Cindy's chronicles...

Here are some emails sent by Cindy during the passage.

Start of the Atlantic Cup at noon yesterday in Soper's Hole was uneventful with no boats on time for the start, everyone late. We crossed the starting line on starboard and tacked just once then back to starboard where we've faithfully remained. The winds, there are winds!, are out of the ENE between 10-15 so we've been sailing right along. Zero engine hours for the Mary Elizabeth! The organizers won't know what to do with Bill once we make it to Bermuda. We should arrive sometime on Thursday. I'm drowsy from dramamine but I was pretty sick yesterday and question why I agreed to do this. It's better today. Last night Al was not feeling great either and we decided that Bill could form a sideline enterprise: Daisy Bill's Outward Bound Weight-loss Program. I'll spare you the details.

It's Monday afternoon and we are still sailing. Winds are kind of squirrelly now but we are still doing about 6 knots/hour. We are just shy of 500 miles from Bermuda. I'm still a little queasy but much better than Saturday night. It's beautiful, sunny, and blue. Not bad. Still planned on arrival on Thursday morning. Nothing else to report....

we motored today for about 6 hours and now we are under sail with just a spinnaker doing about 4.5 kn, which is slow but bill is trying to be competitive and there's a complicated equation for penalty for engine use etc. we haven't seen any other boats today. it's beautiful bright blue sky, indigo water, hot and sunny. enjoy it while we can. we are still aiming for thursday arrival in bermuda. i've been so sick that i have been thinking that i will just come home from bermuda and bill and i discussed this last night. he agreed that if i still didn't feel better by arrival, i should leave. i stopped taking dramamine yesterday afternoon, that stuff really made me very drowsy, and so far so good, but we've had nice calm seas. i'm not sure what will happen when the ocean gets mixed up again. it may be time to admit that i am person who gets seasick. tix out of bermuda might be very expensive and i really do want to see this through but i don't want to be as sick as i was for the first 2 days into this. not good. so, nothing else to report. there are a few birds out here and flying fish. have you been watching the satellite tracking thing? can you tell how we're doing? i'll call when i get to bermuda.

i have been officially relieved of my duties and bill is going to send me home from bermuda. we agree that the second part of the journey will likely be unpleasant weatherwise. it's one thing to be sick when it's sunny and warm and another in cold gray new england pea soup. we still hope to arrive in bermuda tomorrow (thurs) but we might not make it until friday. we are 180 nautical miles away and motoring at 7 kn right into the wind. we're done sailing: we've chafed the top of the foresail on the spinnaker halyard and suspect that the fix is a project for a sailmaker. bill is likely going to stay in bermuda to have that repair and others resolved. al is going to fly back to bermuda in week or so to bring the boat to cape cod.

Bill and Wick and I brought the boat safely to Bermuda. It was a great trip. The boat was covered in puke at the beginning (mine) but we hit some rain on Day 3 and cleaned it off. Bill is going to stay in Bermuda to wait out some weather and have some repairs done. He should turn up at Kingman in time for the Chart Room opening. Clever Bill.