Logs

Xenial - Epilogue - Red Pants

For many months now the Swedes have been telling me about a peculiar tradition they have concerning red trousers (according to some sources it may also be an English, or even New England, tradition, but we have found conflicting information). The only people who are allowed to wear red pants are those who can say they have met the King (of Sweden, not Charles III) and those who have sailed across the Atlantic. You must know that in the Foglia family everyone, and in particular the men, wears red pants all the time. One could say it’s part of the Foglia staple “smart casual” uniform. So I didn’t make much of this red pants thing at first. But the more Swedes I met, the more I heard about this tradition, so eventually I decided to get onboard and pack a pair of red pants to wear at. read more...

Disa - Nothing... Nada... Zero... Zilch

Zero wind - Mother Nature’s sting in the tail at the end of our Atlantic crossing.Having sailed two thousand nautical miles, and with only two hundred to go, the ocean has turned as calm as a mill pond.There is not a breath of wind to fill our sails and we’re bobbing along on a glassy sea.Sailors of long ago would have had to ration their food and water and pray for wind.Fortunately for us, our 1988 Perkins engine is a real beauty!Thanks to Henri Amel’s foresight, our fuel tank holds eight hundred and twenty litres of diesel.If the wind doesn’t return, we can chug along all the way to Grenada.We’ll be taking our time - our engine is an old lady and if we treat her kindly she purrs her gratitude.With a bit of luck we’ll arrive just before the cut-off time tomorrow.Meanwhile, there is no. read more...

Lomvi - Day 18 - The end...

Dear floating devices,We have reached our final destination, Grenada. Arrived this morning at 7.30 to a wonderful reception from the other Norwegian boats (benefit of being slow, and nice people).Today, we are trying to comprehend what a crazy achievement this is! It has been a dream for many years, and now we are here!! We would like to extend our eternal gratitude for your patience and excitement when reading our blog. Our journey have now been formed multiple times through your imagination, which makes everything more great!This also mean that our pen friendship over the satellite has come to an end. If you like what you have exposed your eyes to here, feel free to follow our Instagram: team7steps. More of this jibberish there, including photos of people in the sun. May your future. read more...

Lomvi - Day 17 - Slow sprint

Dear celebrators,We are cruising into the last night on the Atlantic. Its 2ms wind, the ocean is glassy. Motoring in 5 kn towards the goal! We expect to be in Grenada tomorrow morning. The most spectacular sunset so far was enjoyed on deck. Big moon and millions of stars to end the evening. Looking forward to anything with ice cubes in it! Love,Team final step. read more...

Lomvi - Day 16 - Bucket over board drill

Dear zen pen friend,Since Denmark, Lomvi has been equipped with two buckets. About one week ago Niko trew one bucket in the ocean, only to later realise that there was no rope tied to it. Only one bucket left.Today, the crew was taking a bucket bath, now with no rope tied to the bucket, as it does not have a handle. In a bliss moment Kasper looses the bucket to the ocean. The crew were now quicker to react, turned the boat around. Jumped ship to save the bucket. Boat comes around again to pick up the bucket life guard. Great execution, and an exiting bath. We are back to genaker after a day of well being here on the big Atlantic. We are also back on the map, which mean we are getting closer to shore. Hjalmar was, in retrospective, very quiet for a while today. Turns out he had smeared. read more...

Disa - Christmas is coming...

Christmas is coming… and so is SV Disa.Grenada is in our sights and we can almost hear those steel bands beating out a Caribbean rhythm.We’re getting into the festive spirit on board, singing along to Christmas tunes.We have a small string of Christmas lights in the cockpit and we have been enjoying some festive fare at mealtimes.We celebrated a late American Thanksgiving with New England Clam Chowder and Andy’s amazing pumpkin pie.One thing is for sure - we have eaten well on this crossing!Thanksgiving and Christmas make us think about our families back home.We have a lot to be thankful for.We miss our loved ones immensely and wish they were all sailing on this boat with us, sharing the experience.For Darrol and I, sailing across the Atlantic was a dream that seemed almost. read more...

Xenial - Day 25 - Grenada!

