10.23.04

Well lots has happened since I last wrote. I passed my celestial navigation
course and once I fill out several hours of paperwork and mail in 2 passport
pictures, I will receive my official Yachtmaster Ocean certificate which says I
can sail/deliver a boat anywhere in the world, with or without GPS. You know me
though, I love modern electronics even if learning star navigation was fun. We
have 3
GPS systems onboard-one for the boat and a handheld for each liferaft. The
celestial calculation tables are very complicated-I have no idea how anyone ever
figured them out in the first place!

Our bow sprit broke a few days ago which meant we could not fly our low wind
screacher on the way to Bermuda. Because of that and because we had low wind,
that leg of the trip was longer than it should have been. Dave and Ray got off
in Bermuda with their girlfriends for some final land vacationing before heading
home. They needed to hit the beaches, as their time they had set aside for this
adventure was almost over. They had business at home that needed attending.
Instructor Bob also got off in Barbados after he gave me my final exam. Greg and
I found a very friendly machine shop in Barbados who dropped everything and put
4 guys on fixing our bowsprit in 5 hours. Amazing!! They cut, welded and machine
dremmeled a hard plastic insert. We rented a car to take the part to them and
were able to sight see in the process.
The highest point of Barbados is 1800 feet. It is basically a low lying island
with lots of tan (not white) sand beaches. Nothing spectacular. It is very
touristry. Cruise ships come and go daily with thousands of passengers. Street
vendors are everywhere expecting handouts and there is lots of bumper to bumper
traffic. Not a destination I would recommend. We have already seen so many a lot
nicer. On the upside-we bought a case of Malibu Rum and Mount Gay Rum-both
Barbados products.Party time later!!
Instructor Bob took Greg and I out to a lovely beachside restaurant our final
evening together. We sat on the 2nd level with the surf lapping at the first
floor stilts and a coolish breeze kept us very comfortable. Passion fruit rum
drinks were ordered and a final toast on a safe journey was made. It was a nice
treat.
Greg and I set sail the next afternoon for St Lucia. We left at 3 PM (or 1500 as
they say in sailor language) and sailed through the night and arrived at
daybreak this morning. It is easier to approach an anchorage in daylight hours.
Since St Lucia has lots of coral reefs we timed our leaving Barbados
accordingly. Our repaired bowsprit worked great and we had an easy evening sail.
We alternated 3-4 hour watches so we both could get some sleep. It wasn't as easy
as when we had five of us sharing the watch but this was the longest sail leg of
those left. From here we are going to island hop up to the BVI. We plan to sail
4-8 hours a day and anchor at night. The Windward and Leeward islands are close
together making this possible. We hope to get in some snorkeling/diving along the
way and a few good beachside meals. Our adventure is becoming more of an island
vacation now. It is welcome change as we have worked hard. Time for Toucan Play
to start playing more!!!
This was our maiden sail as a couple. Something new to celebrate-so we did of
course!! We had a Malibu toast at sunset while sitting on the front trampoline
with the remote control autopilot in hand. Mother Nature cooperated with gentle
surf and a firery red sunset. Toucan Play makes a delightful swoosh cooing sound when coasting downwind  When the seas are smooth, like they were last twilight, it is fun to
watch the ocean race by through the weavings of the two front tramps. We layed
there for awhile enjoying our first private moments together on our new home, and our
first sunset alone on the Toucan Play together and found all kinds of "things
and
critters" made out of the white fluffy clouds on the horizon around us.
The trip was uneventful until we lost our GPS signal during the final hour.
Lucky we
had
two handhelds as backup. Oh I forgot! I could have pulled out the sextant at
daybreak. What was I thinking?
We have now arrived in St Lucia. WOW- what a contrast to Barbados and it was
only a quick 15 hour sail. In fact, with our big screacher sail repaired, we
made such
good time that we had to slow down a little so we could make a day light
approach. Majestic volcanic soaring mountain peaks drop
straight into the ocean and sand beaches are tucked in between. They are clad in
palm tree foliage dense as a forest. Looks like another paradise to explore. I
will write more later,  Kimberlee

From Greg:
The reason that she will write more later is that she has to take a nap for now.
We have had a long day and she has worked her little tail off. I'm very proud of
her for all of the studying and hard work that she has done to make her Ocean
certificate a real treasure for her and make this South Atlantic crossing
possible!!. Me- I just sail the boat and work on all the stuff on the boat while
she does all of the paperwork, manual reading, prep planning, navigation,
and all of the things that would
drive me crazy. Together we will make all of this type of stuff a real joy,
because she can do all of the things that I don't like to do, (paper work and
such) and I can do all of the things that she can'. (mechanical guy type of
stuff,    You know, it's what men do!!!) Well, since Kimmie is in the air
conditioned cabin now, taking a nap, I want to thank you all for joining us on
our voyage across the South Atlantic, and for the wonderful feedback that you
have all given us. We will have more to come, as more of our friends are going
to
help make our new life easier, by coming and joining us on the Toucan Play,  I
too am going to close for now and we will let you all know what St. Lucia is
like in our next e-mail. Till then, congrats to the CARDS  National league
champs and on the the WORLD SERIES!!!!!!   RAH!!!!    <"(((   ><    Greg

p.s.  come see us soon, we really do miss all of you!!!!!!

Update 10.18.04 Monday 1532hr.
Location:
8º 22.8 minutes north
56º 07.7 Minutes West

Hey Mates,
Big Water Sailor Boy here once again reporting from the Atlantic Ocean. Where
the skies and water are blue blue blue every where you look. The temperature is
86º with a few spotted clouds.

The following is a very nice letter from Nita M.:
How generous of you to take all of us with you on this great Adventure.  We love
Kim's  poetic and educational accounts, and Dave with the hard facts and
sometimes scary feelings.  Thanks to all of you for sharing.  We've been there
all the way, from the fart jokes and raw cookie dough to the daring exploits in
high seas; from the spinning dolphins to your land treks in places we would
never have ventured.  While we are so proud of your accomplishment, we are more
than a little sad that this adventure  will soon come to an end.
And now my question, what happens next?  What's in the future for Toucan Play?
Another trip?  A sale?
So enjoy these last few days together on her remembering that we are all still
with you (and still praying for your safety and joy each day).  We are looking forward to
hearing more stories in person.
God bless Toucan Plan and all her mateys.

Don and Nita (CSA Cabin Fleet)
(Dave's response: When we leave Toucan Play in just a couple of days Kim and
Greg will begin their lives as Yachters. They will be hanging out in the leeward
islands and the British Virgin Islands. We got on this boat on July 31 and Kim
and Greg still have not had a night alone on their boat. They will be chartering
a few groups a year. As far as more stories, you bet baby, I have some stories
to tell. In fact I could double the size of this web site with "The Untold
Story" ).

Speaking of wrapping things up. Please send all future correspondence to my AOL
e-mail address. EHDAVE @aol.com. I would very much like any continued questions
and comments. I will be responding from Orlando next week. Please NO MORE
e-mails to the GregKim address. Next week I will be composing my wrap up. So
tune in then for more exciting stuff, same bat time, same bat channel.

BWSB
Hey, am I still going to be able to use BWSB when I come back to the Midwest?
Dave

10.18.04

We are half way to Barbados. We are now in hurricane territory so we are keeping
a very close look at the weather. This area has a lot more squalls especially
ones with lightening. We spent last night playing tag-Mother Nature was "It" and
we were being chased. Sqaulls were everywhere on the radar screen and lightening
was on all horizons. Greg and I picked a course through the mess and didn't feel
a rain drop. As I have said before, electronics are great especially when you
get a little lucky and there is a safe path to find.

In the dark of night, the lightening often appeared as extremely bright white
lit canon balls exploding centrally within the storm cells. The explosion would
then light up the surrounding margins of the cloud masses making their towering
tops appear very ominous. We did not see the usual bolts and jagged streaks and
there also was no thunder. As dawn broke I could see the remnants of one the
storms we had been avoiding. What had been a little scary became awesomely
beautiful. The towering anvil cloud top curled and folded over to leave a small
circle of clear sky within. This open area was just where the orange sun decided
to peek up above the horizon. It was quite a spectacular sight: deep deep dark
blue gray squall line with fringing rain streaks and a fluorescent burning
orange ball contrasted in the middle. This took up about one half of the horizon
and then the menacing squall line slowly gave way to orange and pink sunrise
clouds. I took a video of this horizon as it spanned much too much of the horizon
to capture in a single picture frame. I hope it turns out!
The squalls disappeared by early morning and the wind became very light. We had
to turn our motor on. Everyone was saying "giddy-up" as the white horses
(remember our wind blown wave tops?) were very quiet, almost  non-existent. We
motored most of the day but around sunset the breeze picked up and we are now
comfortably sailing again. The direction of the wind has now changed from behind
us to across our beam (coming horizontally from our side). We now sail with our
mainsail (the big sail behind the mast) and our genoa (the smaller sail in front
of the mast), both up at the same time. These are the sails most people are used
to seeing on single masted sailboats.. Our colorful spinnaker is packed away as
it is for sailing downwind..

Our current latitude is 9 degrees 59 minutes North
    .              longitude is 56 degrees 42 minutes West

Tonight the sky is again star studded with a crescent moon. There are no squalls
trying to play tag. Thank goodness-I am ready for a quiet nights sleep. Nighty
night, Kimberlee and Greg

Update 10.17.04 Sunday 1316 hr.
Location:
7º 26.0 minutes north
54º 21.0 minutes west

We are heading for the island of Barbados. It is said that they have endless pink
and white beaches. This will be the last island for us to explore on this trip
as Bob, Ray, Linda and I will be spending a few days exploring and then
departing for the states. Linda and I will be in Orlando Florida for a week and
then end up in St. Louis, MO USA by Oct. 30th. We will have no postings next
week because Pat O. will be off on a vacation of her own. Pat O. is the web
mistress that has been making all of this happens. The only thing that will have
to wait for her return will be the final wrap up of the adventure which I will
be completing in Orlando. I will wrap up any other question and comments and
some final comments of my own I'm sure.
Meanwhile I am very happy to say that we have more questions from our third
grade class.

Hi Dave,
You won't believe this but your 85'  mast is = all of my 19  kids.
They spread out down  the hallway head to toe and then we measured.
They were quite impressed with how tall they would be if they stood on
each others heads.  : )
We went outside and measured the size of the boat.  Then we stood on it
and moved altogether up and down while we subtracted all we could see
and pretended it was ocean.
Also we now know....bow and stern

Here are some more questions.

Dear Dave and Linda,
It's Ashley again.  Does the boat seem small when you have been on it
for a long time?
(Linda and Dave's response: Yes and no, Compared to our boat in the Midwest
sailing in a 3 x 7 mile lake this one is very spacious. However, compared to the
ocean we are a tiny grain of sand. It also seams small in regards to the
inability to get up and go hiking for miles for exercise. We feel trapped in a
confined area).

Dear Dave,
What's it like on the boat?  What color is the water?
Karisa
(Dave's response: Besides being confined we have many of the luxuries that you
have at home. Hot water, to shower and do the dishes in. Gas to cook with
heating and air conditioning, refrigerators, oven and a stove. We have seen the
water color change from dark black to aqua to cobalt blue to green to muddy
muddy brown (Like thick chocolate milk) in Cayanne located in the Amazon Basin.
We witnessed the water changing form brown to aqua marine green as we left
Cayanne, we actually saw a line where the color changed. Right now we are
sailing in cobalt blue water).

Dear Linda and Dave,
We measured  your boat in the rain.  Do you need a hair cut?  Does it
ever rain there?
Shantelle
(Linda and Dave's response: Greg used to be a Hair Stylist many years ago.
Earlier in this trip he cut my hair right here on the boat. Ray had decided to
leave his hair go before he ever left St. Louis. His goal is to look like a Long
haired Sailor Boy to impress and shock his friends when he returns to St. Louis.
He is doing a great job as his hair is very full long and wild).

Dear Dave,
How many miles have you traveled from all the places you've gone?  Did
you see a waterfall?
Braydon
(Dave's Response: This question has prompted me to check our ships log. WOW, we
have traveled almost 5000 miles. You and your classmates could help me by
letting me know how far you would have to travel from Arcola to equal 5000
miles. Yes we saw a beautiful 300 foot waterfall on Ascension Island).

Dear Dave,
Is it hot down there?  Are the people nice?
Bobby
(Dave's Response: It is hot and we have been very happy to have the air
conditioners, especially for sleeping. The people have been very nice especially
the other Yachters. This community of transients are so very helpful that they
take in fellow sailors that are new to the port. One guy brought us fresh bread
from the bakery every day that we were in port, another gave us ride to the
airport so we could rent a car. When I asked one fellow why he felt everyone was
so nice he said: "We don't have anything else to do". What I think it is, is
that nice deeds breed nice deeds. Sailors that have traveled for years have had
to have help at times, so they are happy to return the favors to others. This is
also a wonderful practice to have in your everyday life. Help others and they
will help others, these favors will come back to you directly and in the great
feeling that you will have from helping someone).

Dear Dave,
Is it hot?  Do you miss McDonalds?
Connor
(Dave's Response: Yes, we get sweaty pretty quick here. I miss the salads at
McDonalds it is a great fast on the run type of meal, but nothing beats their
fries, Yumee).

Dear Dave and Linda,
Are you having a great day?  Is there one thing you wish you would have
brought with you?  I hope I can see you.
Brandon M.
(Linda and Dave's response: We are both having a great day responding to our
friends questions, thank you for taking the time to send them to us. The one
thing that we wish we would brought with us? All of our friends and especially
Goldie).

Dear Dave,
Do you know what the people say?  How much gas does it take in a day.
We found out you have 275 gallons of fuel on your boat.
Alex and Zach
(Dave's response: While we were in South Africa they spoke eleven different
languages, since then we have had to communicate in French and Portuguese. That
makes 13 languages plus English. It was very difficult to understand them. In
Cuyanne I was looking for a bathroom and had to act like I was going number one
before the guys eyes lit up and he then pointed to the hallway that led me to
the bathroom. WEW that was close, I was glad that it didn't take any longer. If
we run one engine around the clock we would use 132 gallons of gas. Can you two
tell me how many hours we can run from a full tank to empty?)

Dear Dave and Linda,
Have you seen any more whales?  What is the thing you hate about the
trip?  What is the thing you like about the trip?
Your friend,
Evan
Linda and Dave's response: We are pretty much out of whale country for this time
of year. They migrate south of year and come back later. Linda hates being
seasick, I hate seeing Linda seasick. We both love meeting new people, learning
new cultures, sighting dolphins and seeing new places. We both love being back
together after being apart for sooooo long).
That's all folks.  Go Cardinals!!
Love,
Barb
Thank You Barb, I love doing this.
Dave

Hello Toucan Play & Cousin Dave:
???
* What is everyone's professions back on land?
*Did everyone know each other before the trip?
*I thought you mentioned Skipper Bob's family lived in Florida, were they in the
areas hit by the hurricanes?
* How often does Skipper Bob sail across the Atlantic a year?
*Is Kim and Greg planning on living on the boat full time or only for
recreational use?
*Please share with us your dive trips?  Any coral reefs?
Sports Update Cardinal Fans;  Up 1 Game   over Houston Astros   Cardinals Won
10-7
Kim- So glad Linda is on board.  I  am sure it is nice having a female on board.
Enjoy the remainder of the trip. The dolphin sittings sound wonderful.
Yall take care.
Dave's KY Cousin Patti

(Dave's response: Kim is a Vet. and recently sold three practices, Greg was a
Car Salesman, Ray rehabs houses for resale, Linda is an Engineer and sells
automation equipment (hardware and Software), Bob teaches sailing classes and I
am a Real-estate Developer.
Kim, Greg and Ray have known each other for years, I have known Kim for 12
years, Greg for five and I met Ray once for a planning dinner before I got on
the plane for 30 hours in the seat next to him. After that we knew each other
pretty well. Linda met Ray, Kim and Greg at the planning dinner once before this
trip. Kim had met Bob in a class in Florida and none of the rest of us new him
before.
Bob and his family live in a sailboat in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. His wife and
daughter had to evacuate inland recently, leaving the boat secured in the middle
of the harbor. Their boat/home are now safely back in it's slip and the wife and
daughter are at home. It was nerve racking for Bob during that time watching the
hurricane bare down on his boat and not be able to be there.
Skipper Bob has crossed the Atlantic 26 times, so it is not necessarily
something that he does every year.
Kim and Greg are planning on living on the boat full time.
We are planning on doing a dive trip on Thursday and I am sure that I will be
giving you the run down after that.
Thank You for the sports update).
Once again I have enjoyed doing this but now I must go prepare for my turn at
the helm.
Go Cards

BWSB
Dave
(Whose birthday happens to be July 29th.)

Update 10.15.04 Friday 1835

Well, on10.12.04 I asked:
Why is there current in the Big Water? This is just one really big pool of
water, why doesn't the water get to where it wants to be and stop? Like in the
sink. Why does it always move, always has and always will?
The reason this question came to mind for me is that we rode a current and
prevailing winds from Cape Town, South Africa all the way across the Atlantic to
where we are today. What is wild is that it is the same current that the sailors
used in the 1400s. It is called the trade winds because the early sailors could
bring products across the Atlantic using the route we took, now remember they
had no motors to get them back and they could not sail against the wind. HEY,
you might ask how did they get back home. Well you see they would sail across
the equator north (Who remembers the name of the King at the equator?) into the
northern hemisphere where they would sail across the North Atlantic east and
then South to get back to the original location. This would take many months and
sometimes years. Now how did all that wind and current get started and what
keeps it going is the question that I asked. What I have learned is that there
are several reasons. The most prominent being gravitational pull. That's right,
but not the pull of the earth, it is the pull of the moon as it orbits the earth
it is trying to pull the water "to the moon Alice" (sorry I couldn't resist).
So, imagine a rubber ball when you throw it against the wall, the ball
elongates, bingo, exactly what happens to the earth when the moons gravitational
pull drags water with it as it orbits the earth. The earth elongates causing
tides. This is when the waters depth changes on the ocean. When the tide comes
in the water gets deeper at that location and shallower somewhere else on the
planet where the tide is going out. So this movement is what is causing the
current that we spoke of earlier. In some places people have to deal with as
much as 30' tide difference in other places just a few feet. Why the difference?
Why not the same everywhere? Well now we get to talk about Mr. Sun. You see the
sun also has gravitational pull and in some parts of the world it works with the
moon and in others it works against it. The Sun is a big and powerful body. How
powerful? I'm glad that you asked that question. (I hope that you did. I am
going to answer it even if you didn't). Imagine all of the energy consumed on
the planet Earth in an entire year, that's all of the gas and electric used for
everything we do. You got that huge picture in your mind, now hang on to it
because this thing gets wildly unbelievable. Take that amount of energy and
times it by three hundred and eighty million, that's 380,000,000. Now that's
what I call a big picture. Now take that huge picture and that is how much
energy the sun puts out, GET READY FOR THIS, every second.
Please excuse my diversion for current and wind, but this statistic has always
just blown me away.
Now back to business. The other effect that the sun has on the wind is that as
we rotate and orbit the sun the part of the earth that the sun is closest to
gets the most heat. That is very close to the equator. Now as that part of the
earth is being heated with such intensity it causes the heat to rise sucking the
wind up. This creates an area called the doldrums where there is NO wind. We
expect to sail through the doldrums in the next couple of days. This area can be
as much as a two hundred mile band. Lucky Carlyle Sailing Assoc. is not in that
part of the world, Hey? This motion of wind being pulled up creates a domino
effect of wind currents that goes back to the Trade Winds that we spoke about
earlier. This complicated explanation is my attempt to simplify a very
complicated and miraculous force of Mother Nature that has been going on without
fail since on the eighth day God said "Let there be good current and wind so
that BWSB can have some fun". "Oh yea, and his sailor buddies to". If you are
not a sailor and you have managed to get all the way through this, then I
commend you and I realize that you must not have much else to do right now.
Thanks for hanging in there with me.

BWSB
EHDAVE
(Whose birthday happens to be July 29th.)

10.15.04

We are now sitting anchored in the middle of an Amazonian type river in
Cayenne, French Guyana. We sailed past the entrance of the Amazon which now lies
250 miles to our Southwest only to enter Fleuve Mabury, an estuary near River de
Cayenne. We are picking up another friend at the Cayenne airport tonight to join
us. We are surrounded by thick jungle and thick milk chocolate opaque colored
water that makes the Mississippi water look clear. We estimate the visibility to
be 1/2 inch at most as your finger disappears when you touch the water. Our
fish finder shows some really weird echoes under the boat. Sometimes it looks
like a Python snake swimming below. Whatever it is, it is huge and I am not going
swimming or retrieving any hats that blow into the water!

We took our dinghy and explored deep into the thick of the jungle today. We
motored up a winding tributary of the main river. The creek was about 4 dinghys
wide (similiar to the narrowest part of the Courtiouis canoeing river back home)
and was over hung by hanging vines and rain forest foliage. The air was ladened
with humidity. So much so that your skin felt coated with a lotion of moisture
and your hands felt like they could grab a wad of moist air and roll it around
in your palms. When we would turn off the motor and sit still to listen to the
jungle sounds (mostly high pitched cawing birds and buzzing flies), the air felt
heavy in your lungs with no breeze from the moving dinghy to disturb it. Luckily
the sky was overcast, so as long as we were moving we were not overly warm. The
murky water had an S turn snaking path of debris which was being carried in by
the rising tide. We watched for alligators but saw none, just wiggly lotus
leaves and mangrove stems which made us wonder what crawled below ( probably
just the tidal current). Back on the main river, when the 11 foot tide goes out,
it leaves a messy mud bank that looks like it would swallow your foot if you
stepped in it. Salamanders flop in the mud puddles left behind.

