Forced to TURN AROUND - Sailboat Delivery: Annapolis to BVI's [EP 188]

You're a hundred yards from the White House and you're chasing a squirrel up a tree. Do you know what's special about that horse? Oh, I did not expect the episode to be about this though. Why not? Did I miss anything darling? So we're all the way down now in Trinidad, but we're down here because we're going to haul our boat out. I see Adam haul out behavior. We are going to soon fly to America and go and deliver a boat. We're going sailing everyone. I bought an Oyster 52. It's six hours later, still waiting at the airport. New day, we are in Annapolis. You're a hundred yards from the White House and you're chasing a squirrel up a tree. There's a squirrel over there, a squirrel. And it's the White House. There you go. I never thought I'd see it to be honest with you. It's not something that was ever on my bucket list until we were close and it's like, well, there you go. So we managed to get ourselves all the way to DC. It was only an hour away from Annapolis and only about an hour away from when this boat delivery is. Seems pretty pointless not to come to a, like the capital of America, uh, when you're so close. So here we are going to go check out a few of the landmarks today. One of the nothing nuts. This is just going to be like Chiara's squirrel adventure through DC. Do you know what's special about that horse? There's something very special about that horse. Something that everybody says about it. Do you know? You know what's special about it? Well, apparently it's outstanding in its field. I know that joke too. I know that one. So the point of today isn't to go visit every single landmark. It also isn't to film, to have this whole episode all about boring landmarks and statues. Although I think Adam has tried his best this morning with the amount of filming that he's done of such things. I think this is an interesting commentary on the effect that sailing has on your approach to travel. Oh, I did not expect the episode to be about this though. Why not? We're all about learning here in the Falcon. You know, when you go on a vacation, you have two weeks, you fly in, you do a hotel, you race, race, race, you tick in boxes, you're reading brochures, you're following maps, you're doing tours, and you're trying to get as much in as you possibly can. We've been cruising for a while now and you are at a, just a different pace of life. You're at the mercy of the weather. You take your home with you. And as long as your visa is valid and you're allowed to be there, you're really, depending on your plans, you're not in a huge hurry. You're not racing around, ticking boxes. You're more, it's more about assimilating and adapting and living, becoming a part of the place and like strolling, you know, strolling the streets, following the squirrels up the tree, drinking the coffee, meeting the people, like, you know. And so I guess we're taking that approach today. Like, yeah, we could run around like headless chickens, ticking boxes and taking pictures. Knowing we only have 24 hours to be here. But I just, I'd rather achieve less and enjoy it than to get 100% on the test and not have learned or experienced much of anything. Exactly. So that's our plan today. You're going to come along with us and check out some of these white buildings, which I think D.C. is famous for. Just lots of landmarks and statues, really. But it's a beautiful city. Honestly, for us, we're just happy to be home, in a sense. Like we're in a squirrel. Shall we try and count how many times today I get distracted by what I'm saying from a squirrel? We're a half a kilometre and you've done three times now. We are at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. If we were going to do anything today, it was going to be this. There was, if you've been paying attention from the start, you'll know that I'm kind of an aviator guy. I like airplanes and space. So this is my jam. We're on our way to the bus stop. A couple blocks more. Blow out. You okay? You have 43 seconds to be okay. We're on our way to the bus stop to hop a bus from D.C. to Annapolis to catch up with Matt Rutherford, who's coming on the delivery with us, and to get a ride down to Solomon's. All right, so we're back in Annapolis now. Very short and sweet bus ride. And we're just, I don't know, we're on our way to get some breakfast. It's a little bit early yet to start bothering Matt. But hopefully the plan today is to go out and eat some Pop-Tarts. And then go out and meet Matt Rutherford, who we're doing the delivery with, and check out his boat. After visiting a breakfast joint known for their homemade Pop-Tarts, we met up with our captain-to-be on the trip down south, Matt Rutherford. You might have heard of Matt from his crazy voyage in 2011, where he took a 27-foot boat from Annapolis in America and completed a non-stop solo sail around the Americas, taking him 309 days, all raising money for a small non-for-profit sailing school. When he returned, he started his own non-for-profit