June 19 - Last day on the water

Sunday, June 19

It's fitting that we end our big cruise on Father's Day, another day to celebrate Captain Dan who makes all of this possible.

Goodbye Jacksonville...

We only have 25 miles to travel today to Green Cove Springs.  We want to arrive close to sunset (to avoid the worst heat of the day), so we are sailing down the river, with all 4 sails up, giving the neighbors on shore something to look at!  This stretch of the river is very wide and deep, reminding us of Lake Pepin.

Once we arrive at Green Cove Springs, we'll have a couple of ugly days where we work to get the boat ready to haul out in the hothothothot heat of June in Florida (yeah, May would have been a better month for this!).  We basically need to strip down everything on the deck -- sails, canvas, jugs, dinghy -- so there's nothing to fly away in case a hurricane manages to find it's way this far north and this far inland.  Once we fill the inside of the boat with all that stuff, we'll pack up what needs to go back to MN, clean and secure everything that could move around in the cabin, and then go get a rental car for the return drive.

But, our first order of business today will be to find a TV. 

REBECCA GOLDSMITH IS MISS IOWA, AND SHE'S COMPETING IN THE MISS USA PAGEANT TONITE.  Becca is one of Michelle's best friends, and it's VERY COOL to personally know one of the lovely ladies!

P.S.

As I start to clean out the cabin storage lockers, I've just got to say that my concern about hoarding too much toilet paper (ended up with 6 extra rolls, not bad) was FAR overshadowed with my concern about running out of coffee.  I stopped keeping track in the food inventory at 11 bags, but obviously I keep buying it whereever a good deal presented itself, because I just emptied 10 bags of coffee from deep storage!  I also worried too much about my use of ZipLock storage bags , as I've got 7 large boxes left!  PB and Jam was another commodity we also throught would be our "fall back" lunch more often than it was!

June 18 - 60 miles to Jacksonville

Saturday, June 18

Underway at 7:25 a.m. in time to catch the 7:30 bridge opening for the Bridge of Lions in St Augustine.

We had everything going in our favor -- tides and current -- so we made great time, averaging 7.5 knots, covering 60 miles in 8 hours!  There was enough of breeze that the unbearable heat was bearable, and the storm yesterday helped to clear up the ever-present smoke haze.

This was definitely one of the more easy stretches of the ICW to navigate....wide and plenty of depth. And lots and lots and lots of beautiful homes to oggle over ...

Once we left the ICW and headed south on the St Johns River (which, BTW, is one of two rivers in the US that flows north ... the other one is the Red River, on the border of ND and MN), the river was quite wide and open.  Maybe b/c it is Saturday, we did not encounter any large commercial or naval vessels which can make the run into Jacksonville kinda edgy.

We arrived at Jacksonville at 3:30pm, unsure whether to press on to Green Cove Springs (ETA 7:30), because the traditional 5pm thunderstorm was predicted.  When we came up to the Jacksonville Landing, we found the downtown pier totally unoccupied, and since we could dock here for free overnight, the decision was easy.  Once we were tied up, the next decision of the day was just as easy ... walk to the first bar with air conditioning as it was 102 in the cockpit.  That just so happened to be a Hooters, so Dan got an early Father's Day gift as we hung out there for 3 hours ... waiting for the storm that never came, but he didn't seem to care!  They had music outside until 10pm, and then we walked back the 50 feet to where Maja was docked.  Sweet!

June 17 - St Augustine FL

Friday, June 17

ICW -- off to St Augustine FL

We only have to travel 25 miles today.  There is just one tricky spot to navigate b/c of depth, which meant we didn't need to leave the marina until 10:00 in order to time the tides.  Ahhh...nice to sleep in!

