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   In five days I will be taking a cruise on a 50 foot sailboat named ASPERIDA to the island of Tortola. I am pretty excited about this cruise, for one, although I have sailed for approximately 25 years on my own boats, a lot of that single handed, to places like Block Island, The Great Lakes, Virginia and North Carolina, I have never gone across the Gulf Stream, or sailed to a foreign country. The plan is that we will leave the Toms River on Monday Sept 29 around 2 PM, where the tide is close to high tide. The boat has a 6 foot draft, so we need a lot of water in order to get out of the marina. We will motor down the Barnegat Bay to Barnegat light, stay over night, and about noon on Tuesday Shove off. The plan is to sail to Norfolk,  Va. on the outside and from there go inside through the various rivers and canals to Morehead City, NC. From there, with the weathers permission, we will sail SE between Bermuda and the Bahamas and head for Tortola, which is BTW the capital of the British Virgin Islands. Think of the trip in these terms. We will be sailing through the middle of the Bermuda Triangle in the middle of the  Hurricane season. Now it can't get more exciting then that!
    The captain and owner Walter Cieniewicz bought a Steel hull boat, actually Nickle Copper, about 13 years ago. I think he got it in NC. Then he motored it up to NJ into the marina in which he is now planning to leave. Initially the boat was dry docked probably for the first ten years then it was put into the water. As far as I know the boat was basically equivalent to a bare hull ie: an unfinished boat. In all this time he has been finishing the hull into a completed  boat. An Electrical Engineer by profession, as far as I know, he is an incredible craftsman. Everything to the N'th degree perfect. The woodwork below is beautiful. He also put a tremendous amount of work into the mechanical systems of the boat. Double water treatment systems. Fuel polishing systems ie: systems that keep your diesel fuel clean. He also put a lot of time into the electronics and computer systems of the boat. Whenever I would run into him he would talk about some new software that he was using or about some far out fuel tank measuring system that he was installing. It was always interesting to hear him talk about what he was doing with the boat.
   The boat is a 50 foot steel ketch ie: double masted sailboat. it weighs 35 metric tons, over 70 thousand pounds. It has a large State Room, nice size Galley, Captains Quarters in the rear, and four bunks near the bow for the crew. It has a large stand up Engine Room. The boat is equipped with a washing machine, refrigerator, and wind generator to charge the batteries. I will tell you something. I have not gone on this trip yet, but I am very impressed with this boat!
  I will be part of a crew of initially 5 to Norfolk, and then 4 the rest of the way. The crew will consist of Jerry ( a retired cop),  Richard ( a priest), and Bob ( a Mechanical Engineer)., and myself (an Electrical Engineer and Electrician).  Jerry and myself have a lot of sailing experience. If you think about it, I think that I am in pretty good hands. For 1: If the boat tries to get boarded by pirates we have Jerry to hold them off; 2: If the boat is sinking we have Richard to give us our last rites; and 3: Between the Captain, Bob, and myself we stand a pretty good chance of fixing problems as they arrive.
  Jerry is in charge of the watch schedule, that is the schedule which says when you should be on deck. The schedule puts you on a 4 hour watch, and allows you to sleep 4 hours when you are off. Personally I think that a 6 hour watch would of been better, thus allowing you to sleep for 6 hours, almost a full nights sleep. Jerry also set it up so that there would always be 2 people on deck at any one time. Realize that if you are on deck for 6 hours you only have to steer for 3. Not bad. I did not complain though. I was just happy to go.
  Richard was  both, in charge of shopping for the food and also for cooking it. He was a vegetarian, so  I had to agree to this diet in order to go on the trip. So I did. I also liked the idea that he was going to do all the cooking. For that I would almost accept any diet. He was also a pretty nice guy, but I guess, for a priest, you should be.
    Bob, who I just met for a short time in the beginning, came across as being very helpful. Also like the rest of us was diving in to do what ever was needed to get the boat ready. Bob will be the crew member that will depart in Norfolk.
   A cruise can be a great and exciting experience, especially if the weather is descent, and the crew gets along well, and the boat has no problems. Those are the three things that you think about before you leave. Today I was elected to run for sandwiches. The specs for each sandwich were varied and pretty specific. So I go buy them and bring them back to the boat. I put them on the cockpit table. The crew stops their work and head for the cockpit. They each grab a sandwich. For some reason they all grab the wrong one even though they were all labeled. While they were eating them one says "This doesn't taste like turkey", another  says "This don't taste like ham". On realizing what had happened they exchanged sandwiches and laughed about it.To me that sounds like a good start.