Retrospect

Home from New York and and fighting some kind of respiratory infection. One of my crew was diagnoses with pneumonia upon arrival in New York. I think I may not be far behind. Arrived home just in time for the storm of the year on January 4th. Turned out to be a fifty-year event with winds to 75 mph.

Looking back through this journal I have a greater appreciation of the the ground we covered given the time constraints. The blog breaks the trip up into digestible segments. This is how I approached it as well. The entire voyage can be a hard to swallow on a boat so small and slow. So, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. The immensity of the trip immediately becomes more palatable.

The highlights were definitely on the Pacific side. We had very little weather of any kind to complain about. Each day south just got better. The marine life never stopped entertaining us.. Dolphins by the dozens, sea turtles, humpback whales game fish, jellyfish stingrays, etc. While the Atlantic side covers beautiful territory, the urgency to meet a deadline grew each day. You can have a game plan but it must allow for the unexpected. So the last quarter is usually spent making up for lost time.

I’ve expanded my knowledge of suitable ports of refuge, learned more about local weather along the route, and expanded my contacts in ports. These all add up to minimizing lay days and down time on future deliveries. Contacting agents, marinas, and fuel docks in advance of arrival saved us days. Servicing the engines in San Diego and maximizing fuel economy expanded our range giving us more options not to mention cutting our fuel costs by over 40%.

In hindsight, such a long trip (over 6500 mi.) on a vessel not designed for the open ocean with spartan, make-shift living conditions as we had may be better handled by two crews. Splitting the trip into two 20+ days may be the sensible thing to do. Fatigue is inevitable and it wears down your ability to fight illnesses, especially as you move so quickly into cold weather toward the end.

Crew consideration are important as well. 100 ton licenses these days are a dime-a-dozen. Experience is difficult to find. Lots of people would love to make a trip like the, but capable watch-standers, who for example, can navigate unfamiliar waters, as the narrow stretches of the ICW at night, on radar, are hard to find.