Fort Lauderdale to Kinsale: 3,524 nautical miles, 6,526 kilometres, 29 days, four crew: the Seaman, John, the Alférez, and the Admiral, who was the designated Captain for the trip.
Canon PowerShot G15, 29 May 2015
County Cork
County Cork looks... like the movies of Ireland. Emerald green pastures, with hedge rows in between the fields in the rolling hills. In the flower of Spring, tree leaves shimmer in sunlight in an orgy of green.
A gentleman from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine arrived promptly after our arrival, as previously arranged, to admit the Alférez into Ireland. The fee is €50. As we had no Euros yet, he said no problem: he issued and stamped a receipt, and asked us to leave him an envelope with the fee at the bar. We say, 'Sláinte' that!
The Kinsale Yacht Club registration takes place at the bar: best location for check-in we have ever seen. The Admiral asked for an electric adapter for Peregrinus' US-type electric plug. A gentleman in the bar volunteered to help, walked the Admiral back to the boat, and ended up taking the Seaman all over the County searching for said adapter. The gizmo cost €2.30. The life stories John the Scot-transplanted-into-Kinsale and captain of Igraine of Camelot told us over beers and wine back at Peregrinus all afternoon are priceless.
Out of a new world, and into an old one
Peregrinus is now east of the northern tip of Newfoundland, south of Iceland, north of Gran Canaria, and east of Ireland.
The New World is in our rear view mirror, at least for a while.
With favorable winds, we race at 8 knots towards our expected first sight of land, at Fastnet Rock, off of the southeast tip of Ireland, 230 nautical miles ahead.
South of Iceland
Peregrinus finds itself 964 nautical miles NM south of Hvallatur, Iceland; 837 NM west of Guernsey; 1146 NM east of Lumsden, Newfoundland; and 2076 NM north of the Cape Verde islands.
Seas are nearly flat and the wind blows 10 knots from the northwest. The crew seems content and there are no overt signs of mutiny, although the Alférez has shown up on deck without permission a couple of times today. Is he plotting anything? Who might his co-conspirators be?
With nothing below Peregrinus
Peregrinus is now 760 nautical miles NM east of Trinity Bay, Newfoundland; 1,110 NM south of Greenland; and 1,160NM west of Kermorvan (near Brest).
We have therefore cleared Natal and Recife in easternmost Brazil, as well as the South Georgia Islands.
South of Peregrinus, there is now only water, all the way to Antarctica. The frigid shores of the Weddell Sea lie 7564 NM south of here.
What we dream
"We're not, as humans, only what we do, but also what we dream ourselves"
---Sarah Hoyt
Peregrinus now south of Steno Island, Greenland; north of Touros (near Natal); west of Munich; east of Everett (near Seattle).
Here Be Dragons
Peregrinus now finds itself in the middle of the Atlantic. To the north, Eastern Greenland at Mogens Heinesen Fjord, 1096 Nautical Milles NM. To the south, Parrialba (west of Fortaleza), 2,810 NM. To the west, Liverpool, Nova Scotia, 971 NM. To the east, Biarritz, 1740 NM.
In medieval maps, this was beyond the edge of the known world. Since geographers did not know what to depict, they often placed strange sea monsters, or wrote scary warnings: “Here Be Dragons.”
But the Captain saw no dragons today. She spotted a few dolphins, jumping our bow wave.
My bounty is as boundless as the sea
My love as deep; the more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite.
Juliet to Romeo, William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Roads in the ocean
The voyaging routes of the sea are delimited by geography, ocean currents, the iceberg fields, the trade winds, the seasons, and the curvature of the planet.
Most maps present an idealised view of the landmasses, resulting in shortest-distance trips appearing curved in the map, the more away from the Equator the more so. Last year, our friends from Newcastle, with no radar, waited in Halifax for almost two months in the Summer, but in the end returned to the Caribbean for one more season because the ice fields extended across their way back home to England. The trade winds, or vientos alisios, are created by the rotation of Earth, and make certain trips difficult unless one goes hundreds or thousands of miles around. And this year, unlike last year, we avoided the Gulf Stream –which otherwise gives a boat a free and speedy ride— because of conflicting stormy weather.
We now see a handful of large cargo boats pass nearby, bound for Gibraltar, Cagliari, Rotterdam, and for Galveston, Baltimore, or Searsport. “Seeing” them means on AIS, up to 40 miles away, although today we called one on the radio that was going to pass less than a mile from us; the 571-foot Chembulk New Orleans slightly altered course and passed one nautical mile away, unseen in fog.
Tonight Peregrinus travels 600 NM south of Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, 1000 NM east of Hampton, Virginia,1900 NM north of Paramaribo, Suriname, 2300 NM west of Palos de La Frontera.
A provender
Every day, it seems, we come across a flying fish lying somewhere on deck. Peregrinus has 1.5 meters of freeboard, i.e., the height between waterline and deck. It is remarkable how high these little fish leap out of the water in relation to their modest size of about 20 cm.
As it relates to provender, a reader suggested "flying fish tartare," but in truth, we'd be hard pressed to even let the Alférez have a bite. But who knows. Maybe if we run into dire straits with regard to food stores.
We are now 380 NM east of the Carolina-Virginia border, 1580 NM north of Valencia, 2921 NM west of Cádiz, and 470 NM south of Schoodic Island.
http://map.iridium.com/m?lat=36.509640&lon=-67.963992