Tonight we are going to a restaurant on the riverfront which from a distance
looks like a Robinson Corouso (spelling?) type tree house with hanging hammocks
over the water. We are the only boat anchored in front and we are surrounded by
lush green hills. Pretty neat!! I never thought my sailing adventure was going
to include an Amazon type exploration. We never know what the next day or port
will hold. Time for happy hour in a swinging hammock, Kimberlee and Greg

Update 10.14.04 Thursday 1131
Location:
4º 53.3 minutes north
52º 12.8 minutes west

We are currently anchored in the middle of the only channel that feeds in and
out of Cayanne, French Guyana waiting for the tide to come in. French Guyana
is a French Department. They call it a department as opposed to a state like we
do. The water here is even muddier than that of the Mississippi on a rainy day.
This town is at the mouth of the Fleuve Mahury River.  We noticed 30 miles out
that the water was getting muddy. It is similar to the mouth of the Mississippi
where the water has a huge mud flow spilling into the ocean. Surrounded by
several islands we can clearly see that the shoreline is spotted with
dilapidated shacks and a few nicer homes, certainly not what you would expect
for the tropics. We have been used to clear water and no bugs this whole trip.
3pm tide is up, we are in.
E-mail responses from my friends and family:
Greetings to All onboard Toucan:
Do you mean to tell me that Neptune did not pay a visit when you crossed the
Equator?  HHmmmm!  I've enjoyed the updates and look forward to them to the
point that the first thing I do when signing on to the net is to check for the
latest stuff from you guys.  Dave, I've especially enjoyed the questions and
your answers to the kids.  Tooth Pick!!  Olive!!! And just who is making up the
rest of the Martini?  Y'all be safe and above all enjoy.
Joe K

(Dave's response: WOW comments like this from Joe K. the "Master of
Communication" this means a lot to me coming from you. Thanks. No Neptune did
not visit. For those of who do not know the myth is that Neptune, his wife
Aphrodite the judge and a pair of bears will board your boat just before the
equator to see that you have paid your taxes to King Neptune and orders all
those that have never crossed into his realm before brought before him and all
charges are written out against them and punishment bestowed. That being,
complete shaving and dunked into galley slop and generally humiliated before
being allowed to cross.
I also really enjoy the third graders input. I hope that they don't look at it
as just a required assignment, but actually something that they want to do. It's
just the Toothpick and Olive for this party).

Dave,
Hope it is countdown time until your journey is complete. Talked to your Mom
the other night.  She is doing fine.  I was trying to figure out what BWSB stood
for.   With your wit anything is possible EHDAVE.  Good laugh on my part.
Thought about looking at personal ads and seeing what letters would apply.  Had
a close guess though.  I thought Big White Sailor Boy.  Your mom set me
straight.
9420 ?
Is the ocean like sleeping on a large waterbed?  Not sure if you still sleep on
one.
How many more days till your home?  I know your Mom and Aunt Patsy are counting
the days.
What is the first thing you want to do upon your return?  (Remember to keep it
clean for all of your viewers)
Sure have enjoyed your gift of words.  You definitely have acquired your
Mother's gift of grammar.  You have a hidden talent there Mr. L.
I know you want to wish me a Happy 46th Birthday October 14th ( my important
date of the year.)  Can you believe how quickly the years have gone by?
Cathy and I have enjoyed your journey.  Thank you to all for sharing your
adventure of a lifetime.  Keep in touch when you get home. Expecting a
spectacular XMAS card this year.
Love
Patti

(Dave's response: Linda and I both expect to be home by Oct. 30 so that we can
go to Carlyle Sailing Assoc. and pull our cabin Boat out for storage. I am not
sure what you mean by 9420? I recognize it as our old address but I don't
understand how that fits. You are a bad girl and fail the quiz, as in an earlier
update it does explain that BWSB stands for "Big Water Sailor Boy". Tom, punish
her please. No, the ocean is not like sleeping on a waterbed and Yes, I do still
sleep on one when I am at home. I am looking forward to catching up with
friends, family and playing ball with Linda's dog Goldie. Then I am going to
Quick Trip (convenience store) for a Big Gulp. These foreign countries don't
know how to provide ice in your drink. You have to ask and beg to get any and
then it is just a few cubes. I will go to Q.T. fill the cup with ice and fill
Caffeine Free Diet Coke in around the ice. Then when no one is looking I will
slam back a few big slugs of the stuff while still standing at the fountain so
that I can refill to the brim before I pay. I always feel like I am getting a
bonus when I do that. 46? No way my little cousin can be that old. Oh wait it
must be true, it is on the web site). Happy B.D.

1926hr
Well we are now ready to go to shore to explore the area and find dinner.
BWSB (Big Water Sailor Boy)
EHDave (Extremely Handsome, Extremely Humble or Extremely Humorous Dave)
(Whose birthday happens to be July 29th.) Just in case you want to send valuable
gifts and cards).

10.13.04

I just finished my 9PM to midnight watch. Everyone went to sleep and I put on
one of my favorite CDs. David Lanz playing Cristofori's Dream. It is a tribute
to the little known inventor of the piano-Cristofori (as opposed to Beethoven
who made the piano famous.) The music is a floating melodic piece and very
tranquil-just like my evening. My son Wes can beautifully play the piece-I miss
him and look forward to sharing some of these times with him .I sat( or at times
laid on my back) on top of our bimini (the hard top roof over our cockpit) and
let the warm breeze blow through my hair and over my skin.. From this vantage
point I could cast an occasional glance at the radar at the helm below and I
could also scan the 360 degree horizon. And of course the stars were everywhere
above!! We have an egg timer that we set to ring every 10 minutes to remind us to
look around. The twinkling stars above and the gentle rocking of the swells can
mesmorize the time away quickly The egg timer is a safety precaution. At night
we take the additional precaution of wearing a life jacket with an attached
personal GEPIRB. This is a device which when activated will transmit a persons
position to satellites above  The satellites then alert a worldwide search and
rescue type organization. This greatly increases your chances of being found if
you should fall overboard while everyone else is sleeping.

Well I am going to go to sleep now as the gentle night watch has me totally
relaxed. Night all, Kimberlee and Greg

10.13.04

Today I was awaken for my watch at 6 AM by Greg saying, "We have dolphins
swimming on the bow . Come see "  Coming onto the deck I saw the sun was orange
on the horizon behind us and  6 dolphins were darting about the bow. For the
next 45 minutes they delighted us with jumps and zig-zags between and around our
hulls. They love to play with Toucan Play-the name of our boat seems more
appropriate all the time.
Dave is communicating with a 3rd grade school teacher who is using our adventure
and e-mails to teach latitude, longitude and basic geography among other things.
They wanted to know why we named our boat Toucan Play. The answer is that
because our boat, being a catamaran, has two hulls and because Greg and I are
two people,  we started with lots of names with two or to or too, II or 2.( I
said tu tu but that was quickly vetoed by Greg who didn't like Toucan Tu Tu for
some reason) Anyway, we wanted a play on words and because our sails remind us
of a bird soaring, we came up with Toucan. Also the bright tropical colors of
toucans seemed like a good decorating theme in the Caribbean-our new home. And
since we love to play- TOUCAN PLAY seemed right. After our journey, it seems
perfect! .We also know there is a lot more playing to come once we don't have to
abide by a watch system that kind of dictates the number of play hours available
in a day or night. We have to schedule time to sleep at all different hours
right now. (Our website: www.2canplay.com  took the play on words a step
further.)

Our celestial navigation course continues. At sunset tonight we are going to
check our ship's compass error by taking a bearing on the sun and comparing that
to the nautical tables we have on board. (This is probably something we should
have done on day one if we had known how to do it then.) We have also prepared
an evening star plan and we are going to take sextant angles on the stars Deneb,
Alpheratz, Fololhout, Peacock Antares, Rasahague and Vega. Instructor Bob
assures us that our calculations will enable us to identify these stars from the
other jillions we see every night. WAY COOL if we succeed. It is all starting to
come together now.
Well I just came back from the bow-we had more dolphins this afternoon. This
group of dolphins were about 8-9 feet long, much bigger than the previous
dolphins we have seen but just as playful. They looked like "Flipper".. (Now
that song is in my head!) The BVI has a marine biology university. I might try
to enroll in some classes. I would love to know more about these animals.
Perhaps with my veterinary degree and scuba diving ability I could help with
some research. I think that would be great FUN! I do know that dolphins and
whales, being animals, have lungs, not gills. They have to surface to breathe.
Their tails are horizontal as opposed to vertical like fish. It is amazing how
fast dolphins swim with only the slightest movement of their tails. Toucan Play
is moving along at about 8-9 knots and they effortlessly keep up. When they
finally decide to leave, ZOOOOM-they are gone. This past group darted ahead about
200 yards in just a blink of an eye and then all jumped in unison. It was like
their grand finale good-bye. We all clapped for more but they did not give us an
encore. Hopefully they are saving that for sunset. These happy animals always
make us smile. We never get enough.
We should be arriving in French Guyana tomorrow afternoon. Good-bye for now,
Kimberlee and Greg

Our latitude is 4 degrees 24 minutes North
       longitude is 50 degrees 20 minutes West

Update 10.13.04 Wednesday 0639

Location:
4º 06.9 minutes north
49º 16.4 minutes west

Well, I am happy to say that the third graders from Arcola, Indiana have e-mailed
the following questions.

Hi Dave,
I made a little power point of pictures for the kids - pictures of
Toucan Play, a picture of you, and pictures of animals you sent from
Africa. I told them of some of your adventures...Here are some questions for you.

Dear Dave and Linda,
Hi, my name is Ashley F.  Is it scary on the boat?  Did you see
any dolphins?  I love dolphins!  Was it fun seeing all the animals in
Africa?
From,
Ashley

(Dave's response: When we first left South Africa it was scary to be heading
into the unknown and to have had so many conversations with other sailors who
have had trouble on the open sea. Being out here so far away from help is very
concerning. In South Africa we went to Cape Point, a huge national park and saw
Ostrich, Mother of Carry, Kudu, Dassie (Rabbits), springbok and in Cape Town,
seals, whales, jelly fish, blue bottle manawar, sharks, albatross, stingray and
dolphin. The most exciting thing about the animals is spotting them in the wild.
(Linda's response: Dolphins, yes, in fact just this morning Kim was on duty and
woke us because about 10 of them were swimming at the bow (Front) of the boat.
They like to dart in and out from in between the hulls and jump in front of us.
They would race us by staying right in front of us and then suddenly darting out
ahead of us. We stood at the bow and looked right down on them. Way Cool. It was
a spectacular and exciting way to be wakened. They came just as the sun was
rising over the ocean, so we had dolphins at the bow and a beautiful sun rise at
the stern).

Dear Dave,
Did you see any sharks?  Did the camel attack you?  I want to meet you.
Brandy
(Dave's response: We have seen several sharks both in Cape Town and out here.
The camel did not attack us, but you should notice in the pictures that one of
the camels had a mussel on. I think that he would have liked to take a bite out
of us. The camels are known to spit real nasty stuff at you. We lucked out and
stayed dry. The camel's teeth are a good example of why you should brush your
teeth every night before you go to bed).

Dear Dave,
How do you sleep in a boat going back and forth?  Why do you have to
stay up at night to look out?
from,
Evan
(Dave's response: When the seas are calm (4 to 10' swells) the motion is like
being rocked to sleep in a cradle. However when the seas are bigger it is very
difficult to sleep as the boat is being beaten by big waves, banging slamming
and being tossed around. I am a pretty big fellow and still I have been lifted
completely of off my mattress several times by a wave slamming into our bridge
(the area between the hulls that is closest to the water. Our boat is constantly
moving , so we stay up at night to watch for other boats in an effort to avoid a
collision).

Dear Dave,
Are you looking forward to Halloween?  How much gas do you have?  Have
you caught any fish?
Your friend,
Alex
(Dave's response: You bet I'm looking forward to Halloween, candy, cookies and
other yumee treats YAHOO. In our part of the world we have to tell a joke to
earn a treat. I already have my joke ready to earn my treats. We have two 100
gallon tanks and 15 jugs that hold 5 gallons each. So you can do the math and
let me know what you come up with. Total gallons of fuel on the boat? Yes we
have fresh fish on a regular basses. Yumee.

Dear Dave and Linda,
Why did you name the boat Toucan Play?  How do you get to sleep?  How
long does it usually take to go across the ocean?  Are you looking
forward to Halloween?  will you be back for Halloween?  Have you gotten
seasick?  Did you build or buy the boat?  How much was the boat?  Do you
have to buy food at every stop?  Did you choose to go on the boat or did
someone talk you in to it?
Alison
(Dave's response: Kim and Greg actually own the boat. Some of your questions will
be answered by them shortly. As far as sleeping we don't sleep very much, maybe
a few hours at a time, so that when it is time to sleep we are pretty tired and
that makes it easier to fall asleep. Crossing the Atlantic ocean takes about a
month from South Africa to South America. Yes I am looking forward to and will
both be back for Halloween. Linda is going to be a toothpick and I will be an
Olive. Seasick: I have been very lucky not to have suffered any seasickness,
Linda felt very uneasy for the first few days, but is doing fine now. We bought
a lot of food in Cape Town before we left and we buy some perishable items when
we stop. The difficulty is that the islands have most of their food imported for
the locals, so there is very little available for the visitors. I jumped at the
chance to get on this boat. I consider it a once in a lifetime opportunity, I
had to live the adventure.
(Kim's response: The boat is a catamaran which means it has two hulls, so the
name Toucan is a play on words, Toucan is a bird and the sails remind us of the
wing of a bird and we like to play. It is also the only name that my husband and
I both agree on. The boat was custom built by a builder in South Africa for just
over one million dollars).

Dear Dave,
Have you ever been seasick?  How many animals did you see?  What is
your favorite food on the boat?  Do you ever get homesick on the boat?
I hope I get a chance to see you.
Kyle
(Dave's response: I have never been seasick. Seasickness is caused by your eyes
seeing one thing and your inner ear sensing something different. These messages
are then sent to the brain and since they are different messages the brain gets
mixed up. My brain is used to being mixed up, so I don't get seasick. We have
seen 13 different types of fish and animals. Favorite food: Kim makes some very
creative salads that I enjoy. I have done much traveling and this is the first
time that I have been homesick. I hope to get a chance to see you too, maybe
sometime in the future we will meet while exploring the world.

Dear Dave,
Do you cook stuff on the boat?
from,
Katelyn
(Dave's response: Yes we have a galley (kitchen) on the boat with a stove and
oven. Kim and Ray are great cooks and make some gourmet meals. I, on the other
hand, am not as creative in that department).

Dear Dave,
Why do you guard the boat when people are sleeping?
bye,
Brandon Schneider
(Dave's response: We guard the boat so that other boats won't run into us or us
into them.

OK Dave.  These are just the beginning of many questions.  Let me know
when you are ready for more.        Hi Linda.  Hope you are having a
great adventure!!
Love,
Barb  a.k.a.  Mrs. B.

(Dave's response: I love this, these kids are really thinking about the
important things, (Halloween). I hope other people who are reading this are
enjoying it as well. Please bring on the questions).

Dave, Glad to hear you crossed the Atlantic!  Mom is so proud of you catching the biggest fish!  Of course, she claims all your fishing skills came from your Kentucky fishing lessons! Still loving your writing!  You have a wonderful flair for writing and I love reading your postings.  Mom wonders if you have journaled your writings from all your adventures through the years.  Take care, have fun, and enjoy those sights! 

Love, Cathy
(Dave's response: Thank you. Yes I am sure that those fishing lessons have
helped to make me the handsome fisherman that I am today. This is the first
adventure that I have documented and that is only because of the hard work of
those in St. Louis who are willing to do the work to post these writings and the
encouragement from you all).

Earlier today we were hailed on the VHF radio by a large vessel who identified
themselves as a oil research vessel. They asked us to alter our course 10
degrees to our starboard as they were dragging a cable behind them and did not
want us to hit it. He later called us back to let us know when we were clear.

BWSB,
EHDave
(Whose birthday happens to be July 29th.)
That's right I have been forgetting to add this, I told you that I was losing my
mind.

10.12.04

Hi again, Last night was our official crossing  of the equator. What was planned
as a big event fizzled out because it occurred at around 2 AM. The guys had
wanted to stop the boat (by heading up into the wind) and then swim naked over
it. We had 20 knots of wind and 4-5 feet seas and no moonlight. I quickly vetoed
that idea as I had visions of the nightness swallowing my crew. I didn't need 4
"Man Overboard" in pitch darkness. I think they knew I would error on the side
of caution and they all just wanted to sound macho as they called me a wuss..
Our other option was to drop our sails and drift until dawn under "bare
poles'". Even  with no sails up but with the current behind us, Toucan Play will
still move along at around 4 knots...Our wind(20 knots) and current(2-3 knots)
were too perfect so the consensus was to sail on to our next landfall in Cayenne
French Guyana. There is a small island nearby where we hope to do some scuba
diving instead .

I am on the midnight to 3AM watch. With 5 people now each doing our own watch,
we are on 3 hours and then off 12 hours. It is a very easy watch system. The
night breeze is warm but comfortably cool against your skin. Delightful!!

The barometer has dropped 2 millibars in the last hour and the beautiful night
stars are disappearing behind clouds to the north and east. Looks like we might
have a rain shower shortly (although I don't see any on radar) or maybe we will
just skirt the edge and get some higher wind to speed us even faster. We are
currently clipping along at 10-11 knots SOG (speed over ground). Weeeee!!!!
Kimberlee and Greg

PS Our latitude is 2 degrees 10 minutes North
            longitude is 46 degrees 16 minutes West
FYI  There is no red line on the equator like all the maps and globes show. You
learn something everyday out here in the big blue sea!

Update 10.12.04 Tuesday 0948

Location:
2º 45. 6 minutes North (that's right mateys we are now in the northern
hemisphere).
47º 06.6 west

Before Linda left St. Louis she met with Volaria and Scott (Friends, she is from
Brazil, now living in St. Louis). They were very helpful with many travel tips
such as be prepared for customs and even provided her with Reals (Brazilian
money) that way she did not have to land and try to find someone to convert US
currency.
When we went into Fortaleza to pick up Linda we had to go through Customs,
immigrations, Federal Police and the health department. First it was customs
which was not too bad and then the official said "If you were not Americans we
would be done". You see, Brazil makes no qualms about it, America is
scrutinizing all citizens entering America since 911. Brazil is taking this
personally and is treating only Americans with as much inconvenience as
possible. They even post on their web site the explanation as to why this is
happening. So at that point he called Federal Police (like our FBI), they sent
two people to meet us, one female and one male. She was a very conservative
buttoned up older woman who wouldn't crack a smile. Reminded me of a female
version of Hitler. She very meticulously inked all 10 fingers and transferred
the prints onto cards. Then they took mug shots complete with the file number
taped to our chests. Bob being from South Africa did not have to go through
this. Linda, having already come into the country through the airport had
already been checked in. We went through all of this to be sure that since we
were picking up Linda that she was properly checked out of the country. If she
is not checked out properly then when we go to the next country they can refuse
entry and turn us away. We have to check in in order to check out.
We crossed the equator about two in the morning A couple of days ago. We had
planned to swim across the equator NAKED ( I am too conservative for this so I
was going to wear my dive mask and fins) but decided that the dark skies and
dark black water was a little unnerving, so we marked the moment and sailed on.
Linda's joining our group has been a delightful change for everyone, especially
me, she adds a whole new dimension to the group.

New input, and keep those cards and letters coming boys and girls.
Ahoy!  Dave, Kim and Greg!
I am loving reading all your postings!!! Thank you so much for writing and
sharing so much with us.  Kim, I feel like I know you so much better through
your writing.
Dave, it's so enjoyable hearing you express feelings...FEELINGS!!!!
It's amazingly wonderful to know that part of you!!!out loud!!!
I always knew you had a heartful of emotions...I bet you even initiate hugs by
the time you come home!!!  (I won't be able to torture you anymore with hugs!)
Anyway, Dave, I feel like cashing in my paper money for all coins so I can make
my dream trip come true sooner!!! (remember, I've been saving my coins for
years, in my BVI Fund...just a concrete symbol of a commitment to my dream.)
Anyway, I'm thankful for your safe passage and I celebrate with you up here,
under the same skies...Kim you're so poetic in explaining what you're
experiencing..."Toucan Play flying wing on wing under a blanket of stars....what
poetry!!! Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
Red skies at night,
Linda  ~~~_/)~~~*~~

(Kim's response: Thank You for the kind words. I will be forwarding this to my
seventh grade poetry teacher. I didn't fare so well in that class, maybe because
I thought everything had to rhyme with Nantucket).

(Dave's response: Yea Yea Yea, the whole feeling thing IS very different for me.
I have never felt home sick in all of my previous travels. I am a different
person from when I left in many ways. What is your BVI dream?)

It has been great to get all of the updates on the activities of my friends back
home. Sound like Joe L. is making a big move, Good Luck to you Joe.

Thought for the day:
Why is there current in the Big Water? This is just one really big pool of
water, why doesn't the water get to where it wants to be and stop? Like in the
sink. Why does it always move, always has and always will?
Tune into BWSB next time for the answer.

BWSB
EHDave

10.10.04

We are back under sail and on our way to Cayenne, French Guyana. We have a new
crew member-Linda, David's girlfriend. She joined us when we arrived in
Forteleza, Brazil. David is VERY happy! Clearing into Brazil was a little bit of
a hassle. Seems the Brazilian government does not like the new US home security
policies put into place since 911. Apparently it is a hassle for all foreigners
who come to the US too. Brazil started a "tit for tat" policy. We had to go to 4
different government buildings by taxi. These were Policia Federal where we were
finger printed and had mug shot pictures taken of us (the US does the same to
all foreigners we are told). From there we went to Health where they verified our yellow fever vaccinations. Then it was on to Customs and Immigration and finally Capitan of the Port. Everyone was very nice and apologetic (even if the apology was in Portuguese we could still understand the body language and hand signals.). Brazil only finger prints and takes mug
shots of American citizens and the locals feel bad about the delays. As captain I was given an official Policia Federal pin for my hat-it was a very nice gesture.

