OtterNews.com -- the full on-line record of the 1998-2003 round-the-world voyage of Brec Morgan aboard the Otter!

Note: www.BrecMorgan.com also "resolves" to this site, so it's easy to remember!
Also, see photos of the St. Maarten Yacht Club's March 17th celebration of Brec's return.
The ceremonial "Tossing of the 'Voyage-End Dock Lines'" went off as planned at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 17th.
Click here to order a copy of Brec's Homecoming Compilation of E-Mailed Reports.

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E-mail Excerpts

Block Island Times articles
May 17, 2003-front page
May 17, 2003-full article
March 24, 2001
September 29, 2001

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AP Story-filed 5/17/03
New London Day

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(a companion vessel during much of Brec's Journey)

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brecmorgan@aol.com

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(Brother/Publisher/
Editor/Webmaster) brotherjohn@otternews.com
 

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P. O. Box 1982
New London, Conn.
06320

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Report One from the Otter: Notes from Bermuda

 

Friday, December 11, 1998

Dear Friends and E-mail Family,

It's evening and I'm sitting at the White Horse Tavern in St. George, Bermuda over-looking the harbor entrance where I arrived three weeks ago.

Jose Feliciano is in the background singing "Feliz Navidad" and the palm trees on Ordinance Island are spotlighted in red and green. Christmas decorations and Santa Clauses in sleighs seem somehow out of place in this pastel-colored, tee-shirt and shorts world.

I've been meaning to put my Journal notes into an abbreviated form to send out to you since I arrived, and, like most things, it has taken a lot longer than I expected. I hope you receive this before Christmas.

The following are excerpts from the "Log of the Otter."

Brec

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5:30 a.m. I get up after only two hours sleep -- I was loading the boat until 3:30 a.m. My garage at the house is cleaner and more organized than it's ever been. The boat now looks like my garage used to.

8:15 a.m. Leave the dock at Milford Boatworks. About 15 people show up to see me off, including John and Glenn from Morgan Sign Company, who say they want to be sure I really leave. Channel 8 News is there, too, and with hugs and tears I untie the lines from my home on A-dock and am off.

It's unreal and hard to believe it's actually happening. Out by Charles Island I put up the sails and start singing, cheering, and jumping around the cockpit. I tell myself, "Sober up - it's going to be a long way before you're home again!"

2:00 p.m. I enter North Cove in Old Saybrook after a cold, brisk sail. Dad and his wife, Margot, are there to take the lines. I get stuck in the mud as the tide goes out: there's only three feet at dead low and Otter draws four. What a way to begin a World Voyage!

I sail to New London and stay in a slip at the Thamesport Marina. I have a wonderful dinner at my brother John's house in Waterford. Mom and all the family members from "the lane" come by to share potluck and wish me well.

I sail to Block Island. It’s bitter cold. I'm wearing six layers and a Yukon trapper’s hat. I check the electronics. The new radar works well.

I tie up next to Ballards in Old Harbor. John, his girlfriend Barbara, and my wife Sandy show up on the 7:00 p.m. ferry. We've rented Pat Doyle's house for the weekend. It is a block from the statue of Rebecca and is large enough for 12 people.

More people arrive: my men's group, my son Scott from Los Angeles, my brother Geof and his friend Melody from Bellingham, Washington, and friends from church.

I spend the day putting tie-down straps on all the gear and attempting to organize the chaos. I'm concerned because the boat is much lower in the water and the waterline has disappeared. Did I really need all my power tools? I try to thin out some items and send them back with Sandy.

There is a big spaghetti dinner at the house in the evening and I'm very moved by a round of toasts.

Another day of prepping the boat. I notice a small leak by the steering column. I hope it isn't serious. More tie-downs.

Steve Knauth from Soundings Magazine shows up and does an interview. I show him the bottle of shells from Joshua Slocum that came from my grandmother.

My daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren come out for the day - I realize I may not see them for three years. My granddaughter Brechin will be ten when I return. I realize I'll miss a big portion of their growing up.

The group tonight at dinner is smaller, as many went back on the 5:00 p.m. ferry.

Today is the planned departure date, but the forecaster at Commander Weather Service recommends waiting until a front passes on Wednesday. The last of my friends leave and I'm alone for the first time - the big jump is coming and I'm very anxious.

Repacking and more tie-down work all day.

