Friday January 28, 2011

I woke up early before sunrise as today is a sailing day. The goal today is to make Green Turtle Cay. I made a pot of coffee then climbed into the cockpit and finished programming he waypoints for today trip into the GPS. There are nine waypoints that make up the route to Green Turtle Cay.

The wind was blowing 15 to 20 knots of the the NNW. Ellie called shortly after sunrise and said lets get going. I jumped into my fowl weather gear. I was a little cold in the morning and I expected some spray over the bow from the waves.

Based on the speeds of the wind and the direction, I put a reef in the mainsail hoisted it up the mast and we were off. I was close reached at first and making a good 6 knots with just the reefed main. As we rounded out first waypoint at Sail Rock, the wind started to die down and the course that I was steering was exactly the same way that the wind was blowing. I put the head sail out on the left side of the boat, I put the mainsail out to the right and was sailing wing on wing for 6 hours! We you are sailing wing on wing, the boom is way out to the left of the boat. The cockpit is open and you get a new perspective of the world. Once we passed Sale Rock, I took off the rain gear and decided to cook breakfast. Pancakes were on the menu. I mixed up a small batch of batter in a small plastic drink bucket that Tricia left on the boat. Tricia got the drink bucket last winter in Key West. I saved it and it has come in handy several times. The winds had died down enough to cook. I preheated the frying pan and cooked the most delicious pancakes I ever tasted. I ate them in the cockpit in the open air, when I put the syrup on the pancakes, the syrup spilled over the paper plate and all over the seats. I had a mess on my hands to clean up. Still the pancakes were delicious.

I sailed into the harbor at Green Turtle Cay at sunset. The other folks were really surprised to see me. They did not think that it was possible for a small boat to make the harbor before dark. I did it. Lee told me to raft off his boat for the evening. He had his motor on this dingy and he gave me a ride to dinner. There is a very nice restaurant called the Green Turtle Club. I ordered a local beer called a Kalik. Then a conch burger as the main meal. I love conch burgers. After dinner Lee ferried me back to the boat. I crawled into my bunk exhausted.