Four hours later we were ready to sight see, shop, and party. Forteleza is an old
and somewhat dirty city that has a skyline much like Chicago. The city is built
and sprawls along a very wide and deep light tan sand beach. The beach was palm
tree lined and filled with beautiful Brazilian girls in scant thongs. One girl
was prettier than the next. Now I understand why swimsuits have the name Brazil
cut-all the women here can wear those skimpy styles. The guys said they hadn't
noticed (yea, I believe that?!).

The night scene was bizarre, a mix of San Francisco style street performers, Cabo
street vendors selling their wares as you eat at sidewalk cafes, New Orleans
style men in drag and other very flamboyant weirdoes everywhere. Like in
Capetown, there are a lot of beggars, especially children with sad eyes.
A few blocks from the beach is the cultural center. This is a big open square
like in Italy but lined with French/New  Orleans style 3 story buildings with balconies overlooking it.
Several latino type bands were playing and there was a pleasant warm breeze as
we sipped our new favorite drink-Caipirinhav(a whole sliced lime in a glass full
of ice with fresh lime juice, sugar, and 40 proof Cachasa-local cane
"firewater".) Tastes kind of like a Margarita-very refreshing. Ray had way too many and suffered a miserable hang-over our first day back at sea. He spent it in the head throwing up or crashed on his bed. He tried to tell us he was sea sick (yea, I believe that too?!)

We moored Mediterranean style (we dropped our anchor and backed on to the dock at
the marina with boats on either side of us doing the same. We made several new
friends at the marina and have exchanged e-mails. Our new home in the BVI is a
place where a lot of cruisers we meet may someday look us up and we will be able
to go out and party together again. My address book is already a lot bigger.
Making friends from around the world is really neat and gives us a new
prospective on how small the world is. Sailing it makes us realize how big it is!
David just caught a 4 ft wahoo. Dinner should be yummy again, Kimberlee and Greg

Our latitude is 1 degree 16 minutes South
       longitude is 40 degrees 57 minutes West

We should cross the equator tomorrow-Oh Boy!!! We are going to have a hot time
tonight!

Update 10.9.04 15:00
Location:
3º 8.4 minutes south
38º 59.9 minutes west

Yipeee, we are back at sea after two days in Forteleza, Brazil. I had no idea
just how huge this city is. From the sea we noticed that it certainly looks
larger than St. Louis maybe as big as Chicago. Then as we got closer we all said
this place is bigger than NY NY, that's right Linda C. Actually Forteleza is the
fifth largest city in Brazil. When we came to the dock we had to back the boat
to the dock like Joe L. does at West Access. This was an interesting maneuver
because we had a brisk cross wind and no slips. This is just one large dock and
everyone backs up to it. As soon as we got the boat secured I hotfooted it to
the airport to meet the Lovely and talented Linda M. Three planes all landed at
the same time and were unloading through the same gate. Somehow I missed her and
she did not know to look for me as I had expected to be getting in after her
flight arrived, which was the last e-mail that I sent her. Our wind picked up
and we made it on time. So I missed her in the crowd and she went on to the
hotel (Rendezvous point). So this started my quest to find someone that could
and would verify that she indeed was on the plane. What a fiasco.  First we had
this language barrier, then the airline official wouldn't give up the info
without getting a release form the Federal Police.  The federal police said that
they did not have a clue what the guy was talking about then it was back to the
airline official who said go to the information people in the airport and get
one of them to go to the police and explain the situation. They wouldn't do it.
Back and forth a few more times a little screaming. I finally told a guy at the
airline desk that I didn't want him to break the rules by telling me any of his
big secrets and so if he would please look at the flight roster and then lay his
pencil on the des, point away from him that would mean that she was on the
plane.  If he laid the pencil cross ways from him it would mean that she was not
on the plane. With the language barrier this all took 2 ½ frustrating hours to
get to the point where he finally laid the pencil pointing away from him. "Yahoo
she is here".  I could be heard yelling as I ran from the counter to grab a cab
to the hotel. Meanwhile Linda was able to see ToucanPlay parked at the
Hotel/Marina as she flew in. So she knew that I was at the marina. She grabbed a
cab and made lighting tracks to the boat only to find out from the rest of the
crew that I was at the airport. We finally caught up with each other and spent
two glorious days catching up on all of my friends back home and wondering
around Fortaleza. The population of Forteleza is very much the same as the other
islands and S. Africa in that they have some very rich, a lot of very poor and
very few middle class people. This is what some of the economists are saying is
happening in America. I hope they are wrong because it is a very sad way of
life. Maybe our politicians will wake up before it is to late. I think the
problem is that those same politicians are in that very wealthy category, making
it less important to them.

So, we have now been at sea for about nine hours, Linda has a seasickness patch
on and has taken some ginger pills to fight off the effects of sea sickness. She
is doing OK so far except that she is sleeping an awful lot. This is fine, many
people adjust to the sea like this, in a few days she will be fine. We have
about five or six days to our next destination of Cayenne, French Guyana. After
that we will be doing some stops at the Windward islands as we head north. I
would like to hear from my Hammerhead (Dive Club in St. Louis) buddies or anyone
for that matter as to the absolute best places to dive in this area. Now
remember I am pretty much a beginner diver, but we do have Ray, Kim, Greg and
Linda who are all advanced divers so if you make a recommendation please forewarn me if it is a difficult dive, and I will proceed with caution. You can
e-mail to this address posted earlier in this web site somewhere, please NO
attachments.

HEY GUESS WHAT AUNT PAT, I not only caught a fish today, but I caught the
BIGGEST FISH of the whole trip. YAHOO What's for dinner? How about WAAHOO.

That is the type of fish that I caught. Very appropriate since I was yelling Yahoo
the whole time I was fighting that thing. Pictures to come.
I am sure that the flavor of this trip will change now that Linda is on board
and we find more time to explore islands countries and do some diving.
BWSB,
Dave

10.8.04

We are in Forteleza, Brazil. No time to write at the moment. We leave tomorrow
at daylight. Places to see, places to go. Time to go lambado!!

Kimberleee andGreg

10.7.04

Update 10.7.04 0:31 hr.
Location:
3º 44.5 minutes south
37º 12.2 minutes west

Well, we had a little excitement at the beginning of my watch last night. A
large ship showed up on radar and on the horizon bearing down on us. I marked it's location on the radar and reported it to New Skipper Kim. I tracked its
progress and even though we were moving forward it seemed to continue to stay
with us, steering up on our course. Now on the race course this would be
considered "Hunting" and I have noticed some racers doing this even though it is
against the rules (I of course would never do this). Ships have lights that they
display to help make you aware of what they are. This one showed a white stern
light that was higher than the bow white light. That indicates that it is larger
than 200 meters (600 feet), big boat in my book, especially if it is bearing
down on you. These big boats have been known to run over boats the size of ours
and not even know it. The big question is, does this skipper see you? When it
came within two miles of us I hailed them on our VHF radio. The hail: Steaming
vessel, Steaming vessel, Steaming vessel this is the sailing vessel off of your
port bow Toucan Play, do you copy? I hailed them three times within a few
minutes. No answer, now within one mile. Kim starting to pace a little more
quickly than before, I of course was cool calm and handsome as ever. Kim decided
to wake Bob.  When he came up on deck it had become obvious that the ship was
starting to fall in behind us. I call this clipping the stern and when I do it
on the race course I am proud to say that I sometimes am within inches of the
stern (I love to make my crew scream). However, out here on the big water when
it gets less than a mile and no answer to the hale it gets a little nerve
racking. After Bob was on deck and the ships course became obvious, a voice
bellowed through the radio the trouble was it was in Portuguese.  I figure the
reason for the delay was that they were looking franticly for the guy who could
speak English or the little language book and never found him/her or it, so
decided that they had to say something. It is a maritime law that all vessels
must have someone who can speak at least phonetic English. Imagine the chaos
that must have been going on on that ship during those few minutes knowing that
not responding in English would be breaking a maritime law. "Hey, who speaks
English? Wake everyone up" or maybe they didn't really care. Just for the sake
of our conversation, let's say that they never returned our hale and continued
to bear down on us. Now that would be a pickle. Our next step would be to shine
a bright white light at them flip it on and off a few times and hale them again:
"Steaming vessel, Steaming vessel, Steaming vessel this is the sailing vessel
directly in front of you, shinning a white light at you, alter your course to
starboard immediately and respond to our hale". Now if they still did not
respond we would then fire a flare directly at their bow and hale again:" Hey
you Big Mother _______" so on and so forth. OK so maybe we wouldn't say that,
probably because by then we would be trying to convince St. Peter why he should
let us through the pearly gates.

Sue D. and I had a very similar situation on Lake Carlyle one time but on a much
smaller scale. We were on my Hobie 16 parked in the middle of the lake waiting
for the next race when a large cabin boat came bearing down on us. On the front
of the boat was a young boy doing the Titanic stance, I yelled "GET YOUR DAD",
no response, I yelled again "GET YOUR DAD", and then told Sue "get ready to
jump" and at that moment the dad/skipper popped his head out of the cabin just
in time to steer away from us and as their stern barley missed us, he yelled "Oh
we saw you". Yea right, he was probably fixing lunch. I am very glad that we did
not get close enough to the big ship for the skipper to yell "Oh we saw you". It
would have been in Portuguese.

Here is a follow up to earlier input:

Hi Dave,
I just have to tell you that I think you are a great writer.
We call what you have great voice.  We can all really feel like we are with
you.  You are doing great.
(Response: Thank you very much for the kind words, it really helps to know that
people are reading this stuff).

I teach third graders at Arcola School.  We'll go out and measure the
approx. size of the boat....figure out where you are....and I will read all
writings before showing anything to the kids so don't worry if someone gets
a little over expressive...  : )
(Response: This is GREAT, I will use this when I get home and my mother is
getting on me about the language thing. "Gee, I was just a little over
expressive Mom". When you are doing the whole measurements thing, try to show
them the height of the boat, 85 feet is way up their. This is 8 ½ stories high
and when you add the swing at the top for waves it makes it quite the ride while
trying to do repairs at the same time. Another way to impress them would be to
take the height of all of your students, add them together as if they were
standing on each others' heads and see how far up that would be. It would take 19
kids at 4'6" to equal the height of the mast. Now, have them stand on each
others heads, DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME).

Thanks so much for letting me share this adventure with my kids.
Barb
(Response: Thank You Barb, I can hardly wait to hear how this works out for
you).

It is now 06:22 on Thursday Morning we are now 7hrs. and 32 minutes from Linda
Land or some may call it Airporto ( Portuguese for Airport). But who's counting?
Wow, Greg just interrupted me for a boat sighting just off our starboard hull.
Now the amazing thing about this sighting is that this boat is approximately 18',
long a john boat type with four full grown men and a lot of fishing gear, bobbing
around thirty miles from shore in four foot seas. They held up some fish in what
looked like an effort to sell them to us. As a precaution we started the engines
in case they tried to board us. Bob tells us that this boat is called a
"Jangada" and that it will stay at sea for a couple of days. No motor, only a
stick laying down for the sail. I have a picture and will send it along with
many others when we can get to an e-café.
I will be on shore with Linda for the next couple of days exploring Fortaleza,
Brazil.
You can expect another update after that.
BWSB
Dave
07:40
I'm baaaack.
Because Fortaleza just came into view and I am all excited because in just a few
hours we will have completed our transatlantic crossing. That is huge and a
great feeling that I just had to jump back on and share the feeling. Yahoooooo
baby.

10.6.04

The day started slow-only 8-10 knots of wind. BUMMER. We need at least 12 knots
to fly our spinnaker so we turned on a motor. We only use one at a time to
conserve fuel costs.. We only move about 1 knot/hour faster with both motors
running. We spent most of the day doing house-keeping, like scrubbing floors,
cleaning out the moldy leftovers in the fridges (yuck, we forgot about a couple
way too long!!), and polishing our stainless steel fittings and then applying
parafin to protect the steel from the harsh salty water. And again we look like
a floating laundromat-laundry and towels are everywhere!
We started a new watch system. We now each do our own 3 hour watch. With 5 of us
rotating that means we are on watch for 3 hours and off 12 hours. The person
going off watch helps the following person if sail changes are necessary. So far
it seems to be working well
We have crossed another time zone. We are now in time zone "Papa" which is
Greenwich England time ("Zulu") +3hrs. Each time zone is 15 degrees of longitude
and is named by the marine phonetic alphabet. ie: Alpha, Bravo Charlie Delta
etc. We are 2 hours ahead of St Louis time which is time zone Sierra (if St Louis
wasn't in daylight savings time right now, we would be 3 hours ahead)
Anyway besides cleaning and moving our clocks back, we studied and did homework.
This is a much better classroom than one I went to as a kid!
Late afternoon the sea became calm because of  the low wind all day. Because of
this, we were able to put up our screacher and genoa  (our two forward furling,
or rollup, sails) and go "Wing and Wing" again  If there are any big waves or
swells in light wind conditions, this doesn't usually work, as the swells and
waves "knock" and stop the boat in her path just as she starts to gat a little
speed .But this sunset and evening were perfect! With only 8-11 knots of wind,
we were and still are moving at about 7 knots SOG (speed over ground-we have 1
knot of current helping us out). The ride is very gentle and quiet in the flat
seas. We watched sunset from the trampolines, under" the wings" , with the serene
lapping of the seas below . Toucan Play was a graceful bird tonight soaring with
out-stretched wings above the pastel reflections of sunset on the water She is
now soaring beneath a blanket of twinkling stars. Everyday brings something
different. Tomorrow we arrive in Forteleza, Brazil. I wonder what sights we will
see there. Can't wait! Kimberlee and Greg

Ouris latitude is 3 degrees 45 minutes South
         longitude  is 36 degrees 40 West

10.5.04

Where do I begin? Yesterday was jammed with happenings. First things first. I am
now the official skipper/captain of Toucan Play. Yeah!! I finally bit the bullet
and decided to put all my training into action. I have 4 wonderful, capable (and
handsome crew). Navy skipper Bob is lending moral support to my decision. He
said at some point everyone has to take that first step and assume
responsibility for the first time. It is a little scary. As captain, I am
responsible for not only safe sailing and passage navigation, but also for the
safety and lives of my crew. It is a job I do not take lightly.
My first job as captain was to save Ray's hat! It blew into the water while we
were anchored at Fernando and was quickly drifting away. Taking my job seriously
to protect my crew, I dove into the water, clothes and all, to retrieve it. My
next order of the day was a little more serious. We needed to get our spinnaker
halyard and lights on the mast fixed while we were in safe harbor waters.
Soooooo, Greg went up the mast. Our mast is 85 feet high. We attached 2 lines
from the top of the mast (our mainsail halyard and our dinghy halyard) to the
bosuns seat (explanation later). We used 2 lines as a safety feature, in case one
of them broke or malfunctioned in some way. We did not want Greg falling 85
feet to the deck!  A bosuns seat is a piece of wood that Greg sat on, that is
built into a harness that he wore. Using our electrical winches we cranked him
to the top of the mast-all 200 plus pounds of him! Thank goodness for
electronics as that would have been a lot of hand cranking in the old days!
Greg was my hero and fixed everything. He was a pooped puppy when he came down
as he said it was quite a work-out. trying to maneuver himself, his tools and
the replacement parts amid the wires even in the mostly gentle rockings of the
harbor.  He spotted a huge turtle from his bird's eye perch but the rest of us
missed it. Our eyes (or at least mine) were only on Greg high in the sky. He
really was way up there!
By now it was 10AM. Time to go explore Fernando or so we thought! But before we
could get our dinghy in the water we had hundreds of spinner dolphins surround
our boat for over an hour, jumping and spinning in the air. It was truly a
special sight. Only when they swam away, did we then set out for land.. Just
like the dolphins, the land of Fernando was truly, truly special.
The island has one main paved road running the length of the 7 mile island, but
it has a hundred or more, 4 wheeling type dirt trails that lead from that road
to the many different beaches and cliff overlooks on either side. Greg, Bob and
I rented a VW sand dune "Bug" and went four wheeling. Ray and David needed to
take care of some business so they searched for phones and e-cafes and spent the
rest of their day enjoying some hiking to one of the beaches.
Our little sand dune open air (kind of like a jeep) bug took us many miles over
narrow rambling trails and rocks and sandy beaches. Each beach was prettier than
the next and the same for every overlook. The beaches were at least a football
field wide in depth and were 1/2-1 mile in length. Three of the beaches had tiki
style beach bars where we would buy a local concoction to rinse away the salt
taste after body surfing in the turquoise waters. Most of the beaches had very
few people (just 2-6 besides us). We had  huge beautiful beaches with our very
own private bars-WOW. The southeast trade winds provide Fernando with a
comfortable breeze all year long and because of them, there are no flying
insects like mosquitoes or flies. Fernando is almost on the equator but it was
not hot-just pleasant.
There were many hiking trails that we did not have time to explore but looked
awesome. They wound around cliff hangings and meandered through tropical shaded
foliage, up and down the hillside from one beach to another. We definitely want
to come back to Fernando. It is about as close to paradise as anything I have
seen.
The Brazilians were all very friendly but few spoke English-they speak
Portuguese. We played charades most of day. Renting our bug and buying gasoline
are another story that I won't tell here, but suffice it to say, it was another
fun experience. The food was good and cheap and we finished our day on Fernando
with a wonderful meal and drinks at a local restaurant. Our dinghy ride back
from the beach/port to our boat was equally nice. We had no moon and jillions of
stars. I haven't learned the Southern hemisphere constellations yet as many of
our nights so far have had clouds or I have been too busy learning about
sailing Toucan Play.. I do know that the Southern Cross, unfortunately, comes up
about 6am this time of year. so we are already in daylight by then. I also know
that the sky lazy night was gorgeous!!
The final happening of yesterday was a 4 foot sting ray that liked the light
beam on the back of our boom. He gracefully glided between our hulls for a half
hour... or more. I don't know because I went to bed. Great days are exhausting!!
We are now underway to Forteleza Brazil-just a short 2 day sail. Our coordinates
are:  3 degrees 49 minutes S
33 degrees 18 minutes W

Time to look at the charts again. As captain I need to make sure we are on
course as there is a small rock island between us and Forteleza.

Bye for now, Kimberlee

Update 10.5.04 12004 Tuesday
Location: 3º 48.0 minutes south
32º 55.2 minutes west

We left Fernando at 0830 this morning. We left as a huge school of Spinning
Dolphin were moving through the harbor. They are called Spinning because they
jump out of the water and spin at a fast rate of speed.  They are spinning so
fast that it is difficult to make out the fins until they are coming back down
and the spin slows. The average length is about 4 foot.
This was my first time in Brazil and what a way to be introduced to Brazil. The
island is an area of stunning natural beauty that was declared a Marine National
Park in 1988. Last night we had a very large Stingray approximately 4' around
that swam under and around our stern for about a half hour. We were anchored in
the harbor with our boom light on attracting many small fish which attracted
bigger fish which attracted the Stingray for our entertainment.
They speak Portuguese and very few people speak English, this offered us some
special challenges. Getting directions and ordering food was very interesting.
While on the island they had a power failure, someone said that a cable to the
island was accidentally cut. They had three huge generators that seemed to offer
a low level of power. The e-café was down until late in the day and when we did
get logged on we discovered that it was dial up and very slow at that. I have
not been sending pictures because the last three islands that we have been
visiting have had the same type of connections, sloooow.
While in Fernando Kim has taken over the position of Skipper and is now in
command.
Kim's first command is to get us from Fernando to Fortaleza safely. It is 365
miles with a hazard right in the Rhumb Line (Proposed course offering the safest
route in the most direct manner). Atol das Rocas, in other words a protrusion of
rocks that form a volcanic rim barely sticking up out of the ocean. Of course
the trick is to miss the real hard part.

More input:
Hi Dave,
It's Linda's older, yet wiser sister, Barb.  Just wanted to let you know that I
have moved the globe next to the computer and check for updates from all of you
at least twice a day.
I am enjoying reading all about your adventures even though I don't understand
many  of the sailing terms ...spinnaker....genoa wing, screacher, etc.  (I'm
asking sailing friends about those things.  But I do know about eating choc.
chip cookie dough and know how that can improve ones whole day.
(Response: Spinnaker is the largest sail on this boat and is designed to be used
when the wind is at our back, it is similar to a large parachute attached to the
top of the mast and is of a A-Symmetrical design, this means that it is shaped
like an A attached at the top of the A and then the bottom two points are
attached to a line that comes around to the stern (back) of the boat to a winch
which is a device that we use to let the sail in and out. The other bottom part
of the sail is attached to a device that is adjustable so that we can move it
across the front of the boat as needed to best capture the wind. The spinnaker
is usually the bright colorful sail. The Genoa and the Screacher are both sails
that are attached near the top of the mast and are used in front of the mast.
Both of these sails are furling sails which means that we can roll them up to
put them away. The screacher is 1/3 larger than the Genoa. We sometimes use both
of these sails at the same time but on opposite sides of the mast. This is
called Wing to Wing. This is also done when the wind is directly up our bumb but
the wind's velocity is to high for the spinnaker. The one sail that you did not
ask about is the main sail, which is the sail that is used from the mast back
toward the back of the boat. This sail is normally used sailing upwind at least
on this boat, because we have these other sails that are better for downwind.
Brock T. and I have competed in a long distance race (Aprox. 140 miles) called
"The Around The Island" race on three different occasions. The first time we
were amazed that we had sailed downwind for 65 miles. On this trip we have not
used the main sail yet because we have been sailing downwind for 3515 miles,
that's three thousand five hundred and fifteen miles. WOW the Around the Island
will never be the same.

