No Fair Winds or Following Waves For This Crew

2.8.13 We woke up early this morning, encouraged by the low winds and headed back out to the cut. Although the waves were still large as we made our way through, they were not breakers and were spaced quite evenly which made the rolling a bit more tolerable. We made it safely through the cut and then headed South to Eleuthra, with Brad at the helm and Sean on the fishing poles, we were prepared for a long day of travel. An hour into the trip, however, Brad and I were rethinking out decision. The waves appeared to be building and the wind had not shifted as far to the West as we needed it to. We were not able to maintain our heading and keep good speed. When we travel 60 miles in a day, we need to maintain 5 knots to make it there in daylight hours. With the wind and waves on our nose, we were barely making 3 knots. We went about 7 miles before we both admitted what we were thinking and we started to discuss turning around and heading back to Marsh Harbour. We have heard many an experienced sailor say that he has turned around multiple times in his years at sea, and we have always said that we would do that if the conditions were not correct. But now, when we both so ready to head to the Exumas, we were having a hard time actually turning around. We had invested an hour into the trip already, but with our current rate of speed, it would have been another 10-12 hours until we arrived in Eleuthra. And bashing into waves was quickly draining us both. We finally conceded, Neptune had gotten the best of us today. We turned her around and headed back for calmer waters. Of course, once we turned around, the wind and waves were on our stern and where we had previously been going only 3 knots, we were now flying through the water at 7-9 knots! The rest of the sail was quite enjoyable and we made record time getting back to Marsh Harbour. The day seemed to have turned around a bit and we were all happy enter back into the Sea of Abaco and calmer water. It looked like we would have the anchor down and drinks in hand by 3pm. Of course, the way our day had been going we should have known better. We were less than a mile to the entrance to Marsh so we started rolling in the jib, only the jib wouldn't roll up. We frequently have trouble with our roller furling binding up so Brad went up to try to unbind it. Nothing he did worked. Finally, he glanced up and realized that the line that goes into the back of the sale to give it additional support had come out of the sail, gotten knotted on itselt and was not stuck in the standing rigging. And, on top of that, our continued pulling on the sail had actually caused it to rip about two feet along the back of the sail. Once we figured out the problem, Brad retrieved a boat hook, untangled the line and we rolled in the jib. In addition to this problem however, the boat hook became ensnared in the jib and was snatched out of Brad's hands and thrown into the water, never to be seen again. ugh. Good thing we have an extra. So, even though we did not catch any fish, we did not make it to Eleuthra and we were still in Marsh Harbour, we were all exhausted but in relatively good spirits considering the events of the day and we were happy to be back in calmer waters. With no foreseeable weather window in sight, we will hunker down here for another week and find things to do while we wait for the winds to shift.