November 17, 2011

Mission aborted! We hauled the anchor at 3:15am and were headed out of the inlet by 3:30am. We made our heading towards West End of Grand Bahama Island, the inlet was choppy and the seas were a little choppy too. The wind was ESE at 10 knots. As we made our way out into the Gulf Stream we were getting pushed as we had expected, but our 35 degree heading change into the wind was not comfortable (The West End is due East of Lake Worth Inlet, and when we hit the Gulf steam which has a 3-4 knot current it was pushing us North, so we had to head ESE to correct for the current). We were hobby horsing over the 4 ft waves that had about a 4 second period between them, water was coming over the bows and we were getting that annoying wave slap. Our speed over ground was only 4 knots, and even leaving at 3:30 we were just barely forecast to arrive in the Bahama's by 5:30. We were essentially fighting the wind and current. The deciding factor for us to turn around was that the wind was also forecast to turn to the North and that would have made things miserable if it changed before we got to the Islands.
Deason was another factor, he does not like these kind of conditions, and a 12+ hr day of misery for him was not fair. He is at the age where he can make is own assessments of a situation, and as much as we try to reassure him, he is going to trust his own feelings. Where as Dahlia is ambivalent, as long as we are smiling she will too.
The hardest part about turning around, and it sounds so silly, but we were actually worried about what people might think. It seems so juvenile and high schoolish, but part of the reason we didn't turn around right away is pride. We have always told ourselves to trust our first instincts, and inevitably we did. Had it just been Chris and I with out the kids we probably would have kept going, but we made the prudent decision for us. The next few days the forecast is suppose to be rubbish, and we would have gotten over there and had to fork out a ton of money to stay at a marina because we wouldn't have been able to make it to a protected anchorage in time.
So for now we are back in Lake Worth, and hopefully, another weather window will open up next week.