Tag: Storms at Sea

It’s Showtime

.OK, Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the time has finally come to get this show on the road

Dauntless is loaded, (I wish I was) and most stuff is put away, well, at least on the outside of the boat.

After more than 5 years of dreaming, hoping, wishing, planning, reading and even some arithmetic, the time has finally come to shove off.

In about 4 hours, Sunday, 20 July 2014, Dauntless, with Julie and I will depart our home away from home in Providence, Rhode Island and set our sights on the Portuguese islands of the Azores.

But before we can even go east, we must travel down the Narragansett River, then northeast through Buzzards Bay, to pass through the Cape Cod Canal in midafternoon when we will have favorable currents.

From then, we’ll see how we feel, whether to anchor one last time in North America at the tip of Cape Cod or to turn right and head east.

While our route is somewhat dependent on weather and seas, we are planning on the great circle route (course 082° T) from Cape Cod to the Azores as it takes one southeast of Nova Scotia, east along 42°N then east-southeast.

Our planned route
Our planned route

1900 nm, it will take 13 days, maybe 12 with the following seas we hope to have, we will pretty much be riding over the top of the Bermuda/Azores High.

We now have a Delorme InReach Satellite Phone. It will only do texts, but it does allow two way communications all the way across the ocean.  You can follow our route with updates every 10 minutes and/or contact us by going to the website https://share.delorme.com/Dauntless

Once on the above page, on the left column, you click on my name, which allows you to select the other buttons above, Locate, Message, and Center.  So Locate pings the phone, basically updating the map. Message allows you to send us a text message and Center, does just that, it re-centers the map.

I’ll pretty much have the InReach on until I get to winter quarters, probably in Ireland, probably at the end of September.

Dauntless – It’s Not Just a Name

An Update

After 5 years of planning, reading, thinking, asking, listening and worrying, we are just days away from leaving

Thanks to Parks and the cat, at Hopkins-Carter, I got a great deal on a whole bunch of stuff, including a Digital Yacht Class B AIS Transponder, which just went live minutes ago.  http://www.hopkins-carter.com/

I even installed the silent switch.

AIS, Ship's Computer, Maretron multiport connector, IPG and USB, Fuse Block
AIS, Ship’s Computer, Maretron multiport connector, IPG and USB, Fuse Block

My MMSI is 367571090.

The computer is from Island Time PC and everything is running though that, including Wifi extender.  Call Bob, he is great and always ready to help, even when I’m doing something stupid.  http://islandtimepc.com/

I should have done it months ago, but it is what it is. Now, I must figure out how to get Coastal Explorer to see my Maretron Network.  The rest of the programming, I figure I can learn during the next few weeks.  I should be somewhat adept by the time I get to the Azores.  Luckily, you don’t need much navigation to cross the Atlantic, just ask Columbus.

I will take pictures and document all the changes, hopefully in the next few days, before we leave, (though is you have been paying attention, I’ve been promising that for months).

Also, stay tuned, as I will also be giving you the Delorme Earthmate link for Dauntless. Then you can ping and even text me.

Gotta Go.  Much left to do, like getting new compass to talk to ComNav and where is that Alternator and why does it have so many wires on the back??  I knew I should have taken a picture of it BEFORE I disconnected everything. EEK