I can't wait to see pictures but until then I have a couple of questions I'd
like to ask.  #1 What type of whales are you seeing? (besides BIG)
(Response: I n Capetown, on a whale watching boat we saw Southern Right and
pilot whales. On our trip we have seen just one Southern Right whale.)
#2 What about the night sky?  Are the stars brilliant?  Can you see the Southern
Cross?
(Response: Hey what are you trying to do? You slipped in three questions in on
#2. Is that fair? Do you let your students do that? Of course it is. You
guessed it, the night sky is bigger here than it is in the Midwest. When we don't
have clouds the Milky Way is huge and bright and usually from horizon to
horizon (I have never seen that until this trip). We have no city lights out
here and that helps. In fact when we are sailing at night we turn all of our
lights down very low so that the person on watch can maintain a higher level of
night vision. The navigation lights are still on bright but are shaded so that
the light is facing away from the boat. The Southern Cross is rising as the sun
is coming up, so we have not been able to see it.)
#3 Is it ok with you all if I share all of this with my classroom of kids?  What
a great way to teach long. and lat.   Plus, showing them that working hard in
school just might enable them to earn chances for great adventures!
(Response: I am touched and honored that you would want to use this in your
classroom. Please do and let me know how it is received. If they have questions
and comments please forward them. One of the things that I was amazed by, while
in Cape Town, was how many kids from other countries travel world wide by themselves

or in small groups. Yes, the world is full of great adventures, Go For
It, after you finish school, and brush your teeth before you go to bed!)
What a hoot to think that as we admire this beautiful harvest moon you and your
crew mates are doing the same.
It's a beautiful fall day here in northern Indiana.  The sun is shining..it's
sweatshirt weather ...the leaves are just beginning to turn red and yellow.....
(Response: The sky is the one same-time connection that we all have, I often
think about what friends and family are doing in other parts of the world when I
am gazing).
My prayers are with you all.
Barb B
Your sister becomes part of this adventure in 47 hours and 15 minutes, but whose
counting.
Thanks Barb, Gotta Go now my watch is coming up.
BWSB
Dave

10.3.04

We are about 2 hours from Fernando de Noronha, Brazil.. We are sailing along at
about 9.5 knots speed over ground (SOG). Our spinnaker is pulling us along at
about 8.5 knots through the water and we also have about a 1 knot current
pushing us. The sky is blue with fair weather cumulous clouds dusting the
horizons. The temp is 81degrees F.
Fernando is suppose to be idyllic-white sand beaches with turquoise waters and
no crowds. We had about a dozen playful dolphins come greet us last night around
sunset. They frolicked under our trampoline and hulls, darting back and forth and
jumping only about 2 feet in front of our bow waves. Our boat seemed like a new
toy that they just couldn't get enough of, as they stayed with us until
dark. FUN, FUN, FUN!!! I want to swim with them. Maybe we'll see them near a
beach in Fernando. Time to go study our navigation chart for our approach,
Kimberlee and Greg

Update 10.3.04 Sunday 1210
Location:
4º 01.05 minutes south
31º 28.3 minutes west

We have the spinnaker up and are traveling at 8 ½ knots on a bright sunny day,
the music is playing and we are expecting Fernando da Noronha to come into site
soon. The tip of the mountain should come into view about 25 miles away. We are
currently 50 miles away. So, with this information those of you who want should
be able to figure out how long it will take us to before we see the island and
to get to the island. It is a good chance that we won't be able to off of the
boat until tomorrow. We will spend part of our time in the safe harbor with Greg
at the top of the mast repairing our halyard shackle and our Red over green
lights which we use for sailing at night. These lights have not been working,
but don't worry Mom, we also have navigation lights that we use.
Last night we had our first dolphin sighting and man oh man did we ever have a
sighting. We had 10 to 15 full grown dolphins swimming at the front of the boat
for quit some time. They dipped all around the hulls, jumping, playing and at
times got so close that it seemed that we would hit them. We stood at the front
of the trampoline and looked right down on top of them.

More e-mail questions:
Dave,  Loving reading the postings!  Hope the sail/line issue is not causing too much of a problem for you all.  Just wondering about your course.  Are you headed to Grenada or Haiti where the news reports massive, horrific riots/killings over water and food supplies?  Can you help calm any fears that you all may be in jeopardy if you get too close to the looting areas?  Are you getting world news out there? On the brighter side, I'm loving the descriptions of the
celestial sightings, whales, and fishing!  Can you describe squalls for us?  The closest I've ever come to a squall is looking at the Lands End catalog!  Something tells me I'm lacking in the open sea weather department!  Enjoy those cookies!  Hearing about them makes me want to seek some out myself!  Is there anything you all need when you get to F.?  If so, let us know where to send it so it will reach you. Another inquiry...can you give us an idea of dimensions of the living portion of the boat.  Just how much room (or lack thereof) is there?  Smooth
sailing to you all!  Love, Cathy
(Yes, we are planning on going to Grenada, however now that you have tipped us
off we will be doing our due diligence and talking to local officials and other
yachters before we get close. We do listen to the BBC news broadcasts but hadn't
heard anything about the violence. Squall is a local pocket of higher wind sometimes containing rain. Sometimes it has much higher wind and is just about impossible to determine until it hits you. We won't need anything sent to Fernando as Linda M. will be joining us on Thursday and she has a list of things to bring. Living space: Greg is 6'3" and can stand straight up in every part of the living quarters. We have a Galley Kitchen/Saloon that is about 24' x 14"
then we have 4 cabins all about 12' x 10' that includes a bathroom, oops, head
(We can't call the head a bathroom on a boat) and a shower.)
__________________________________________________
Kim, Thanks for taking the time to explain about the weather and your vast access to the outside!  We love reading the postings and passing them along to family who are not online.  Smooth sailing to you all!
Dave's cousin Cathy (the one who is trying not to worry!)

Thank You for the questions and comments.
BWSB
EHDave

10.2.04

Hi Everyone,  Below are reports, so if you are interested, you can see some of
the weather reports we can get while at sea. Many of you have expressed a
genuine concern for our safety while hurricane season is upon us. I wanted you
to know that we are not in the dark about all the hurricanes that have been
devastating the islands and the US, especially Florida. The first report below
is our 5 day position forecast. I send a report to the weather center of our latitude and longitude and our projected speed and direction of travel. Via our
satellite e-mail program I get back the following report which tells us what
winds,s eas, weather, temps etc to expect as we travel along our course.

                BUOYWEATHER.COM Meteo Passage Forecast
  Current Location : 4.7S  28.0W
  Time Zone: GMT + 0 hours
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
           AIR  DEW       WIND     WIND                         PREC
           TEMP TEMP RH% SPD(KTS)  DIR    SLP  LI  CP CLD% PREC TYPE  T-STORMS
           ---  ---  --- -------- ------ ---- ---- -- ---- ---- ----- --------
10/2  6am   78   69  75  15 - 20  ESE116 1011  3.3  0   0  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/2 12pm   78   70  76  15 - 21  ESE116 1013  3.0  0   0  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/2  6pm   78   70  75  14 - 20  ESE113 1011  3.3  0   0  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/3 12am   78   69  75  14 - 19  ESE112 1013  3.2  0   1  0.00       UNLIKELY

24hr position forecast for : 4.1S  30.7W
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
           AIR  DEW       WIND     WIND                         PREC
           TEMP TEMP RH% SPD(KTS)  DIR    SLP  LI  CP CLD% PREC TYPE  T-STORMS
           ---  ---  --- -------- ------ ---- ---- -- ---- ---- ----- --------
10/3  6am   78   70  75  14 - 19  ESE115 1010  3.1  0   1  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/3 12pm   79   71  77  14 - 19  ESE119 1013  2.5  0   1  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/3  6pm   79   71  77  14 - 19  ESE128 1009  2.0  0   2  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/4 12am   79   71  77  15 - 21  ESE124 1013  2.5  0   2  0.00       UNLIKELY

48hr position forecast for : 3.4S  33.4W
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
           AIR  DEW       WIND     WIND                         PREC
           TEMP TEMP RH% SPD(KTS)  DIR    SLP  LI  CP CLD% PREC TYPE  T-STORMS
           ---  ---  --- -------- ------ ---- ---- -- ---- ---- ----- --------
10/4  6am   79   72  78  15 - 20  ESE128 1009  2.0  0   9  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/4 12pm   80   72  77  15 - 21  ESE127 1013  1.8  0   4  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/4  6pm   79   72  77  16 - 22  SE133  1009  1.9  0   8  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/5 12am   79   72  77  17 - 23  ESE127 1012  2.1  0   6  0.00       UNLIKELY

72hr position forecast for : 2.8S  36.1W
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
           AIR  DEW       WIND     WIND                         PREC
           TEMP TEMP RH% SPD(KTS)  DIR    SLP  LI  CP CLD% PREC TYPE  T-STORMS
           ---  ---  --- -------- ------ ---- ---- -- ---- ---- ----- --------
10/5  6am   79   72  77  15 - 20  ESE117 1009  1.3  0  15  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/5 12pm   80   72  77  15 - 21  ESE118 1012  1.6  0  20  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/5  6pm   79   72  77  16 - 22  ESE121 1009  1.6  0  22  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/6 12am   80   72  77  17 - 23  ESE111 1013  1.5  0  16  0.00       UNLIKELY

96hr position forecast for : 2.2S  38.9W
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
           AIR  DEW       WIND     WIND                         PREC
           TEMP TEMP RH% SPD(KTS)  DIR    SLP  LI  CP CLD% PREC TYPE  T-STORMS
           ---  ---  --- -------- ------ ---- ---- -- ---- ---- ----- --------
10/6  6am   80   73  78  19 - 25  ESE103 1009  1.0  0  29  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/6 12pm   80   73  80  18 - 25  ESE112 1012  0.7  1  26  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/6  6pm   79   72  80  17 - 23  ESE108 1009  0.8  0  26  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/7 12am   80   73  77  17 - 23  E93    1011  1.2  0  18  0.00       UNLIKELY

The next report I download is the Carribean update which tells me about
hurricanes, tropical depressions, waves and storms (which are possibly future hurricanes
and need monitoring). The below is a report we downloaded on Sept 26th telling
us about what hurricane Jeanne and Lisa were doing.
Wx Update, Eastern Caribbean, Sun26, 8am

TS Lisa 5am pos 18.4N / 46.0W, movement 350@7 kts, mas sustained winds 45 kts,
min pressure 1001 mb.  Lisa is getting organized, and continues to produce
impressive squalls over a large area, but continued intensification should be
gradual.  Lisa is not likely to become a major Hurricane, but could become a
minimal Hurricane SE of Bermuda early this week.  Lisa is likely to curve back
towards the NW, but should pass E of Bermuda on her way N.  Only impact on
Eastern Caribbean is continuation of 4-5' NE swells.

Across the Eastern Caribbean, skies are mostly fair, though there are a few
scattered, brief TradeWind-type showers.  More-significant showers lie across
the Mona to Eastern Hispanola and a few scattered showers with winds to 20-25
kts from Martinique to the Grenadines are slowly drifting West and should be W
of the Windwards by this evening.

Winds have backed to E or SE, and should continue to back, reaching E by Mon27.
Wind direction should average E all week...with NE or SE possible any time due
to the light nature of the winds...generally around 10 kts, though 10-15
Windwards to Venezuela.

A few scattered showers are possible any time, especially in the NE Caribbean
this week, and maybe near the Southern Windwards to Venezuelan Coast.  N
Windwards and most of the Leewards should be dry most of the week.

We continue to monitor Hurricane Jeanne as she moves across FL towards Tampa.
At midnight last night Jeanne made landfall at Stuart,FL with sustained winds of
100 kts (120 mph), as a Cat3 Hurricane.  Due to the large circulation, areas
within 25 mi N & S of Stuart saw sustained winds approaching these speeds, with
higher gusts.  Jeanne was undergoing an eyewall replacement cycle when she made
landfall, which kept her from strengthening into a Cat4 system...given another 6
hrs at sea, Jeanne would have been 15 or 20 kts stronger and Cat4.

5am pos 27.4N / 81.1W, movement 280@11 kts, max sustained winds 95 kts, min
pressure 955 mb.

Sustained Hurricane Force winds continue this morning across interior Central
Florida from Sebring N-wards, and will be felt all the way across Florida to
near and N of Lakeland and the Tampa Bay area, with Jeanne probably exiting the
W Coast near or N of TarponSprings, N of Tampa/StPete.  Jeanne is not likely to
gain strength over the cooler waters of GOMEX, so should make landfall again
somewhere near Talahassee as a minimal Hurricane, turn NE and head up the I-95
corridor thru the Carolinas and VA as a Tropical Storm weakening to a
Depression...and exiting the mid-Atlantic states late Tue28 as a Tropical
Depression...moving off rapidly to the NE or ENE near or S of CanadianMaritimes
Wed29.

This morning squalls may extend outwards in an outflow band to Charleston,SC /
Talahassee / Naples,FL / FtLauderdale / GrandBahama.  Tropical Storm Force winds
of 30 kts or more are likely within this region.

CDO extends mostly N of the center, with Hurricane Force winds, at least in
gusts, possible from Stuart,FL and LakeOkeechobee to just N of
PuntaGorda,FL...all the way to the BigBend of FL and Jacksonville.  Winds should
diminish along the E Coast of FL from CapeCanaveral S-wards by this afternoon.

Conditions are improving over the Bahamas, with winds remaining South thru Mon27
and diminishing to under 20 kts...but the atmosphere will be very unstable and
support some moderate to severe thunderstorms especially Mon27.  Remainder of
the week should bring backing winds to SE Tue28 & Wed29 near 10 kts and
eventually E to ENE into next weekend increasing to 15 kts, along with a few
showers
The following is the Oct 1st download for comparisons.

Carribean report:
Wx Update, Eastern Caribbean, FriOct1, 8am

SST courtesy of Blue Water Divers, Tortola, BVI = 84-degrees.
Tropical Features: TS Lisa failed to strengthen into a Hurricane, but some
strengthening is possible today.  Over the weekend Lisa should move towards
cooler water and begin weakening in the open waters of the Central North
Atlantic.
WAVE near 55W and about 11N looks less-impressive than yesterday, but should
bring enhanced shower activity along with some gusty winds to the Windwards and
possibly the rest of the Eastern Caribbean over the weekend as it moves slowly W
to WNW.
WAVE near 43W could also bring some showers to the Eastern Caribbean early to
mid-week next week, but development into a closed Tropical system appears
unlikely over the Eastern Caribbean Islands.
WAVE near CapeVerdeIslands will probably not develop into a closed Tropical
system anytime soon.
WAVE in the Central Caribbean along 75W bears watching more closely.  Conditions
may be more favorable for development as this WAVE approaches the area btwn
CaymanIslands and YucatanPeninsula Sun3/Mon4 or in some portion of GOMEX next
week.  Development is not certain, but there is fairly good support and plenty
of available energy.  TROF across FL could transport energy to the area off SE
US Coast, or FRONT could pull system NE in an extra-Tropical fashion...or this
area of disturbed weather could fester and eventually develop into something.

Currently: Showers and a few squalls from Turks&Caicos across Hispanola into the
C Caribbean due to WAVE along 75W.  More scattered showers, mostly light and
brief, across the remainder of the area from PuertoRico to the Virgins /
Leewards / Windwards.  Venezuelan Coast mainly dry.  Winds moderate, mostly
10-15 kts, except loaclly higher near showers.

Synopsis: Tendency for weak RIDGE near 29N to 30N thru the next week, with
moderate (above average for this season) winds fairly steady out of the East.
WAVEs moving thru should bring enhanced shower activity but not too bad.

Forecast:
Precip: Scattered showers could impact anywhere, anytime.  Most areas will get a
shower-or-two on most days.  More-frequent showers and squalls especially
Windwards over the weekend, and these could spread into Leewards and even
VirginIslands especially Sun/Mon.

Wind:
FriOct1: VI 090@15, LW 090@15, WW 080@14.
Sat2: VI 080@14, LW 090@13, WW 110@12 and gusty.
Sun3: VI 090@12, LW 100@10, WW 110@10.
Mon4: VI 090@10, LW 110@11, WW 120@12.
Tue5: VI 080@11, LW 100@9, WW 110@11.

Seas: 3-5' long-period swell from ENE with 7-sec interval.  At times, seas may
be a bit confused, with a NE swell from Lisa and an East wind wave.

Suggestions: Today looks better than most of this weekend for the Eastern
Caribbean, but the pattern is generally wet
The below is a 5 day forecast for our position if we were to stay in one place
BUOYWEATHER.COM/OCENS Meteo Forecast
  Location : 4.7S  28.0W
  UTC Time
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
           AIR  DEW       WIND     WIND                         PREC
DATE   HR  TEMP TEMP RH% SPD(KTS)  DIR    SLP  LI  CP CLD% PREC TYPE  T-STORMS
----  ---  ---  ---  --- -------- ------ ---- ---- -- ---- ---- ----- --------
10/2  06Z   78   69  75  15 - 20  ESE116 1011  3.3  0   0  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/2  12Z   78   70  76  15 - 21  ESE116 1013  3.0  0   0  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/2  18Z   78   70  75  14 - 20  ESE113 1011  3.3  0   0  0.00       UNLIKELY

10/3  00Z   78   69  75  14 - 19  ESE112 1013  3.2  0   1  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/3  06Z   77   70  77  13 - 18  ESE120 1011  3.2  0   1  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/3  12Z   78   70  76  14 - 19  ESE122 1014  2.9  0   1  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/3  18Z   78   70  77  14 - 20  ESE128 1010  2.7  0   1  0.00       UNLIKELY

10/4  00Z   78   70  76  16 - 21  ESE125 1013  3.5  0   2  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/4  06Z   77   69  76  14 - 19  ESE124 1010  4.2  0   3  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/4  12Z   78   69  75  13 - 18  ESE121 1014  4.0  0   7  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/4  18Z   78   70  76  14 - 19  SE132  1011  3.0  0  23  0.00       UNLIKELY

10/5  00Z   78   70  76  15 - 20  ESE125 1014  3.6  0  48  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/5  06Z   77   69  75  13 - 18  ESE120 1010  4.1  0   9  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/5  12Z   78   69  75  12 - 17  ESE115 1014  4.2  0  10  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/5  18Z   78   70  76  14 - 19  ESE120 1011  3.7  0  97  0.00       UNLIKELY

10/6  00Z   78   69  75  13 - 18  ESE120 1014  4.2  0  96  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/6  06Z   77   69  75  12 - 17  ESE110 1012  3.8  0  80  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/6  12Z   77   69  75  14 - 19  E99    1014  3.6  0  99  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/6  18Z   77   68  73  11 - 15  ESE106 1011  4.3  0  50  0.00       UNLIKELY

10/7  00Z   78   69  75  12 - 17  ESE111 1014  3.8  0 100  0.00  RAIN UNLIKELY
10/7  06Z   77   69  75  11 - 15  ESE111 1012  3.9  0 100  0.01  RAIN UNLIKELY
10/7  12Z   77   68  73  13 - 17  ESE114 1014  3.6  0 100  0.00  RAIN UNLIKELY
10/7  18Z   78   69  74  13 - 17  ESE118 1011  3.2  0  99  0.00       UNLIKELY

10/8  00Z   78   69  74  14 - 19  ESE116 1013  4.5  0  81  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/8  06Z   77   68  73  13 - 18  ESE126 1011  4.7  0  80  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/8  12Z   78   70  75  16 - 21  ESE118 1012  3.9  0 100  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/8  18Z   79   71  76  14 - 19  ESE122 1011  3.0  0 100  0.00       UNLIKELY

10/9  00Z   79   71  77  16 - 21  ESE125 1014  3.1  0  98  0.00       UNLIKELY
10/9  06Z   78   71  77  14 - 20  ESE113 1011  2.9  0 100  0.00  RAIN UNLIKELY
10/9  12Z   79   70  75  16 - 22  ESE107 1013  3.9  0 100  0.01  RAIN UNLIKELY

I have taken 3 meteorology courses to understand all this stuff. We have 2
satellite phones on board and 2 laptops so that if one breaks we can use the
other. We also have a high frequency (HF) SSB (Ship to Shore) radio that allows
us to talk via "ham" radio anywhere on earth if atmospheric conditions permit.
There are timed weather reports given on many different channels. We can listen
to US NOAA reports, the BBC weather reports and many different meteorologists
who all do their own thing. We can hire our own meteorologist to give us
personal suggestions if we wish.
When we get to Brazil, we will be able to use our cheaper air time phone and we
can download infrared and satellite weather pictures just like you see on the
weather channel. There are hundreds of other reports we can download including
speed of currents and position of eddies that might slow or speed our travel.
Peak hurricane season occurs in Sept and is over Nov30th. Hurricanes do not form
below 4 degrees North. We are still in the Southern hemisphere out of harms way.
When we enter the hurricane "box" we will carefully monitor our location and
maneuver accordingly. We will have plenty of advance warning and will be
careful. As I have said before, electronics are wonderful and we have a lot of
them in case some of them fail. . Thank-you for your concern and I hope this
helps to ease some of your worries, if you have been worrying.