organization called Ocean Research Project. Ocean Research Project is science, education, and exploration. For over a decade, we've been sailing to the ends of the Earth, working on the front lines of climate research. By using a sailboat to do scientific research, we can operate at 10% of traditional costs with a fraction of the environmental impact. Our research schooner was built specifically for these harsh conditions and can collect data from the open ocean to deepen an icy fjord. Ocean Research Project embarks on multi-year campaigns to observe how climate change impacts coastal ecosystems across the Arctic. We do hundreds of profiles in order to track the changes of the physical and biological properties of the water column. Ocean Research Project is dedicated to exploring and observing these at-risk environments. It's more important now than ever to understand the effects of climate change. Only by working together can we make a difference. Join us on the front lines in the battle against climate change. Matt now has a steel 72-foot Bruce Roberts Voyager 650 schooner called Mary Tharp, which he invited us to take a look at. Final step, guys. Just met up with Matt Rutherford. Showed us around our boat. Really cool exploration boat that he uses to do his studies. That's what I said, right? No, you said showed us around our boat. Oh, sorry. Are we guessing it? Is he giving it to us? I'm so happy. Matt showed us around his boat. A really cool exploration boat that he spends about six months of the year up in Greenland taking scientists up there. Now we're off to our next boat. We're going to get picked up and on our way down to Solomon's. Yeah, you don't have to worry about gears. Just forward, backwards. You don't have to do like the musical hands while you're driving to try and go. But how do I know how fast forward or how fast backwards? Are we, where are we at? I won't put it in. Actually, I will put it in quick reverse. Just see if it engages. There we go. We have driven an Oyster 53. Check the box, yeah. Yes. Oh, guys. So seriously, the weather at the moment. Wait, where's the sun coming from? Let me blind myself instead of blinding you. The weather at the moment has just been crazy. Even the people around here are like, this never, ever happens. You literally choose a window to go and you pretty much just go. It's very, very consistent, the weather around here. But there's just been like a couple of fronts coming through. It's just, it's now the... What are you doing? The out thruster. It's, it's now the 8th. No, it's now the 9th of November. And we're still here. We were meant to leave on the 1st. It's fine. That kind of got postponed because we were like, oh, you know, like people aren't ready yet. So then we're meant to leave on the 4th. Then we look to the weather and we're like, I'm not leaving then. So then we're meant to leave on the 8th. And now it's been postponed again to the 12th. So two weeks worth of delays. It's pretty crazy, but... In that time, we managed to install Starlink. Yes! Find and repair a bad adjustable backstay. Do the running rigging that was sort of done, but not done. And, uh... And plenty of other stuff. Plenty of other stuff. So we have been working on the boat as well, which is good. It's kind of good that we had all this time, like to work the empty hauls of this massive boat. Because we've become quite familiar with it. Yeah, we have. Leaving day! I'm getting last minute provisions. Suddenly realized that we might actually run out of toothpaste on the trip, which isn't going to be good. Yay! We're finally leaving! Can you tell by my red nose? I'm very cold. So, as mentioned before, it's leaving day. And a bit of a kind of crappy bit of weather has gone past us. In fact, it's probably going past right as we speak now. By the time that we finally get to Norfolk, which is kind of like where the open water is, and where we can start to cross the Gulf Stream, the bit of bad weather should have blown past. So we're kind of like having to time this very, very well. We're hoping for when we get to that stage, the wind to just drop off a little bit, so that when we cross the Gulf Stream, which has like... I think it has a reputation for having like four knot currents. Like you really don't want to have a northerly wind when there's a southerly current coming up. So you don't really want the two to kind of cross. But unfortunately, there is going to be a bit of a northerly wind while we're trying to cross the current. So not ideal. So we're just going to kind of hold out till we get less wind maybe, like only 10 knots of wind. And then we'll just like motor on through the Gulf Stream. I say this like it's super easy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll just like motor. We'll just potter across the Gulf Stream. But look, we'll see how we go. Finally though, like man, we've been delayed for like two weeks because of this crappy weather. So it's really nice to finally be going. Ah, yes. One more time. It's so hot right now. Don't try this. This