San Juan, Puerto Rico. ISBJORN departed the marina this morning at 0500, with Simon Borjeson at the helm and our great friends Tom & Darlene as his mates. The four-man crew woke up at 0400 to get away on time. Mia set her alarm at 0415 to go and help them cast off. I’m anxious, so stayed in bed. I have full confidence in Simon and the crew, but this is the first time we’ve run both boat’s together on passage, and a little nerves are normal I’d say!

It’s 0747 as I write this, on my second cup of coffee at the nav station. The crew is cleaning up from breakfast and doing the final chores before we can leave the dock. We figure ISBJORN will get about a 5-hour head start on us, so we’ll see if we can catch them up before Samana in the Dominican Republic, our first planned stop on the trip towards Key West. They’ll be tough to beat - it’s blowing 20 knots offshore and ISBJORN is FAST! Plus, I’m still very tentative on ICEBEAR, the 59, so will not be pushing her. It’ll be a wing-on-wing run, and we’re yet to even set the pole on the big boat.

The race is on. Track the progress of both boats on 59-north.com/track-both-boats.