Take care, weare, Kimberlee and Greg

Update 10.1.04 1353 hr. Friday
Location:
5º 25.0 minutes south
25º 49.3 minutes west

Out here on the big water it is not uncommon to see three or four rain storms at
the same time on the horizon. This morning was different. When Ray and I started
our watch at 0600 we were in a huge storm that went as far as the eye could see
in every direction. Within a couple of hours the clouds broke up and we are once
again under sunny skies and it is now 81 degrees.
Skipper Bob shared with us the reason for the term Knot to have been started. It
seems that way back in the 1500s sailors without timepieces that would work on
the water would have to bring logs on to the boat. Using those logs in an effort
to figure out the speed of the boat they would drop a log into the water at the
front of the boat and then count off the seconds until it passed the back of the
boat (I wonder if they would say 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi and so on?). Well
someone decided that hauling all of that wood was a waste so they tied a log to
a line and tied knots at equal intervals. Then they would count the knots as it
went passed the back of the boat and then they could retrieve the log. So of
course the measurement became a knot. We are traveling at 8 knots for example.
We do take so many things for granted.
Last September a group of us were in Florida for a sailing vacation. I was
taking Lind M. out on the Gulf of Mexico for the first time and explained that
we would probably see dolphins and when we did she should get my attention
quietly and point out the direction of the sighting and not to be to loud for
fear of scaring them away. Later while sailing on the Hobie 18 Linda experienced
her first sighting and quickly jumped up on all fours then stretched out her
right arm and pointing a finger toward two dolphins only twelve feet in front of
us SCREAMED DOLPHINS DOLPHINS so loud that they could hear her from Ft. Walton
Beach to Destin. The look of surprise and excitement on Linda's face suddenly
and dramatically changed as she jerked her head in my direction with a new look
of horror as she said "Oh No, I wasn't supposed to yell." Oh and by the way the
dolphins heard as well and immediately disappeared.

Today it was my turn. I was at the helm and everyone else was down below when I
screamed out "Big Whale, off our starboard hull 200 yards at one o'clock". I
couldn't tell right away if it was swimming towards us or away from us. This was
a real adrenalin rush for me because many things have to happen very quickly for
the safety of the boat and crew. I called for help on deck, steered to port
started one engine and then the other for maneuverability and to make the whale
aware of our position while explaining to the others were to watch, not only for
the one that I spotted but also for others. It has been known to happen where
everyone on board is looking at a whale on one side of the boat and they run
into it's mate. Bad for the mate and the boat. The whale had jumped out of the
water on my first sighting slightly but when everyone came up, it really decided
to show it's stuff. This aprox. 40 ft. massive whale jumped out of the water
like it thought it was a Titan Missile being launched. All but its tail came out
of the water and then slammed back down into the water. She jumped once more for
us. Yes we did get it on video, thanks Ray. Our Whale master on our whale
watching tour in Cape Town said that these whales can weigh as much as 50 tons.
Yikes, I am glad that it didn't land on Toucan Play. Skipper Bob had mentioned
earlier that on two previous crossings he saw a whale in this area and once hit
one and had to limp to the nearest harbor, three days away without any steering.
I do believe that I saw a tattoo on this whale of a navy man named Bob. Anyway
somehow just after I shouted out, I also had a flashback of Linda screaming out
"DOLPHINS DOLPHINS". By the way Linda and I did go on to see many more dolphins
on that trip. I hope that we see more whales on this one.

And so the Adventure continues,
Master Whale Spotter BWSB,
Dave

10-1-04

We are happily cruising along at 7-8.5 knots with our screacher and genoa wing
and wing again. The maker of our our standing rig (sailor language for the mast
and its supports) promptly answered an e-mail we sent and said it was OK to use
our halyard with a single purchase. This basically means that we have one line
pulling the sail to the top of the mast. With a double purchase the line is
doubled back on itself and around a block. You basically have 2 lines pulling
the sail up, which because of the pulley, makes it easier to do.

We did our first sextant reading and computation today. Using our sextant we
were able to fix our position to  within 1-1&1/2 miles of our GPS
reading. Skipper and instructor Bob called it beginners luck as he says that
being within 5 miles in the big blue sea is quite good. (He just doesn't
understand the quality of his students!) I shouldn't brag too much, as really,
with the boat tossing and swaying as much as it does, we might have just gotten
lucky. I'll let you know as we practice more. Taking the sextant reading is just
the start of the whole process though. The following computations and data that
needs to be looked up in 2- 3 different almanacs took us about 30 minutes. It is
amazing how anyone figured this stuff out in the first place!
We had a whale breach (jump out of the water) 3 times off our starboard bow.
Skipper Bob said he felt like the Old Man and the Sea as this is the third time
he has seen whales in this area. He does not like seeing them as he had an
unfortunate incident on one of those times. A whale ran into his prop and broke
it and his rudder and bent his saildrive.. He was on a monohull, unlike now
(being a catamaran we have 2 hulls and 2 props ,2 saildrives and 2 rudders. We
can still steer and motor with only one of them functioning). His boat was
severely crippled and he missed seeing Fernando, our next planned stop.
We of coarse were very excited by the whale sighting. Greg and I took watch on
the forward bow pulpit seats (the little seats at the forward point of each
hull), Ray played cinematographer and caught one of the breachings on his
videocam and Dave motored us through. Skipper Bob said he turned the engines on
to make sure the whale knew we were here. Riding the bow waves on a whale
sighting quest was quite fun and wet! I was laughing and smiling the whole time.
The swells would splash over the bow at times, soaking both Greg's and my
shorts. The air is now warm so the water actually felt great. It is presently 80 degrees F.

We are on the 6pm-10pm watch. Time for a nap, Kimberlee and Greg

10.1.04

More than a day has passed now as we have had some issues to address. Our
spinnaker halyard (the rope that pulls our big pretty sail up) broke. Actually it
was not the rope but the piece of hardware that attaches it to the top of the
mast, called a shackle, that came undone. A shackle looks like a horseshoe with
a straight metal pin going through the bottom of it to close off the " squished
circle". The U part of the shackle goes through a loop in the end of the
halyard/rope and then through a metal loop fitting at the top of the mast. There
is a small hole in the pin part of the shackle. You are suppose to run a piece
of wire or plastic wire tie through this small hole and around a portion of the
U part of the shackle to keep the pin from unscrewing as the boat constantly
moves back and forth. Well this last step was apparently not done as we found
the U part of the shackle laying on our deck with no pin after we had some
serious difficulty with our sail. Since this fitting was more than 85 feet in
the air we had not seen this installation oversight. In the end no-one was hurt
and we think no damage was done to our sail (we won't know for sure until we put
her back up) The guys were my heroes again as they did a great job of getting a
twisted sail down( it looked like an hourglass)  and back in the bag

Anyway to correct the problem someone has to go up the 8 story high mast and put
the shackle with the attached halyard end back in place and correctly "dog tie"
it (sailor language for the wire that keeps bolts/pins/screws etc from twisting
undone). This all needs to done on a rocking boat in 3-5 foot seas with a lot of
other lines and fittings to get tangled in. After some much heated discussions
it was decided to do the safest thing-wait until we get to the calm flatness of
an ocean harbor before sending someone up the mast. This means that we only lose
about 1- 1&1/2 knots/hour speed but we don't take chances. We will be in a safe
harbour in 3-4 days. Our slower speed will probably add 8-24 hours to our trip
depending on our winds. Not really a big deal in the overall picture. Granted
going up the mast is something that is done at sea, if necessary. The debate
was: Is going a little faster necessary if our safety was not in jeopardy, but
could be if someone was injured because they went up the mast? Limited medical
care is at least 3 days from here except for the quite comprehensive first aid
kit I have on board. But that is still limited compared to a hospital facility.
My opinion is we are cruisers not racers. My goal is to get the boat to the BVI
safely. Our slightly smaller genoa headsail is still working great and pulls us
through the water at about 5 1/2-7 knots, depending on wind.. If we just slow
down a little into a different mind set, the slower speed ( it is only 1-2 knots slower in 15-18
knot winds) is quite nice. The thuds disappear and the boat has more of a gentle
swaying and rocking. I spent a little more time in the kitchen instead and made
chocolate chip cookies for the guys. Actually I only made the dough. They baked
some of it, but ate a lot of it as just dough. "Finger licking good", they
said.. (An earlier batch of oatmeal cookies never got baked as all the dough was
consumed before I was able to even get the oven warmed up!).
We are putting in an e-mail/satellite call to the designers of our boat
tomorrow. We may still be able to "fly "our faster spinnaker with a single
purchase line as opposed to the double purchase one as it was designed. I won't
explain this here. Suffice it to say, we may be sailing fast again by tomorrow.
If the above idea won't work, then we will continue to sway/plod along and I'll
make some more cookies to try to keep everyone happy.
I am on the 2am-6am watch. The full moon peeks out now and then but we have
numerous small rain showers that keep obscuring her beauty, So I practice my
radar skills. That is fun too. Time to close hatches again in preparation for
the next rain seen on radar 1/2  mile behind us, Kimberlee and Greg

PS   Our lat is:5 degrees 40minutes South
            long is 24 degrees 55 minutes West

PS again   While closing the hatches we had another beautiful sea sight, We have
set our clocks back today and dawn is now around 5 am. At this time the moon is
setting about 20 degrees above the horizon. So we have the dawn awakening behind
us, grey clouds above with clear sky and a full moon ahead. WOW! Time to go
enjoy the splendor-Bye again.
PS again, again   We have now sailed into what was the clear sky ahead. It is now
above and a wall of ominous dark grey/blue clouds surrounds our horizon 360
degrees. We appear to be in the eye of the squalls WAY COOL!

10.1.04

The below is an e-mail that Greg wrote to a friend wanting more info regarding
our fishing protocol. I thought some of you might like to read this also. Please
ignore Greg's comment, "Get the hell out of her way". I have no idea what he is
talking about! Sweet Kim

Well hi there, this is Greg responding to your last e-mail about the
fishing stuff. I'm not as much of an author as my lovely bride, but I will do
the best that I can.   To catch the little rascals, you have to figure what
they want for breakfast/lunch/dinner--  and since we have no real small bait
fish on board, we have to improvise!!  So you try to get an artificial lure that
looks as close to the real thing as possible. I have a multitude of lures that I
brought from home, and also some that I purchased in Cape Town at a local
fishing store. Most of the stuff that I have, I bought after doing some research
on the type of fish along our trip and what is their main food source. Then just
trying different colors of lures until something seems to work. A lot of trial
and error and error and error and so on. There is never any real rhyme or reason
that something works, you just have to chalk it up to it not being an exact
science.  So I do have some pretty hefty rods and deep sea type of reels that I
had purchased in the past and brought along, also one that I just recently
bought at one of the boat shows that Kim and I have been attending all over the
place. What I have been doing is putting out what I think will work, given the
conditions that we have at the time and when I hook into a fish, I have someone
else bring it in so that we can all have a little fun getting in on the fight. I
will have lots of time to do my own thing, so I try to let every one join in on
the fun if they wish. Then I have the honor of grabbing the fish with my hands
when it gets close and pulling it onto the boat by hand then handing the fish
to who ever reeled it in and then I get out of the picture. Then it gets handed
back to me and I also get the honor of cleaning and either turning it into
steaks or filets. Different fish make better steaks, and others, filets.   To
cook the filets, there are of course lots of ways, as you well know, but I
usually put them in some foil with the typical seasonings of lemon slices on top and

some orange squeeze, white wine, butter, pepper and sweet basil, and turn the foil
into a tent and sort of bake it in the oven. If we had our BBQ pit, I would
prefer to use that method, but we don't. Anyway we seem to be pretty well equipped
to handle what ever is thrown at us, from the sailing to the fishing and so on.
My wife has done an exceptional job of putting this boat together, and she has
made it a piece of cake and a joy to sail. I've been on a lot of boats in my
time, and Kimmie certainly has done her home work on building a boat. I'm just
glad that I have her on my side. She can be a tough cookie now and again when the
situation calls for it. Most of the time she is just sweet Kim, but now and
again GET THE HELL OUT OF HER WAY!!!!!! I get a real kick out of her. Well I
have to get back to the helm as our watch is about over. The time is 5:39 am and
we go off watch at 6:00 I have a few duties before the next shift comes on.
Thank you for all of your e-mails back to us, it really is a JOY to have you
follow our adventures and come along with us in spirit and wishes from home.
Every time we get an e-mail it is just like a letter from a loved one and really
helps brighten ever the brightest days. You are very very appreciated. By BOTH
of us. Please keep in touch. Hope all is well with you back home and say howdy
to any of the gang, that we know and love and misssssss a lot.

All the best,   Greg

Update 9.30.04 0450 Thursday.
Location: 6º 10.2 minutes south
22º 20.9 minutes west
Progress report:
Things that tell us we are getting closer to home.

We are now 4 hours difference from St. Louis. We are gradually heading north and
can feel the difference. When we left Cape Town we were wearing Long underwear
thermal socks boots, full Foulies stocking cap, gloves and hood. The only thing
showing were our eyes. Yesterday I reported in for my watch in shorts, a light
weight fishing shirt and NO SHOES, that's right, I went to work barefoot. Oh
Baby what a glorious thing.
I have received some great input about the hard work that goes into these
postings to the web site and want o thank my Sailing fleet for coming up with
the idea and especially Pat O. for doing all of the work. It is very rewarding
getting the feedback that I do from people from all over the planet that are
logging on. So much so that I would like to share some of what I have:

Tell Dave to write more, he is funny. Ed V.
(Right On Ed, another guy that has a great sense of humor. When Ruth is not in
the car he drives that Mercedes like a "Bat out of Hell." Don't tell Ruth.)

Dave, clean up you grammar and your language. My Mom
(Can you hear her wagging her finger at me?)

Dave,
I am really enjoying all the email being posted.  Of course, I like reading
the technical stuff, but the sailing and landings are just as interesting.
You are getting very colorful in your written descriptions. Jim A.
(Jim is the guy who first tricked me into getting on a sailboat 13 years ago,
now I can't get off.)

Dave:
Enjoying the postings on the website.  First thing I do every morning is to
check and see if Pat has updated the site. Everyone's postings paint a vivid
picture in my mind of your journey.

Great marriages-Uncle Ed and Aunt Jean, Aunt Patsy and Uncle Lynn.  Strong women
and dedicated men to provide for their families.  Sense of humor with your Mom
and mine.  I can hear them laughing as we speak. Sense of adventure and the
outdoors-you and Dad. Could this possibly mean you are finally ready to give up
your bachelor ways, cousin Dave?  A lot of time to contemplate life and what is
important I bet on those open seas.  Tom and I will be celebrating 25 years next
year, hard to believe how the time flies by.
Wishing you all continued success on your grand adventure and back stateside to
your loved ones soon.
Patti
( Yes, a lot of time to contemplate the important things in life. I thought that
I had all of the answers before, now I have even more.)

Dave,
I wanted to let you know we love following your adventure.  I am living a
sailors life vicariously through your adventure.  Lauren and I are tracking you
position on our globe, so please keep posting it
Keep you spirits up and buy some more books at St Helena (?), it looks like you
will have a lot more reading time.  Do you want me to forward you Rush Limbaughs
newsletter?
ray j
(I love that Ray and his daughter are doing this I don't think that most kids
get a feel for how big this world really is).

Dave, Ray, Bob, Kim & Greg,
I just received this email from Nita, of Don and Nita Missey, cabin members of
CSA.   I thought I'd just pass on the whole message to you all...
I keep hearing from people about how much they are appreciating your posts!!!!
From Nita:
Linda, you don't need to remind us to read the "Adventure" - it is the first
thing I look for when I get to the computer. Even though I am not a sailor, I
LOVE hearing every detail.  What nerve!  If ever you write to Dave, even though
I don't know him personally, tell him I am praying for their safety.  He is
gifted in so many ways (including writing) and I really appreciate his sharing
the Adventure with all of us.
God bless Toucan Play and the entire crew.
Nita
There you have it...God bless you all...
Linda ~~~_/)~~*~~~

? for Dave:  Do you have enough medicine!  Are you staying safe?  From The
Extremely Handsome Guy's Mother
(Yeeeeeees Mother, I have enough medicine and we are staying safe. J)
? for Dave:  I understand that an asteroid will come closest to the earth near
South America soon.  Will you be able to spot it in the next three days?  From
Incredibly Cute Cousin Beth in Harrodsburg, KY.
(This is the first I have heard of it. We will keep our eyes upward. The skies
are incredibly brilliant out here)

? for Dave:  Do you feel that this experience has led you to give up society and
become a sailor full-time?  Ever think you will try out for Survivor now that
you have experienced this adventure?  If so, where would the Survivor location
be?  From Cousin Cathy in Harrodsburg, KY.
( Meeting some of the people who have given up the corporate life for sailing
the world has made sound glamorous and inexpensive, but the realistic part of me
says, No. At times I feel like I am living the Survivor show NOW, in the middle
of the Atlantic. Five adults used to living their own lives in one small living
quarters and nowhere to go has it's own set of challenges).

? for Dave:  What's your funniest experience so far?  Who caught the biggest
fish?  From Very Proud Aunt Pat in Kentucky Bluegrass Country
(By far the funniest thing that has happened is not printable on a family web
site. The next funniest Ray and I both agree was the Rikki ride in Cape Town, an
incredible blast, weaving through traffic and around turns at a high rate of
speed in what felt like a roller skate with 10 people in it. You had to hang on
to anything you could, the more people screamed the wilder the ride. Biggest
fish, asks my Aunt who along with my uncle Lynn taught me how to fish as a kid.
Greg has caught the biggest and most colorful, Ray and Bob's were smarter
because they convinced their captures to release them. We are using metal wires
for leaders and one fish bit right through the wire. The part of this answer
that I have been skirting is, NO, I have not caught ANY FISH L).

Bare Footin BWSB

9.29.04

It is almost 2am. Our watch is just about over. The air has warmed as we have
sailed north and we now report to evening watch in bare feet and t-shirts. I still
like a sweatshirt though when I sit at the helm directly in the breeze, even if
it is a warm breeze.. The temp this early am is 76 degrees F. The moon is full
but the planet Mars is also clearly visible about 35 degrees above the horizon.
In the clear air it radiates a multitude of twinkling colors-red, blue and
yellow, which are even more awesome when looking through our binoculars.
Earlier today Greg yelled shark!! No-one else saw the fin but Greg insists one
swam by about 30 feet from our beam (sailor language for horizontally from the
middle of our boat). It might be a whale of a tale but he is sticking to it.!
What I can confirm is that navy skipper Bob caught a 3 foot wahoo as the sun
poked its head above the horizon this morning and displayed another pink and
orange sunrise.. This fish put up a good fight as he reeled him in. Bob said he
got a workout-meaning himself, but I am sure it was true for the fish also, as
we were sailing at about 7 knots at the time. Wahoo are a beautiful black and
shiny, silver striped fish with a smiling wide mouth. This one smiled even
bigger as we through him back in-he was not to be our lunch!
Watch is over. Greg is completing the log as I complete this e-mail. There is
more to tell but it will have to wait. We are not back on watch until noon-we
plan to sleep in and then I will write more..  Good-night all, Kimberlee and
Greg
PS Our latitude is:6 degrees 12 minutes South
            longitude is 22 degrees 11 minutes West

9.28.04

Last night we had the 2am-6am shift with a setting full moon to the west. The
moon was a bright beacon illuminating the path we were sailing-a shiny silver,
but undulating roadway. The boat sailed and swayed a zig-zagging, not quite
straight course with the swells. Darkness never really set in, as the white
horses (swells with breaking white crests, remember earlier e-mail?) could still
be seen riding with us, even in the distance. As the moon set on the horizon in
front of us, a pink and orange sunrise exploded behind us. I am not really a
morning person but this AM was special.
Ray and David are now sailing us with our spinnaker and 15-20 knots of wind
under clear blue skies. Another beautiful day!
Our coordinates are:7 degrees 10 minutes South
                                18 degrees West.
Miss everyone, Kimberlee and Greg

MAN OVERBOARD MAN OVERBOARD

Update 9.27.04 1505 hr.
Location: 7º 42.6 minutes south
15º 28.7 minutes west

HA HA made you look
You dirty crook
You stole your mother's pocket book....

