Sunday Dec 13

Sunday Dec 13

Well, THAT was a waste of time!!!!
We left the dock at 9:30 am because [first mistake] the mega yacht beside us said, "Oh, the forecast has changed ,... winds are supposed to settle ."
We couldn't get on the internet to confirm because our data n the phone wasn't activated and the Internet here is iffy at times.

So, we took their word for it and left.

OK...let's think about this...they can do 20 knots and were heading out to Chubb Cay with two whopping 300 horse diesels, and bow thrusts. [Also a cook and captain....don't care if they were from Parry Sound] We can manage 3-4 knots under motor and we have a dinky 30 hp diesel. Not a good comparison.

We got about 15 miles out and realized that we can sail this at 8 knots but not in the direction we want to go. The small sailboat ahead of us called when we tacked to say, "Don't go that way. We are going down to top of Andros and across the sandbank. It will be better." Did we listen ...no [second mistake].Consequently we went 7 miles too far south of our course in no time. Every hour we tacked back we lost 3 miles.

So here we are less than ¼ the way across...it's dark...20-24 knots of wind on the nose and rough waves in shallow[ I mean 7-feet-shallow] water so we dropped the anchor and watched the stars for about an hour while we ate, then tried to sleep..."tried" being the operative word. We bounced and slammed all night.

This morning the winds were still 20-25 knots on the nose. We could make 2.5 knots and with 45 miles to the next mark that would be another 20 hours and then another 10 miles to an island.

I made an executive decision and we are back in Bimini waiting for this to calm down!

So as soon as I can get on the internet I will check weather AGAIN, and see what we are up against. Coming back we still sailed at 6 knots through two squalls and made it back in half the time. Luckily there was no fuel use...just time wasted! Grrrrr!

I'm going to have a shower and a nap, then I'm going to help Quentin recreate his files and make supper for tonight and tomorrow. It looks like tomorrow may have better conditions, but it will be an all-nighter probably if we can't sail fast enough to get to Chubb or down Andros on the Tongue