We've got a nice 10knot breeze and overcast skies, so the heat is not too bad ... even though in the 90s.  It was an uneventful cruise (which is a very good thing!).  We had forgotten how much there is to see on the ICW, compared to cruising offshore where you only see water in all directions.  Beautiful homes, creative docks, boats of all sizes ... and that's just on one side of the waterway, as the other side is undeveloped, so you've got birds and turtles and dolphins. If only we could put the sails up!  (however, we were travelling at  7.5 knots because the current was with us).

Everyone says "follow the buoys, not the GPS, on the ICW".  The GPS has us on land!

St Augustine ... shrouded in smoke from all the wildfires.

St Augustine is the oldest, continuously settled town in the USA.

With a brand-new mooring field, so no anchoring in the strong current.

And lots of tourist attractions!

We were tied to the mooring a full 30 minutes before we were again in the midst of another storm!  60-knot winds, lightening, tons and tons of rain.  Except for the lightening, this is the kind of storm we can sit back and marvel ... from our secure mooring ... with radar coverage via the Internet!

Since this is the weather pattern we can expect for the remainder of our trip, we've decided to stay on the ICW where there are plenty of spots to pull over and wait out squalls.  Two more days and we'll be through Jacksonville and down the St. John's River to Green Cove Springs, where we will haul out the boat for the next 4 months.

Overnight passage with a surprise ending!

June 15 - Wednesday

After getting sidetracked to Ft. Pierce due to weather, we figured we'd better take advantage of one more shot at a full moon overnight passage.  Our goal:  30 hrs, Ft Pierce to St. Augustine.

Leaving Ft Pierce on a hazy morning.

The weather was predicted to be SE winds, 10 knots.  What we actually got was virtually no wind, and any wisps were coming from the north, right over our bow.  Since we are a sailboat, we couldn't resist trying to get the sails up and adjusted, before accepting our fate and settling in for a long day motoring.  At least the sky was overcast ... and due to the wildfires burning along the coast, the gray sky was mixed with the smell of smoke.  And at least we were 5 miles offshore, so the autopilot could do all the work and we could read or nap or polish the stainless (and we did all 3!).

As we approached Pt Canaveral (the part of E. Florida that bumps out into the ocean), we encountered our first squalls of the day.  They showed up well on radar and by adjusting our course to 15 miles off shore, we were able to skirt all the action.

The promise of full-moon sailing went the way of the wind prediction ... due to the heavy smoke haze, there was no moon to be seen until about 3a.m, when a tiny dot of orange appeared.  Oh well, at least night cruising gave us wonderfully mild temps in the 70's....and we could look forward to a wind shift by daybreak.

Thursday, June 16

After a 2-hr nap, Dan woke me at 5:00 a.m. with news that something was up ... and not in a good way.  We were about 5 miles from Daytona Beach where the the weather forecast was saying current conditions were 5 knots of west wind.  Oh, but I beg to differ!  We were experiencing 40 knots of NE wind, with swells building 6-8 ft!  With no mention of these conditions on any of the forecasts, Dan called the US Coast Guard on the radio to report our conditions and ask for a better forecast.  Basically, they told us ... "yeah, conditions are changing.  Whatever you do, don't go north to St Augustine and Jacksonville.  There is a huge storm moving south and east (yes, that would be right towards us) with heavy rain and lightening." 

Hmmm, being that St Augustine was our intended destination, we now looked at the maps with an eye on a bail out port, and the Ponce inlet was our only option.  Dan called into Ponce to check on conditions, and since it was 6:00am, he had no luck until our new-best-friend, Capt Paul with SeaTow, picked up one of our calls.  He turned on the TV and said:  "Oh yeah, there is a massive system barreling down on you.  Get into the Ponce inlet as soon as possible."  Yeah right ... we are 15 miles offshore, slugging thru 8-ft swells at 5 knots, meaning that we'd get to shore in about 3 hours!  Since we weren't looking forward to closing on the coast in the midst of a major blow, we asked Capt Paul if we'd be better off just staying offshore and waiting for the storm to blow by ... his response was: "Well, the cell over your position now should pass in about 30 minutes.  However, what you're experiencing now is nothing compared to what's coming your way from further north."  Shit!  Nothing to do but head west and watch the darkening horizon to the north. 

