Everyone loves to go south for part of the winter and feel the warm sunshine. We loaded up the Tuesday after Thanksgiving headed from Newport destined to Antigua. I had never been to Antigua before and am really looking forward to the trip. Plus its another 1,600nm of off shore bliss.
My brother gave me a tobacco pipe for being his best man in August. We were talking about taking pictures of ourselves with the pipe where ever we go. I was excited because this was the first trip I could take a picture of the new pipe. Didnt really know what would be the best picture so I just wanted to take a lot. the forecast was for it to be windy the first night out. Around 0000 we were seeing 40 to 45 knots and decided it would be wise to put in the second reef. I just came on watch and had my faulies on getting ready for this maneuver. I had put my pipe in my right pocket in my Musto jacket. It was dark and the wave were crashing on deck. The main needed to be flaked up at the goose neck so I went out of the cockpit to the mast.
The main was neatly flaked, job done. Time to spark up a bowl of fresh tobacco to kill the time. When I reached into my pocket to get the pipe I discovered it was not in there. Dang! I searched and searched, no where to be found. Not in my bunk, not on the deck not in every pocket I had-no where. I believe it is some where at the bottom of the North Atlantic in some monster fish's mouth. Man that's not a fun way to start an eight day delivery! How am I going to tell my brother is all I could think about for the next week. I still have not told him because I want to tell him man to man. I will see him in two days...
Well the wind went right as forecasted and started to die. We were on course to Bermuda and by the time we got close the decision was made to stop in and refuel. We were on our second tank of fuel and with a diminishing breeze thought it would be wise. Besides who doesnt like to stop in Bermuda's White Horse Tavern for a beer?
We left in the morning. That night the wind was blowing in the 40's again. The next morning the waves caught up to us just as the wind was fading. I was watching the wave patterns and have never seen any like these. The trough's were unbelievable, we estimated them to be about one hundred yards long, the waves were only ten to twelve feet and perfectly flat in the trough's.
The rest of the trip the breeze was down, anywhere from two to fifteen knots. Over all the trip was smooth and part of it might have been the yacht, a Swan 80. Nice ride. The top speed was 18.4 knots SOG and got some good surfing in. We arrived on the following Wednesday and had to convert from delivery mode to boat show mode in five hours to make the cocktail party. That was tough, we did not make it but the yacht was ready to go for Thursday. Thats when Kieth and I decided to go and check out some beaches.
In the 1,700nm we sailed about half that we were fishing. You might think that is a good distance to catch some fish but no we did not catch a thing. We did see what might have been a Baluga Whale and have some sweet video of him frolicking by our bow. That was neat, I have not seen one before and he hung around for twenty minutes.
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