Adagio - From Adagio (U.S.A.) 11/25/2018 (Sunday)

2: 11/25/2018 ... Sunday:

Rise and shine, coffee time and we are setting things right for departure.

Topped the last of the water into the tank, enjoyed a great breakfast and watched excitedly as the first few boats headed out the channel past the growing crowd and amidst the music of a pretty good Salsa band!

Our support team arrived to see us off and it is with a great deal of excitement that we make the final hugs and say the "see you later's" to the ones who have helped and are staying behind or flying ahead to rejoin us on the other end.

In particular, I am sad that we are leaving our man Samuel behind. Sam had sailed with us from Gibraltar to the Canaries and is in hopes of finding a boat to cross the rest of the way to the Caribbean. I knew that we would not be able to take him along for the crossing, as we were already fully crewed and those arrangements had been made months ago. While we ~might~ have been able to make room we just don't have the safety gear, and Robin had not provisioned the boat, for an additional crew. So, with a great deal of well-wishing we said goodbye to Sam. I certainly hope he can get connected with a good boat and that his dream will be realized. He was great to have aboard.

OK ... more boats leaving the marina. Air horns gping off, people cheering and the band was playing. The mood was rising even more and the excitement was palpable. It was time to get ready to join the foray and with more than just a little adrenaline pumping we slipped away from our berth and immediately fell into a gap that was just about a boat-length-and-a-half long. Now I get why the anchor had a fender on it :)

The parade, and it was a wonderful parade, of boats proceeded past the photo shoot "gates" , around the sharp corner at the marina entrance and out into the harbor. There were SO many boats! Adagio has participated in three previous ralllies with World Cruising and two more rallies with SOR (Some Other Rally) groups. But I've never been a part of something of this scope and it does indeed take your breath away to see all these cruisers in the water and all heading to the same destination with the same adventure in mind. Simply awesome!

We headed away from the thick of it and set some sails to see how the wind was going to treat us. Thankfully the forecasted lull in the wind had decided to take the day off and we were quite happy to see a steady breeze filling what seemed like a thousand sails. It was fun to pass by the other boats, waving and with an occasional cheer. Then it was time to head for the start and be officially on our way.

In spite of a serious amount of inexperience on my part, we managed to take the starting line in good fashion (well, I ~think~ so, anyway) and our crossing time was only a couple of minutes past the mark. We were curious why we didn't hear the countdown and it wasn't until several minutes after we'd crossed the start line that we discovered that the radio had stopped scanning channels and had landed on 72, not 74 .. oops. Hopefully that's our biggest faux-pas of the Rally and we can have a chuckle about being in the middle of well over a hundred boats and being incommuncato :)
Our first couple of hours were filled with gawking and taking photos. Every where you turned, more boats and it really felt like we'd be surrounded for the whole trip (we know better than that, but it sure seems that way at the start). Now it was a matter of following our plotted course and waiting patiently to see if the routing ideas would actually work.
All kinds of "treats' for our first day out: The dolphins came to play, we enjoyed our first at-sea dinner and then the sunset came with the surprising treat of a very solid green flash; something that neither of our crew members had seen before. It was a good day for a boat ride!
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