Sometime in the night between Thursday and Friday, depending on whether we were still on Xenial Standard Time or on local Grenada time, Janne cried “Land!”. Actually, he cried “Lights! And not boat lights!” - he has by far the best eyesight on board (his glasses are rumored to be custom made in Italy), so it’s no wonder he is part of the Spotting Committee. We sat on deck watching the lights get closer and closer and looking at the mile count get smaller and smaller. In between Christmas songs (you can blame me for that), we listened on the radio as boats and friends who had not seen each other in days or weeks greeted each other with joy, if you want to call spotting each other on AIS “seeing each other”. I thought it was wonderful to hear all these happy voices, the Swedes think. read more...

Bolero - Land Ahoy

Land Ahoy!We settled into the night watches, Gwyn and Ian had a quiet moonlight 3 hours and handed oveHr to Maz and Nick.Bolero passed the 100 miles to the way point at 22:45 and continued to romp along.At the change of watch at 01:00 hrs the genoa was furled as a large cloud was approaching from astern which produced 28 knots if wind and torrential rain.After this squall, the genoa was unfurled to rebalance the boat and with the increased sail area she romped along again..Nick and Maz took over at 0400 and Bolero continued to sail towards Grenada on a beautifully smooth sea.Then another squall hit, 30 knot gusts, torrential rain on a boat with a full main and a boomed out Genoa, not fun! This squall tested Nick’s metal as it lasted 30 minutes.Gwyn and Ian came on at 07:00 and we all had. read more...

Falcon - Grenada - we made it..!!

That’s it then.The fat lady is centre stage at the Royal Albert Hall and belting out a medley of old school classics… we have safely arrived in Grenada.We had a proper Caribbean welcome as we approached Grenada, with a dolphin escort and then a final glorious golden sunset leading us toward the last 20 miles.What a ride we have had; there have been highs but, amazingly, not a single low… some challenges maybe, but certainly no tears - we even found humour when the windvane rudder snapped off (“well that should give us an extra half a knot”!)So our passage and Atlantic adventure is at an end. Before dashing off to find the nearest back-street tattoo parlour to have our chests emblazoned with a well-earned Atlantic anchor, time to look back on what we have experienced and achieved.We know. read more...

Lomvi - Day 15 - Attacked by a sea monster!

Dear teleporters, Today it's finally the weekend again (yes, that joke is going to be going all year this year)! This weekend we have planed an outing to the Atlantic ocean. We have brought a whole bunch of stuff, and considering how comfortable it been here for two weeks now, we hope for another three or four days here in pleasure ocean! Yesterday, when we stopped for our almost daily swim in the ocean. Kasper got attacked by an unidentified creature of the ocean. Long gelly fish tentacles were hanging onto his vulnerable skin as he quickly got back on the boat. He is completely fine, only suffering from itchy scars. It's so hot here now it could have been the epicentre of your local dance floor. But if there is one activity we avoid, like the pope avoids the topic of contraceptives,. read more...

Lomvi - Day 14 - Summer winter

Dear collaborators, It's the 1st of December! Usually this mean heavy rain +3 degrees and 17/18 hours of darkness for us back home in Bergen. However, we are floating along a huge round and yellow sun, supplying us with hot summer vibrations. How hot will Grenada be, when it's this hot out here?Last night while Line was performing an elegant maneuver of switching the spri-boom from on sheet to the other, as we jybe. The boom came loose. Luckily Line was not hit by the loose potatogun on deck. The end of the boom, whatever it is called, was dismantled to all of the 7 pieces it is made of. And it must be a glitch in the matrix that these parts were not feed to Kraken. We stitched the wounded boom together. The final touch of alot of duck tape will hopefully hold the rest of the trip. We. read more...

Disa - Pole Dancing at Sea

You may remember that on the first leg of the voyage our port whisker pole developed a ninety degree bend and became unusable.Like all the old Amel boats, we have whisker poles on both port and starboard sides.Each pole is made up of two sections - a shorter, narrower pole against the mast, joined to a longer, wider pole by an elbow.Both port and starboard poles are set up together, making the boat look a bit like a crop spraying aircraft coming in to land.These poles, sticking out both sides of the boat, enable us to pole out the genoa sail for downwind sailing - creating large areas of sail to catch the wind coming from directly behind the boat.Since we are using the Trade Winds to cross the Atlantic, most of our sailing is downwind, so our whisker poles are very important.In Cape. read more...

