The Backstreet Buccaneers

Position: 34°43’04.1″N 76°39’51.4″W

For the past week we’ve been holed up in one of our favorite spots, Beaufort, North Carolina. After a successful (read no groundings) passage down the Intracoastal Waterway, we pitched up at Beaufort Docks awaiting the weather window for a passage to somewhere between the Bahamas and Antigua.

If you’re heading to the Caribbean, then you should follow Don Street’s advice: wait until a strong southwesterly irons out the Gulf Stream, followed by a good northerly. When that sets up, head east until the butter melts, then turn south with the trades.

Finding a weather window this year has been tough. It’s not Aleta, it’s the bloody weather! As a result, we’ve spent a week meeting and hanging out with skilled and itinerant sailors. They’re a ragtag bunch of professionals, semi-professionals, captains, captains of industry, naval officers, and air force commandants. Whatever their rank in civvy street, it makes no difference now. Now we’re all cruisers – for better or worse. It didn’t take long to find each other, either. If you’ve ever suddenly been single later in life you know what it’s like finding like-minded people.

Sou’wester

As the group started coming together it became clear that we needed some kind of rallying point, a burgee or logo appropriate for an unorganized rally. Agreeing on an SSB frequency simply wasn’t going to do it.

In short order, team Aleta designed a logo (sporting Marlon as mascot) and offered our motley group a name – The Backstreet Buccaneers (the Backstreet is a terrific little  pub here). By popular demand we ordered custom caps, took a photo, and with that we are almost on our way.

As I write, it seems like we’ve got our strong sou’wester followed by northerlies tomorrow and we’ll be heading across the Gulf Stream in the morning. From there we will manage our fuel and southerly ambitions in turn. If you’re lucky we’ll send you an email from our SSB account – please don’t reply unless it’s an emergency. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait until we post something to this blog via Sailmail.

Suffice it to say, we have met an excellent group of women and men and we shall be in good company no matter what Neptune offers up. We have a net – 8.140MHz USB at 18:00UTC – if you want to listen in or offer weather routing information. Stay tuned! The Buccaneers are heading to sea!