Friday, April 11, 2008

What the hell??????

Sometimes things don't go so great . . . even in paradise. After our friends left for the states Sue was laid out with some sort of flue. The good news about that was that we weren't going anywhere anyway as the trades blew 25-30 day and night for about a week. We holed up in White House Bay, St. Kitts. Pretty calm water in the bay but plenty of wind. I let ALL the chain out! It was actually kind of fun having so many boat days in a row. Kind of like when you snowed in up north except there's no snow and we're never cold, nor do we shovel snow or chip ice. . . well you know the drill!

After the weather calmed down a little we sailed the few miles to Nevis and prepared to make the jump to Gauteloupe. That's about 80 miles but you have to steer around Montseratt. Wednesday should have been the perfect day. Plenty of wind from about 080 degrees and we need to sail about 145. Even Enee can do that! The seas were still pretty stirred up but they were supposed to simmer down as the day wore on. They didn't. They built and so did the wind and not from 080. . . more like 110 or 120. Well then we're screwed. We tried to tack and set a course for Montseratt to lay over just for the night. When we tacked our new course was about 15 degrees! What the hell? Oh yeah. . .there is a NW flowing current of a knot or sometimes 2 dragging us back north. Too tired to press on we had no choice but to retreat back to Nevis. We hit 8.1 knots on the way back!

We tried again the next day. The seas were way down but the wind was still 120 instead of the promised 070. I hate everybody!

We've checked back into St. Kitts and boy is that fun because the first question is, 'What was your previous port'? When you say, 'Here'. It gets pretty confusing.

So now the next weather window may be Wednesday. A northen swell has lumped things up again for at least over the weekend. Of course you might be wondering why I didn't just turn on the engine and motor sail. . .

BECAUSE IT IS A FREAKING SAILBOAT AND I MOTOR-SAILED SEVERAL THOUSAND MILES TO GET HERE TO SAIL AND THAT'S WHAT I INTEND TO DO!

Meanwhile all is well otherwise. Sue is better and Mismo is getting good at catching flies. Sue has NO chance however. AND, the Cubs are 6-3. This is THE year!

And now the required Mismo picture...

3 comments:

LeahC said...

love the mismo picture. That's crazy. How'd she get in there? She still thinks she's a baby kitty I think.

Sorry the winds have been not helpful. That's super annoying. But it's supposed to snow in Chicago this weekend so since you aren't here you got that going for you :-)

Rich P said...

Glad to know you're alive, but sorry Sue's sick. And, OK, I admit Mismo is cute, even though she's a cat. And yes, go CUBS! The weather here sucks big time. 40s for the next two days, but maybe some 70s next week. Not a good April!

40 more school days for me!

Jason said...

Well, now they're 7-5, but still not too bad. St. Louis will come to Earth so they're really just a game out of first. Go Cubs.