Xenial - Day 24 - Food for thought

Before we get to the main course of this log, for starers we have a few comments from Captain Ulrik- Full check up of gennaker with some repairs.- A couple of squalls with 2 reefsended with no wind- Later a nice sailing with gennaker until late evening XST (Xenial Standard Time) not so late normal local time.- We enjoyed dinner with following sunset and now sunrise first at 9-ish am. Big change arriving to Grenada where we have to adopt a new time regime.-Nice to have the moon shine back although it leaves us just half way through the night.Now, for the main course. As you know we have some voracious readers and some eager podcasters on board. Many who had sailed across oceans before us had warned us that it could get boring - mainly because of doldrums, rather than lack of foresails. So. read more...

Falcon - Crossing Day 13

Distance run last 24 hours 152 nautical miles.Miles to go to Grenada 90.The end may be within touching distance, but old Captain Bligh here on Falcon is still working us scurvy crewdogs to the bitter end.Having decided yesterday that we would finish the passage on broad reaches, we went through the convoluted process of de-rigging the spinnaker pole.However, our skipper has proven to be as fickle as the wind, so it was no surprise to Bev and Helm Monkey to be told to ready themselves for resetting the pole and launching the BFOS.Well now, here comes another sorry tale…… you may remember from a few blogs back that the Bluewater Runner sail had to be wrestled down and stuffed somewhat unceremoniously into its bag in the dark and during what very much felt like a baby hurricane; truth be. read more...

Maroro - Maroro Dec 1 morning report

Breaking news! Arc Rally Control - we must report the magical appearance of 6 new crew members aboard Maroro. This morning, we suddenly noticed that our Christmas Elves *did* find our coordinates in the Atlantic Ocean and arrived on their own sailboat, the SV Shooting Star. Christopher, Christmas and Tiny along with their pets, Bailey, Navidad and Foxy have joined us for the rest of the holiday season…What shenanigans will they invent on a boat? They were thoughtful and brought us some Ginger Thin cookies to share. A little good cheer to get us excited for the home stretch into Grenada!! image2image1. read more...

eXite - Exite 1/12 - approaching Grenada

As has been usual with the last passages, the last 24 hours before arriving seem to bring out the crazy mess of the environment. For about 3-4 days we had planned our approach to Grenada - taking a south track past Tobago. This due to minimise the gibes, having right of way towards all other boats, and having a better comfort level on board. Last night we had 12-14 hours of constant squalls (still have 1-2 per hour), which have a wind direction 30-50 degrees more easterly than the trade winds = we end up more north and probably have to both gibe a few times as well as keeping clear of other boats.So much for us trying to plan ahead…Yesterday we got a new Näbbis - this time a black/brown sea bird, but he wanted to sit on top of the mast so we had to get him away as we didn’t want him to. read more...

Falcon - Final day

Nearly there. 50 miles to go. We feel tired but we feel great. What an amazing adventure. Can’t wait to hear all and share stories with the other brave and adventurous ARC+ Crews. There is much partying and rum punch drinking to be done. Bring it on….image1. read more...

Amokura - Log Day 13 - Land!

Land in sight! We are just over 25 miles from our Waypoint off the bottom of Grenada and on the horizon can just make out the grey-blue peaks of mountains. First land in 13 days! I can hardly believe we have nearly sailed over 2000 miles across the Atlantic and fulfilled a long-held ambition. It's been an eventful 24 hrs to get to this final stage. We finally caught something other than weed - an iridescent silver-green Mahi mahi - a beautiful fish whose meaty steaks will make a fine supper in port with a good bottle of  wine. So spirits were high when the night watches began. The night promised to be calm with consistent winds - ideal parasail weather - we visualised spending our last night at sea bowling along under the stars, chilling out listening to music and enjoying peace and. read more...

Xenial - Day 25 - Nearly there

Another day at sea, and likely the last one before we arrive in Grenada. We have kept Xenial Standard Time on Cape Verde time, so sunrise was sometime around 9am. We do it because we really enjoy having dinner with the sun setting in front of us on the horizon. They do say that this is a trip where you keep sailing into the sunset, and we really wanted to savor it. The winds were steady today just around 10 m/s, which is where we draw the line for the gennaker, so we sailed all day with the mainsail only. Our bimini has started to wear in a few spots so we haven't been using it, and let me tell you, the past few days on deck have been hot! Bobo (recently christened Sunnyboy) , CJ and Ulrik brave the sun, but I am fully on team "below deck" with the Major and the Chef. And below deck we. read more...