Capt Paul called back every 15 minutes to check on our progress and give us a weather update.  Gotta love those tow-boat captains!  The ride got quite wild as we turned south, and the now 10-ft swells were behind us, pushing our speed to 9 knots as we rode down the front of the swell.  When the swell would rear up behind us, I could see the top of the water over the dinghy (on the davits), and when it rolled on towards shore, it would blot out any view of land.  Wow ... who's scared now?

As we approached the Ponce inlet, it became quite obvious that we were running neck-and-neck with the storm pressing down from the north.   On our radar screen, we could plot the inlet 4 miles ahead of us and the storm cell 4.5 miles to the north of us.  Wow ... how lucky do you feel?

Not so lucky today because the storm hit in full force just as we approached the first set of buoys marking the entrance to the Ponce inlet. Rain, rain, and more torrential rain (I have a new-found appreciation for that word!).  Visibility was zero (Where did those buoys go?).  The wind continued to howl at 40 knots, and Dan did a masterful job of keeping Maja on her intended course, aiming for buoys we couldn't see, while telling me to make sure he didn't come too close to the jetty (Where's the jetty I asked?  It's that line of breakers off our starboard side...).  The worse part had to be the lightening.  Big bolts of lightening, seeming to land in the water right next to us, with the thunder booming at the same time the lightening flashed.  Wow ... everyone's scared now!

Bless his heart, Capt Paul keep checking in with us (and we don't even have SeaTow coverage), and once we got inside the inlet jetty, he told Dan to just stop and wait for the storm to pass. "Drop your anchor if you want ... people will understand..." He was monitoring the storm on TV, and guessed that we had 20 minutes for the cell to pass over us.  That was good news for Dan since he couldn't see anything and our depth meter had decided to stop working (did we get hit by lightening? or is all the rain making it impossible for the sounder to get a reading?).

An hour later, we were still doing circles in the inlet, with everything both outside and inside the boat getting a good soaking.  About the time Dan's visibility improved, Capt Paul came on the radio and said, "Hold your position, I'm coming out in my boat, and I'll guide you in. No charge. This is a tricky inlet." 

I love Captain Paul!  And we are definitely signing up for SeaTow! We followed him though the maze of buoys all the way to the fuel dock, where he even came around to catch our lines as Maja danced around in the still-heavy wind.  Who feels good now! :)

(sorry, no pictures throughout this entire "adventure" ... Dan was too busy at the helm and I was too busy with the Hail Marys)

After drying out, getting fuel, and checking on all the weather forecasts for the afternoon, it was hard to deny that the sky was now sunny and blue and the wind was a gentle 10-knots from the south. The calm after the storm.  "Don't trust the weather; the storms will rebuild this afternoon. Stay on the ICW (intercoastal waterway)" was Capt Paul's advice.

And that's just what we did!  Including his recommendation that we stop at the Palm Coast Marina because it's got a pool ... "and you gonna be damn hot and tired after 25 miles on the ICW.")  Did I mention that I love Capt Paul?

ICW = path of inland waterways up the Atlantic coast.

ICW = Humanity on one side

ICW = Nature on the other side

ICW is a trade-off on the depth of water under the keel.

And the number of boats you meet along the way.  Last nite, we saw one boat, 6 miles away.

Daytona Beach.

Back in the land of high living.  An Ice Cream Boat even came out to us!

The Bahamians pay $5.79 for diesel and $1000/mo for RO water...

So, we'll run the ICW tomorrow to St Augustine, where we'll once again check the weather and once again wrestle with the decision ... inside or outside?  The inside route on the ICW from St Augustine to Jacksonville is reported to be quite beautiful, only two bridges, but tedious and hot .. while the outside route on the ocean offers the promise of sailing and severe storms .... Decisions. Decisions.

