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The option existed of putting into the Canary Islands, about 300 miles to the south, to top off fuel. But all things being equal, I did not want to do that. Gazing at the glassy swell, I woefully recollected the crossing of '91, which was essentially a motor-sailing trip. We'd motor for awhile, motor-sail for awhile, sail for awhile, and then motor again. Sails up. Sails down. Sails up. Sails down. We came into St. Thomas on fumes. Would this trip be the same?

About 24 hours after departing Madeira, a rain shower overtook the vessel and, as the rain tapered off, a gentle breath of air touched the back of my port ear. It was only a few knots, but it was promising. An hour later, the engine was off, and so was Pride II, under sail.

The breeze was northeast. For the time being, this favored staying on the port tack and sailing south. Though it was tempting to steer directly for San Juan, I knew if we did, we would enter the middle of the Azorean High Pressure, and thus run out of wind altogether. We are sailors, so we sail, right? In the wee hours of the third day out, we raised the lights of the Canary Islands. I fretted over whether we should stop to replace the seventy gallons of diesel that we burned on the first day out. Might want those gallons in two or three weeks, thought I. In the end, a fresh, favorable wind argued louder for continuing on, so we sailed south right through the islands.

The Canarys, like Madeira, are very high islands. The largest, Tenerife, stands 13,000 feet above sea level. This is nearly equal to Mona Loa on the Big Island of Hawaii. In my time sailing in Hawaiian waters with the Tole Mour, I learned a thing or two about how high islands can affect wind and weather. Generally speaking, air flowing across an expanse of ocean, such as a tradewind, will accelerate when it encounters resistance, such as a cluster of islands. The channels between the islands can be expected to generate wind of higher intensity than the area directly to windward, or some distance away. But land masses of such extraordinary altitude also create massive wind shadows where not a breath of air stirs for weeks at a time. If a vessel gets too close, she is becalmed. In the Pacific, I have experienced wind shadows up to 50 miles from land. The trick is to grab the extra wind between the islands, without getting in the lee of them.

Map by Mapquest

A week after leaving the Canaries, Pride II's position was almost identical to that of her previous two westward transatlantics at the one week point. We had sailed 300 miles farther than on those earlier crossings, and while that may not strike some as efficient, the point is, she sailed. Fuel we cannot replace at this point; it is the wind we must use. Through this stage of the voyage, Pride II averaged 202 nautical miles per day for a week. For several days after that, the average was only slightly less. With every additional sailing mile behind us, I became more secure in the knowledge that if we had to motor the rest of the way, we could.

A long ocean passage doesn't happen every day, not even in this line of work. It presents a special opportunity for those aboard to tackle projects that one is normally too busy to contemplate, let alone commit to. One of the more ambitious and unusual projects this voyage has been undertaken by one of our guest crew, Friedrich Baier. Friedrich has been industriously making a film of our voyage. It's a real film, not a video. He has been interviewing crew and capturing the sounds and sights of Pride II at sea. Friedrich has two 16mm cameras and is shooting negative film. He also has a magnificent "shotgun" microphone that can target specific sounds, a hundred feet away. For instance, from the deck he can capture a conversation between two people speaking in normal voices way up in the rigging, while eliminating all the other sounds between the two points. A talented artist, Friedrich has also been producing watercolors at a prodigious rate. He has the gift of being able to imagine the correct appearance of Pride II from perspectives he cannot physically attain, and from which he has no photographs to work.

Between duties as an architect, Friedrich has been going to sea in large sailing vessels for over thirty years. Among others, he has sailed in the four-masted barque Kruzenshtern (ex-Padua) and the full-rigger Alexander von Humbolt out of Bremerhaven. Most interesting to me, however, is the fact he made the very last voyage by a Grand Banks dory-fishing vessel in 1969 aboard the barquentine Gazela Primero. It was a six-month voyage from Lisbon to the Grand Banks and back, during which he and 33 other men fished by hand from dories until October, before returning to home.

Fog, too, was an ever-present menace. Try as the mother ship might to collect her children, many were never seen again. These losses would have been taken hard. Not only did the success of the voyage depend on having a full complement of able fishermen, in many cases these men were related, and the burden of raising families simply transferred to other shoulders. Cod were like gold, and these men no different from miners, working hard for riches that would never be theirs. Our man Friedrich caught a glimpse of this life in its very last year and photographed it in detail. The Gazela Primero, first built in 1883, is homeported at Philadelphia and still sails.