Bolero - Day 13

Day 13The colours in the sunsets seem to be getting more intense as we move further west, and the sunset at the end of Day 12 was no exception, enhanced further by some clouds in the sky which reflected the pinks and mauves.Bolero sailed well on the broad reach.Maz and Nick took over from Gwyn and Ian at 01:00hrs.Ian was having a great time on the helm, luffing up to bear away down the waves, sometimes getting the old girl toromp along at 10-10.8 knots.The wheel was very light and the boat perfectly balanced.The next watch was not quite so pleasurable……..there were some boats that we could see on our AIS about 10 miles away that appeared to be going very slowly in tight circles.We changed course to avoid them and as we moved closer, so they increased in numbers - some were giving an AIS. read more...

Lomvi - Day 13 - Dodging squallifications

Dear Santa,Guess what! We are still out here, and we are great! Today we have enjoyed another beautiful day out on this big blue Atlantic ocean. Several boats have already reached Grenada. We still have many more days on these wave lengths before we tie the boat knot in Grenada. The whole crew went through a deep cleans today. Washing their hair and body on the aft deck (if it's possible to use such a fancy term for our small pleasure vessel). We have usually cleaned ourselves up while taking a swim in the ocean. But we were doing 6/7 knots, and it was considered wiser not to jump in. We passed 3/4 of our passage today! Currently celebrating the usual evenig in the cockpit. Hjalmar got a new puzzle for keeping his spirits up for what most be a lifetime at sea when you are only three. We. read more...

Amokura - Log Day 12 - Anticipating our arrival

Dolphins! This cry woke me from my afternoon nap. Rushing to the bow, I could see the sleek grey shapes slicing through the water, playing alongside for a few minutes then speeding away. This was a significant event as we haven't seen a lot of wildlife during the crossing, apart from flying fish and a couple of seabirds, I'm sure that will change as land approaches. Our thoughts now turn more and more to arrival, which should be sometime tomorrow evening. Speed and distance calculations have been worked and reworked, and we think that we need to average 5.7 knts to get in at 1900 local time  6 knts by 1700 local time. We are currently working off ship's time, still set to GMT, so will need to adjust clocks back by 4 hrs. We can almost smell that rum punch! In anticipation of arrival, ice. read more...

Maroro - Maroro - Nov 30 am report

Good morning!It’s the early watch of 4-7am onboard Sailing Vessel Maroro. All is going well. Yesterday was full of excitement as day 5 of the Maroro Fishing Tournament saw the lovely catch of our first tuna. There was some confusion as to which team the fish should be accredited to as the *Tiburoncín Ooh Ahh Ahh* team had set the line while the *Atún Dorado Radioactivo* team reeled it in. It took awhile to filet the fish as BoatSchool begged for some biology curiosity and we explored the contents of this beautiful fish’s stomach - 5 little squid and 2 small flying fish! The rest of him will be a tasty lunch today and tomorrow!We have also been enjoying rousing games of Monopoly, Rummy and Continental. While yesterday the boys broke out the Legos and there was some serious building taking. read more...

eXite - Exite 30/11 - sad day

This morning Näbbis decided to leave us and move on to new adventures. Two days of rolling on our boat with plenty of water to drink he finally got brave enough to jump into the cockpit and sit right next to the stairs to the saloon - soon thereafter he wasn’t to find on the boat anymore. We think it was his way of saying good bye.Now all we are left with are his poo to clean up… We are waiting for the squalls to take care of it for us, but the ones so far hasn’t had enough rain in them.Crossed paths with our second boat today since leaving Mindelo. We saw and talked to each other two days ago, but today we crossed paths around 200m from each other in the middle of a squall. Wonder what they thought as we stood there naked waiting for the rain to kick in and cool us down…250 miles to. read more...

Falcon - Crossing Day 12

Distance run 158 nautical miles.Miles to Grenada 237.Over 2000 nautical miles sailed since Mindelo!After the excitement of the previous evening, a leisurely bimble along in light airs was a welcome opportunity to relax a little.At dusk, we were treated to an incredible sunset which even had Captain Grumpy ooohing and aaahing as a two tone sky developed; pink to starboard and teal blue to port, eerily separated by an almost vertical line - most unusual!With relatively settled weather, and a low risk of squalls, we started the night watches expecting a stress free overnighter.It is a foolish sailor who doesn’t expect the unexpected however!At 0300 in the morning, lights began to appear all around what was, only a short time ago, an empty horizon with no Automated Identification System. read more...

