In Scotland, whisky is spelled with a ‘y’

Arcturus anchored off the
Lagavulin distillery in Islay.

I love the way smells bring back memories – feelings – like no other sense. Walking into the house I grew up in when I’ve been away for a while, and the feelings that conjures. Getting on the boat after having been gone. It probably smells like diesel, but to me, it’s the smell of adventure.

Good weather and dark nights on Kinship

I woke up to an email from Mia and the crew on Kinship this morning. It's grey, cool and foggy here in Reading, but it sounds like they are having perfect weather offshore. 

Kinship Back at Sea

Mia called this morning to let me know they are back at sea. This after three days of repairs in Las Palmas. It's the second time the boat had to turn around (the first being during the ARC, when a host of deck leaks forced them back).

The shroud was fixed within ten minutes of them getting back to the dock. Then they had someone look at the new Watt & Sea hydrocharger to make sure it was working right. And yesterday they actually had the boat hauled out for the afternoon to fix a leak in the cutlass bearing strut.

Anyway, it's all back together again and they're off! Stay tuned to www.59-north.com for daily updates (or whenever they call) and position reports.

Kinship January 7

Here's a quick note from Mia on Kinship, after their first night at sea…

"Hi!
Having a great sail, wind 12-15 from E, we are heading SW at about 6-7 kt. Position Monday Jan7, 09.00 utc: 26 degrees 48' N / 15 degrees 43' W. Everyone is happy, got some sleep. Blue clear sky and a slightly cool breeze.

Love you. Puss

ps. remember to forward to mum and dad.
----
This e-mail was delivered via satellite phone using OCENS's OCENS.Mail software.
Please be kind and keep your replies short."

Their position on the map is below:

Kinship is Under Way!

This is Mia on Kinship in September en route
to Las Palmas from Portugal.

I chatted with Mia and my Dad today on Skype, and they were just minutes from leaving the dock. It was just before noon here, so sometime mid-Afternoon in Las Palmas. Tim had bought the crew a membership at the little marina club there that had a swimming pool and good Internet, so I'd talked to Mia from there a few times sine they arrived on Thursday.

Their plan is to sail SSW to about 25ºN, 020ºW, angling a bit further south towards the Cape Verde islands before turning west. It's basically the traditional Trade Wind route ("sail south until the butter melts and turn right"), and it looks like they have a good forecast to start. Hopefully it will hold.

Press the Reset Button

Dancing off the cold on a New
Year's cruise on the Bay

Portions of this are going to make up my February 2013 article for Spinsheet. That's the Annapolis-based magazine that gave me my start as a published writer. I haven't written it yet.

But by the time it's published (and read - hopefully), it will be February, and some of what I'm about to write won't exactly make sense.

But now, in the present, it's only a few days after New Year's Eve. That's gotten me thinking New Year's thoughts. The standard and boring resolution-type stuff that everything is probably thinking right now, and which most people won't follow through on. But whatever.

Volvo Ocean Race Sailors in the ARC (Again!)

Vaquita mid-Atlantic in 2011

Last year I wrote about how the ARC attracts professional sailors. I highlighted two in particular, Volvo Ocean Race skipper of Team Russia and two-time Olympic sailor in the Star class Andreas Hanakamp, and ocean racing legend Magnus Olsson.

Unsurprisingly, the boats that they sailed on fared particularly well in 2011 - Andreas was navigator aboard the Class 40 Vaquita, which took it's class in the racing division. Magnus sailed as crew aboard the Baltic 60 Triumph with a crew of amateurs. They won the Invitation Cruising Division, and would have won the Overall Cruising had the big boats been allowed to compete for it (they aren't).

Norwegian Father & Son Duo Seize the ARC Double-handed

Here's yet another report from the ARC finish in St. Lucia that I've been working on. This one is particularly significant to me because of the subject(s). Sven and his dad Kenneth sailed all the way down from Norway together, joining the ARC in St. Lucia, and have a one-year plan to go off on this great adventure together, just the two of them.

Andreas Hanakamp on the Podcast!

Andreas & Mia in Anse la Raye Friday night.

I normally don't post about my podcast on here, but this week is particularly special for me. I met Andreas last year at the ARC in St. Lucia. He was sailing aboard the Class 40 Vaquita, and they won their racing class. His partner Nina was along as crew, and Mia and I spent some time with them in the marina, and we got a really cool vibe from them. They're just nice people, fun to be around and interesting to talk to.

Local culture in Anse La Raye

The locals call it 'bay of the rays.' It's a fishing village south of Castries (St. Lucia's capital), a sleepy place on the beach, quite the opposite of the hustle and bustle of Rodney Bay marina, where the ARC has taken over for a couple of weeks. It's crazier than ever in the ARC Village at Rodney Bay marina - just this morning, five boats crossed the finish line within minutes of each other, making for some excitement on the docks as the Yellow Shirts made space for them. With over 150 boats now in port, that space is getting hard to come by. But it's all in fun.

"Man is not a camel - he must drink."

On the Franz Josef glacier
in NZ in 2004

That's a sign I saw in a bar in New Zealand in 2004. It's also one of the very first entries in my journal from that trip, the first real length journey I've ever been on. I started reading it today on the plane ride to St. Lucia because I'm doing a 'Voice of Experience' article for SAIL and wanted to refresh my memory of that anchor debacle in Endeavor Inlet.

All it has done thus far is put a yearning in my soul to go back to that kind of travel, the kind where everything is new, everything exciting and adventurous, where there is no agenda (and no work), no thought is there to clutter the mind except that which is right in front of you. It cannot ever exist like that for me again and I know that and it's slightly depressing - but simultaneously inspiring.

