In Portsmouth

Windmill Point was the final Virginia stronghold of the 4th Earl of Dunmore, the Royal Governor of Virginia, after he had to serially flee from Williamsburg and from Gosport, but the Revolutionary army drove him from the Point in May 1776. He returned to England in July 1776, where the King continued to pay his Virginia salary until 1783. Nice job if you can get it.

Later in 1776, the Revolutionaries built Fort Nelson at the Point, but lost it to the British May in 1779, who occupied it until 1781. Benedict Arnold worked out of British Fort Nelson for a while.

Windmill Point is now known as Hospital Point and it is home to the oldest continuously running hospital in the U.S. Navy. We’ve been anchored off of it, in the Portsmouth waterfront, for a week.

If you come to Portsmouth, the Naval Museum and the Path of History are the recommended highlights, and the Admiral enjoyed the Saturday morning farmer’s market.

The Alférez gazes out at the Elizabeth from the Portsmouth waterfront in a rare moment of quiet in the river.  Here we have seen go by countless barges, sloops, cutters, ketches, yawls, powerboats, the USS Ramage (505 feet), Larry Silverstein’s Silver Shalis (174 feet), Michael Saylor’s Usher (154 feet), the Amel Maramu Bearaway, and many others.  June 24, iPhone 4S, ISO 50, 1/1493”

We got a kick out of the Airport password in a coffee shop in Portsmouth.

Isabella

It is thought that the Chief Officer was born in Miami sometime in 1998.  She came to us skinny and with several illnesses, from an abusive home, when she was around two.  Her first year with us she mostly spent in hiding while we were around.  In her second year, she warmed up to the Admiral, and in the third, she stopped scurrying anytime the Seaman was home, and from the fourth year and onwards she became the most outgoing of our cats.  Isabella snuggled up visitors, and many have remarked that she was the dearest.

She was Philippe's best friend, and the Seaman used to say that all she wanted was to be loved, but in truth, her first love was food.  Oh, how she loved food.  She was fierce about her breakfast, lunch, dinner, and her snacks.  In her later years, when she went on a low protein diet for her progressive renal failure, she used to try and steal Philippe's and the Alferez's food, and skulk around their plates.  The Admiral let her cheat a bit, because Isabella's charms couldn't be resisted.

At first she used to get seasick while sailing Peregrinus, but as with the other challenges in her life, she overcame it.  Isabella was a fighter, but in the end, old age can't be beaten.  She went to sleep June 17, 2014, in Virginia Beach, aged 16.

Isabella as a 12-year old lady, taking the sun from her 36th floor window.  May 28, 2010, iPhone 3G. 

The river in the sea

Merely following the Gulf Stream helped us move a lot of miles on our trip to the Chesapeake, particularly because winds were fickle that week.  We followed the Stream all the way to 35 degrees N, 75 degrees W.

Here is some of the information we used during the trip, with some plotting we did on top of it.

Night navigation in the 21st century

It took five nights to get from Palm Beach to Norfolk, and friends have asked whether we might have gotten lost or tired.   We were considerably aided by the devices shown below, on this picture taken on our first night.  From left to right, foreground row:

• Raytheon autopilot keypad (green screen), partially shadowed by steering wheel. This redundant system was not used on this trip.
• Magnetic compass.  The only analog instrument on this photo.
• Keypad to control the B&G chartplotters above and below deck.
• Bluetooth Simrad VHF extension.  This wireless handheld mic/speaker/screen duplicates the VHF radio installed below deck.

Background row:

• B&G ZT7 chartplotter, showing a wind rose with our possible tacking angles and histograms of wind speed and direction for the last hour.
• B&G Z12 chartplotter extension (dumbscreen duplicates the unit installed belowdecks) showing navigation chart, radar, and AIS targets on the left and traditional radar on the right.
• Three B&G Tritons, showing from left to right: wind rose, histogram of GPS speed for the last 30 minutes, and target, actual, and rudder B&G autopilot performance indication.

The critical information could be shown in a fraction of these screens, but we are glad that Peregrinus' systems have room for redundancies.  We had one chartplotter reboot after four days of continuous use and we had a touchscreen go haywire once due to device overheat –the underlying device remained operational when accessed from an iPad.  We also had a depth sounder show 27 feet depth for a few minutes when we were 1200 feet above sea bottom.   These glitches sorted themselves out, but we were never relying solely on any one piece.