Bolero - Day 12

Day 12Gwyn and Ian stood the first night watch and enjoyed fast sailing on a smooth moonlit sea with a full main and small reef in the Genoa.Nick and Maz took over at 22:00hrs.As Bolero’s radar is not operational,Falcon and North Star had said that they would radio of they saw squalls close to us.Both boats radioed us to alert us to squalls nearby.It is so reassuring to know that the fleet is looking out for one another.We will all enjoy a beer and rum punch together in Grenada!The Genoa was reefed and we waited to see if the squall on the horizon would pass over us.It did, and then found ourselves in a chain of squalls that lasted the rest of the night.Somehad heavy rain, some with winds up to 31 knots.Gwyn and Ian also had the added complication of a cargo ship passing very close to. read more...

Falcon - Crossing Day 11

Distance run last 24 hours178 nautical miles; miles until Grenada 388; new Falcon speed record 14.5 kts.; shooting stars wished upon, 6; flying fish saved, 1; Rudders lost, 1… best get the popcorn out and settle back… there’s some stories to tell today!We start on a lighter note. Today was ‘half-way of the second half’ day’In plain English, this means we have sailed passed the “500 miles to go” point!On a boat looking for any excuse to party, any Monday blues were washed away with Bev again treating us to pizza followed by boat-made lemon sponge cake - delicious! If only Captain Temperance hadn’t rejected the request from thirsty Helm Monkey to break out the rum…Keeping the rig intact over long distance whilst ocean sailing is very much like playing a ‘spot the difference’ picture quiz;. read more...

Lomvi - Day 12 - An ocean of consciousness

Dear fellow data points,Reporting from the same position as yesterday, only today on starboard side. Sun is shining, and we are sailing 270° straight into the sunset! How has today been you might wonder since you are reading this, unless your an algorithm collecting information about us all and your just here to harvest more. Anyway, this is how today went. Sunrise with coffee and the morning shift. Hjalmar arrived and his preference for Disney is considered and granted. Shifted between painting, reading and lego. Finished Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari, thus the partial fear partial excitement for algorithms. Lovely chilli for dinner. Back to reading and now soon another sunset. If the computers and algorithms sideline most of us humans, I hope we can all share the surplus of these. read more...

Fly the Coop - Home Delivery

Every morning on Fly the Coop we walk around the deck throwing flying fish back to Neptune.During the day we see them skimming over the water, presumably away from predators, but at night it seems they grow superpowers and can fly an extra 2m above the surface, coming to an unceremonious end on the deck of the boat.This morning though we spotted a new record! Overnight, one flew into the saloon through the open window and laid to rest on the shelf!. read more...

Bolero - Day 11

Day 11What a difference a night makes!The movement of the boat on starboard gybe with the boomed out Genoa is so much more comfortable both above and below decks.The boat is balanced and has trucked along at 7.5 knots.We had a couple of rain showers that qualified for oilskin jackets and slight increases in windspeed under the clouds associated with these showers.We all felt refreshed this morning…. It’s amazing how good you can feel after two two and a half hour sleeps!We spoke with Falcon on the VHF this morning, we have tried to call themon previous days but either we could not hear them, or they could not hear us.They warned us of a squall that had passed south of them, but which had passed over Carinya, another ARC+ boat, and had given them a hard time.We changed course by 10. read more...

eXite - Exite 29/11 - adopted a bird

When eating lunch yesterday Vincent yelled, what I thought was, “vågor vågor” (waves waves), but what he actually yelled was “fågel fågel”(bird, bird = the Swedish sounds for waves and birds sounds almost alike). My response was “yes we have been at sea for ten days, of course there are waves; nothing new”. Quickly got corrected by Elliot “there is a bird on the boat, its sitting here”.And they were right. A quite big white bird with really long legs and a long beak was sitting at the guard rail watching us. After a while he flew to the front of the spray hood, and he has been sitting there since then - around 24h - just watching us and the sea and swinging along with the rolling motions of the boat.He has slowly gotten accustomed to us and this morning he actually came up to me in the. read more...

Amokura - Log Day 11 - Speeding along!