Ranting about safety at sea

I feel like I'm decidedly in the minority when it comes to the modern ocean sailing game. My boat is from 1966, my GPS a handheld unit from 1993, we've got paper charts onboard and no electrics whatsoever besides the LED lighting. Hank-on headsails (we carry five of them), tiller steering and a 35-gallon water tank. The engine only works to charge the batteries and get us in and out of the dock. But I feel safe aboard Arcturus.

Counterpointing Dr. Oz: An examination of TIME Magazine's latest article on food.

I borrowed the latest TIME magazine from my grandmother last weekend. My mom had always been a subscriber, and it's one of my favorite things to read in the morning over coffee. Especially after I've been out traveling for a while and come home to find a stack of them on the counter, untouched.

Since my mom died in April, my dad has not renewed the subscription, because he's (understandably) uncomfortable getting stuff in the mail address to her. So last week, I re-upped.

TIME is a great source of news, and a great way to get a brief gist of what's going on in the US and around the world. It's not to say that I agree with it all the time. The last issue contained a cover story by Dr. Oz, called 'Give Frozen Foods a Chance', which I posted about on Facebook earlier this week. This is my rebuttal to that story.

59NORTH Media & Sailing: The new website, the new business

The last couple weeks have been a bit tumultuous on our website. Since June really. Back then (in Horta, in the Azores), Mia and I decided to combine our blogs into one site - Mia had her miatravel.blogspot.com site (which still exists), and I had my fathersonsailing.com site (which evolved from my own andyschell.blogspot.com site for the journal I kept since 2006). When we changed the name to andyandmia.net, we did so simply because we couldn't come up with a better name. Everyone knows us together as 'Andy & Mia' or 'Mia & Andy', so why not stick with something people recognize?

60 miles on the bike, and one felled pine tree

It's way past fall now, and my sailing days are over for a while. Mia and I got back from Tortola last Sunday after an awesome week running the Caribbean 1500 cruising rally finale. We had a blast at the prize giving ceremony, the highlight of which was when Martin, skipper of the Australian-flagged JAC,  came onstage to present the 'Best Bruise' award (quick aside: Mia had created an Excel list of prize distributions before the event. I was reading down the list preparing my speech, and came across the 'Best Bruce' prize. Excuse me? I thought. Ironically, there was indeed a Bruce in the event, one of the other guys on JAC. She meant 'bruise' of course. I'm sure I couldn't spell that word in Swedish either. We had a good laugh about this).

Andy's favorite Caribbean islands

Hi guys! Thanks to all of the Caribbean 1500 crews that joined me in Peg Leg's yesterday for my seminar. I promised photos, and here they are! Brief captions for each. This is but a small selection. You really can't go wrong wherever you go, and take my advice and find out stuff for yourself. And don't forget - just like this event, it's the people you meet along the way that you'll remember the most.

I've also include some links to articles that we've posted over the past year or so that are pertinent, with more photos (some are from ARC Europe, but might interest you guys!). Some of them are in Swedish, so just click the "translate" thing on the right sidebar of the page.

The Caribbean 1500 and the people that make it special

(Caption shows the crew of the Moody 54 Habits of Health).
My favorite thing about big sailing events - whether boat shows, rendezvous', pot-lucks or rallies - used to be the boats. I love nothing more than walking the docks and looking at boats, and I like them all. Some more than others to be sure (give me an old classic over a modern plastic bottle anyway), but all of them nonetheless.

Dead leaves and the dirty ground…

I’m on the plane again! Mia and I are en route to Tortola for the finish of the Caribbean 1500. We’re pretty sure that everyone else on the plane is on the way to vacation. We won’t have much time to relax – the first two boats are due in tomorrow morning around 2am, so we’ll get right to it!

But this post is nothing about that. I don’t know what it’s about. I’m listening to Jack White right now, which is where I got the title from. I remember during my senior year of high school (we have our ten-year anniversary in about two weeks) Adam Moerder’s band played that song at the talent show. I don’t think anybody had a clue who the White Stripes were then, save for Adam and his friends. I can’t wait to ask him about that when Ryan and I chat with him for the podcast. It’s his song, after all, that is in the intro of Two Inspired Guys. His band now is called Mr. Dream. Check them out.

Carib 1500: The decision to depart early

Hannah on Helia, just
before departure

I'm writing this from my hotel room in Hampton on Sunday night, the day after the Caribbean 1500 fleet went to sea (the day it was supposed to go to sea). I need to confirm this with Steve Black, but I think it's the first time in the event's history that it actually left the Chesapeake early. 

Fall on the US East Coast is always a difficult time for weather forecasting, and this year was perhaps the best (or worst, depending on your perspective) example of that. The challenge in planning an offshore voyage this time of year is the tight window between hurricane season and the winter weather pattern. Insurance companies won't let most yachts south of Cape Hatteras before November 1 (and they probably wouldn't want to be there anyway), but the longer you wait, the greater the chances of running into a big nor'easter offshore. 

The impossibility of weather forecasting

The un-predicted, extra-tropical
Hurricane Sean, from 2011

Note: this is re-printed from the March/April 2012 issue of Yacht Essentials Magazine. Thanks to Chris Kennan and Brad Kovach for permission!

“This is complicated.” That is what scientists in the 1960s and 1970s decided a simple graph depicting a chaotic curve – the ‘Lorenz Attractor’ – was trying to say, without having to speak a word.