Monday, April 04, 2005

A few days off

Captains Log:
After about 29 days of charter I have a few days off and Stray Cat III wants
all my attention and most of my money since I have worked her so hard.
Last week we had summer here in southeast Florida with temps in the high
eighties but than last night we had a cold front passage (cold front is a
relative term) it dropped to fifty nine last night.
Two nights ago Christopher (my son-in-law) called to start plans for him and
Susan to come sail with me for a week or two this summer, which will be a
lot of fun for me and something to look forward to as well.
After eight weeks of running from Hurricanes last season and the attention
paid to the hurricanes in the media it seemed that many people assumed
Florida and the Bahamas were not the place to go for a sailing vacation. I
have been all around the Bahamas in the past few months and saw damage but
not as bad as I had expected. The damage that has not been repaired is
underway; things look pretty good at the end of the day and had no affect on
my sailing activities.
Now I would say that running from storms of that magnitude is very dicey. My
storm tactic has always been- to not be there! Since Stray Cat is my home
and means of earning a living tying her up somewhere and hoping for the best
is just to big a leap of faith.
So run I did. I was not completely alone though since there were three
other Catamarans in the anchorage, husband and wife live aboard families who
asked if they could follow me. Two of the families Mark and Lee Wactor on
Sylvester and Wayne and Alexis on Banjo Minnow were past sailing students
of mine the other family was Richard and Peggy Sullivan on Oz who I once
towed from Great Inagua to Nassau.
The first and third storms had me sailing for key west and if need be on to
Mexico. I felt safe going no further than Key West but was filled with doubt
when the winds picked up in the night. As I remember the highest winds were
forty eight knots which was ten more than I thought we would experience.
Key West as usual had Hurricane parties and we had one of our own when we
were sure all had been done that could be done to prepare for the blow. We
had our little adventures, all of the boats broke anchor more than once in
the keys where the holding is not very good on a good day. Naturally all the
boats had one or more mechanical or electrical malfunctions just so we would
not get bored or in case we were not worried enough. We had fun and
frightening times as well; we enjoyed great sailing and more motoring than
anyone wants.
We sailed for Bimini for the second and fourth storms with every intention
of going to the Exumas if need be. I felt safe in Bimini both times.
I learned that I never want to be the most experienced sailor in a group
running from hurricanes again and I would rather not have my epitaph read "I
wish I had sailed further away".
Capt. Mark

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