I’m in the little house in Eastport we rented while both boats are under construction, having just gotten back from a walk around the neighborhood. First down to the docks in the harbor by the Chart House. It’s a flat-calm night, and I was jealous of the boats on the moorings there enjoying a chilly night on the water. Then back around to 4th street and down past the playground. The air was damp tonight and the streets were wet. Then back up past Leeward Market and through to 1st Street before meandering back around to our little place on Chesapeake Ave.

In the old days, Mia & I would have survived amidst the chaos on the boat. Not this time. I’m already on emotional overload and with Axel in the mix, I didn’t want his first USA experience to be living in a world of clutter and noisy, smelly, messy boatwork. So we abandoned ship and moved into a small AirBnb in Eastport and it’s made all the difference, given me some headspace, Axel some play space and ISBJORN some space to become a full-fledged work project.

*Andy, Axel & Poppop Dennis the day we pulled ISBJORN’s rig.*

I’m in a reflective mood tonight, re-reading John Kretschmer’s Sailing a Serious Ocean and reminding myself why I wanted to go ocean sailing in the first place. John’s writing is what inspired me down this career path, and anytime I get overly stressed about our business I pickup one of his books and do a reset. I’ve been thinking about all the miles we’ve sailed on ISBJORN since buying her in 2015. Over 40,000 and counting, from 10º north in the Caribbean to 80º north in the High Arctic, and some of my all-time favorite landfalls in between. Horta. Lunenburg. St. Pierre & Miquelon. Bermuda. Lagos. Marstrand. Stockholm. Lofoten. Ile Fourche. Bequia. So many places, and such a cool boat…

*ICEBEAR’s coolest landfall? Hare Bay fjord, Newfoundland, summer 2019.*

*ISBJORN in Henningsvaer, Lofoten (Norway). Photo James Austrums.*

*ISBJORN & ICEBEAR together in my favorite Caribbean anchorage at Ile Fourche (St. Barth’s).*

Right now with COVID, I’m questioning my motives for getting a second boat and complicating this whole thing. I wanted to go to sea, I bought my dream boat in ISBJORN, our beloved Swan 48, then had to make it all crazy by buying my other dream boat, our Swan 59 ICEBEAR. It’s like what they say about having two kids is like having four. Things are just exponentially more difficult.

*Emma on her first passage with us on ICEBEAR in the Caribbean early 2020, pre-COVID.*

And then I think of Emma and Sean who have sailed several thousand miles on ICEBEAR this year and who have been deep into her refit this fall in Annapolis. Emma is 24 (23?) and goddamn, if an opportunity like this had existed when I was her age, I’d have melted at the chance. And the extra crew we’re able to take offshore now, 100 per year instead of 40.

But damn doesn’t COVID suck! To think how this year could have been, with both our boats sailing across the Atlantic…alas.

So now what? Normally at times like these, late at night, I’d be sitting here pondering new passages and planning new adventures. Pretty hard to do that right now. We’re aiming for the Caribbean 600 race in Antigua in February, but jeeze, what are the odds that happens as it stands today? What are the odds that we’re even able to continue our season in April 2021, the one we put off from April 2020? That’s only six months from right now…six months ago it was May 2020. What’s changed since then that would make you optimistic for international travel six months from now? What to do but wait and see…

*ICEBEAR crew Phil admiring the foredeck en route to the Caribbean one year ago. Photo by James Austrums.*

If there is any cure for the COVID blues it’ll be offshore sailing. Next week the crews of both boats arrive in Annapolis for what will be an epic passage south. Our goal is Antigua, over 1,600 miles from Annapolis, normally a 10-11 day passage or so. But with COVID, the island is requiring all entering yachts to quarantine for 14-days on arrival, but they count sea time. So we’ll just stay out there. The plan is to sail east and around Bermuda, giving us the chance to call in at the island if we have any weather concerns or COVID scares among the crew. Everybody has to show up to the boat with a negative test, but still, shit happens, so we have Bermuda as a bailout. Then, if we have to, we’ll sail all the way south to Barbados or Grenada, just to add time. Being at sea and on the move for three extra days is far more appealing to me than sitting on anchor in Falmouth Harbor for three days after having been at sea for 11. Uncertainty is the name of the game for an offshore passage in normal times what with weather and seasons and everything. Maybe the COVID uncertainty is just something we’ll have to live with in offshore sailing going forward. Flexible schedules, flexible itineraries. Who knows, next week will give me a preview anyway.

The world could change yet again next week, and we might be bound for St. Maarten or USVI or stuck here in port. To make it even crazier, we’re in the midst of a historically active hurricane season - only once before, in 2005, have we gotten to ZETA in the Greek alphabet when naming storms. If you’re counting that’s 27 named storms in the Atlantic this year…21 in the English alphabet (for obvious reasons we don’t use Q,U,X,Y or Z names), and now six in the Greek. If we get just one more named storm this year it’ll be an all-time record.

But that’s next week. Tomorrow it’s back to work finishing the re-organization of ISBJORN’s interior and helping Emma & Sean wrap up the watertight bulkhead project on BIG BEAR. And away we go.