lose the beautifully manicured lacquered neon pink/mango talons and trim them to a practical length.  A more “workable” length.   

Now, anyone who knows her, knows how dear her manicure is to her – to lose it to anything other than a blissful evening of nail chewing while engrossed in a thrilling novel or watching a spell binding movie is unfathomable.  Cut them off ??  So it became the last task, put off to the very end, procrastination at its best, wincing at each Snip Snip.  Sniff Sniff.  

Tested them out with a little knot tying.  Yep, more workable.  Even took before and after pics, but at the risk of losing our faithful sailing followers who are waiting to hear more about sailing, perhaps best to end this right here.  

Apologies.  Must head to Halifax to meet up with the Captain.  Promise to let him blog next about the excellent enhancements made to Come What May especially for this voyage. They were numerous, innovative, mind soothing, luxurious…..aka expensive.   BOAT = Bring On Another Thousand.

Edited by the Cap’n to include the photos. (shush, don’t tell) 😎

So a dear friend and fellow boater called this morning to check one last thing – does the Captain and crew plan to have survival suits with them?  Everyone knows you won’t last 5 minutes in the frigid icy cold waters of the North Atlantic if you are so unfortunate as to go overboard.  You can even rent them…..

If a catastrophe were to hit, no doubt we’d wish we had them.  But wouldn’t it get in the way of nice leisurely sunbathing on the deck of the boat that at least one crew is dreaming of?  Kidding of course – she knows better – sailing is hard work and you have to be paying attention at all times.  There won’t be any bikini time in the middle of this ocean !

Good life jackets, tethered whenever on deck, anchoring every day by dusk, careful watch on the weather before deciding whether or not to leave port each morning and coastal sailing should ensure the safety of the Captain and crew and preclude the necessity of better “guaranteeing” survival ?

Thoughts?

🎼🎶  It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas   🎼🎶

You know that feeling you had as a kid (and perhaps still have as an adult) as Xmas Day draws near? That’s kinda what this feels like – pure excitement – anticipating getting that thing you’ve been yearning for, anticipating some surprises you know nothing about….. 

And you know that other feeling you have as an adult as Xmas draws near? That YIKES moment when you realize it’s only 2 days away and you still have so many gifts left to buy and you don’t have ANY of your baking done, your tree is not decorated, no gift wrapping has started, you’ve blown your budget already…….  Yeah, you know what we’re talking about.  

It feels like all that today.  YIKES 😱

Luckily the crew on the ground in Halifax are diligently provisioning the boat – thank you Rob and Mavis – that is such a huge help in getting us started once the Captain arrives.

As for the Captain and other crew……………..they are good at giving orders from afar – sorry Rob and Mavis – we love you.

Learning already – as soon as the first post was posted, and the captain was ready to share on FB, we realized no one (except for those lucky few peeps to have been aboard CWM or those not so lucky peeps who are up to their eyeballs hearing all about it already) would know who we are.

CWM is a beautiful CS 30 – its Captain, the one and only Christopher Joel George Davey and crew Michele Peach, Rob Vatcher and his lovely better half Mavis Vatcher.  A techie, a pilot and two accountants – hmmmmmm………was there ever a crew as diverse as this?

Lucky for one, 3 are experienced sailors.

So……we’ve been talking about it for a long time…..sailing Come What May (CWM) to Newfoundland.   A lot of talking, a little bit of planning and then boom!  The day to start is almost here.

So much to do, so little time – oh my – why didn’t we start sooner?

Many lessons learned already – stay tuned family and friends – we’ll try to keep you posted as we go.

Too late and too tired to write much tonight but did want to test out our first shot at blogging so here goes.

Lets see how it works hey?