More Morpheus Meandering - Crossing the Pond

I posted this graphic at the beginning of a Morpheus cruise from Hawaii to San Francisco in 2008.With that passage I completed  "The Great Semi Circle"  Tahiti to Hawaii to San Francisco to San Diego to Cabo in four separate sailing adventures aboard Morpheus.  Tonight I fly to St. Maarten and embark on another adventure aboard the Morpheus.

Captain Jim has spent the last couple of years sailing down the West coast, through the locks, into the Caribbean, and up and down the East coast.  Now Morpheus is heading across the pond to the Mediterranean. I'll be among the crew of four.

Captain's notes:

All,

I just ran a route for us from St. Martin to the Azores. Our recommended path is the red line heading NNE and then turning right towards the Azores. The bulk of the weather forecasted has us sailing in 15 to 20 knots. Pretty nice.

There continue to be a series of lows moving across the ocean just about even with the latitude of the Azores. We will need to watch out for them and schedule our arrival in those latitudes in a way that produces a nice ride and avoids any storms.

Lucky for us, our friend Gibb has been helping us with weather enroute since our departure from New Zealand many years ago. He’s good and it will be nice to have “big brother” watching over us during our trip.Thanks Gibb!! - Jim

Sailing the Atlantic... One more " bucket list" item to check off the list.

Prior Passages: 

The Tahiti Pacific Crossing was documented pre-blog on a web page here.

 

 The 2006 San Francisco - San Diego delivery is yet to be properly documented. 

I'll get around to it someday.

The Cabo - San Diego delivery was documented with the first posts from this blog.

 

A sample post from the 2008 Hawaii - San Francisco passage is linked here.

Crewmates from my last Morpheus delivery  - Cabo to San Diego in 2010.

Jim, Dan and nephew Brian pictured on a stop in Turtle Bay. 

The Plan
I have a red-eye tonight, connecting through Chicago and arriving in St Maarten on Saturday. Beyond that, this is the general plan excerpted from the Captain's e-mails:

• April 20 - Mike arrives @ 2.55pm in St. Martin and Kim arrives an hour later. We will meet and pick up each at airport via dinghy!!!
• April 21 - Load food and gear on board.
• April 21 – Safety walk through on boat. Reminders regarding electrical and cooking systems, fire extinguishers, first aid supplies, etc. etc.
• Depart April 22nd or 23rd
• Morpheus Average Speed (conservative) – 7.5 knots 
• St. Martin to Azores – worst case route is 2600 miles, best case route is 2200. 
• Time St Martin to Azores – 12 to 14 days 
• Azores to Gibraltar – 1100 miles
• Time Azores to Gibraltar – 6 days

Communications
We can theoretically be reached by sail mail. Short TEXT ONLY  messages can be sent to and from Morpheus at wda7721 AT sailmail DOT com. Try to remember what is was like to have  a 2400 baud modem. Sail mail is not that fast.

Sprint confirms that my cell phone and texting will not be working in either St. Maarten or the Azores. I should have couple of  days of  intermittent intertube access while in St. Maarten, and again when we reach the Azores - at which point I should be able to pick up e-mail and skype.  In between the blog will theoretically be updated via sail mail here and at Captain Jim's Blog.

Morpheus progress can be tracked on SPOT.

That's it.

Like most of us,  I've been unable to tear myself away from the 7x24 news scrum of the horrors in Boston this week.   I am really looking forward to watching nothing but the ocean for a few weeks.