Hey guys… I know we don’t update our website content very often. We left August 15th 2018 and it is now November 9th. We have been sailing everyday that it is possible to sail for the last ten weeks. We have been busy and we seldom get internet access. Whenever we can go to a coffee shop or a McDonalds to get access to free wifi we are usually trying to download our latest video to YouTube for you guys.
But we finally are staying at a marina with good internet access (YAY!!!) and I have some time to try and update the website a little bit.
Those close to us get regular texts from me with updates but for everyone else… here is a quick update.
In the videos we are about to put up episodes 16 and 17 which gets our viewers to the end of the St. Lawrence river.
Since then we have been having a hard time. The weather has been terrible. If you think about it we are sailing down the boundary between cold air and air warm enough for hurricanes. We don’t want to get too far south into the hurricane zone and we don’t want winter to freeze us in.
What this means is that we have been experiencing fall weather for the last 7 weeks. For the last 7 weeks we have been sailing right in the boundary of the nasty weather. We have had constant rain storms and fog. We have been wet cold and miserable for weeks. There have been constant fall storms pummeling the North Atlantic where we are. Front after front has been hurtling through and pounding the life out of us.
We have broken the boat twice. Near Boothby harbor Maine we broke one of our running backstays and had to get a new one made. Sailing from Newport Rhode Island to Long Island new york our port side Davit failed and starting ripping apart the radar pole and tore through the stainless steel pole. This was a major structural failure and something difficult to get repaired.
We ended up making an emergency stop in Block Island to effect temporary repairs. The nearest place to get a proper SS welder was for us to sail back north 22 miles to Newport Rhode Island. There will be video about this coming eventually. I have to say THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH to the Newport Ship Yard for their amazing kindness to 2 desperate sailors in trouble.
We also broke up as a couple. I completely cracked. I QUIT this whole stupid thing and desperately wanted out. I had a melt down from the enormous stress of doing this and the hectic sailing pace we had been keeping up for months. Living with Michel 24/7 on a small boat got to me and I couldn’t stand to be near him anymore. I contacted a boat broker and tried to sell the boat. Unfortunately we couldn’t sell the boat for much. We have $150,000 dollars into her and we could only sell her for maybe $30-$40K. We would have to lose a hundred thousand dollars.
Since that was not a very good option I was forced to continue. After long relationship discussions Michel has promised to change and do better. I don’t enjoy sailing anymore… it is not something I look forward to anymore…. its not fun… it is not something I enjoy doing it is more like work… suffering and pain.
Sailing was supposed to be a fun adventure with some occasional hard days. The reality has turned into constant discomfort pain and misery interspersed with occasional good days. This wasn’t the life I signed up for.
The stress of being the captain and making all the very difficult decisions everyday plus filming plus the constant danger of sailing… plus dealing with Michel wore me down. I realize that eventually as we get below winter we can slow down… and the theory is that life will get better… but for now sailing such a hard schedule for 10 weeks straight has injured my soul.
We just finished the long jump from New York City 150 nautical miles south to Ocean City Maryland. We are staying in our first marina in 2 weeks waiting out bad weather again.
Next we have to jump down to Norfolk then around Cape Hattaras which is a very dangerous part of the North Caroline coast where the gulf stream comes closest to shore. There is no safe stop there for 150 miles if you get into trouble you’re screwed. If the wind is going against the strong current it can cause big steep ship killing waves. Lexi scared. ………