Dear Tom,

Since graduating from you DELMARVA Cruise, I made a delivery trip last year from Puerto Rico to the Chesapeake Bay. I knew the skipper & crew fairly well before I went (we're all co-workers), but we hadn't sailed together and I didn't know anything about our skipper's sailing style, which differed greatly from mine:  I'm a cruiser (Bob and I have a slow, heavy Bristol); our skipper was a racer and sails on the edge.  One other in the crew was also a very experienced racer. They did NOT reef early (as Dave preached) or at night.  As a result the two racers would go up on the deck to reef in some nasty conditions.  It made me very nervous; and if I  was at the helm when the nasty conditions were developing, I had to struggle for a while before a reefing decision was made.

Leaving Puerto Rico was a straight shot into the ocean with the Ceiba harbor astern. We didn't look at a chart until we prepared to approach the Chesapeake Bay, at which time we realized the charts were dated 1979! The boat's Magellan GPS with a repeater in the cockpit conked out.  Even though the skipper and her spouse had taken the boat to the Caribbean for six months, and had been in the races to Bermuda previously, I was the only one aboard who knew how to use a sextant. I had also brought along my handheld Garmin, which we used to close the coast and get into the Chesapeake. When we started taking on water, nobody else knew where the closest safe landfall was. Two years ago on our cruise with Dave, we had to use the emergency tiller on the Island Packet to get us into Little Creek, and Dave made all of us on the boat pay very close attention to our navigation into the Creek.  It paid off, because I recalled every detail of our prior trip in, and the crew was glad of my experience and "local knowledge." My celestial navigation skills need (1) practice; (2) practice; (3) practice.  The best fix I got was 30 n.m. from the GPS fix, probably for several reasons: (1), (2) and (3) above; I wasn't sure if I was getting my I/C right (it's a Davis MK-15 sextant and the error seemed to be on the arc more than it should have been); When I lined up my two horizons to note the error, I thought they were awfully far apart.  I bought a Celesticomp calculator (the week before) and wasn't familiar with it (there was no nautical almanac or sight reduction tables on board). Also, I couldn't quite recall the details of actually plotting the fix on the plotting sheet and fudged my way through it.  SO, it's quite possible my sights were good and I'm in need of "remedial plotting."  A review class would be fun!

On a good note, when we took on water, nobody on board panicked -- everyone just took orders from the skipper, did as they were told, pumped, bailed, located the source, etc. and no assistance was required, although we did notify the CG, who monitored us all day (the weather was a wee bit rough) until we got into Little Creek. Later the CG visited us in the marina and said they were very impressed with how we handled the situation. But on this same topic, if we had pumped on each watch (or even on a schedule), the way Captain Dave taught us, we would have discovered the incoming water before it was suddenly gushing over the cabin sole.  On our first day out, I had asked about the watch log, and they didn't keep one -- just a list of fixes taken a couple of times a day.  I was uneasy with that.

We had an interesting 2-hour watch schedule, rotating with everyone else, so that we would go 2-on, 2-off, 2-on, then 4- or 6- off; and one day I even had 8 hours off. There is so much to see out in the middle of nowhere and I quite enjoyed the solitude of the ocean.  We saw the Southern Cross (no I didn't get a fix on it); we heard a whale off in the distance; we had dolphins surrounding us at night, and we saw very few ships. I was saddened, though, to see a trail of styrofoam peanuts like something from a modern Handsel & Gretel.  On one day of dead-flat calm, we had to motor and finally stopped the boat, killed the engine and all jumped overboard (until it occurred to someone that there was NOBODY aboard the boat!).  

Overall, it was a great experience, and I thought I was well prepared, thanks to you and Dave.  See you on the water!

Carol Hoffman

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