Sailing Saint Barbara
Carry on Saint Barbara
April 30, 2006
23:00hrs CST
|
We've been tied in all day long. No break in sight, yet anyway. Hopefully the wind will die down a bit later. It's days like this that will give a person appreciation for the hardships of those that fish for a living. No
one has been able to sleep at all. Rough
Waters Got
into Lake Erie this morning at 06:00 hrs and immediately faced winds
from the S.E. at 25mph gustng to 30mph with swells of up to 18 feet.
Progess is slow but what are you going to do. Hi!
I am Mrs. Cindy Gallagher, Kevin Elliott's kindergarten teacher. We
are tracking your trip in the classroom. We are enjoying reading about
your adventure. Have a safe trip!!! #2
Hey
Coley, #3
Beannachtaí
as Rosmuc #4
Beannachtaí
dhíobh ar fad #5
Hello
Crew!This is Mrs. Keller - Steven's kids' Preschool teacher. We are
excited and honor to know you and Coley. Good luck and safe travels
to Ireland. We are excited to be tracking your journey in the classroom
and at home with Dave! #6
Hope
you all have a safe trip. We are thinking you you all here in Lettermore
and look forward to the day you sail into Maumeen pier. #7
Good
luck lads , we'll see you in New York on the 27th. #8
Go
n-éirí an t-adh libh go léir agus tá mé
cinnte go mbeidh turas deas agaibh agus sibh ag taisteal ó Meiricéa
go Máimín. Bíodh turas sabháilte agaibh Go
n-éirí an t-adh libh go léir, bíodh turas
sabháilte agaibh!! Hi
LadsGood luck to all of you we are keeping an eye on your journey hope
to see you in maimim. Last time I saw you Steven was 1977 in Carraroe
school. BREEGE
LOONEY HERE WISHING YOU STEVE AND YOUR VERY ABLE CREW A SAFE JOURNEY
TO IRELAND . HOPE YOU WILL GET A CHANCE TO CALL THE MIKE O'CONNOR SHOW
..SATURDAY MORNINGS WPNA 1490 AM… AND IT WILL BE MY PLEASURE TO
PUT YOU LIVE AND LET OUR LISTNERS KNOW HOW YOU GUYS ARE DOING. I AM
VERY PROUD OF ALL OF YOU AND WISH YOU A VERY SAVE JOURNEY TO IRELAND.ALL
THE BEST Hi
GuysThis is Barneys Niece Barbara, #13
#14 Entering
Lake St. Claire on our way past Detroit! Just
entering Lake St. Claire on our way past Detroit. Interesting day. Hard
sailing today again but current helped us along so we are ending up
making great headway.
Last
night was the coldest night yet. Temperature in the mid 20's and the
wind straight against us. I was never as happy to see Steve and Barney
togged out in their survival suits to take over from Rene and myself. Aurora
Borealis There's
not too many good reasons for wanting to man the helm on a bitterly
cold night, but the chance to watch the northern lights in all their
glory is definately in the top couple! If you haven't had the chance
to watch this phenomenon for yourself, don't miss the opportunity if
it ever presents itself. Website
hits have gone through the roof! Website
hits and e-mails have gone through the roof. I am going to have to generally
answer the e-mails as much as possible, too much work to do on board,
but I'll get to as many as possible. With all that's going on here,
our esteemed skipper still takes time out of his schedule to teach us
a few things out of the goodness of his heart.He taught us something
that the rest of us thought we already knew. He refers to it as "a
sense of humor". Good
thing we packed our wooly knickers! Mighty
cold last night, but a perfectly clear night. You can forget, living
in a big city, how beautiful a crisp star filled sky is. A real character
builder though. Working in 4 hour shifts, one hour on the helm, the
next hour tending to the radar, GPS, and radios, etc.The trick is to
sleep when you can. We
are tring to get the boat organized. This
is Coley sending message through the satellite phone. We would like
to thank everyone who seen us off at Montrose Harbor, and to everyone
who sent e-mail to our website, keep them coming!We are working right
now on the voice messages and new pictures from our journey. Last
night in a nice warm bed. For
a while anyway. Only a few hours left, counting the minutes now. More
running around now than anything, putting out all the last minute fires. Almost
ready for the start of our voyage! WordPressering
a bit today. We all had a great night last night though, hosted by a
wonderful couple, John and Mary Grealy. Couldn't rip Barney away from
the Stage, even after the band had finished playing, Barney was still
singing! I'm thanking my lucky stars today that he has a good voice,
otherwise it would make for a long trip!We had a mighty sail yesterday
and the pictures are already on the site thanks to the tireless work
of our webmaster! Interview
for Good Morning Ireland Steve
varnished the inside of the boat today, the last coat it's going to
see for a while. It came out beautiful though it's a little slow to
dry so we didn't get a chance to go for a sail. We will today though!