June 14 - Heading north from Lake Worth

Tuesday - June 14

We're finally feeling human again after two days of R/R in Lake Worth/West Palm Beach. After checking in with customs (by phone) and getting up the sunshade (in prep for the brutal 90deg FL temps), we slept most of Sunday (and with the fans going, it wasn’t all that bad).

Sunday:   Our neighbor in the anchorage came over as we were launching our dinghy to welcome us back from the Bahamas as he’d seen us arrive Sunday morning flying both our Bahama flag and our yellow quarantine flag (displayed until we clear customs). He had arrived from Bimini the night before, and he greeted us with: “That weather forecast was total bullshit”! Yeah! Someone else who was expecting entirely different wind and sea conditions! He also had intended to arrive at Port Canaveral and had to detour south b/c of the strong north winds … which he said were 20-25 knots! OMG … I’m glad I didn’t know that at the time! He also admitted that he wished he would have turned back before leaving the Bahama banks after getting a taste of the conditions on the ocean  – an option that I’m sure Dan and I will continue to debate for awhile! Had we waited until Monday to cross, the winds were mild, from the south, and the seas were less than 2ft. But, like I said before, there’s a definite shoulda/woulda/coulda factor to cruising, and the second guessing can wear you down ... and what's the point after you’ve safety arrived in port?!!!!

The nice part about being back in Lake Worth is that we spent 3 weeks here in Jan/Feb, so we really know our way around the waterfront. After our face-to-face meeting with the customs officer, our next stop was the local liquor store where Dan got a 12-pack of Becks beer … bottled beer is something he has been yearning for since the last one was finished almost 4 months ago! (FYI .. he’s still got 6 cans of Modelo in the refrig, but I have a feeling those aren’t going anywhere fast!).  That was about all the walking we could stand in the nasty FL heat and humidity, leaving us only two places with any breeze -- either on the boat or in the Rivieraa Beach marina Tiki Bar -- so we settled into the Tiki Bar (surprise surprise) ... good food and $2.00 bottled beer!). 

Monday:  We got our first taste of Florida afternoon thunderstorms.  In a matter of 30 minutes, we picked up to a nice cool wind, which gave rise to dark storm clouds on the horizon. We had just enough time to get down the sunshade, raise the dinghy and motor, get up the cockpit enclosures, and let out an additional 25 feet of anchor chain before all hell broke loose with a tremendous downpour, thunder and lightening.  Wow .. at least the boat got a good wash.

A full, horizon-to-horizon rainbow followed the storm.

Tuesday:  We left Lake Worth this morning at 7 am. Depending on what the wind does this afternoon, we’ll either go 50 miles to Ft Pierce or 110 miles to Pt Canaveral (an overnight sail with an almost full moon). If we can get north of the stormy weather in southern FL, then we can avoid the ICW route into Jacksonville … the ICW provides a a protected inland route, but it's soooooooo damn hot.

Goodbye West Palm Beach ... until next time!

5 miles offshore and we still get Internet!

Lovely day to be underway.

We are going 8.2 knots with 7 knots of NW wind ... gotta love the Gulf Stream!

At around noon, we got one of the favorite sounds of cruising ... FISH ON as the line from the reel went spinning out!  Gone are the dull drums of sailing along, replaced by the flurry of action that accompanies the prospect of bringing a fish on board.  Gaff hook ... pliers ... gloves ... Mikel's bourbon ... toss all the cockpit cushions and maps down below, camera, and get out the fishing book so we'll know if what we caught, we can eat!

Dan reels while I prep the boat for the ongoing bloody fish (ish!)

Thanks to the internet, we figured we caught an Atlantic Mackerel.

9 fillets in the freezer!