On the whole, I would say that, thus far, ours has been an uneventful voyage. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The weather has been essentially cooperative, though it looks like we will have to motor-sail the last bit on account of the wind going light. For two and a half weeks though, we shot along under stuns'ls, gants'l, and all the pretty kites that give Pride II such a splendid and imposing profile. Despite the consistency of our days, a few notable events have livened our routine.

For instance, yesterday we celebrated Ellen's 24^th birthday. PJ made an awesome chocolate cake to satisfy the most fervent chocolate lover. November 5th is also Guy Fawkes Day, Guy being the English agitator for Catholic rights who, in 1605, conspired to fill the basement of Parliament with gun powder and blow it sky high. They caught him and hung him for his trouble, and then cut off his head for good measure and put it on spike outside the Tower of London for the contemplation of passersby and the indulgence of the London flies. The English celebrate this "holiday," though one would expect the Irish to have more cause, by burning things and consuming lots of alcohol. It's hard to know what purpose this annual rite serves, but at the very least perhaps it can be regarded as a standing warning to the Government to not lose sight of their accountability lest they become the object of a similar proposition. As for we aboard Pride of Baltimore II, we had to be satisfied with the pyrotechnics supplied by the candles on Ellen's birthday cake.

The fishing has been dismal. Much of the time, we were simply sailing too fast for all but the hungriest fish to snatch our lures. But now that we have slowed down, we can no longer console one another with that excuse. One day, and one day only, a smallish mahi-mahi got on, but he flipped off just we went to swing him aboard. Ah yes, the one that got away. Honest. Just ask John Shellenberger.

One day we had a fire drill, and that's about all there is to say about that. We also fired off some expired flares to see what they would do. They worked just dandy. I thought we might see some other yachts making the passage to the Caribbean for the winter charter season, but we haven't seen a soul. I suppose for sheer frivolity and homemade entertainment, we look to the Halloween Bardinet as the high point of the voyage. As it turns out, this celebration more or less coincided with mid-voyage. This is my third Halloween in a row underweigh aboard Pride of Baltimore II and I was in company of veterans from both the first and the second ones.

Clandestine acts of creativity commenced almost the moment we cast off from Madeira, though the cook purchased a store-bought costume in Ireland. I was thinking about what I should be back in August while awaiting the birth of my daughter, but as usual, I did nothing until the very last minute. I suspect that the curiosity and tension that characterized the build-up to Halloween nearly surpassed the actual event. But the day came and the Cook and I made the punch. At 1600, I leaned on the ship's horn to alert anyone who didn't already know that the Halloween Bardinet was now in session.

Through various hatchways, the participants tentatively emerged in their peculiar attire till all were assembled on the quarterdeck. There was a surplus of Super Heroes this year. There was Ellen, the Killer Butterfly from Monster Island; Dayle as "Falcon Girl;" Mr. Landers, the Bank Robber who also enjoys skiing and the luge; Mr. Flansburg as Angry DiFranco, the man-hating poet; Ms. Cleary as Bat Woman, I mean, Cat Woman, or was it Rat Woman?; John Shellenberger as "the one that got away" the day before it actually did get away; Paul as Highland Dude; PJ, bejeweled in kinder-egg toys, was The Kinder Crusader (pronounced with a short ‘I' like kindergarten); Pamela as "Exotic Maori Woman All The Way From New Zealand, mate;" Andy the Cook as "The Guy In The Mask He Bought In Ireland With The Price Tag Still On It;" Mac as Black Barf, the Regurgitator; Fernando as the Gorton's Gloucester Fish Stick Guy, Sort Of; Stan-the-Man as "Sinbad, the Fashionable;" Friedrich as Roman Polanski; Lee as Teacher Aboard and Documentor of the Above; and last but not least, Capt. Parrott as The Green Flash, for those who had never seen one. At Pamela's reminder, the customary tot was served to Neptune with all the grace, deference, and general obsequiousness that could be mustered in a few words. The punch was served and the snacks were laid on; the guitars were pulled out and the weather behaved. Later that night we dined on roast goose, which was torn limb from limb in traditional Halloween fashion.