No body is overboard, I just wanted everyone's attention for two reasons.
The first is to help me complete this childhood nursery rhyme. None of us can
get past what I just printed.
The second is to invite all of you to e-mail any questions that you have and
that I am not covering. These questions could be of anyone in our group (Kim,
Greg, Skipper Bob, Ray or me). You know questions like "Gee what is like
spending 24 hours a day for months with someone who is Extremely Handsome AND
Humorous?" That could be addressed to Kim who gets to travel with four guys that
fit the description.
Ask a question or share a story, make a comment. To e-mail use Gregkim@ocens.net
please do not send attachments or pics. In the subject type "BWSB". I will see
to it that the correct person responds to the request and that it gets posted.
You can sign it or remain anonymous. However I think that it is a good idea not
to use last names on the web. You could put Patty from Harrodsburg, or something
like that so people will know who you are.
All of us have friends and relatives that have been keeping up with the
adventure by logging on. So bring it on, let's have some fun.
BWSB
Dave

9.27.04

Ascension Island is the island of contrast. We had been told not to waste our
time-we were told it was ugly, just a desolate pile of volcanic rock, no
vegetation and lots of high tech communication stations( and a couple of
military bases (US and British) Well it was this and a lot more! Ascension is
home to the worldwide broadcasting center for the BBC. Besides the 2 military
bases the French and US also have rocket launching tracking facilities here. The
island's electric generation facilities (which also supply energy for the
desalination water making plant) are 6-8 huge(35 stories) white streamlined
windmills set on a barren cliff overlooking barren volcanic rocks below and a
vast sea. I felt like I was in the middle of a James Bond movie as I stood below
the whirling windmill arm spokes. Those movies always seem to have fancy
technology set out in the middle of nowhere.
When we first took our new dinghy to the landing steps our adventure started. We
had 3 foot swells which would launch our boat onto the wide steps and then just
as quickly drag us back out. The key was timing-grab one of 6 thick ropes when
the wave would bring you in and then hang on and swing to shore as the dinghy
was swept back out. The last person ashore (Greg) tied the dinghy on a line that
was led offshore. He then climbed onto an old flat platform structure and we
pulled him and the platform to the steps, timing our efforts to the swells. With
only minor wet clothing and feet we proceeded to go through the formalities of
Customs and Immigration. We had to scout for these people as they are not used
to many visitors and therefore are not just sitting in offices waiting for us.
Formalities completed, we then rented a car. Our choices were white, white or
white all with squeaky brakes. Finding lunch proved to be an adventure in
itself. At the US military base a beautiful buffet cafeteria meal was to be
found. The only problem was the mess hall was off limits to tourists so we
proceeded to look and look and look elsewhere for something that was open.. We
finally found a bar that served pizza. Yeah! The only problem: we had one choice
of topping-fresh caught tuna! So tuna pizza it was, interesting and actually
pretty good.
So far we had only driven the roads close to shore. Here the terrain is nothing
more than miles of lava rocks which looked like a massive construction site that
someone had just plowed through. The guys said "Dozer Boy" had just gotten a new
tractor and been set loose to play with his new toy. We could have been on the
moon, I thought. This was the Ascension Island we had heard about. Looking at
the map there was Green Mountain-sounded good amongst all this brown and black
terrain. So off our little car drove.
What we found was a complete contrast-a rain forest with lush vegetation, banana
trees, vibrant pink, purple, orange, red, and yellow colored flowers and bushes,
and steep switch back roads that climbed and climbed to the top, into the
clouds. In the clouds, the wind howled and covered us in mist as we explored an
old fort. The cannons here would not have done anyone any good as it was
impossible to see the sea below in the thick cloud cover. If we had had more
time, there were miles of hiking trails in the forest and banana trees which
would have been fun to explore. I took a 15 minute walk just to get a taste. The
trail had been cut with the steep barren mountain side on one side and banana
trees on the other. It wound around following the slope of the bluff. I felt
like I was in a maze, as I could not see over the hill on one side and the
banana foliage on the other. The wind howled and misted above me but the the
density of the banana leaves kept me dry and protected. Weird, but really a neat
experience.
Greg did a fabulous job of driving the winding roads which were in very good
shape, just terribly steep. We were told the goats and sheep had right of way. We
saw plenty of sheep and several big land crabs. At one point I got out of the
car and tried to pet a small lamb.  I found myself doing nothing more than running
down the hill after it, with the guys just laughing. They all have a weird sense
of humor! They are either laughing at me or fart jokes.....Yes, unfortunately,
the fart jokes continue.
On the road back to town, we passed a 3 foot monument-a boulder covered in
multi-colored paint splashes with empty paint cans set beside it.. Seems this is
an Ascension custom. If you leave the island without pouring paint on the rock
then you will someday return. If you definitely don't want to come back then you
have to make sure to add your decorating paint pourings. We left without
decorating the rock. Hopefully someday we'll be back. This is an island that
leaves more to explore than what you see when you first arrive.
We all got a good nights sleep at anchor and set sail this AM under sunlit warm
skies. Life is really good. Miss you, Kimberlee and Greg

Update 9.26.04 2046 hr. Sunday
Location: Ascension Island

Last night we sailed into Ascension area, dropped our sails and motored in to the
harbor area. Unlike St. Helena we did not have anyone on the radio to help us
come in to find a spot to anchor. Luckily we did have very bright and almost
full moon. With the bright night, we managed to motor into a very crowded area
with a large ship, many moored smaller boats and a floating oil line. We dropped
anchor at 3am this morning. Then about 10 am we put the dingy in the water and
made our way to the shore. The trick here was getting out of the dingy and then
Greg had to take the dingy out to a mooring area, tie to a mooring line and then
climb onto a half sunken and broken boat similar to a Sunfish. Then I pulled a
long return line to pull the broken line to the dock. All of this with three
foot swells. The first thing that we had to do on shore was check in at the
customs office with at least six officers checking our back packs and clearing
our passports. Then we had to go to the police station to pay off the
immigration people. Now the problem here was that we went in to the police
station and could not find anyone anywhere. We walked through all of the rooms
yelling in an effort to find someone but to no avail. When we left we stood
outside wondering what to do, in fear that if we were caught on the island
without paying the proper officials we would be arrested. Finally two officers
casually wondered up and had us complete paper work and buck up some cash so
that they would not through us in jail. This island has many sandy beaches the
color of those tan eggs from the grocery store. The contour of the island is
much more gradual than St. Helena. After we paid off the officials we rented a
car and all five of us jammed into a car that is about as big as trash can. We
drove all over looking for lunch, asking locals and getting such a look of
confusion that you would think they never heard of McDonald's. I asked one
woman, "If you wanted a sandwich right now were would you go?" She said "Home".
We finally found a bar that would serve us Tuna Pizza. UMMM yummy, talk about
local flavor. Within the fist 20 minutes we were all saying why we are still
here.  This place is barren and ugly and its terrain is what I imagine the moon to
be. NO vegetation. The customs guy told me that the only things to look at were
a cemetery, dried out pond and a beach. We soon found out how wrong he was. We
drove up into the mountains and this wasteland emerged into a beautiful lush
forest like place where in places it was hard to see the sky. Wild goats and
sheep have the right of way, and we saw plenty, including donkeys just wandering
the streets. We saw a lamb lying in front of the main entrance right up against
the door of the hospital (picture to come). We saw so many of types of colorful
flowers and plants. While on top of the mountain we were inside of a cloud and
able to see it whip around the rocks trees and us. We drove on very narrow
roads made up of switchbacks on very steep terrain. So the interior of the
island is thick lush island paradise and the perimeter looks like a villainous
super power from a comic book has wreaked havoc on the land. It appears that
huge mountains have been tossed and turned over by monster equipment and the
soil and rocks have been slammed down in big piles. The character might be
called "DOZER MAN" able to toss entire mountains with a single toss from his
mighty bulldozer.
We meet people that have given up a fruitful life in the corporate world and
gone off to sail the world quite often. Today we met a couple, Gail and Ken from
Washington state who have been sailing on a 36" cabin boat for five years and have
been all over the world. When I asked them how they were able to spend 24 hours
a day seven days a week for so many years together without getting on each
others nerves they giggled and snuggled into each others arm like a couple of
high school kids. They said that not being in the working world as we know it
changes everything and allows them to concentrate on a successful relationship
without all of the other pressures and expectations that society puts on people.
It made me think of some of my friends that have been married for a long time
and seem to have relationships without the hard times, but have not been able to
escape society. Norm and Midge, Denny and Shara, Brock and Nancy, Ed and Ruth,
Dave and Laura, Jim and Barb just to name a few. How do they do it? I don't
know, but one common denominator is that as long as I have known these people I
have never heard any of them speak derogatory or disrespectful about, or to
their spouses. I hope that I am on to something here. Could it be that with this
one guideline set by the examples of these great people that married couples
could throw away all of those Dr. Phil books?
Speaking of relationships, Linda M. and I have been dating for over a year now
and yesterday I received the best news I've had since I left St. Louis on Far
Day ( July 30th). Linda has confirmed that she will be able to join us on the
boat in Forteleza, Brazil on October 7th for the last two weeks of the trip.
Yahoo.
It just turned midnight and I need to be ready to pull up anchor by 8am. We head
out for a 6½ day trip to Fernando de Noronha, Brazil a mere eleven hundred miles
away (That is 1100 miles or 157times the length of Carlyle Lake). Holly Mackerel
sailor buddies there is a heck of a lot of water out here and it is two to three
miles deep. We have 2400 miles behind us and 3600 left in our total trip.

If the mighty satellite God in the sky is kind to us I will be sending updates
from the Big Water.
BWSB over and out.

9.26.04

We safely anchored and went to sleep around 3 am. We awoke to a huge !! rainbow
spanning the horizon with 2 other small rainbows fringing along side. Dolphins
greeted us and schools of triggerfish feasted on our stale bread thrown
overboard like attacking piranhas. Hundreds of them came from no where. We are
heading to shore to explore. Greg just put our new dinghy in the water. Yippee!!
Kimberlee and Greg

9.25.04

It is 8pm and our ETA (estimated time of arrival) at Ascension Island is
midnight. We have carefully planned our approach as night arrivals are more
difficult. We will have 2 green "leading lights" marking the way, bearing 140
degrees into Clarence Bay. Leading lights are two lights positioned in a line
with the most distant placed higher than the closest one. They are placed as high
as possible to increase visibility from a far. They are often on hillsides,
bluffs or tall pole structures. You maneuver the boat until they line up and
then keeping them lined up you sail/motor into harbour. Example: If the back one
appears to be to the right of the front one, then you know you need to steer to
the left to keep in safe boundaries.

Today I wish I had remembered to grab the camera. I was baking oatmeal cookies
and making lunch while all the guys were sewing our spinnaker sock on the front
deck. (They didn't want to be outdone in the Suzy homemaker duties of the day)
They all had needles and thread and were sewing about 12 feet of small holes
that occurred when the sock caught on a bolt yesterday when we were lowering it.
A spinnaker sock is the tube/bag that the big beautiful colorful sail goes into.
Think of it as a knee high sock. The toe part gets attached to the halyard (the
line that pulls the sail to the top of the mast). The upside down sock with the
spinnaker inside is pulled up the mast. It now looks like a big sausage roll
swinging from the top to the bottom of the mast. When we are ready, we pull on a
line that raises the knee part of the sock up to the top of the mast with the
toe part.  The spinnaker then pours out and fills with air. When it is time to
lower the spinnaker we simply pull the scrunched up knee part of the sock at the
top of the mast, back down over the sail.. The halyard and "sausage roll" are
then lowered to the trampoline to be put away. Our sock had a poor design near
the attachment of the toe part-a bolt stuck out and ripped a lot of holes as the
sock scraped against it on its way back down. Oh well, it is like getting the
first dent or scratch in your new car. I am sure it won't be our last boo boo
and this one was easily fixed by the guys. My heroes again! They are eating their
reward right now-warm cookies with a glass of cold milk. Yum! Need to go grab a
cookie before they devour them all, Kimberlee and Greg
Our coordinates are: latitude: 8 degrees 20 minutes South
                                longitude: 13 degrees 58 minutes West

Update 9.25.04 1713 hr. Saturday
Location: 8º 37.1 south
13º 43.5 west

We are moving along at about 7 knots of wind with just our screacher out with
the wind at our back at about 15 knots with four foot swells and a bright sunny
sky. Greg is playing the guitar and Ray is trying to raise a friend of ours on
the short wave radio. We met this friend in Cape Town and he left on 46 ft.
Catamaran about a week ahead of us. He should be getting into the Hurricane area
and must be sweating a brutal schedule to get to the Annapolis Boat Show by Oct.
3rd. He will be picking and choosing islands and weather windows trying to thread
the needle between no wind, too much wind and hopeless wind.
Ray just gave up on our friend Bruce and is now also playing his guitar, they
are both very talented. "Hey Mister Tambourine Man".
Gotta Go fix dinner for the gang, back latter.
1901 hr. Back. For those of you who know me are probably wondering "fix dinner"?
Dave? Nobody delivers out there, how will he fix dinner? Well it's true, I just
made some kind of pasta with some gooey stuff on if. Everybody ate it, so I
guess it worked. I told you I would be a different guy by the time this
adventure ends.
Skipper Bob Quote: There are three basic categories that cause all of the
problems on a boat at sea:
Vibration: I see this better now that I have witnessed the constant beating that
the boat takes around the clock every day.
Friction: Again we have seen constant rubbing on all parts. It is amazing the
wear and tear that we are witnessing on brand new lines, blocks and other parts.
Water: We smeared Lamp Oil on all of the stainless steel while still at Cape
Town to help protect against the salt water. Lucky that we did, we have large
clumps of salt that have accumulated on parts all over the boat. Out here the
water seems to soak into everything. The problem here is not just moist clothes
but wet electronics. We fight every night trying to get the navigation lights,
tricolor lights and on occasion we have things just short out. One time our
power winch started all by itself and just took off. We were very lucky that we
did not have something wrapped around it. These winches are heavy duty, which is
great when we are trying battle something heavy duty, but if it takes off while
something is wrapped around it could serous damage.
BWSB signing off, so that I can go watch Ascension Island come into view. It is
very exciting to spot land after not seeing any for six days. LAND HO, and to be
the one to first see it, Oh Man what a feeling.

1929 hr.
Location 8º 23.3 south
13º 54.0 west

9.24.04

Zip-a -dee-do-dah What a wonderful day!! That is the tune of the day. The sun is
shining (our only second sunny day since leaving) and we have "white horses"
riding along with us. White horse refers to swells where the top edge of the
wave breaks showing a white crest. The undulating wave crests look like
galloping horses manes moving over the surface of the water. We are riding with
a herd as far as the eye can see with the warming wind blowing through our hair.
The white crests form when the wind blows off the rolling tops of the waves.
Frequent white horses occur with winds of 11-16 knots and many white horse are
present with winds of 17-21. This is known in sailor language as a fresh breeze
and a Force 5 on the Beaufort wind scale. The Beaufort wind scale is a scale of
1-12 describing wind and sea conditions that occur at different wind velocities.
You can tell just by looking at the sea conditions how much wind you have and
therefore how much sail to put up. We don't need our fancy electronics. Anyway
we have glorious sailing conditions!! The guys have the fishing lines out, the
music is booming and we are keeping watch from the front trampoline. FUN! Miss
you all, Kimberlee and Greg
PS Our latitude is:10 degrees 48 minutes South
            Longitude is 11degress 23 minutes West
We are still in Greenwich Mean Time (5hours ahead of St Louis time)

9.23.04

Hi all, Just a short update as we sail on and on and on and on and on..... We
awoke this morning to a collection of flying fish scattered on our deck and
trampolines. These were about 8 inches long with wings. Seems we must have
sailed through a school of them and they flew/jumped onto our boat. No-one
noticed them at night so the poor things were dead when we found them. They are
yucky, slimy, sticky things to pick up and throw overboard. And then your hands
stink!! Not my favorite thing to do, can you tell?
Most of our days have been overcast which we are told is unusual. Our luck! The
sun did come out for about 2 hours late afternoon and we did some practical work
with our sextant. It is definitely going to take some practice. You look at the
sun through filters projected onto mirrors and then into your eye. Keeping
proper alignment is difficult on a swaying boat. The filters are to protect your
retina. The pirates patch came about from sailors looking through a sextant at
the sun and going blind. Aye, Aye.
Our current latitude is: 11 degrees 58 minutes South
                  longitude is 10 degrees 6 minutes West
We are about 2 days from Ascension Island. Time to make coffee for the 10pm-2am
watch.

Kimberlee and Greg

Update 9.22.04 23:35 hr. Wed.
Location13º 54.4 south
7º 58.3 west

We left the beautiful St. Helena 48 hours ago. As we did I watched it get
smaller and smaller and even saw a shooting star head towards it's southern
shoreline. The whole visit was spectacular. They refer to the residents as
Saints, I am not so sure about that, but they were very friendly. Everyone
greeted us in passing and I felt like everyone knew when we arrived and how. On
our last day we took a tour on a little Datson pickup truck. One of the things
we did on the tour was visit the home where Napoleon lived the last years of his
life and died. At the end of our tour Kim, Greg and I conquered Jacob's Ladder,
that's the 700 steps up or down the mountain. Bob stayed with the boat and Ray
made up some excuse about having to get an e-mail out before the e-café closed.
My legs are still killing me.
So now we are well on our way to our next stop Ascension Island. We expect to
land on Sat., stay for just the day and leave in the evening. We are back to our
normal watch schedule.
Kim has been able to get our e-mail system back up and working, that took hours
of frustrating moments.
It is wonderful getting the feed back from so many people about the updates, I
have heard from people whose kid's are learning about the globe and tracking us
by using the longitude and latitude coordinates that I am sending. People from
all over are logging on, people that we met in Cape Town, sailors and non
sailors, even Linda M.'s mother's church group (oh oh, I better clean it up).
The feed back that I've gotten from my own mother is that I better clean up my
language and my grammar. All in all Thank You to everyone that is providing feed
back and those of you that are enjoying the updates. Unfortunately we can't send
pics from sea. I hope to send some from Ascension.
It is now 11:14 on 9.23.04 Thursday our location is:
13º 00.2 south
9º 08.5 west.
BWSB signing off for now.

9.22.04

Some have asked what it felt like to be on land again. The answer is, it felt
like being at sea!! You get so used to rocking and being swayed that you don't
even notice the small movements, just the big slaps and thuds. The small stuff
becomes normal. When you get on land your inner ear fluids are still moving and
now you suddenly feel like everything is swaying back and forth. Weird!! Ray
says he doesn't get sea sick at sea but when he gets back on land he feels sick
for a day or so when he stands still Well my watch is over and I am going to
bed. We have the 6AM-noon watch tomorrow. The swell is gentle tonight-should be
good sleeping. Now the tune in my head is Rock a bye baby.

Night all, Kimberlee and Greg

9.22.04

Hi again,
Our computer e-mail system had a small glitch for the past 3 days-it wouldn't
work!!! After several hours of loading, uninstalling, reloading the program and
trying every checked box or switch possible and 2 satellite phone calls back to
the company in the states who wrote the program, we are finally back in
business!! Yeah!! It seems we had a bogus e-mail clogging our connection to the
server and I had to delete all e-mails on the spool. I am definitely getting a
technical computer education in addition to learning more about sailing. We have
come to really depend upon our e-mail connection to our friends and family back
home and it was a little depressing to think we wouldn't have it. We love staying
in touch with you all.
Well now about St. Helena. This small island has sheer tall cliffs that drop into
the sea. Jamestown is the only town and it is located in the only deep valley
that reaches to sea level. The tropical rich hued purple, fuchsia and orange flora
are absolutely stunning against the rock background. When proceeding inland
along one lane steep roads the lushness of green forest and pastures take over,
There are canons and history everywhere! There are 5000 inhabitants known as
Saints and there is no crime. Everyone knows everyone. St. Helena is mostly known
as the place Napoleon was exiled after his defeat at Waterloo. The tour of of his
home was very interesting.
We took a water taxi from our boat to the island steps. Here we grabbed onto
ropes and swung ashore. There is a 700 step stairway to the top of the cliffs in
town. We elected to take a tour ride to the top and then walked down. Even taking
the easy way out everyone's legs are sore today. These were tall steps and we
haven't exactly been using our legs a lot on the boat. It felt good to get some
exercise.
Greg celebrated his birthday on the island. We decked out our tour pick-up
truck/tour van with balloons and spent the day seeing the island countryside. We
definitely looked like tourists!
Now after 2 1/2 days at St Helena we are back at sea. We left at nightfall last
night so that we will hopefully be arriving at Ascension Island Saturday morning.
We are again wing and wing sailing (our two headsails on either side with the
wind behind us) with 15-20 knots of wind. The seas are about 4-6 feet. We are
doing about 9 knots. Toucan Play is sailing well. Our coordinates are:
                    14 degrees 10 minutes South
                    7 degrees 42 minutes West
The temperature is finally starting to warm a little. Our forecast says we should
have 75 degrees in about 4 days. Our high today was around 68. The moon is out
which really helps make the slaps, thuds and poundings of the sea swells a little
less ominous feeling at night. I am still getting used to dealing with not
always being able to see Greg as he adjusts sails at night. He is getting tired
of me asking "are you hooked on?" You see we have a rule that everyone wears a
life jacket and tether when outside at night. The tether is a line that runs from
your life jacket to a stanchion or a safety rope we have run around the boat. In
this way you are kept from falling overboard if you should slip and fall or be
jolted by a sea swell. Man overboard is the last thing we want to deal with!
Time to give Greg a hand adjusting the sails, Kimberlee and Greg

Update 9.21.04 (from Kim and Greg)

Leaving St. Helena today expect to arrive in Ascension Island in four or five
days. We have lost the connection with our satellite e-mail system and we don't
know if it is the location or the system. If it is the system that means that we
will not have any "on the water e-mail communication". That means that IF
Ascension Island has a e-café I will send updates from there, if not it will be
in Fernando. I will have time on the open water to tell you more about St.
Helena.

BWSB Update 9.20.04 Monday 0645

"Welcome to St. Helena" is what the radio man said when we were still 40 miles
away. Skipper bob had called him to clear the way for entry into the harbor
looking for a mooring and to communicate with customs that we would need to meet
with them. Now understand that 40 miles away traveling at a speed of 6.5 knots
means that we still had hours to go and at first I was saddened that the day was
so cloudy. As we approached the island I realized that this is the best way to
see it. The clouds made it easy to see all of the contours of this landscape and
how dramatic and harsh it is. The wind here is a constant Southeaster which has
beaten away all wildlife and soil to expose hard rock on the windward side of
the island. You see this island is a huge mountain top that sticks out of the
ocean. The shore line is very unfriendly because it is straight up and very
jagged. I imagined while looking at the shore line that if you were unfortunate
enough to have sunk your vessel but lucky enough to drift to this island you
would probably be killed by the waves smashing you against the rock walls with
no way out. I'd say that 97% of the shore line would offer you the same fate.
Certainly NOT like all of those shipwreck movies that I have seen where the
survivor is always washed up on the beautiful white sandy beach. Entering into a
counties harbor you must be cleared by customs before you can get off of your
boat. We sailed in flying an American flag and a "Q" flag which is yellow. The
yellow flag means that we are waiting to see the customs people. Once they
cleared us we lowered the Q flag and raised the St. Helena flag. The harbor
master helped us find a good anchoring area by radio. Once anchored we called
the water taxi for a pick up. We have a dingy on board, but since the shore line
has such limited accessibility you must take the taxi. When we approached the
shore line they informed us that we would have to grab ropes and climb up and
put of the boat, To get back in you swing in on the same ropes. We checked in at
the Police/customs station, an open air type of place with a lot of flies. I
took a hike up (When I say UP, I mean UP) Main street looking at closed shop,
oops, I mean "emporiums" is what they call them, and buildings. I went up the
hill as far as the hospital and went in looking for a pay phone and discovered
that the Hospital is a lot like the police station, flies and all. The hike was
great because for the previous 10 days we had very little physical activity.
I woke up this morning, poked my head out of the hatch in my cabin to see a
school of some kind of large fish jumping and feeding all around us. These fish
looked like small dolphins. What a beautiful view with the mountains and harbor
in the background. What a way to start a Monday morning.

