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Pride IIās departure ceremony went off without a hitch. The rain was on its way, but still had not arrived at the end of the speeches.  We motored off the dock waving to all the well wishers, marking the departure with a firing of the cannon.  Governor Ehrlich, Secretary of Transportation Flanagan, Secretary of Business and Economic Development Aris Melissaratos, members of our Board of Directors, and Pride, Inc.ās Executive Director were aboard for a photo with the crew before the dock lines were taken in.  The U.S. Naval Academy Band heralded the departure and the Eastport Elementary School chorus did a bang-up job as well. 

It has been five years since Pride II has sailed "off continent" and the excitement in the air, ashore and aboard, telegraphed this fact.  For me, it is nothing new, having experienced several starts across the ocean voyages with both the original Pride as well Pride II.  But still, even with these experiences, there is sincere and significant interest in the coming voyage.  So I, too, appreciated the warm send off.  With all the preparations for the voyage, and all the work ahead of us with its execution, it is important to know that there is great support for the effort.  You could say that part of the "grease" for making the crew feel their responsibilities are worthy is directly influenced by the interest shown by Maryland leaders and citizens in Pride IIās activities.  The send off was excellent for telegraphing the importance Marylanderās see in the crew and their role, and should be permanent fuel for them in their efforts.

We diverted from the intended track by going over to Thomas Point Light for a photo shoot on behalf of the Annapolis Maritime Museum.  Once that was accomplished, Pride II made for the Upper Bay and the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, rather than heading on south to the mouth of Chesapeake Bay.  The overall weather pattern in and out of the Bay suggested we would be better off going north than south.  So here we are motoring along in the dark through the C & D Canal.  The timing is not great insofar as we are motoring against an ebb current.  But I felt it was more important to "make time" than it was to conserve fuel, so here we are.

We executed a number of sail evolution drills and launched/recovered the small rubber boat today.  The sail handling related to the changing wind conditions as the cold front passed over us÷20-30 knot wind from the SE and S moved to the SW, W and NW in the space of 2 hours.  The rubber boat was launched to give a hand to a smaller sailing yacht that was giving aid to a swamped kayak operator.  Sail evolution occurred as I tried to take advantage of the wind for conserving fuel.  So there have been a number of drills that have helped re-orient the crew along with introducing things to the five Guest Crew aboard for the voyage to Ireland.  Now everyone is divided into watches and that was started at 1600 hours (4 pm for those of you unfamiliar with military time).  So some are presently resting and some are handling the ship.  This cycle will likely be the "way of things" for the next three plus weeks.

Cheers,
Captain Miles