The weather service says it's OK to leave after the front passes. I close down Pat Doyle's house after doing a last load of laundry and go to sleep on the boat at 7:00 p.m. It's very cold.

Leave in pitch dark at 2:00 a.m. Cold. Lots of icy stars, thin moon, and a stiff breeze from the west. We're on a beam reach.

I get seasick for the third time in my life. The last time I was twenty-six years old. I'm seasick all day. I can't hold anything down, not even water.

As evening and darkness comes, I'm concerned about collisions with other boats. My radar detector and the radar work well. Wind is 20-25 knots.

Otter is moving fast on a dark sea.

Last night a large bird similar to a cormorant came and slept on my inflatable raft, just forward of the companionway hatch. It slept, head under its wing, standing and swaying to the motion of the boat. It seemed to say to me, ‘It's safe to sleep on the ocean - relax and get some rest.’

There is a storm predicted for Saturday night and I need to get through and below the Gulf Stream as far as possible before it hits. I keep the engine running all day.

I'm still not able to eat any food and feel very weak and cold. Tried to start the kerosene stove to make hot tea, but the severe rolling is too much for me to feel safe about lighting it right now.

I start shaking with the cold. I change into dry clothes; it helps. Sleep in one-hour intervals, waking to check the boat or wait for ships to pass on radar.

Wake from a dream where I'm driving with my friend Kim in a frozen ice-cream bar of refrigerated white vinyl. Kim claims to have gotten it up to 245 miles an hour, but then it got sloppy. I think he's crazy to drive this thing at all.

Ran through most of the Gulf Stream last night. I'm eating a little and feel better. It's a gray and rainy morning, but it's starting to get just a little warmer. The set of the Gulf Stream pushed me a lot farther eastward than anticipated.

5:30 p.m. The predicted storm is on us. Winds from the west, picking up to 45-55 knots. The seas are up to 12-15 feet and cresting.

This turns into the worst night I've ever spent. I'm going to a deep, dark place I've never been before. It's hard to describe, not depressed or afraid - not fatalistic - but clearly aware that any minute something might happen that I couldn't counter and survive.

I take one step at a time and do what I can to keep the boat as safe as possible. Working on the foredeck in plunging seas breaking over the bow, I rig the storm staysail and trysail and the parachute anchor and heave to.

I wait out the night, which seems endless. My first serious test.

The wind stays high all day until 2:00 p.m., when it drops to about 30-35 k.

I want to get off the parachute anchor but can't even winch it in. The trip-line is blowing to windward, away from me. Powering up to it, after a second try, I'm afraid I'll foul the prop. I cut it all loose.

Exhausted, we turn and sail south all night, under the storm staysail alone. With Otter on a broad reach, I sleep.

Beam reach most of the day. The sun comes out and it's warm. I clean the boat below. I wash and shave and feel refreshed. Barefoot in the cockpit, I realize I've survived, or rather I've been allowed to pass. With the danger gone, I cry.

I notice that noises on the boat can sound like voices. I hear someone say "hello." I hear something like the sound of my relatives talking outside on the porch on summer evenings when they would visit when I was a child.

Another time, while I was steering, I heard the distinct sound of a car horn to my right. My immediate response was to say out loud, "Hey buddy, you think you own the ocean? There's a lot of room out here for everybody, you know!" I guess I haven't been away from the commute long enough. It's haunting me even out here.

Late evening, there are meteor showers so bright they light up the boat. I'm frustrated Bermuda is still 180 miles away.

Woke with dreams of being in a war zone. The crashing of the waves on the bow sounds like shells exploding near my bunk.

Today, while trying to get a picture of a sooty tern, he eyes me, executes a difficult banking maneuver in gusty winds, and releases a bomb directly onto my bow. I'm so amazed I forget to click the camera.

Moving south fast. I'm impressed with how strong the boat is in these large seas. I'm starting to trust her.

It's dark and windy out tonight again. I long to be home in my warm house listening to the storm rage outside the window while I'm safe in a snug bed that doesn't keep dropping out from under me every two minutes.

I'm on the edge emotionally: thoughts of Sandy, my family, and friends bring me to tears.

The race is on to St. George. I pile on sail to keep speed up to five-and-a-half and six knots. Blowing 25 knots with seas six-to-eight feet. Beam reach.