When we were about one-hour outside of Ft Pierce, I turned into the weather forecast, in time to hear the Emergency Weather Alert for Mariners ... another big storm was expected for this afternoon, centered over Ft. Pierce.  Since we are not sure how far offshore these storms travel, we decided to duck into the Ft Pierce Municipal Marina (yes, I am the baby on board!). We needed fuel and water anyway, and after 10 hours in the hot sun, a long cool shower sounded enticing as well.

Entering Ft Pierce Inlet. Clouds starting to gather.

Fortunately, a 65ft bridge greeted us ...

A Very Lovely Marina.

After getting fuel and a shower, the dark clouds and thunder started to form in earnest.  By 5:30, the storm was upon us.  This time, we watched the storm on radar and figured that we'd have to be at least 20 miles offshore to miss to thunder and lightening and predicted 40-60 mph winds.  Yes, I'm the baby on board and not ashamed to say that nothing beats the feeling of being safely tied to a dock when a big storm barreling down on you!

So we ended up making 50 miles north today.  Tomorrow, we hope to make an overnight passage to St.Augustine, which will put us 30 miles from Jacksonville. Oh, full moon .. I so hope for a clear sky!

Once we hit Jacksonville, we have about about 70 miles to Green Cove Springs where we plan to select a marina to haul the boat for storage for the next 4 months.  It's a weird feeling to not be heading towards our "home port" of Brunswick Landing Marina, but we think we can save some money and find a marina where we can do our boat projects next fall (e.g. bottom paint).

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that our hearts would really like to be heading towards the Chesapeake … good friends are there for the summer that we sincerely miss … and we’ll miss them even longer by settling into a marina at Green Cove Springs FL instead of returning to Brunswick GA. But after spending almost 1.5 years on the boat, we are ready for a 4 month break, flush toilets, unlimited water, and hugs from family and friends.

Some decisions are certainly harder than others …

End of the line ... June 12

Wednesday, June 8

Day 1 of our exit strategy was perfect! After spending Tuesday night at the lovely anchorage at Manjack Cay, we left after the morning weather forecast (~7:15am) for the 50 mile run to Great Sale Cay, our final stop in the Bahamas.

The weather predictions were right on – the morning wind of 10knots ENE, grew to 15-17 knots by noon, and we sailed the entire day under all 4 sails, cruising at a comfortable 6 knots (and once saw 7.1 knots! That’s flying in our boat!).

By 5:00pm when we were approaching the anchorage at Great Sale Cay, the wind was blowing 20-25 knots….and let me tell you, it is a BIG difference to go from 15-17 knots to 20-25 knots! The wind continued to howl all night, again confirming the prediction that we are in a diurnal wind pattern, meaning that instead of dying down at night, the winds are actually increasing in speed ~5 knots. Both the high winds and the diurnal wind patterns are making us question a departure weather window on Thursday or Friday… as it’s one thing to have high winds for 10 hours in the daylight, and something else all together to have them for 30 hours, including the dark of night.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

We considered it an omen that it started to rain just as the morning weather forecast came on the SSB radio at 6:30! The same weather pattern is predicted for Thursday and Friday … ENE winds, 17-20, gusting to 25 knots. Seas in the Gulf Stream could be 6-8 ft when the wind hit 20 knots. While we’d really like to sail back to Florida, 30 hours of those conditions is outside of our comfort range (ideal for us is 12-15 knots of wind, 3-4 ft seas ... and from the south, not the north).  However, half the boats in our anchorage took off this morning... making you wonder What do they know that I don’t???.

Funny weather here in the tropcs ... the sky can fill with dark, stormy clouds and then the next time you check, it's clear, blue and sunny.  Go figure!  So, here we are, reading our books in the cockpit, under a beautiful blue sky, monitoring the wind as it picks up from 10 knots (at 10 am) to 17 knots (at 1pm), and utlimately 25 knots around 6pm (until around 4am).

