Oceanus Triangle Loop is soon to be underway!!!!

Greetings to our family, friends and faithful followers!!!

After a several year hiatus from major boating adventures, Mark and I are once again heading out for another journey on our beloved trawler, Oceanus!  This time, however, we will be heading North, instead of our usual treks southward down the Intracoastal Waterway.  We are planning to circumnavigate a course known as "The Triangle Loop", which will likely take us 2-4 months to complete.  Here is a map of the prospective journey:

However, to get to the actual Triangle, we will need to venture north from Norfolk, VA up to the mouth of the Hudson River by New York City.  Most cautious boaters would likely choose to travel up the Chesapeake Bay (in relatively sheltered waters with many spots to hunker down if bad weather pops up); however, Mark is (of course) more confident, optimistic, knowledgeable and adventurous than the average boater.  Mark's preferred course is to head directly off-shore and cruise non-stop to NJ/NY once a favorable weather window presents itself.

This will entail a 260 mile off-shore jaunt, which should take at least 30 hours based on an average trawler speed of 8.5 knots.  Sheryl is less enthusiastic about this daring approach to their "relaxing" journey, especially considering she will be required to "man the helm" so Mark can get some sleep during this underway period.  There are several elements that contribute to my willingness to do this:

1)  There is usually very little other boat traffic offshore, so therefore little chance of any collisions while in open waters.

2)  There is also no chance of running aground offshore, so another potential hazard is eliminated.  

3)  This greatly reduces the time it will take to get to the start of "The Triangle Loop" and will thus enable us to spend more time in the areas we have not yet traveled to.

That being said, we will most definitely have our "ditch bag" fully loaded (just in case).  

As I don't believe I have blogged consistently during any of our Oceanus adventures, here is a brief overview of our "home on the water" for our  journey.  Oceanus is a 50-foot Ocean Alexander trawler, with 2 375-HP diesel engines (Caterpillar, for those interested).  She can carry a full load of 600 gallons of fuel, which provides a range of about 1000 miles.  There is a generator as well to run the climate control systems and recharge the extensive battery banks; in addition, Mark recently added 3 solar panels which should help passively and efficiently recharge the batteries as well.  Oceanus has most of the comforts of home (albeit with much less spaciousness).

UPDATE:  Well, the weather has not been conducive to starting our offshore journey, so we have decided on a change of plans.  Our current plan is to leave bright and early Wednesday (5-31) morning but instead are going to head north up the Chesapeake Bay.  We'll stop/anchor somewhere Wednesday night (possibly around Annapolis???) then continue up to NJ/NY from there.  Sheryl is pretty relieved about this change in plans BTW....

We will try to post a new blog addition at least once per week, hopefully with plenty of pictures.  Please feel free to comment or ask questions - we'd love to hear from you!