One of the predominant extra-curricular activities of this voyage has been the dedicated study of celestial navigation by the crew. Celestial Navigation represents a body of knowledge that still holds a mystical attraction for sailors. To understand it is not only a requirement for a deepwater captain's license, it provides entry into a select group of people who, without the aid of electronic contrivances of any sort, know how to find out where the hell they are in the middle of the ocean. To acquire this understanding is a difficult and satisfying accomplishment indeed. For people in my line of work, who learn such things without the benefit of a classroom or an instructor at a maritime academy for some sort for a fee, the achievement is all the more commendable. For me, it is extremely satisfying to see the crew teaching one another, helping one another, to gain an understanding of this recognized plateau of higher learning. And they do it in their off-time when they could be sleeping, reading a book, or re-reading a letter. Sometimes at twilight, there is a veritable traffic jam of people on deck marching about clutching sextants, time pieces, and pencils, yelling "Mark" (not to mention Luke and John), seeing stars and stuttering altitudes at one another like some Masonic ritual or a solemn gathering of the Druids. Unfortunately, with the advent of satellite electronics, celestial navigation is more a labor of love, a love of the craft, than a routinely applied skill. Still and all, if ConEdison can crash, why not the silvery birds of NASA?

Its coming on six in the morning and a tinge of color is already in the east on account of the sun rising, and we turning back our clocks last night. We've had to change clocks four times during our westward trek, and we will change once more before we are home. God willing, we will be alongside the pier at San Juan by lunchtime. Now for a couple of final notes: We made landfall yesterday afternoon. It was Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands, bearing 253 degrees magnetic, at a range of about 38 miles. Of course it was the sharp-eyed captain who, having nothing better to do all day long but gaze wisely into the distance, spotted it first. If I were a gambling man, I could have made a tidy purse for to squander in San Juan. Now we are plying west along the north coast of Puerto Rico, the shore lights twinkling weakly with the onset of dawn.

We finally caught a fish yesterday. We've been catching flying fish all trip, but they just sail aboard and practically into the skillet. No sport in that. This was a smallish barracuda, well hooked on a lure that I bought in Lisbon. It was mostly jaw and tail and only about 20 inches anyway. Ferdinando, one of the guest crew, wanted to eat it very badly. This came as no surprise for, wasn't it he who was the most devoted devourer of our flying fish, no matter how long they may have lain in the sun? But by this point, we were in the vicinity of the reefs at Anegada and barracuda are known carriers of a disease called siguatera. It is prevalent among reef fish and wreaks havoc on the nervous system. It can be fatal, and in any event, debilitate for many months, making Lyme disease seem like a touch of flu in comparison. Not all types of fish carry it, and not all fish of the same type carry it. Furthermore, fish of one type may be carriers in one part of a reef, but be perfectly edible from another part. Through long experience, islanders gain an understanding of these nuances and can give remarkably precise information about which-fish-where, are okay to eat. Unfortunately, if one is without local knowledge or proper testing equipment, the most expedient method of determining if a fish is safe is to eat it. But there are obvious problems with this methodology and, after having gotten Ferdinando safely across the Atlantic, I did not want my first stop in San Juan, after Immigration of course, to be the hospital. So, in the face of much imploring and passionate wringing of hands, the silly little fish was consigned to the deep.

Last but not least, the crew accomplished a tremendous amount of work on the vessel during the transit. At the mate and bosun's suggestion, we adopted a different watch routine from that normally employed aboard, which enabled us to gain several hours of maintenance time a day, excepting Sundays. In consequence, virtually all the brightwork on deck is now gleaming again, and many of the oiled timbers as well. Brad Fleury banged out several more carpentry projects with meticulous care. Ellen and PJ touched up lettering around the vessel. Dayle mended the stunsails. A great deal of time goes into inspecting the condition of the rig, because it is far from self-tending. Paul took a lead in this area, not to mention occasionally wielding his varnish brush in formidable fashion. Numerous other projects presented themselves during the passage, as they always do, and were dealt with. This is well, because as we turn north from here, the weather for such work is likely to diminish.

The final few days of the passage entailed motor-sailing among rain showers, with a beam swell, in light airs from astern. Pride II's progress was less than graceful. But when I think of the sailing we had earlier, and the fact that we are coming in with half our fuel, I believe we have nothing to complain about. Yesterday afternoon, shortly after landfall, a spry nor'easterly sprang up after a rain shower passed through. The vessel steadied out and off she went. We enjoyed a very satisfying sail through the night, past the glimmer of the Virgin Islands, to the coast of Puerto Rico.

The sun is well up the sky now, and it is time to turn to navigation as we make our approach to San Juan.

Watch Below,
Captain Dan Parrott