Yesterday was the start of hurricane season and the weather channel already announced a tropical depression in the Atlantic may turn into hurricane Ana. I have been madly shopping. If there is bad weather we won’t get into Bermuda and it could take up to 21 days to get to the Azores. Mind you if there is the hint of a hurricane tomorrow we will be staying in port.
Food for four people for twenty one days plus eleven days of emergency bottled water a few bottles of wine and an unusual amount of chocolate weighs almost 500Ibs so the shopping has been my exercise for the week. Fortunately we still have a stock of canned food left over from the ARC (The race not Noah’s) which we would use if the freezer and fridges failed. With luck we can supplement all this with some freshly caught fish.
Two of the crew arrived yesterday and I got them doing some odd boat jobs like taping up anything rough that a sail or rope could snag on and stowing provisions. It’s amazing how quickly people’s character becomes apparent and in these two we had the easy going hard worker and the hands in the pocket helpful advice provider. I wonder what my third crew member is going to be like.
This morning I hired an economy car and was upgraded to a big American SUV - perfect for getting Kim, kids and luggage the 120 miles to Orlando airport ready for their trip to Yellowstone and so I could bring back the third member of my crew. I put in $40 of Gas and set off.
As skipper one of your primary goals is to gain the confidence and trust of your new crew. So it’s not a good idea to run out of gas as you bring them back from the airport. Fortunately a passing cabbie took us to a gas station and then to another one that actually had gas containers, then back to the first to use the ATM so she could be paid and so the gas guy could try to sell me one of the twenty gas containers he had since found. To be fair I did put fuel in this morning and being from the UK didn’t realise how quickly one of Detroit’s finest could lay waste to half a fossilised forest (12mpg!).
Pub grub tonight and a last couple of pints for the crew before we set off. Also the chance for our first serious "Team talk" - describing the route, what they could expect to experience and how the duties would be shared out. I did wonder if I might get anyone drop out at this point as there are inevitable nerves for anyone without Ocean experience (and with - but I saw no need to mention that) and although I had been over most of this on the phone it is easy at a distance for euphoria and excitement to prevent people from hearing some of the harsher details of life on a long crossing.
Louise, Justin and Jim
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