Peregrinus offshore on the Gulf stream, 10:05 pm 9 Jun 2014.  iPhone 4.

A $10 billion view

We woke up to this view from the aft deck of Peregrinus this morning: the airplane carriers USS Harry S Truman (CVN-75) and USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71).  Not clear whether the $4.5 billion a piece price tag includes the 90 aircraft on board each; probably not.  

Also in the picture, an Euro-style carrier (helos and Harriers only), possibly USS Wasp.  But the helo/Harrier carriers are only $750 million and only carry 40 or so craft.

It would be very nice if, like the aircraft carriers, Peregrinus also had clean, emissions-free nuclear-powered engines on board: we would only have to fuel up every 20 years.

Westerly view from Peregrinus at Willoughby Bay, Norfolk.  iPhone 4S, ISO 50, 1/2,762", 15 June 2014

Obligatory touristy pic

After a few fruitful days in Fort Lauderdale, where we very much enjoyed meeting the Quebeçois crew of Mångata, we sailed on June 4th for Palm Beach, and are now at anchor in Lake Worth, which provides quite a scenic tableau.  

Right next to us we've seen a resourceful diver, who cleaned our hull together with his son, find and claim a large abandoned anchor; a Palm Beach "soccer mom" pick up her daughter's friends from house to house... er, from dock to dock; the neighbours of one of those have a shouting match («you are not a gentleman, you are a pig!») right as they stepped off their own boat; and other gossipy stuff.

We've also had a parade of little boats cross our bow at anchor.  So far, Lime Light, 196 feet, Limitless, 315 feet, and the pocket-sized sailboat Genevieve, 121 feet.

But we had a surprise this morning as we stopped at the Palm Beach Sailing Club for a brief visit: Venus is again here, having crossed the Panama Canal no less than four times since Steve Jobs passed away.

And so here is the Admiral later in the day with the iBoat when we went for drinks at the club.  Observe how the faux terrace deck at the top hides most of the antenna farm typical of larger boats today, to achieve Steve's trademark cleaned-up look.  The aft deck, below and aft of the flag, has an iPhone-shaped skylight on it, which we found amusing.

The Admiral driving Peregrinus' tender, foreground, with Venus in the background.  Rybovich Marina, June 6, 2014.  iPhone 4S, ISO 50, 1/163.

Departed

Partir, c'est mourir un peu:  to leave is to die a little, wrote Haraucourt in 1890.  

And so Miami is gone from us, after fifteen years.  The city we knew well, perhaps better than some.  In a way, we were among the last of our generation, the starry-eyed dot-com youngsters who were going to change the world.  

But the bubble burst, and that cohort of friends largely left for Buenos Aires, Madrid, México, New York, Paris, São Paulo, San Francisco, Seattle and other places.  It is now our turn to leave our Miami friends behind (but not to lose them), and to make new friendships in new horizons.

Peregrinus at anchor, Biscayne Bay, Miami, 8:13 PM, 16 May 2014.  iPhone 4S, ISO 125, 1/20"

As we do not get to update this site as often as we'd like, and sometimes we post on things that may have taken place a few days before, here is a clearer timeline:

 - April 27th - moved to the boat

- May 12th - left dock, becoming full-time cruisers

- May 26th - left Miami

A well deserved rest

The Admiral pauses on deck after hoisting the Seaman to a height of 63.5 feet (19.4 meters), i.e., to the base of the antenna farm at the top of the main mast.  The seaman was up there precisely to get the specific height of the mast, using a laser.

The antennas stand a further 4.5 feet (1.4 meters) from that point.  And this is the reason why Peregrinus stood a few days about 100 yards from the MacArthur causeway in Miami, and yet can never go under it, at least not until some day the offending antennas are relocated to the spreaders, or to the mizzen.

Miamarina, 22 May 2014, 8:38 am.

Sunset in the city

Brickell, left, and downtown, right, from the Marine Stadium basin.  A fine anchorage little explored by cruisers.  

14 May 2014, 8:19PM.  iPhone 4S, ISO 800, f/2.4.

A view of Peregrinus by a dear friend

The mizzen mast (palo de mesana), as seen by Alicia Martínez-Fonts this past Monday.  The night sky glows, reflecting the lights of downtown Miami.

Miamarina, 19 May 2014, 8:52 PM.  iPhone 5s, ISO 1600, f/2.2