Watch out today for some new pictures as well as video footage. Pre-going
Away Party If you're in the Chicago area, John Grealy is generously throwing us a pre-going away party /Sunday April 23rd/ at his pub!That will give our heads a couple of days to recover before setting sail. We'd
love to hear from you! We
will be leaving this coming Wednesday, April 26th from Montrose Harbor
between noon and one o'clock!If you're in the area that day, please
come by and see us off! Tried out the data kit & Moto. 9505 for communicating with the website today. More ironing to do. Tomorrow we will give her a coat of varnish after taking her out for a sail. Mike will be taking pictures also tomorrow for the cover of our favorite monthly magazine, May edition, although I can't reveal yet which one it is. If you can't figure it out by now though, you need to sit down and have a chat with yourself! If you haven't checked out the virtual tour lately, now's the time to do it. Your computer & internet browser must be able to support Java for this state of the art look at the cabin. Go to Virtual tours, then put your mouse in the middle of the picture, hold down your left button and rotate the picture yourself. Make sure you use the + and - symbols to zoom in and out. Montrose
Harbor is a buzz…
Galway
Hooker The
Galway Hooker is a traditional sailing boat used in Galway Bay off the
west coast of Ireland. The hooker was developed for the strong seas
there. It is identified by the sail formation, which is extremely distinctive
and quite beautiful. It consisted of a single mast with a main sail
and two foresails. Traditionally, the boat is black (being coated in
pitch) and the sails are a dark red-brown. Contae
na Gaillimhe County
Galway (Contae na Gaillimhe in Irish) is located on the west coast of
Ireland. It is in the Irish province of Connacht. The county takes its
name from the city of Galway, which is the county's capital. It is the
second largest county in Ireland, after County Cork. There are several
strongly Irish-speaking areas in the west of the county.The county contains
a number of distinct territories including Iar Chonnachta, which covers
the portion of the county west of Loch Corrib and which contains Connemara
in the far west and Joyce Country in the north-west. A number of inhabited
islands are administered by the county;they include Oileáin Árann
(Aran Islands) and Inis Bó Fine (Inishbofin). Source: Wikipedia The
Crew of Naomh Barbara The
Crew of Naomh Barbara is: This
journey will begin in Chicago, travelling North on Lake Michigan to
Mackinac island, back South again through Lake Huron, into Lake St.
Clair. Detroit is the next major city we'll be passing by on our way
to 'The Graveyard of the Great Lakes', Lake Erie. Here is where our
trip takes a bit of a twist. Once in the Atlantic, we'll head almost directly East, the beginning of a nearly 2500 mile stretch of open seas to Ireland. Soon after leaving New York, we'll enter the warm waters of the Gulf Stream to the Portugese Colony of the Azore islands, around 1000 miles from Europe. This will be the only scheduled stop in the Atlantic and we plan on spending no more than a day to load up with supplies before heading North again for the last leg of our journey, another solid week of sailing where we hope to pop a few bottles of Champagne upon our arrival in Lettermore! From start to finish, the whole trip, from Chicago to Ireland will take between six and seven weeks. Saturday
June 10th - 03:30 C.S.T.