The first voice I hear in eight days is Bermuda Harbor radio on channel 16. An English accent, sounding very chipper, bidding me a ‘good morning and welcome to Bermuda.’ I can see its owner shaved and showered with a cup of tea. I feel connected to the world again, and I'm willing to let these civilized and chipper English run it.

3:00 p.m. Enter Town Cut and clear customs by 4:00 p.m.

Mr. Bernie Oatley, a semi-retired harbormaster, adopts me. He gets me a slip at the Dinghy Club and then drops me off at an Italian restaurant where, with greasy hair and foul weather boots still on, I eat a hot meal at a table that won't stop rocking.

With my glass of wine, I toast the darkness and the seas that let me pass.

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Friday, December 11, 1998

Dear Friends and E-mail Family,

My sea-going log ends here, temporarily. But activity on and around the Otter didn’t.

After I arrived in Bermuda, I spent three days cleaning the boat, doing laundry, and checking out St. George.

I'm meeting other people, couples mostly, from other boats headed south. I have made some friends that I'm looking forward to meeting again in the British Virgin Islands.

My brother, John, showed up as a surprise for Thanksgiving. We had Thanksgiving dinner at the St. George's Dinghy and Sports Club. They had everything, right down to the pumpkin pie. It was a delicious meal with about 100 people in the Dinghy Club's Bingo hall. The next day, John's girlfriend Barbara arrived -- also a surprise!

They left Monday, and on Wednesday, Sandy came to visit for four-and-a-half days. We stayed at the Grotto Bay Beach Hotel. It was wonderful to be able to stretch out on a three-pillow, super-king-size bed after the tiny bunk on the Otter.

(When I start to think the Otter is too small, I remember the officers’ quarters on the whaling ship Charles W. Morgan and I don't feel so bad.)

Sandy and I did the full tourist-tour of the island with the Botanical gardens, Gibbs Hill Lighthouse, the Dockyard Marine Museum, and dinner at the Hog Penny Tavern in Hamilton as highlights.

Sandy brought my mail and e-mail notes. Even though I'm not able to respond to every note, they are all deeply appreciated and I hope you will continue to send me your thoughts, ideas, and updates on how you are doing so I can keep up with your lives as well.

In the mail was my ‘Human Kindness Foundation’ newsletter. One thing I read jumped out at me because it seems so true of the way the last month-and-a-half has been.

Father Kelly writes, "Life is really no more than a series of heart-breaking good-byes, so full is it of having and letting go." This seems especially so in this nomadic journey I've begun.

After Sandy left, I began preparing for the next leg, to the Virgin Islands. While replacing clamps around the hose that holds the packing gland at the rudderpost, I noticed a bulge in the hose.

I called Robin Bradshaw at Pacific Seacraft, who said the hose was old and needed to be replaced. "If the hose lets go 400 miles at sea, it could ruin your whole day," was how he put it.

So, the boat was hauled at the St. George’s boatyard. I've dropped the rudder and replaced the hose and refitted new clamps and also taken advantage of the haul-out to repack the driveshaft stuffing box. I've become a super contortionist in order to fit into the small spaces in the engine compartment.

I originally expected to be doing watercolors every day, but instead find I'm repairing and fixing and tending to boat maintenance 80 percent of the time. But Bermuda's not such a bad place to be doing all this work.

I've also had a chance to go out with Bermuda Aquarium Research team on a green turtle tagging expedition. Plus, I was invited out on a "plankton tow" by friends at the Bermuda Marine Biological Research Station. There are more little critters in clear seawater than I ever expected.

When I asked if all these microscopic bugs were a health hazard if I swallowed some seawater, I was told to think of them as very small sushi.

Well, repairs should be completed this weekend, December 12-13, and I hope to set sail on Tuesday the 15th, weather permitting.

My next stop is Charlotte Amalie in St. Thomas. Hopefully, I'll be there in time for Christmas. And then New Year's at Foxy's Bar in Jost Van Dyke.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, and fate always has its own plans.

We're all on the journey - Best Wishes

Brechin Morgan

 

PS – Update, Friday, December 18: The weather has been stormy here for days and it looks like the first real "window" is tomorrow. If all looks well, I'll be leaving then, since it is a seven-or-eight-day sail, plus. I expect to spend Christmas at sea singing carols to the dolphins. I'll think of you all.

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All Reports and Artwork Copyright 1999- 2005 by Brechin L. Morgan. All Rights Reserved.
Site last updated on 4/05/04.