May 30, 2010

Wow!!!! Woke up at 2am because it started to rain, as Chris and I were rushing around shutting hatches I looked off of our bow to see a wall of dark grey rain coming straight at us. Literally 5 secs later, we where in a sheet of rain, and wind gusts that felt like 40 knots. The boats were all whipped around and the anchor chain sounded like it was whining for help. We actually got out our foul weather gear. I thought for sure that we were going to start dragging, but after 20 mins of feeling like I was going to throw up, everything got real quite again like nothing had ever happened. Deason and Dahlia slept through the whole thing, Deason even got rained on through his open hatch before we could shut it, and he didn't even stir. (I should start checking his pulse in the middle of the night)

After that Chris fell asleep knowing that if our anchor held through that, then we were OK, I on the other hand stayed awake to look out the window every 10 mins just to check and see if we were moving. I finally fell asleep around 5am out of pure exhaustion. Note to future self....self, leave Florida before Memorial Day so you don't have to deal with these freak, crazy, short storms...otherwise known as squalls!
We were up and ready to pull the anchor by 8:30, we moved out with a good breeze. Winds were out of the SE 10-15 knots, we set the autopilot and barely had to adjust the sails all day.Which left plenty of time to read, eat, and enjoy the scenery. We sailed at greater than 7 knots most of the day. Our course brought us to about 8 miles off shore, where we had dolphins off of our bow twice. By the time I got out the camera and out to the bow they were gone, so no pictures yet.
When we finally got to where we could jibe into St Pierce inlet it was 4pm. I don't like to jibe, it always seems so violent. We probably could have done a better job than we did if we had pulled in the main sheet real tight then let it back out and it would have made it a lot smoother, but with a strong wind it still seems violent. It seems like it would have been easier to turn into the wind.
We cruised to the inlet at a gentle 5 knots, once we got to the opening of the inlet with an outgoing tide the waves got kind of big, but kind of fun. Once in the inlet to St Pierce, on the North side there is an Island that reminded me of Washburn Is. on steroids, there was a floating bar, and at least 200 small boats. I can't be certain but I am sure that most of them were violating safety standards for weight and capacity.

We decided to spend the night at the dock:

1. we wanted to fill our water tank.

2. we wanted to get a few grocery items.

3. the first two were excuses we used for the real reason....we were both so exhausted from the night before that we needed a worry free night tied to a dock!

We looked like pros docking, I was so impressed by Chris's skills. Deason handled the stern line, I was at the bow, and Dahlia was in the cockpit with Chris. She was strapped in her feeding chair with some apricots to keep her busy.

We pulled in and were tied up in less than 5 mins.....sweet success!!! We rewarded ourselves with a fried food feast!