It
depends on ones surroundings at the given moment. In the warmth and
comfort of your home, it not a big deal to watch a hospital type soap
opera on telly and listen to the E.R. doctor confront the relatives
of a patient and mention the word "complication". But find
yourself in a hospital in the same circumstances, and it's a much different
story. That's the one word that no one, doctors and patients alike,
wants to hear. It's an unspoken fear that's present in your sub-conscience.
Mention a particular word and you could be waking a sleeping giant,
so don't even think about jinxing the situation. On the St. Barbara,
whether the seas are rough or calm, the two words that no one mentions
are "Survival suit". We all had them, one of the only things
that Steve insisted upon when we started to plan for this journey. They
were there for the most dire circumstances and we didn't plan on using
them, even though we were well prepared. Then again, there's the subject of Survival suits. It wasn't a rule on board St. Barbara but it was a serious subject all the same and one that even this crew didn't joke around about. So, despite fatigue, my brain was catapulted into absolute attention and complete focus when Steve woke me up and said, "get up and throw on your survival suit, it's getting bad out there". At the time, I didn't realize how bad it was, because when Barney and myself finished our shift, it was bad alright but nothing we haven't been through before. But then Steve went over to Barney and told him the same thing. Barney looked over at me, and I back at him, an unspoken question between us. We had slept through worse than this, what's going on. It's when we got up that we realized how bad it really was. So we both threw on our suits and made our way up to the deck to tie in. Monumental moments in ones life tend to create an everlasting impression of personal surroundings at the exact moment of "impact". Although I was too young to remember, my mother often told me of how she wept watching the telly as I lay in my crib when John F. Kennedy was shot. I remember thinking of my aunt Barbara and how upset she must have been when Elvis Presley died. And on September 11th, 2001, I was not even out of bed yet when my wife turned on the telly to reveal the horror that unfolded before our eyes. But this time was different. It was not a terrible event, and yet, it wasn't really a good event either. It was however, the toughest test of physical and mental endurance so far, on a journey that challanges us many times every day. It was that first look at the ocean, that very second, that will be imprinted in my mind for as long as I live. The clock at the Captains station in the boat is set at New York time and at that moment, it was 04:30am. I knew this because we weren't asleep for very long, that's why I checked it. When I got to the top of the stairs and looked out, I found myself smiling. Not because our situation was in any way bright and rosy, but because I was witnessing first hand, some of the most explosive and viscous power unleashed by Mother Nature. I am, like the rest of the crew, a practicing Catholic and a God fearing man. And like most people, there were doubts during the course of my life, about the presence of a higher being. Not now. The experience at that moment, for me was the most religious that I've ever had. It was then that I realized that there must be a God, a divine creator, able to wield catastrophic power of this magnitude. Maybe that's why I was smiling. In any event, what we were witnessing was a force 9 gale, with 50 - 55 mph winds from the North East moving to the North, and waves from 40-45 feet in height. The wind was driving, almost exactly behind us. That in itself was a blessing because even with a sea anchor out, we were still being pushed nearly in the right direction. If it came from any other direction, things may have been different, but then again, Patrick would have turned away from it I suppose, then dropped in the sea anchor and who knows how far we would have drifted off course. If you can remember just before the Andrea Gale sank in "The Perfect Storm", not the unbelievable 100 foot wave that they couldn't climb, but the way the waves were before that, that's what it was like. I've also seen weather that looked a bit like it on "The Deadliest Catch". But to be there and witness this for myself, were prayers that were answered. All the battering and pounding that we've taken during the last couple of months, was only a practice run for this. This is why I came here. I know it sounds strange, but that's the reason. To be able to look Mother Nature, in the midst of all her fury, right into the eyes and say, here I am, give it your best shot. Now, the fact that I'm on board the greatest Galway Hooker ever built, the St. Barbara, with Patrick Joyce as our Captain, may give me an unfair advantage, but this was as brave as I'm going to get with her! Anyone that hasn't had the "pleasure" of experiencing something of this nature, it's