Day 118 March 3 2013 Sunday

We got up early and talked to David who said we needed to go to The Spanish Wells if we were going to go. It was a short window and the anchorage there at the place we were was iffy for us. Our anchor slipped again. So we decided to follow David across the small Atlantic waterway toward Spanish Wells Bahamas. The waters are uncomfortable anyway to navigate. I tried to help Steve navigate the waters so he could rest. The sea was unsettled and gradually the waves grew we got a short rain shower, but the front caused the waves to continue to grow. I took the helm for about an hour as the sea settled a bit so Steve could rest. After about one hour the wind picked up and the waves did too. We had about 25 more miles to go, let me explain how long it takes our boat to go 24 miles with the motor unable to operate and only under sail. 4.5 MPH max in waves 6-10 foot with wind gusts up to 30 MPH. It took us 10 hours to travel 60 miles. Do the math, whew! The waves continued to pound us and Steve did a tremendous job holding our course. The skies grew dark and our stress went up. Steve is exhausted by now and we have 13 miles to go. Our friend David is offering encouragement to us as we sail. We attempted to pull in the headsail and as I was tying it off the main lines to it flew out of their locks and were swinging wildly in the dark catching the eerie red and green glow off the running lights. I grabbed the line tied off and pulled as hard as I could to try and pull the sail in as close to wrapped as I could get it. With Gods help I got it wrapped back up and just let the lines wrap up around each other. There was nothing else we could do. We pulled out the mainsail half to try and steady the boat and make it to our destination. We still couldn’t get the motor working properly. So no motor, no headsail and only reefed main. Let me tell you this, if you are not religious before you hit seas like this you will be before it is all over. We had a wave taller than our boat hit us broadside and cover us with water and flip us 90 degrees in that horrible set of waves that is the sea. We r ighted her and plowed ahead.  We were almost to our destination when David called and had a damaged headsail had lost a hatch cover and he was already almost to the destination. We just grabbed our guts held on and did the best we could, prayed hard and kept our heads. We finally made it to shallow waters and burped our engine line started it up and made it to the anchorage. I was contemplating how could I get a plane home from here as Steve was so relieved he was just ecstatic about us making it and fighting the sea successfully. After three days of fighting the sea we just passed out and tried to sleep. I did not understand how a boat can take that but the sailors always say, “the boat can take more than you can”, and ours did. Steve did an incredible job and in the face of total exhaustion, I cant admire him any more than I do now. I’m safe but still shaking. It is gonna take days to get over that one. 🙂