We are between a rock and a hard place b/c Friday brings too much wind (and predicted squalls), and on Saturday, the wind is predicted to drop off completely and stay that way for several days … “light and variable” usually means ~5 knots, which is hardly enough to even cool us off when underway.  As Chris Parker said, Thursday and Friday are good sailing days, although uncomfortable. Saturday is a motor day. Which of two evils do we take?

Since we have plenty of fuel, we’ll probably go on Saturday b/c 30 hrs of uncomfortable sailing is not my cup of tea … and we may still catch some residual wind during the morning on Saturday as the low passes over us. Added to the confusing mix is the fact that it’s an ENE wind ... Conventional wisdom says to never cross the GS with any northerly component in the wind because it can result in a rough and chopping passage across a rough and chopping Gulf Stream.... however, Dan thinks our NW route will give us a nice beam reach with a ENE wind ... esp. if the winds are light on Saturday.

For now, it’s just a good thing to be in the middle of a Clive Cussler novel!

Counting down to our final bahama sunsets :(

Friday, June 10

Choosing a departure window is a lot of shoulda-woulda-coulda …. And it’s hard not to second guess every step of your decision-making process as the reality of the weather you get unfolds. Should we have left yesterday along with everyone else?? Even with the high winds, the sky was clear and sunny. However, the wind was howling 25 knots well before dawn, so I wouldn’t have wanted the midnight to 4a.m. shift at the helm.

It was some comfort to see all 6 boats in the anchorage still here as the 6:30 weather forecast got started.  Today is predicted to be a day of squalls across the entire Bahamas, and the weather on Saturday is still up in the air. All we are hearing about Saturday is that it's "a day of transition" ... which is not much of a forecast in my humble opinion … and into next week, the winds are predicted to stay light and variable, which isn't much of an improvement.

Around 1pm, the squalls arrived in earnest, with lots of rain and wind over 30knots, which at least reassured us that we’d rather be at a secure anchorage in this weather than 60 miles out into the Gulf Stream! We still have the refrigerator to empty before we leave the boat, so we started on that project as soon as the rain stopped our progress on cleaning the deckwork …. Time to finish off the cheese and crackers, oranges, and the wide variety of fruit juices we have on hand for rum punch (hey…even the rum got to be empty before we leave Maja in Jacksonville!!).

Wowie zowie … the rain lasted for several hours, but the winds, a steady 20 knots and frequently gusting over 30 knots, lasted until well past midnight! At 4:00 am, it was still howling outside, leaving us to wonder what Saturday morning will look like.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Up at 6:00 am, and not a breath of wind anywhere. The anchorage was like glass, after being a sea of white caps for the last 3 days. It never ceases to amaze me that the wind can just disappear after blowing hard for several days in a row.

There wasn't much useful info in today's forecast:  light and variable winds coming from any direction.  Chris Parker provides the weather forecast for the Bahamas, Caribbean and coastal Atlantic, but leaves a big void over the water of the Florida Straits unless you are a subscribing member, and then you get a customized forecast.  (We'll be a subscribing member next time, for sure!) For the most part, on this trip, we've been able to find another boater who was taking our same route and we'd get useful information that way ... unfortunately for us now, no one seems to be crossing to north Florida, so we can only extrapolate from what we hear about people making the passage to Miami.  And to complicate matters, we are at a remote anchorage and cannot get NOAA weather on our VHF radio either.  So our most detailed information is about 4 days old .... ancient!
WhattodoWhattodoWhattodo ... we decided to get underway at 7:00 am and take advantage of the settled weather that will follow the low pressure system that just passed through.  At least the rain was done and the wind will be light, 10 knots ENE (and we hope more east than north!).  We'll head across the Little Bahama Bank for 50 miles, then northwest across the Gulf Stream for 50 miles, and then 50 miles into Port Canaveral. It will be a motor-sail trip that we expect to take 24-30 hours. The sky is overcast which is good in terms of keeping us from baking in the cockpit, and we are running parallel to a massive bank of thunderheads which "should" stay off to the east as we head west.

