Today is the day that I have been waiting 7 years for! Sailing in the Atlantic Ocean! When I was in dental school, my dream was to go cruising and sail off into the Atlantic. I found a seaworthy boat that was in my budget and worked hard on her to bring her up to speed. I re-rigged her, new sails, repainted her topsides, new motor, the whole nine yards! Today was finally the day!
We raised anchor after that epic storm last night in rather light airs, but we were heading straight towards the ocean!
Even though it was light airs, I still lowered the jib because I was expecting stronger winds out in the ocean. My logic was as follows:
If the winds are stronger, we will need to reef.
If the jib is down, I only need to put in a reef, whereas if the jib is up, I now need to address lowering the headsail and putting in a reef.
Maddie humored me, letting me lower the jib, cutting our speed from 7 knots to 4 knots. While she did not appreciate the loss of speed, she let me do it anyways.
As we approached the bridge, we had ourselves a scare. Will we fit under this bridge? The chart plotter said this bridge is 85 feet tall and 980 feet wide. As you can see, the span is not 980 feet wide. This made us concerned that the chart was wrong and not tall enough for us to pass.
We quickly looked at the trucks driving overhead and tried to see how many we could stack in the opening by eye. We figured a truck is around 14 feet tall, so we needed 6 trucks high to be 85 feet.
As we approached, the moment of truth came. Would we fit? Or would we snap our mast in half at the spreaders?
We fit! We are now in the Atlantic!