thing is getting really worked out. How's that, Adam? More? Less? No, no, no, less. A little bit less. Less? It's going to do it. It's working. You what, Adam? We're half an hour in. We're half an hour in, generator's on and we're making coffee. Glamping. What's the glamping word for sailing? Glailing? Slamping. No, that sounds like slumming. Glamping, sailamping. I just can't get over your hair. Shut up, stop it. I'm taking your beanie off. What did they do to him? Who's going to be me for the next 12 days? Just hiding it. Faces up. Bone shake. It's really nice to kind of have like these open windows around here. It's very, like you can see everything. It's really light. You're just kind of standing here waiting for the coffee and you're like, oh yeah, it's pretty light out there. This is never ever going to last while underway. I think we're making the most of it right now though. And we're back in the marina. So last night was a bit eventful. Yesterday, actually. We got about five hours out of the marina, down the bay, I think it's called Chesapeake Bay. And all of a sudden, one of the guys realized that our batteries weren't charging. So when the guys were figuring out why the batteries weren't holding a charge. So it's a 24 volt system and we were seeing like 20 volts and we'd only kind of just unplugged from the batteries. That's like from the shore power. So like five hours before and we'd just unplugged and it was already down to 20 volts. So I realized that something was wrong there. And Matt and Adam were doing some kind of diagnostics. When they were here, in this general vicinity of where the batteries live, they smelled some pretty bad diesel. And they're like, what is going on with the diesel? So it lifted up a few more floorboards and diesel is leaking out of the inspection ports just here. And just like a few hairline cracks meant that when we were on a lean, all of the diesel was like coming out the tanks and going into the bilge. So really wild night. We were seeing like gusts of up to 35. And initially we were going downwind. We realized that we'd have to turn around, go back up to the marina and fix everything. And so then we had to battle upwind. When I got in around 11 o'clock. I've been figuring out what to do all this morning and all of today. Did I miss anything, darling? Matt and Cara are out now in Annapolis picking up the new batteries. We've got the guys here ripping out the old ones. We're fixing the diesel ports and pumping out the diesel from the bilge. Hopefully we'll get it all buttoned up and be on our way sort of mid-afternoon tomorrow back on track. I think it was the bananas. Told you. Bread, eggs and bananas on boats. And my thoughts are all on Cara. We're never going to get invited to come on deliveries ever again. So I think we're going to be all right. Tomorrow morning it'll be all about getting the battery bank squared away. The bilge is dry. I've beveled out the cracks and filled the inspection ports on the diesel tanks with this stuff. It is JV World plastic bond. So that'll be all good. It's just got to hold until the diesel level runs down to the point where it's not a problem anymore and it'll be fine. And that is all. I think if the batteries come together tomorrow and that repair works, which it will because I did it, we'll be all good. Second time lucky. It's a bit of a miserable day to head off but here's what it is. Going to the Caribbean. It'll be fine. That was le vagabond. On the side of it it said vagabond adventures and I'm pretty sure that was Bali or at least somebody with a moustache on that. Oh my god, wow. That's pretty cool. Look at that. I didn't want to be that cheesy person who's just like... Okay, it is one o'clock in the morning. It is freezing outside and it's the beginning of our first night shift on the passage. Cara and I are doing four on four off in teams of two right now. It's Cara and Matt and me and Keogh. It's freezing. It's so freezing. Right now we're just motoring out of the Chesapeake Bay. The wind has sort of failed us. It hasn't failed us actually. It never arrived but we've got a massive bladder of diesel on the bow to burn through and a skinny window to get across the Gulf Stream which we really need to make. So we're sort of just... We're just stink boating our way down the Chesapeake through all the rain and the horrible stuff to make the docks across the Gulf Stream sometime tomorrow. It's 4 a.m. It's foggy as all hell. There's probably, what, 200 meters? 100 meters visibility? Less. You can just make out the nav markers and there must be some sort of tugboat convention on somewhere because we've had like a steady, steady drove of tugs towing barges through the night. People aren't screwing around when they say Chesapeake Bay is a busy place and it's all the more fun with fog. So yeah, exciting times aboard the boat today. We've got an hour left of our watch and we have to just cross this last channel and then thread the needle past the Chesapeake Bay Tunnel and then we should be at the mouth of the bay.