may 17, 2002 hi all -- am enroute from florida to portugal via bermuda and the azores on a moody 42 named happy dancer that is sailed by a single named david barnett from newcastle on tyne in the uk. big adventure and a chance for me to learn more about sailing offshore. we made it to bermuda. hardest part seemed to be getting away from the dock in ft. lauderdale. every morning when i showed up ready to leave, there were a few more chores to do that could only happen the next day and we were postponed again. from sat or sun to mon or tues etc. we finally left at 4pm on thursday may 9. i promptly got seasick and deposited my morning latte in the gulf stream. put my stomach in the intensive care ward (water, an occasional cracker), didn't go below, and didn't do anything that required close focussing like reading or plotting points on the chart. fully recovered a day later and no seasick problems even with 10+ ft seas after a cold front went thru. thanks to john mcginley, we had a personalized 7 day forecast for each of our predicted positions during the week. it was very accurate in both wind direction and strength as well as how high the waves were going to be. thanks again john. our daily progress, as measured in miles from the harbor entrance at ft. lauderdale was: 146, 105, 118, 112, 130, 127, 80, and 87. the first day was good because the gulf stream was contributing about 2-3 knots to our speed for about 12 hours. the last days were less because we slowed down so we didnt arrive at night. each day was 24 hours from 4pm to 4pm. that isnt a true measure of our progress because you can't sail a straight line from ft. lauderdale to bermuda (the bahamas get in the way), but its close. highest wind we had was probably 30 knots give or take a few. the boat doesnt have a wind meter so you cant easily tell how strong it is (at least i cant). david who owns the boat and has sailed a lot can feel the wind strength and direction. i need meters and arrows at the top of the mast to do that. sailing on someone elses boat once you have your own shows up immediate things that are done better or worse than your own. wonderland has awesome instrumentation and meter displays. but his boat, happy dancer, has great places to hook the safety harness on in and around the cockpit. highlight of the trip for me was when we suddenly found ourselves in the midst of a school of whales. they were big, more than half the boat length, maybe even 3/4. i yelled to david who was on the bow trying to fix the pin that secures the anchor to its cradle. he is hard of hearing and it took 5 yells for him to finally hear. he came back to the cockpit immediately and we started the engine to make some noise so they would really know we were there. i saw a big one come up from under or middle so suspect they knew just fine where we were. still was a bit scary, they are really big and hitting one would not be cool. but their beautiful swimming and closeness made you forget the danger and just enjoy the ballet. david's hard of hearingness feels like a bit of a problem. he has for years pretended he heard or partially heard and assumed he heard right, when he didnt. came up several other times, including on the radio when he did the opposite of what the harbor master told him to. so i have been bugging him to ask again if he isnt sure he heard. its hard to unlearn something you have been doing for years. says thats why he usually sails alone! the wind in this part of the atlantic seems to be steady during the day, die down at dusk, come back in the evening, but not always steady. typical scenario is to have wind die to nothing and flop the sails around when you are opposite a cloud, and then pick up and blow hard right after the cloud has gone by. we usually reef both the main and the jib sometime in the night because it strains the boat if its driving us too fast or it heels us so you cant walk or stay in bed. so at night we try to reef so we are going 6-7 knots instead of 8-9. the main is normal size but the jib is big, about 140% in sailors jargon that means its 40% bigger than the triangle made by the forestay where it is attached, the mast and the deck of the boat. we started off with a 3 hours on, 3 hours off watch schedule. but that left both of us without enough quality sleep. so its still officially that, but he does the 8-11pm and then i do the 11-2am but dont wake him till about 4am which leaves me able to get to sleep and gives him 5 solid hours. seems important that someone (him mostly) gets enough sleep to make sensible decisions. i find that reading an exciting adventure book (started with a tom clancy) during watch is a good way. every 15 minutes i look at the radar, the horizon, the gps, the sail trim, etc. and then go back to the book for 15 minutes. works well and an egg timer is a great tool to not let the really exciting parts of the book compromise safety. typically see at most 1 other boat per day unless we are in the shipping lanes. the boat has 3 55 watt solar panels but that is not enough for both the fridge and the sailing instruments, mostly the autopilot that does all the steering with us just saying things like left a little or right a bunch (-1 or +10). so each day we run the engine for a bit, usually an hour at most. we try to time that with times of no wind or wind dead ahead. this has gotten way long, sorry about that. hugs, love to all -- -evi bermuda is a cool place, seems like an ideal climate, 60s to 80s. has hills, not flat like the bahamas. they drive on the left of course and the businessmen wear suits that include short pants and knee socks. sure look comical to my uncouth american eye. am going to the maritime museum tomorrow to see the sailing history of bermuda. they have quite a history because they have reefs almost around the whole island and therefore lots of wrecks over the years.