What a difference 24hrs makes! The wind has steadily increased since yesterday morning and Amokura is going like a train again.The light wind parasail happily pulled us along until the early hours of this morning, then, at midnight, Liz came on watch and things started to get rather lively! It was a beautiful night, with a crescent moon hanging low in the sky ahead us like a smile, but clouds were looming behind, silhouetted against the stars, and the ocean swell was increasing.The wind was rapidly building, and it soon became apparent we were fast becoming overpowered; the autopilot was fighting to keep us on course as we surged down the waves. So it was a case of everyone up, we need to get this sail down right now! Most of the crew were already awake and scrambled into lifejackets and. read more...

Xenial - Day 23 - Vääänta

Vääänta! Vääänta! Waaaait! Waaaait! The familiar call, the most popular by far when we maneuver, could be heard again today onboard Xenial! Apparently it's not only popular onboard this boat, it is widely used in the Swedish Navy and Military. So all the veterans we have on board with all their various titles and ranks, love using it. It's the official motto of the sailing committee. Sailing committee that was back in action today, after days of cooking under the tropical sun.Väääänta - Captain Ulrik called from half way up the rolled foresail. He was being hoisted up the cover of the broken foresail. The cover had been hoisted with one of our halyards, and Ulrik was on a mission to get it back, so we could use it to hoist something far more interesting! Spinnaaakerfallet - CJ called. read more...

Disa - Best Sushi Ever!

Yesterday was a good day.Nothing broke.We were in celebratory mood as it was Darrol’s birthday, AND we passed the halfway mark from Cape Verde to Grenada.The first boat in the rally has already finished, and we are very envious of the fact that they are no longer rolling around every minute of every day.But our time will come!Luckily we have lots of great food on board.We are enjoying fresh loaves daily, banana and walnut bread, and chocolate/coffee/whiskey birthday cake.Andy and K made the most amazing sushi from one of the fish that Darrol caught.It was truly an incredible experience to be eating restaurant-quality sushi in the middle of the Atlantic, from a fish that had been caught 24 hours earlier.We celebrated passing halfway with perfect Pina Coladas made by K who is from Puerto. read more...

Lomvi - Day 11 - Knights on sea horses

Dear investigators of the truth,Reporting in from the cockpit of Lomvi, our fantastic floating device from Germany. I am currently laying horizontally behind the helm. The sparyhood is down. The genaker is up. Steady wind of 7 m/s. Autopilot is working like the tireless algorithm that she is. We are heading on a wsw course of 230°. Which, if you are familiar with the situation, mean that the sunset is right about to hit me straight in the face! Neurons are on fire in parts of the brain that are associated with joy, happiness, love and satisfaction. We had a slow night and a slow start to the day. Very light wind flapping our sails around in an uncomfortable manner. This all changed when a gentle breeze from the east made this a whole day genaker day! These days are the third best days. read more...

Amokura - Log Day 10 - Generator grumbles continue

On planet Amokura, it was a frustrating afternoon and evening with generator problems dominating. Mark thought he had cracked it when he extracted 4 old impeller blades from the heat exchanger. It ran for a short time, lulling us into a false sense of security, then overheated, conked out again. Meanwhile the temperature in the cabin and engine room was climbing. Mark was pouring with sweat when he clambered out of the hobbit-sized engine room door, conditions are challenging and cramped in there, surrounded by dials, pipes and boiling hot machinery.  Once again into the bowels of the engine room to bleed air from the system several times. Once again, it ran, then stalled. We took a rain check to sleep on it as we were all hot, tired, night was approaching and we needed to deal with. read more...

Xenial - Day 22 - Signs of life beyond Xenial

Let me make one thing abundantly clear - we are bored. And knowing that we have many more days ahead of us like this doesn't ease the boredom. So if you are looking for tales of action and adventure, you are better served looking somewheres else. Why are we bored? It comes down to halyards. We don't have any left. So even if we wanted to risk breaking our third foresail, the gennaker, we don't have anything to hoist it with. That leaves us with our faithful mainsail gently pulling us towards Grenada, and a little too gently at that.Cruising at this leisurely pace, we are losing sense of time and space, and find it hard to believe there is a world beyond our 45 feet. We haven't seen or heard a boat in days. But today we had some signs of outside life.Most exciting of all, we had a visitor. read more...