More later.
Dave

Hi Everyone, (Note from Linda Moore before the emails came through)
Thought I would send out a brief update on Dave. I talked with him for the last two days that he has been on St Helena Island....which he stated was "gorgeous!" He is alive and well and doing fine. The boat however is having problems with it's satellite system which knocks out their email connectivity and their radar for weather.  So lets all keep our fingers crossed and keep those prayers flowing that they will get this fixed so that they can have a safer journey back. Their plans were to leave St Helena this morning at 8:00 which was 3:00 AM our time. His next stop is Ascension Island and with good winds prevailing he should be there in 3 -4 days. Hopefully we will get an email update from him soon!
LM

9.19.04

It is 2PM and we are anchored at St Helena. Yeah!! No time to write more. The
ferry boat is coming to take us to Customs and Immigration and then TIME TO
EXPLORE!!Yippeeee!, Kimberlee and Greg
PsS This was written on sept 19 but the satellite reception was poor in our
habour. I am trying again. St Helena is like taking a step back in history. More
later. I hope this goes through.

9.19.04

Well it is 3AM and Greg and I are on watch. He is looking after the sailing
while I compose this update as yesterday we were quite busy tending to sails.
The winds picked up to 22-30 knots with gusts to 36. The seas were 9-12 feet
bouncing us around a bit as the waves slapped and banged against our
right (starboard) stern (back of the boat, remember?) We are on a learning curve.
We learned we need to put more turns on our screacher furling drum (the spool the
sail wraps back up on. Think of a rolling window shade that rolls out and then
rolls back up. As the sail rolls out a line at the bottom also rolls up and
around a spool at the bottom of the rig( like a spool of thread being wound up).
This is the line we then use to "furl" or roll the sail back in. In light wind
the sail rolls back in, in a big loose roll (like paper towels) However when the
wind is blowing hard, the pressure as we roll her in causes it to roll very
tightly,( like saran wrap) and hence many more turns. Well we ran out of line
and the sail was stuck half way out flapping HARD. We needed to get her down as
she is more of a light wind sail and we were afraid she might not take the wind
gusts. Well the guys did a great job of rescuing her over the next 1 1/2 hours.
They all donned life jackets and headed to the trampoline to wrestle her down. I
would try to steer the boat into the wind to take the pressure off the sail as
they let lines go and pulled her down. The problem was the boat was being tossed
from side to side by the big waves which would cause the sail and ropes to
either be thrown against or around the mast or to the other side-in the water
along the side of the hull. Both cases could have caused the sail to be torn. I
wish I could have gotten a video clip of the guys during their struggle as they
"popped" around the trampoline being doused by the occasional wave that would
pour over the bow. They were tired wet puppies after their success and my heroes.
I am in safe, capable, and  strong hands. The screacher is now down and tied
along our port (left) top hull. We will put a lot more turns on the drum before
we put her back up so this doesn't happen again.

We are now moving more gently under one headsail (our higher wind genoa). We
will put up our spinnaker when we are more rested and the waves die down a
bit (better to move a little slower and be safe as we are cruisers not racers).
The waves continue to follow us and move under our hulls from an angle. They
make quite loud bangs, thuds, slap! and swoosh or slurping sounds depending on
how they hit. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to sleep but  I was so tired  it
didn't matter. The Sonny and Cher song , "As the Beat On", runs through my head
with revised words: "The boat keeps rhythm to the sounds of the beating waves,
La de dah de deeeeee (slap, bang, thud) La de dah de dahhhhh (slurp, swoooosh,
bang BANG).I am driving the guys crazy with my wonderful singing voice. We
should be arriving in St Helena later this morning.. HURRAY!! Log time
(recording our hourly course, speed, weather and position, remember?), Kimberlee
and Greg

Update 9.18.04 Saturday 0800
I thought that I was invincible, then I met the ATLANTIC.
Now I am humiliated and completely exhausted. More about that later.
For now let's talk about some terms that I have been learning. On inland lakes
we use Miles Per Hour, MPH to measure the speed (Velocity) of the wind on the
ocean we use knots. The conversion is 1.1 MPH to 1 knot. For example 10 knots
would be 11 MPH.
That being said let's take a look at the Beaufort (Pronounced Bofort not Bufort
as I have been saying it for years) wind Scale:
Force 0-4 = 0-16 knots
Force 5 (Fresh Breeze) wind 17 -21 knots, waves 6 - 8 feet.
Moderate waves taking a more pronounced long form; many white horses (White
Caps); some spray.
Force 6 (Strong Breeze) wind 22 - 27 knots, waves 9 - 13 feet.
Large waves begin to form; white foam crests everywhere; spay.
Force 7 (Near Gale) wind 28 -33 knots; waves 13 - 19 feet.
Sea Heaps up; white foam from breaking waves begins to streak along wind
direction. (This is when you start humming the ballad Edmund Fitzgerald).
Force 8 (Gale) wind 34 -40 knots; waves 18 - 25 feet.
Edges of crests begin to break into spindrift; foam streaks well defined.
(This is when Ray starts using the "F" word to describe the similarities to a
F___ing Rollercoaster ride. We are sailors after all, if you're going be a
sailor you must speak like a sailor.) ( I know that Ray Jaeger's, (a different
Ray) daughter, Lauren, is following this trip and probably other children, but I
must emphasis that after this mornings 02000 to 0600 watch there is no other way
to describe what was happening, and I know it can get so much worse.)
Force 9 (Strong Gale) wind 41 - 47 knots; waves 23 - 32 feet.
Crests begin to topple and roll over. Spray may effect visibility on even large boats.
Forch 10 (Storm) wind 48 - 55 knots; waves 29 - 41 feet.
Long overhanging crests; foam in great patches; sea surface takes a whiteappearance.
(No time to hum).
Force 11 (Violent Storm) wind 56 - 63 knots; waves 37 - 52 feet.
Sea is completely covered with foam patches; wave crests blown into frotheverywhere.
(No time to hum or speak like a sailor)
Force 12 (Hurricane) wind 63+ knots; waves huge.
The air is filled with foam and spray; sea completely white with driving spay.
(PRAY)
Yesterday in an effort to pick up some speed and therefore miles we decided to
fly the Genoa AND the Screahcer at the same time and sail them wing to wing.
These two sails are used in front of the jib and one or the other. I have never
seen them used at the same time. The Genoa is 2/3 the size of the Screacher.
With both sails up we have more square footage of sail up than with the
spinnaker up (Spinnaker is the largest sail on the boat). Well we drove this
sail combination right into the evening and then into the dark of night when the
waves and wind picked up to a point where we were really "making time baby". We
got more aggressive than we probably should have but decided that to furl either
sail in the darkness would be more dangerous than to ride it out. To furl would
have meant sending either Ray or I to the very front of the boat in high seas
and darkness. As soon as the wind came up and Bob woke up we decided to furl the
Screacher.
In this process the furling line came out of the spool (My D.A. mistake) leaving
the sail about half out and flapping violently in the wind. Our mast is 75' and
both of these sails go up almost to the top, they are huge. Challenge: Lower the
Screacher down to the trampoline and re wrap the spool. We then put it back up,
all of this while riding that roller coaster that Ray was referring to. Once we
got the Screacher back up on the back side of the Genoa (A great trick new to
me, use the Genoa to shield the screacher as we raise the partially furled sail)
we furled the Genoa and unfurled the Screacher only to find that we did not have
enough line in the spool to completely furl the sail again, (Someone else's D.A.
mistake, I won't mention names). Challenge: Take it down and do it again.
(Sailor terminology was being practiced in a profuse abundance). We were already
exhausted but could not wait. We then went through the strenuous exercise of
wrestling the half furled sail again. Now it is tied to the deck after re-spooling it again this time with plenty of line. The wind and the sea is so, so powerful, I just can't even imagine a comparison. We now have tied the sail off to the deck, too exhausted to raise it again. Kim, Ray and Greg have gone to get some rest and I, being inspired to communicate with my friends am trying to compose this update.
This whole process makes me wonder how many times ex Navy of 30 years Skipper
Bob has looked at us shaking his head mumbling some sailor term or word
describing our inexperience. My twelve years of sailing at Lake Carlyle has been
very educational but has done little to prepare me for the challenges that the
sea has to offer.
It is now 1115 on Saturday our position is 18º 4.4 minutes south,
3º 48.7 minutes west.
I'm going to bed, miss you all.
Dave

1241 OK OK this is to much. I was awakened by the scuffle sound on deck of the
others putting up the Screacher. Pulled on my wet clothes as fast as I could and
ran up the five steps only to find all four people in the galley chatting and
making lunch. They all turned and looked at me in my full foully wet gear like I
was the only person that was told that this was a costume party. EEEEgads I was
dreaming that they were putting up the Screacher.
We are now within 24 hrs. of St. Helena our first stop, 9 days into our sail
that I left St. Louis for on Far Day, July 30 (The day after the most important
day of the year and farthest day from my next birthday). Approximately ¼ of our
total trip. Oh Man, so much more excitement to go.

Tune in next time for a special feature: "B.W.S.B Losses His Mind"

9.18.04 (Please take note when sending a message)

A request to everyone: When responding to an e-mail when we are at sea, please
do not use the reply button as this just sends our message back with your reply.
We end up paying twice for our portion of the message and sometimes the
satellites move before we can download everything because of the length of my
messages. It takes about 1 min to send or receive a 15kb message which costs
$1.50. Some of my lengthier e-mails are around 7kb. When I group send a message
out, our e-mail program sends it one time via satellite (this takes about 1/2min)
and then when it gets to land  it separates it and sends it via cheap land lines
to all of you. When several of you respond to my e-mail (ie: you hit the reply
button), we end up receiving my sent message back several times at a 30 second
download time for each one. Besides, I can't stand to read my message over and over
anyway. We love to hear from you, so please if you want to write, do. Just start
a new message and put in our address of gregkimd@ocens.net and type in a subject
or type in RE: if you prefer. Also please no attachments, pictures or special
cute graphics or color backgrounds. Just the plain old text.
If you want to see the size of the message you are sending you can right click
on it before you send it when it is sitting in your outbox or drafts folder and
select properties. Most e-mails are only 1-5kb if they contain no graphics or
attachments. I have a filter on right now that won't let messages of more than
30kb through. Those messages would sit in a land based account until we get to
an e-cafe.
If we are clogging up your e-mail address with our frequent entries please let
us know to take you off. We won't be offended as I know some of you may not be
interested in the day to day stuff and use your e-mails more for business.
Some of you have requested that we add someone to our list. That is fine
too-just let us know as it doesn't cost any more to send it to 1 or a 100.

Thanks for your help, Kimberlee and Greg

PS Just for reference purposes, this is a 5kb message. It costs us about 50
cents to send or receive this. Not bad
unless we get it back 10 times with your responses added on.

9.17.04

The sun did not come out today until sunset when the rays poured through a small
opening in a grey cloudy sky Rather than the more translucent rays I am used to
seeing on land the rays were an opaque lucent white which looked liked a
waterfall pouring from the sky into the ocean. In fact it was a crescent shape
like Niagra Falls. (Could we sailed that far already? My mind must be drifting
home to the states.) In any event it was another spectacular and inspiring
phenomenon.
We received a sad e-mail last night. A very dear friend lost his girlfriend to
leukemia almost without any warning. She was a vibrant and healthy woman who
enjoyed the outdoors and float trips with us. She had some bruising and went to
see her doctor. He put her in the hospital before the week-end and had a
diagnosis of leukemia on Monday. She died Tuesday. She was around my age. The
news really sunk in hard out here. The night seemed even darker than usual.
There were clouds and no stars and no moon. The air misted with light rain. The
creaking of the boat as the swells surged by seemed to sob with me. My heart
hurt for my friends and her family. As sobering as the news was,  I was glad
that I knew and thankful for our fancy satellite e-mail system. At least my
thoughts could be with my friends even if I couldn't. Life is precious. This
news reconfirmed our decision to set out on this adventure. You have to go for
your dreams while you can. Greg and I hugged each other very close last night.
The wind was good today and straight up our bum, as they say in sailor language.
This means it was blowing from straight behind us towards our stern. This allowed
us to sail "wing and wing" aka "goose winged". Instead of putting up our
spinnaker we left our screacher up on one side and unfurled (unrolled) our other
forward sail on the other side.. The mainsail was not put up as it would block
the wind to the two forward sails, outstretched like the wings of a bird. And she
sailed  like a bird and still is. Our autopilot automatically detects any slight
wind shift and adjusts the rudders to compensate. It is critical to keep the
wind from dead behind us to maintain the sails on opposite sides of the boat. A
small shift would cause them to both want to be on the same side. The autopilot
hasn't messed up once. We tried to do it manually and it is tediously
complicated to concentrate and focus on every slight movement as the boat
pitches with the swells. Electronics are wonderful!
One last note, late yesterday afternoon we toasted again. We keep coming up with
reasons to toast, have you noticed? This time we toasted to having crossed  the
Greenwich Prime Meridian. This is where our longitude changes from east to west.
By international agreement the longitude scale on charts is numbered from 0-180
degrees east or west of an imaginary line that passes through Greenwich in
London England. The British were the leading naval country when this was
established as the standard. Anyway we are now in the western hemisphere, like
home.
Our latitude is 19 degrees 36 minutes South (we are still south of the equator)
and 2 degrees 8 minutes West
Some of you have asked if you could buy a chart somewhere to track us. You
might try Rand McNally at the Galleria or call Bluewater Books in Ft Lauderdale
Florida. Or look at a globe. We are now approximately 300 miles Southeast of St
Helena in the middle of the South Atlantic. Watch is in two hours (10pm-2am).
Good-night, Kimberlee and Greg

Update 9.16.04 08:19 Thursday.
Location: 22º 25.3 minutes south
0º 49.4 minutes south

Ray and I are working the 06:00 to noon watch and then we will be back on at
12:00 hr to 02:00 hrs tomorrow. The excitement today is that as soon as we took
over the shift we started getting pelted by storm cells causing wind shifts,
some fancy dancing with increased wind and rain. Right now we are in-between
cells and relatively calm. This calm won't last long as we have a huge storm
coming up our bum as the South Africans like to say.
We are now 1200 miles into our trip and it is amazing to me that we have birds
hanging with us. A pair of Albatross and a pair of Mother Of Carry. I wonder if
these birds are born on the water some how or do they really fly that far out.
Have they ever seen land?
An interesting dilemma in South Africa News:
The apple farmers that I came to know and visit with had told us that they
received a letter from the government telling them that they would have to give
up 10% of their land in the next two years to blacks. Mind you I said give as in
no money changes hands just property. As we listen to the BBC news casts I am
learning that what is really happening is much more frightening. The current
president of South Africa is in support of the president of Zimbabwe even after
he changed a law that literally gave ALL of the farm land owned by whites to
blacks. Yes that is correct, one day came and the farmers lost homes, barns,
equipment, property everything. The S. African president has now been bussing
poor blacks into S. Africa by the tens of thousands and dumping them into these
townships (Pictures elsewhere on the web site) with the promise of a better
life. Each person being brought in has one vote in the next election. It looks
like they will be part of the next big land grab. For years I felt sorry for our
family farmers in the USA. I still do, but it could be worse.
It is now 1917 and we are about to cross over the Greenwich Meridian. This is
the reference line in which all time zones and all longitude lines are taken. It
is here because way back in 1400 or so the King of England (King Charles the
first) gave a hill top to some scientist and commanded them to study the stars.
They decided that they would have to create a grid for the earth and of course
they started with their own location centered in the first time zone.
Yahoo, we just past it. We went from 0º 00.1 east to 0º 00.1 west. Let the party
begin.
Gotta Go.
Dave

9.16.04

We keep sailing on. Today we have had a mix of sun and small rain showers. The
rain showers were fun for me as it gave me my first opportunity to identify
squalls on our radar. During the day you can see them coming and be prepared to
reduce sail if necessary. At night our radar alerts us.
Our celestial navigation course continues and makes my eyes cross at times.
There are some pretty complicated ideas to grasp for the first time. After the
light finally goes on (mine is dim right now) then there is crazy math of adding
hours, minutes and seconds. I'll explain more about that in another e-mail as
today I am feeling a little tired. Going to class and sailing this boat across
the ocean while doing your watch and cooking can be quite tiring. It is
rewarding and challenging, but sometimes you just don't want to get out of bed
and do your watch! Well now I am back on watch so good-bye for now, Kimberlee
and Greg

9-15-04 12:58PM (From Greg)

We have wind!!!  A very comfortable 8-12 knots. With our big "screacher" ( a
light wind sail at the front of the boat) we are traveling at about 4.5 knots
through the water. There are now wide swells that pass every 12 seconds or so
.We gently ride up one side and down the other as they run diagonally from our
stern to the opposite bow. They are about 8-10 feet tall but about 30 feet wide,
so it is a very gentle ride. These wide spaced swells indicate a storm very,
very  far away( at least 2-3 days. Birds (albatross, with a wing span of 6 feet
and a small bid called a Mother of Carrys chicken) still fly around our boat and
periodically land in the water by us. Small fluffy cumulous clouds( known as
fair weather clouds) are above us. We are happy :)
When the wind stays consistently above 12 knots we will put up our bright
colored spinnaker and really start cruising. Can't wait!! That should be
tomorrow we are hoping. Greg caught a dorado (aka Mahi Mahi or dolphin fish). So
guess what we are having for dinner? This fish is beautiful when first caught.
It's scales are a florescent yellow, green and blue. This one put up a good
fight, leaping into the air about 20  times before Greg got him onto the boat. We
are celebrating this happy hour with pina colados served in fresh baby pineapples
we bought in Capetown. Time to be off watch and go watch the sunset with our
special drink and a delicious dinner to follow. Life is good, Kimberlee and Greg

PS We just toasted the wind goddess Aelolus:  may her fair winds not leave us
again

Update 9.15.04 11:34 hr zulu
Location: 24º 10.69 minutes south
2º 22.6 east
Atlantic crossing report from "BIG WATER SAILOR BOY".

Just another day here in the Atlantic Ocean. Although today we have a sunny day
and we have not had that experience since the day we left Cape Town. The
temperature has raised to 74 degrees for the first time this trip. This makes it
a laundry day for me. Ray washed his underwear and socks four days ago and
because of the low temperatures and no sun his laundry has not dried yet. Ray
has been warring the same panties for four days now. (He asked me not tell the
others). Doing the laundry consists of soapy water in the sink and just ad dirty
clothes. Then find an appropriate place outside to hang them. (WOW today's entry
is really going to be exciting, can you tell? Laundry?).
We have had the BBC radio news cast on the shortwave radio. It is our only
source of news other than e-mails.
I have had plenty of time to catch up on reading on this trip. I even read a
Cosmo magazine and learned all about the "10 best Sex Tips Every Women Should
Know". More ideas to increase attendance for next years Muddy Waters. Yahoo,
Long Live The Lipton Cup.
We started seeing Portugal Manawars or sometimes called Blue Bottles, they are
small little jelly fish type of stinging things that float on top of the water
and they have little sails on top. (º Hey look at that, Bob just taught me how
to insert a degree symbol. I must go back and insert the ones at the top of this
entry.) This is an exciting day after all.
We sat to long and did new estimates on the fuel consumption and determined that
we can get better performance from the engine at a lower RPM so we have decided
to tap into what we had earlier determined to be our emergency reserve. In
other words we are under motor power once again and burning what we thought we
should save for a storm. We are 666 nautical miles from the next gas station
(St. Helena) and still no wind. Darn I forgot the name of the Wind God that we
are supposed to worship for wind (Mencin's would Know).
Motoring on,
B.W.S.B.

