Murphy must be following closely on our heels this trip, since it would seem that every leg of this journey has been riddled with bad luck and bad weather. Hopefully this isn't a sign of things to come!
We left Marco Island Wednesday mid-morning and enjoyed a great day with little to no waves (nice to have after our last sail attempt!) Although the sun was shining and we were enjoying shedding some of our layers of clothing the wind was nil so we spent the majority of the day motoring. We were all set to take our time and anchor right after sunset and then pick up again early in the morning. Winds for the next 3 days were predicted to be 5-15 knots and the weather relatively calm. Luckily, around 4pm the wind picked up enough to turn off the motor and by 5, we were moving at a steady 4knots under sail alone. We decided not to look a gift wind in the mouth and opted not to anchor, but to sail overnight and take advantage of the calm seas and great wind.
It was cold, but not unbearable. We had strong winds coming from the North and so we were on a run and moving about 4-5knots, which is a great speed while on a run! It also made the cold more tolerable as we were going with the wind so it didn't seem so cold. We took shifts of 2-3 hours, one sleeping below and warming up while the other manned the helm and belted out Christmas Carols along with the XM radio.
Things went very well until about 3am. The winds suddenly picked up by about 10 knots and started to clock around to the East/SouthEast. The wind was about 15 knots with gusts up to 20knots. That is a lot for our little boat so we decided to put a reef in the main sail. Brad stayed up with me in the cockpit while I was at the helm since the wind seemed to be increasing steadily.
By 4 am, with me at the helm, we were slicing through the water at 8 knots. The top speed of our boat is supposedly 7 knots, so this was the fastest we had ever gone in her. I was starting to get a little nervous as she was getting harder to control at that speed and we were, after all, speeding forward into pitch black darkness. The wind had picked up to about 20-25 knots and the waves were quickly building to 3-5ft seas. All of that combined helped us come to the conclusion to pull in the head sail. With the head sail in, we continued on at a brisk 5 knots for another 45minutes until it started to lightening. Rain had been in the forecast for the early morning and we knew that we didn't want to be in it. We were relatively close to the entrance to the channel to reach Marathon and didn't want to travel that at night anyway since the markers weren't lit. So we decided to anchor where we were, about 3 miles off Cape Sable in the Florida Bay.
And that is where things started to get bad. We turned into the wind to take down the sail and were suddenly blasted with 25knot gusts, making it near impossible to take down and fold up the sail. We were quickly being pushed with the waves and current to who knows where, so Brad left me to try to fold up the sail while he ran up to the bow to drop the anchor. The weather had suddenly turned ugly - rain, high winds and 5ft seas were tossing us all over the place. Brad nearly lost a finger in the anchor chain as he let it out because the wind and the waves ripped it out of his hand. He ran up to help me finish with the sails and then we packed up everything that could blow away and went downstairs.
We were cold and wet and there would be no generator this morning since it was windy and raining - so, no heat. We could tell by the GPS that we were dragging, but we held our breath and hoped that the anchor would dig in soon with the force of the wind. The good news was we were miles from anything so we couldn't run into anything! We crawled up in bed with the pets and endured the same horrendous bouncing around that we had endured in Sarasota just days before. The winds were howling at 30knots, the dinghy was repeatedly banging into our stern and the boat was barely hanging on by the anchor.
Finally, around 5:30 am, the anchor caught and held. The winds didn't die down, so we tried to get some shut eye while we waited to see if the wind would subside. 5-15knots my ass - where did all of this wind suddenly come from?! Don't these meteorologists know anything?!
At 10am, we were sick of being cooped up downstairs and starting the feel sick so we decided to set out despite the weather. The waves had calmed down somewhat and the wind had dropped to a blustery 20knots. We lifted the anchor and off we went.
Well, we thought we were right at the mouth of the channel, but with the wind and dragging anchor we had ended up about 7miles away. So we motored through the drizzle and the wind and the pounding waves for another 5 hours until we made it to the 7mile bridge. We limped into Marathon harbor and picked up a mooring ball where we will stay to thaw out and make some last minute preparation for the big trip.
We couldn't be more ready to get over to the Caribbean and get some sun and favorable tradewinds! If only this North wind would die down...
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