kind of like this. Picture yourself in your car driving down the road and all of a sudden, the mountains start rolling towards you at a pretty decent speed. But you look again in the distance, and all you see are mountains, one after another, all headed your way. Your heart races a bit at the sheer magnitude of these monsters and the first one is almost here. You hold your breath as it approaches, it's right beside you and towers overhead. You prepare to go under when your vehicle is lifted 50 feet into the sky, sideways, in the split second before impact and then, boom. You're slapped down to street level again on the opposite side for a few seconds, bobbing back and forth, front to back, until the next one arrives. And it's coming, only a few seconds away now….. The one time that I did get concerned, not worried, concerned, was when Patrick got through to Rene back in Chicago on the Satellite phone. Rene is a friend of ours, being a friend of Patricks for many years. He recently received his pilots license and flies quite frequently now. As it was very early in Chicago when Patrick got through, Rene had not left for work yet and Patrick knew that one of the perks afforded to pilots is the ability to access very good weather information through a "members only" aviation website. After Giving Rene our co-ordinates, Pat asked him how bad it looked. After Rene answered him, Pat said in a higher pitch than usual, WHAT? Now, if there's ever a perfect moment to panic, that was it. Pat calmly said thanks and hung up the phone promising to call Rene back shortly. We learned after the phone conversation had ended, that the answer given to Pat from Rene was, "Patrick, you're screwed, there's nowhere to run to, you're in the middle of the the beast, so there's nowhere to hide, good luck to you my friend!" And
St. Barbara didn't flinch once. I know that I make it sound like she's
human, but to watch her bow going up then come crashing down, only to
do it again and again, like a determined mother that won't allow any
harm come to her children, that's the feeling of respect you get on
this boat. The lee boards are continuously under water along with part
of the deck, only to be righted for a moment, we'd bob the other way
and repeat the action on the other side of the boat. Up and down, side
to side. Maybe this is why this route has never been attempted before
in a Galway Hooker. After the onslaught, we put up the jib and the headsail and set sail for a course, more than 60 miles from our original one. A lot of sea to recapture now, and we definitely won't see the Azores before Monday night. The outlook does not promise much favorable wind after tonight, but hopefully tomorrow afternoon will bring a better outlook. We're hoping then to see 15-20 mph North Easterlies, that will help us set our new goal for the Azores, a few days of a set back but we're only about 375 miles away now. These Easterly winds, we shouldn't have them this time of year, they should be from the West. They're colder and more volatile, but we'll take them as long as it's wind. As we found out today though, we don't seem to have too many choices in the matter anyway. ********************************************************************************** The
whole effect of the storm took 36 hours of our lives. I'm typing this
part of the story from the safety of the office in Johnny O'Hagan's
in Chicago, a little more than a month after our safe arrival. Shortly
after we arrived, we were told of a yacht that left two days after we
did, from I believe Providence, Rhode Island, on the Eastern seaboard
of the United States with a course set in the same direction as ours.
The boat and her crew were lost in the same storm that we were caught
in and they're still finding bits and pieces of the boat. It's that
simple. I say a prayer for them every time I think of them now. A container
ship also caught in the same storm lost 50 containers, a frightening
scenario, considering any one of those containers could have sank us.
Apparently some of them don't sink right away, depending on whats inside
and how tightly sealed they are. Worse than an iceberg, because they
can hover below the surface of the ocean, just below sea level, so you
wouldn't even know something was out there until it was too late. Throw
the fog that we've encountered so often into the mix and your odds of
disaster increase dramatically.
September 18, 2006 PLEASE
SEE CHANGE TO PARTY There has been a change in party venues and date! The homecoming party will be at Grealy's pub, Saturday July 15th. The information has been changed below. Sorry for any confusion caused.
There
will be a homecoming party for the crew of the St. Barbara this Saturday,
July 15, 2006, at Grealy's pub, 5001 West Lawrence Avenue, Chicago starting
at 9:00pm. They have plenty of parking available and there will also
be a slideshow of the journey, food, stories and maybe a few drinks!
Please stop by as we'd love to get a chance to meet everyone that's
been following the website! |