9.15.04  10:36 AM

It is noon and we are back on watch. What a beautiful day!!! The sun has come
out for the first time in days and it has warmed to 75 degrees. We still don't
have wind but the sun cheers us all. We are now looking for the elusive Southeast trade winds which should be near. The color of the ocean is a deep deep blue
with a hint of turquoise. Blue bottles float by, by the hundreds. These are a
relative of the Portugueses man of war but you can see through them. They are
about the size of a large white grape with what looks like a little transparent
sail that is slightly above the water helping them drift along. Interesting, but
I don't think I'll take a swim right now. They are suppose to have quite a nasty
sting. We have laundry hanging everywhere as we take advantage of the sun's
warmth. Our boat will have a washer and dryer but we couldn't get those or a
microwave in South Africa. All their appliances are 230volt 50Hz and our boat is
set up for 110 volt 60 Hz like in the states. So we are doing laundry and
cooking the old fashioned way. We have a propane gas stovetop and an oven which
work quite well. We have no celestial class today just practice homework. Time
to study, Kimberlee and Greg

9.14.04  9:03:56 PM

Hi again, Well it is now midnight and Greg and I are on watch. The sky is star
studded-absolutely gorgeous! The problem is we haven't had wind for the past 24
hours  and we are just barely bobbing along. We have had fairly low winds most
of the time. This was a perfect weather window to leave, nice and safe, as
South Africa  is known for some terrible storms(hence the term, Cape Storm, near
where we left. We have kept our motors running quite a bit so far but being a
sailboat we don't have unlimited fuel and so we can't just keep the motors
running the whole way. We need to save our fuel for charging our batteries twice
a day(we also motor at that time too). Our batteries keep our 3 fridge and
freezers cold(with their 6 week supply of food) and provide us with
lights, inside and navigation lights. The engines also heat our water so we have
nice hot water for our showers and doing dishes. We have 2 generators that we
run about every other day to make water from salt water(called a
desalienator).We can make 1600gallons of fresh water per day. We are not really
"roughing it" as many of you imagine.
Moving or not moving with the wind is part of our journey. We all expected that
before beginning this, but our boat not being completed on time has put us into
a little time crunch, especially for Ray and David.(Bob's wife and daughter
already had to fly home because of the delay). Ray and David are hoping to have
their girlfriends join us when we reach Devils Island many days from now. We all
want to then island hop and PARTY during the final leg to the BVI. and celebrate
our successful mission. We are planning to anchor at night in the islands so
no-one has to do the night watch.. If we don't get wind soon we may miss the
luxury of final island hopping as they all have business plans which can't be
pushed back any further. This is sad for them during these low  wind times as
they are both really missing their sweethearts. Greg and I are fortunate to have
each other here..I love the peacefulness of the slow sail and the flatness of
the water with the stars overhead. During the day it makes it easier to study
and to maintain the exterior of the boat. I just feel bad for our captain and
friends.  I am hoping for wind soon.
However the one thing that is bad for me is that the male humor, with me being
the only female on board, has deteriorated to fart jokes. UGH!
A reminder to all our friends who send us jokes. Please send those to our yahoo
address: gregkimd@yahoo.com and not to this one. We will pick up all our jokes
next time we are in port at an e-cafe that has a land line which is cheaper than
our satellite phone.
Pray for wind, Kimberlee and Greg
PS Our current coordinates are 24 degrees 53 minutes South    3 degrees  02
minutes East

9.14.04   9:03:51PM

Hello from out in the big blue ocean,

We have completed our first 3 hours of our celestial nav course. Bob is a great
teacher and you can really tell his enthusiasm for the subject he teaches. We
learned some interesting trivia in addition to starting to learn the basics of
sun and star navigation. Example what states lie furthest north, east, south,
and west?

Answer: North:Alaska
             South: Hawaii
             East:: Alaska
             West Alaska
TheAleution islands of Alaska cross the international dateline and so they are
the furthest east and also the furthest west
We are keeping a ship's log which records the current time, the direction we
sail(obtained from our compass and also our more sophisticated nav equipment,
like GPS and autopiltot), the length of time sailed in that diection(usually the
same hour after hour), our speed (in knots/hr),the weather and cloud conditions,
the barometer reading(to help predict future weather conditions). We have a
little "paddle wheel" in our hull that turns through the water to give us our
distance and speed  traveled through the water. We record this info every hour so
if needed we can reconstruct our course  to figure out where we are on a chart
This is just in case our GPS (we have 3 on board) all fail or the US government
turns it off due to a military crisis.
The term ship's log (which is now our record book and also another term for the
little paddle wheel that helps determine our speed and distance) comes from the
times when early sailors would carry a pile of small logs on board. When they
would want to figure out how fast they were going they would walk to the
bow(front of the ship) and throw a log in the water. They would then time how
many seconds it took to reach the stern. They could then calculate their speed.
Well after awhile someone figured out they didn't need to bring on a big pile of
logs if they tied a rope to a single log so they could retrieve it each time.
From there someone else decided they didn't need to walk to the bow of the boat
if they would tie knots in the rope at equal intervals and just count the knots
as they were trailed/pulled by the moving water, out the back (stern) of the
ship.
Well that was our history lesson today of where ship's log and knots/hour come
from.Back on watch.I'll write later, Kimberlee and Greg

Update 9.14.04 10:11 hr. Zulu

Location 25 degrees 29.6 minutes south
3 degrees 44.9 east
This morning we had an old beat up large fishing boat come across our bow and
then maneuvered very close to us turning in several different directions,
including right at us. It was a Spanish vessel with as many as 12 people on
board. Our concern increased over being boarded by unfriendlies. At one point
Kim grabbed the radio and began to hail them to find out if they had gear in the
water. I stopped her concerned that they may think that we were a vessel manned
by all women. My apologies to those of you who may think, that that was a bit
chauvinistic. However, we are over 600 miles from shore and the fact of
lawlessness does prevail. We had all four of the men topside and Kim went below
for their closest pass. The fishing vessel has now left the area.
The continued dilemma: No wind, running low on diesel fuel.
The fuel debate: Do we run the fuel down to the level where we just have enough
to maneuver into a port for refueling while trying to get the boat to some wind
or do we stop the engine now and drift while waiting for wind.
Uneasy facts: We have no storms on radar or in the forecast, but if one should
zero in on us we must have enough fuel to keep the boat head into the wind to be
safe. If we take this option, how much fuel do we save? How long will the storm
last? How long will we drift while waiting? We also need fuel for our generators
to create electric, for the communications equipment and hot water. If a storm
does zero in on us and it is not too severe it will bring wind and we can ride it
as long as we can. If we choose to drift, how long can we drift before Dave goes
completely NUTS? How long before Ray goes NUTS? Oh wait, to late for Ray.

10:58 Zulu
We just shut down the engine, three knots of wind and a half knot of current,
not enough to push this 40,000 (Before the 90,000 pounds of groceries J) pound
vessel. The drift begins.

Update 9.12.04B Sunday 20.18 hr. (From Dave)

DOT DOT DOT DOT DOT NEWS FLASH FROM THE ATLANTIC OCEAN. SPECIAL BULITEN.
Today at 17:40 hrs. Toucanplay and her crew executed our first jibe of the trip
at a location of 28 degrees 37.7 minutes West, 7 degrees 44.4 minutes South
Why is this such a news flash, you might ask? Well consider this and file it
away under the category of consistent winds beyond belief. We left Cape Town 3
½ days ago and have been on the same tack for just over 600 miles. That's non-
stop sailing mind you.
Although the wind direction has been consistent it is lacking in velocity.  We
have been motoring with sails up much to often. It is our desire to average 8
knots per hour. If we can't do it under sails alone we run a motor. Fuel
consumption is the next concern; we are using it faster than we have miles to
sail. We must save enough to allow us to motor into a port to refuel. I spoke
with one sailor in Cape Town that told me that they had engine trouble and had
to sit for 37 days in a 10 mile area before they got enough wind to move on. We
hope to get to St. Helena by the 18th. of September. That is where the next gas
station is. After traveling for 3 ½ days we have used 1/3 of our fuel, that
leaves 5 ½ days of travel. We know that we do not have enough to motor the whole
way. We are praying for wind so that we can turn off the motors.
At this time the cat fleet at CSA should be cleaning up after The Muddy Waters
regatta. I hope that all went well. My mind has traveled to CSA at least 100
times in the last two days, thinking about my friends and the activities with
the cat fleet. I miss not being there with my friends, family, sailing my
Hobies, Palm Pilot, Goldie and Linda. It is moments like this that make me home
sick (Sniff sniff, darn eyes are leaking). I expect that by the time I get home
it will be the end of October and Linda and I will be there just in time to pull
our boat (Palm Pilot) out for the winter. I wonder if I will have had enough
sailing in for the season.
Ray and I are on duty now, tonight is a little warmer than last night and last
night was a little warmer that the night before. We are gradually moving farther
north and all of us are yearning for the tropics when the uniform for the shift
will be T-shirts and swimming suits. It is dark and we are starting to see rain
for the first time on this journey. The delicate thing about this is that we are
in an area of the world that does not have lighting, so it makes it harder to see
where fronts are in the pitch black. We are keeping a constant watch on the
radar, changing temperature, wind direction and wind speed. Anything that might
indicate that we are heading into a storm.

Speaking of weather conditions, They seem to be changing now.
Gotta Go.
EHDave
 

9.13.04  (Posting from Kim & Greg)

I have just finished our 2AM-6AM shift. Actually it was a 4 1/2hr . shift
because we set our clocks back an hour at mid-night and we split the extra hour
with the mid-night shift so that  they wouldn't have to pull the whole extra
hour. We are now 5 hours ahead of St Louis time. Our winds are a comfortable
9-15knots/hr (1 knot=1.1mph). This is comfortable but not fast sailing
especially when the wind is at your back (called a run in sailing terms). So we
are in comfortable cruising mode. From the weather I download each morning it
looks like we will have these type of winds for the next 5 days at least. Our
current coordinates are
    27degrees 37 minutes South        6 degrees 17 minutes East

We are approximately 950 miles from our first stop in St Helena   We start our
celestial navigation course today taught by our skipper, Bob . This is normally
an intensive week long classroom course but we are spreading it out over our
cruise into 3hr classes. Bob teaches this course in Florida for al the
Yachtmaster Offshore certifications.. Right now we have great navigation and GPS
equipment on board to tell us where we are. However to be really seaworthy in
the event of equipment breakdown or a military event where the US government
turns off GPS, we need to know how to use a sextant-like Christopher Columbus!
Time for class, Kimberlee and Greg

9.12.04 (from Kim and Greg)

Hi, It is 5PM our time which is 4PM zulu or Mean Greenwich Time. We use these
standard times in order to know when radio broadcast  and weather reports occur,
and in order to set a time to communicate with other boats. Everyone is in
different time zones and it is easier to say zulu time to avoid confusion. This
standard time is also used by our navigation computers. We are now 600 miles
from Capetown. Our total journey is aprox 7000 miles. I am on the noon to 6 PM
shift today. I will be back on duty from 2AM-6AM tomorrow. During our shift we
had a 1000 foot freight tanker pass within 2 miles of our position. This is the
first boat we have seen since we lost sight of land. Our radar did a great job
of alerting us. We watched to make sure we were not on a collision coarse as we
would be history if we were. It was somewhat exciting to see someone else, as
you get the feeling there is no-one else out here as you sail on and on and
on....
We turned on the boom box today as everyone is getting to know the routine and
what needs to be done. We are all getting more relaxed. No-one is seasick but the
swells are only about 2-3 feet. We have been very lucky with the weather so far.
We still wear our fleeces and jackets when outside at the helm and the sky is
overcast. We hope to see the sun soon when we get into the Southeast tradewinds.
Time to prepare dinner, Kimberlee and Greg

Update Sunday 9.12.04 1100hr or 11:00am. ZULU (from Dave)
Our curent position is:
28 degrees 57.0 minutes West
8 degrees 28.0 minutes East

This is Muddy Waters Sunday at Carlyle Sailing Assoc. and I hope that
everything is going well.
Toucan Play is equipped with two spinnakers and yesterday we blew out one of
them, it shredded. Today we will examine it in the daylight and see if it
can be repaired. My guess is NOT. The other spinnaker is the bright and
beautiful spinnaker with the logo on it. You may have seen the video
elsewhere on the website. Kim and Greg were hoping to save that one for
cruising around the BVI and impressing friends, not to be the work horse
that is required for crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
We don't get any days off here on the Atlantic Ocean, not even weekends. Our
typical workday starts like this: 1:30am Ray and I were awakened (In
separate cabins of course) by the previous shifts crew, Kim and Greg, a half
hour before our shift. If it is meal time the crew coming on is responsible
for preparing the food for all. We get ready for work by dressing in thermal
socks long underwear, sweat shirt, sweat paints, water proof deck boots,
foul weather pants and jacket, stocking cap, heavy gloves, safety harness
and two safety straps. We get a handoff from the previous crew that includes
anything unusual. Headings are taken and double checked every hour and is
part of the hand off. Today Ray and I work the 0200 - 0600 shift, get some
sleep and then work the 1800 - 2200 shift.
We have traveled 514 miles in three days. I had estimated when we were going
to take this boat to the Annapolis boat show that we would travel 10,000
miles. We since have decided not to go to Maryland, and stop our journey in
the British Virgin Islands. This trip will ONLY be about 7,000 miles. That
is like sailing the length of Carlyle Lake 1000 times. The scenery is much
different, no land and not even a ship for two days so far.
When we started in South Africa our time zone was seven hours ahead of the
Midwest. As we travel west for every 15 degree of longitude, we set our
clocks back one hour. Today around noon we expect to enter into the Zulu or
Greenwich Time zone. That will be five hours earlier than Muddy Waters time.
I wish that I was there to take the first place trophy home, and a hat.
Skipper Bob had some words of wisdom today that made me have to think. Bob
said: It is the job of the ocean to destroy everything that tries to sail on
her. The ocean has always been here and will always be here, she will
outlast every vessel. The ocean starts to destroy every vessel as soon as
that vessel gets wet. The ocean will always win.

9.11.04 Saturday (From Dave)
Today's location:  30 degrees 15.0 minutes south
11 degrees 23.2 East 13:22 greenwich time.

The anniversary of the Twin Towers bombing is sobering enough for today. We
all hope that things go well back home as well as in the USA.
It is a nation we should be proud to be from, even though on occasions in
South Africa we experienced prejudice feelings to the point where Ray
responded that we were from Canada to avoid some of the attitude. I am proud
to say that when we were in the health clinic in South Africa getting our
yellow fever shots, they had a poster showing the shots needed for every
country. What I am proud of is that of all of the counties in the world, the
USA is the only country that did not require any shots or precautions.
After last night's shift I am asking myself, what in the world have I gotten
myself into?
We have learned of many catastrophes to be aware of during our conversations
with experienced sailors in South Africa. One of those things is an electric
failure, the worst of which would be caused by lightning and would probably
take out all of the systems on the boat.
Ray and I worked the 2200 to 0200 (10:pm to 2:am) shift last night. It was a
shift built with trauma. The wind and seas were screaming, slight haze and
pitch black. The waves bang the hulls so hard that sometimes you think that
we must have hit something. This boat rocks and bolts violently as it creaks
and groans. I am told that this is actually a very quite vessel. At one
point Ray was inside updating the ships log which is something that we do
every hour on the hour. This is normally a standard procedure, at 0100 hrs
things were different. I was the only person topside, with big wind and
waves the automatic pilot suddenly went blank and all of the instruments on
the consul went blank, I tried to steer the boat manually but the wheel was
locked and I had no control over the vessel. I knocked on the companionway
door with three knocks that certainly would have been interpreted as a need
for immediate attention. Ray, being the alert and responsive mate that he is
snapped to and came out to help. I informed him of the situation and told
him to get Skipper Bob who was in his cabin sleeping. The boat rounded up
into the wind and the Genoa started flapping. Ray came back without Bob and
as he did the instruments came on but lights intensity were very low, so it
seemed that something still was amiss. This was a very intense situation for
those of us that have not had this type of experience. However when Bob was
waken with this trauma, without even opening his eyes he said, "turn it back
on". Ray and I had a palm to the forehead experience and that is why he
flipped the circuit breaker which had kicked off. It is situations like this
that makes us all happy to have Bob on board.
Another catastrophe at sea is hitting a whale. Hitting a whale at sea has
sunk many a vessel. During the daylight it is possible to see and avoid a
whale, but at night we have a very slim chance of seeing it as it pitch
black. We use a depth finder that reads the bottom up to 100 feet. When the
bottom is deeper than that, it holds the last good reading. We are sailing
in water as deep as 11,400 feet. Last night we were in water much deeper than
our depth finder would read when suddenly it registered 13 ft. We now have
concluded that it was a whale. Today we are counting our blessings because;
the rough seas keep whales from the surface. This boat needs 5ft. of draft
that leaves 8 ft. of lucky sea between us and the whale.
Today is a very sobering day here while we familiarize ourselves with the
safety equipment and the locations of the access hatches. I think that all
of us realize that we are at risk and that we are not in Kansas anymore.

9.11.04 Posting from Kim and Greg

Hi everyone, We are getting into our routine. We have 3 shifts. Greg and I
are a shift, Ray and Dave are together and Bob our navy delivery skipper is
on by himself. His wife and 13 yr old daughter were suppose to be with him
but Voyage took so long completing our boat that they had to return to
Florida so his daughter wouldn't miss too much school. It was sad for them
and us as they are really nice people and Trissa, Bob's wife, has had a lot
of experience cooking on board and would have been a great help. She left us
her recipes and went over how to make yogurt from long life boxed shelf milk
and a tablespoon of Bulgarian yogurt. I plan to try and keep the culture
going so we can have fresh yogurt and therefore also sour cream (just add
lemon juice) the whole trip. She also showed Ray how to make scones from
scratch which he has done twice now. They are great with butter and jam! We
have $3000 worth of groceries on board. The deep freeze and 3 fridges are
stuffed as are all the pantry spaces. I have tucked diet coke everywhere
there was a little extra space. We have planned for 6 weeks of food and we
should still have plenty left over. We had to plan for mishaps like the
fridges breaking down and the stove not working. So we have lots of canned,
non refrigerated no cook products in addition to all the fresh stuff. We
also have 10 25liter containers  of water tied together and stored near our
life rafts. These get tied to our life raft and  thrown overboard with them
if we need to abandon ship Being fresh water they will float alongside.
These containers also serve as our water if our 1600 gallon per day water
maker should mal-function . Right now everything is working great and we
have nice hot showers in addition to plenty of drinking water.
Back to our shifts. The day is divided as follows: Daylight hours are 6
hours each and night hours are 4 hours each as follows
                6AM-noon     noon-6PM     6PM-10PM    10PM-2AM    2AM-6AM
This schedule with 3 shifts allows for us to rotate different times of watch
as the days go by. Greg and I just finished the 6AM-noon shift. Now we have
relax time until 10PM when we are back on until 2AM. Then we will probably
go to sleep until about 9AM.  We won't need to be back on watch until noon.
Being on watch means keeping an eye out for other boats both visually and on
radar and trimming or changing sails as the changing wind conditions
dictate.
We try to all have dinner together but breakfast and lunch are whenever you
are awake and want it.
Greg spotted 3 whales this AM but I missed them because I was preparing lunch
for the gang. We should see plenty more though.
We are sailing with our mainsail and spinnaker right now at about 9knots.
Our coordinates are 30 degrees 18minutes South and 11 degrees 32 minutes
East. The temperature is about 64 degrees F and the sky is currently cloudy.
We are staying bundled up at night as the wind chill is probably about 45
degrees. The hot chocolate tasted good last night. Time for me to go shower
and take a nap. Bye for now, Kimberlee and Greg  .

9.10.04
Well we actually left Cape Town yesterday at 0900 on a sunny day with just
enough wind to set the spinnaker, then the wind dropped , we took down the
spinnaker and went to the main and Genoa (head sail or Jib). After an hour
we lost the wind and had to fire up one of the engines. We have been
motoring with sails up ever since. We are averaging 15 knot winds and 10 ft.
swells. Taking a shower was like being a steel ball in a pin ball machine
bouncing around in a 30 inch fiberglass box that is 6' tall.
This is going to be a much different way of life, it is very difficult to
sleep. So far I have dreamt that I met Dick Ford (St. Louis news anchor)
lost Lind Moore's computer and that I had a 19 year old male roommate who
lost his paycheck. I am sure that Linda Cheri (the fleet's psycho annalist)
has some insightful theories on these dreams.
We saw our first sunset over the wide open seas last night then I saw the
most vivid image of the Milky Way that I have ever seen. We could see the
Milky Way from horizon to horizon arching over head. At this moment we have
the sun rising with clouds being lit with mixed orange colors from Mother
Nature's colorful pallet. It is so nice being away from the crowds of humans
in Cape Town
No one is sea sick yet although doing the e-mail is making me feel a little
nauseous.
Everyone is chipping in on preparing meals and they have been delicious.
We have a falling barometer and are expecting rain and hopefully stronger
winds.
It is 0600 now, Ray and I are starting our four hour shift. Kim and Greg
work a six hour shift together and Skipper Bob works his alone. Everyone
takes turns working four hour shifts at night and six hour shifts during the
day. Bob's wife and 14 year old daughter had to fly back to Florida and
couldn't make the trip due to the delay in departure schedule.
Greg caught two and Ray one good sized Tuna by fishing off the back of the
boat. It's really fresh tuna for dinner tonight.
This is 58' foot boat which is over twice as big as the cabin boat that
Linda Moore and I own. Even as big as this boat is, it sure gets tossed
around on this big pond.
It is now 11:53 am Greenwich time and our current location is 31 degrees
50.6 minutes south, 14 degrees 43.5 minutes east. So if you have a chart or
globe you can see just how far out we are and how far we have to go. I am
now using Greenwich Time because as travel east we move our clocks back one
hour for each 15 degrees traveled. We have been sailing for 16 hours and are
now on a course of 301 degrees.
Dave

9.10.04 (posting from Kim and Greg)

Hi Everyone, We are finally at sea!! We sailed away 27 hours ago. It took
about 9 hours to get out of sight of land and now we see nothing but clear
blue sky and deep dark blue ocean. Birds still fly overhead now and then,
especially when Greg catches fish. He has already pulled in 3 big tuna. He
puts out 2 fishing lines from either side of the stern. He had fish on both
lines at one time. It got exciting for all and then bloody messy when he
filleted them all. We are having tuna tonight in a brandy white pepper cream
sauce-at least that is the plan. The sea is not too rough and no-one is sea
sick. Yeah!!  Our coordinates for those who want to and know how to chart
are:  31 degrees 51 minutes south, 14 degrees 45 minutes east.
You can write to us if you wish at the above e-mail address gregkimd@ocens.net

 but please start a new message instead of just replying. It shortens the transmission time on
our slow satellite download time. Also please don't send any attachments-we
can't get messages larger than 30kb.We will be checking our other yahoo
e-mail at St Helena in about 10 days if you want to send us something
longer. Please also use yahoo if you are sending us jokes.
I will write more later as I still have a lot of other things to do right
now while we are getting into a routine.

We are having a blast, Kimberlee and Greg