By 10:30 am, the clouds had cleared and the beautiful blue skies were back with us. Even though the winds are light, we put up some sails that boosted our cruising speed to 7 knots on a beam reach. Yahoo!

Goodbye Bahamaland! We should arrive in FL around 7am tomorrow after 1000 miles and just over 3.5 months of cruising in these wonderful turquoise waters.

Sunday June 12

Well, ya know the ole saying, all good things can't last ... and that certainly held true on our crossing yesterday.  We thought we had a cake-walk charted out, but by 1:30pm, all bets were off.

At about 1:30pm, we got the first clue that something was amiss.  We had about 12 miles to go on the Bahama bank before hitting the wide, open ocean, when the flat sea started to build 3-4 ft swells, and then those swells started to break over the bow.  Hey, WTF .. we're getting wet here!  We should have been enjoying calm conditions, but instead we had to put up the cockpit enclosure and lock down the hatches just to keep seawater out. 

Dan figured it was just the swell from the ocean piling up as it reached the shallow banks, so I watched the clock in anticipation of a change in sea conditions in another couple of hours.  No such luck.  Out on the ocean, the seas were building, and the 5-10 knots of ENE wind we were expecting was more like 15 knots directly from the dreaded north, hitting us smack on the bow.  As the seas climbed to 6 feet, crashing over our boat on every 6-8th swell, I assured the Captain that he was, in fact, reading my facial expressions correctly (e.g. OMG ...get me the hell out of here!). Walking thru the cabin was impossible because of the violent motion (not to mention everything that wasn't locked in a cabinet was now on the floor ...books, CD, placemats, plastic water bottles ...) and sitting in the cockpit was uncomfortable b/c the rolling action tended to pitch you off the seat.

Responsive Captain that he is, Dan settled on a bail out route around 4:30pm that would take us to Ft Pierce FL instead of Pt Canaveral.  This put the waves/swells on our beam instead of our bow ... which meant we weren't bashing into them and no more breaking water over the boat ... instead, we were running parallel with the swells which gave us a roller-coaster ride as we heeled over 40 degrees as we rode up and down the 6 ft swells off our side.  The good news is that we continue to find that we don't get seasick and that Capt Dan can stay at the helm for hours without a break under these conditions (aided by our trusty autopilot).  The bad news is that I'm of no help in these conditions because I cannot pry my hands from their death-like grip on the cockpit railing!

As sunset was approaching, I again asked Dan why we couldn't just return to the Bahamas in lieu of putting up with these conditons for another 10-12 hours ... live to try again another day, that sort of thing ... but since we were 60miles from Florida, Dan really didn't want to backtrack over the progress we had managed to make, so instead, he put us on southernly course towards West Palm Beach which put the swells behind us, giving us a much gentler ride as the waves buillt at the stern and then rolled away under the bow (plus, it's easier to take to what you cannot see coming at you!).  There was still a lot of tossing and thrashing, but at a much gentler pace.  I was able to take a 2-hr watch while Dan got some sleep, but other than that, it was Captn Dan and 5-hr energy drink that got us through my worst night on this boat.

At the helm, especially on a tempestuous night Dan is reminded of the Breton Fisherman's Prayer.  
                             "Oh Lord, Thy sea is so great and my boat is so small."

What a dissapointing way to end such a wonderful time in the Bahamas!  Fortunately, we arrived back in at the Lake Worth inlet at sunrise and dropped the anchor close to the spot where we left here almost 4 months ago. Unfortunately, we're about 100 miles south of where we wanted to make landfall in Florida, so it will take us 3 days or so to work our way up to Jacksonville where we plan to leave Maja for the summer, but at least the worst part is behind us.  And we arrrived safe and sound!

Lake Worth. West Palm Beach, FL

 

As they say, All good trips must come to an end.  Ah but to be back in the USA and now ready for the final leg that will bring us back home to Minnesota.