waiting, waiting, st martin...now we peace

so, we were 3, then we were 2, now, we are back to 3. in the over extended stay in st. martin we arrived with 3 on board with the idea of quickly provisioning and peacing out within the week for the big atlantic jump. it is said that sailors make plans, and god laughs. now, 16 days later, mats, me, and our new 27 yr. old, danish journalism student named mikkel begin the atlantic trek tomorrow morning...finally.

anchored in st. martin, the hong kong of the caribbean, the super americanised island, casino filled island, strip club island, tax free liquor and tobacco island, cuban cigar island, busy-airport-strip-1/4-mile-from-our-anchorage-island....it's an odd to experience to be in such a place after being in all the previous islands.
for the most part all of the above was avoided, but, naturally, denver, isabelle, our new swedish friend, and i had to indulge just one evening....a very late evening. one that resulted in denver getting a little moist in his drunken attempt to board the dinghy as the sun came up. he fell in. shouting and laughing and broken english as he made a madd scramble to pull himself aboard. repeating and slurring and grunting my name..."aee, anee, annyy, aneee, ayee," he'd say.

denver decided it'd be best for him to jump ship and head home. the thought of crossing the atlantic got the better of him. i told him the expression of 'when the rubber meats the road' and he agreed thats whats happening. when he tried expressing that same thing the next day he said...when the ham meets the burger...i understood..... he flew home a few days later.

st. martin was a waiting game. thanks to the peculiar, rainy, no wind, odd direction weather. we, along with dozens of other boats were just chillin...waiting for the wind.

in our waiting we provisioned...4 days of it. 4 grocery store sesssions. each load filling a shopping cart, then a full low riding dinghy ride, then miraculously making all the food disappear in capellas bowels.


this is a short, but sweet, last entry before the crossing. our final day is a madd scramble to fit everything in. in the madd dash i've forgotten the camera with our provisioning pictures. so, using some imagination..think of all the canned goods, boxed goods, chocolate, beer, dried meat, eggs, milk and cereal for over 30 days on a boat....thats what they look like....pics will be up when we reach the azores.


gone will be the nights sleeping on the bow, no more morning stretches to the sunrise, no more morning baths in the bay, no more collective breakfast in the cockpit, no more rum nights with swedes, and no more green land...for a little while at least. whole lotta blue ahead.

i'm clean shaven for the first time in over 8 weeks, and tomorrow we say goodbye to the warm waters of the caribbean. the sea beard will grow the entire 2300 nautical miles to the azores. a long distance passage was my main goal for this whole sailing thing and here it is. the ham has meet the burger and it's time for capella to make her way eastward.

eastward we go...toward the sunrise...

                                                                             (the crew..yes)
follow the link above for a daily position report if you feel so inclined.



the collective will be updated upon arrival of the azores...i love you all.