Being able to leave Lake Sylvia this morning took major tugging on the hook which had held us securely for 3 days and nights of high winds.  Knowing the winds would be 15 to 20 knots we still chose to go out into the Atlantic rather than suffer through the snail’s pace in the ICW waiting for the opening and closing bridges. 

                                                                                                       

Our decision timewise meant a savings of at least 3 hours, experiencewise it was priceless.  For about the first hour it was smooth sailing as they say then we began to notice a few small swells which soon grew larger and larger, not dangerously large, just uncomfortably larger than we would have liked.  Both Captain and First Mate practiced how to ride waves rather than crashing into them.

Finally within sight of our last waypoint, sails down and swells subsiding, the wind picked up to 25+ knots, whipping the water into frothy whitecaps.  We were drenched and cold when we motored into Lake Worth channel, but our learning curve wasn’t yet completed.  The slip we were assigned was facing east, (winds were still 15-20 knots from the west) in a sixty foot wide waterway with our length forty-one feet plus the dinghy hanging off the back.  Making one forward attempt, backing up then sliding sideways down the channel we were finally able to crash into the slip, with 3 people yelling directions, pulling lines, and holding the bow off the concrete dock.  Not pretty!  First Mate says to Captain, “Whose idea was this anyway?”  What a day! 

To those who were on the Key West trip last October, it still wasn’t as rough as MarcoJ

We’ve added three short video clips 013, 009, 011 of our ride today on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/user/shirlagrace?feature=guide