Weather has always been something I have paid attention to. Over 20 years as a professional cyclist has taught me how to look ahead at forecasts, plan training based on it and figure out what time of day might be best for me to ride my bike. I always thought I could have been a weather person since most of the time I could predict it better than them, we all think that though right? Well this last week has taught me something new about the weather…it has not been the most predictable and it doesn’t like cooperating with us!
We are very quickly learning what Captain Jack first taught us in our ASA classes. Weather windows are important when you are trying to sail from point A to point B. You can’t have a schedule, because most likely you won’t be able to stick to it, and you have to be flexible with your plans. Don’t get me wrong, we have had some glorious sunny days and great days with the sails. But we have also had days with 25 knots of wind on the nose, and motoring at 4 knots to just try and go anywhere.
Our big plan on this trip was to leave from St. Petersburg and sail down around the Florida Keys to Miami. Of course we were going to have lots of time to go snorkeling at amazing spots, see all kinds of wildlife in the Everglades, and make it to Miami with plenty of time to see Adele live in concert. Oh how quickly that all changed! We have seen lots of great anchorages, the wildlife has been pretty amazing and we did see Adele. Unfortunately the plan of sailing there had to be altered, because that wind I was mentioning was not playing the same game we were. We made it to the keys but found that the keys didn’t want us to leave. So for the past 10 days we have been enjoying lots of sun, lots of wind, and lots of alcohol! We pulled into Marathon and parked the boat at a marina with a few days to spare before the concert and decided to rent a car and finish the last 120 miles to Miami by car. After the concert we drove back to the boat and sailed back around to Key West. From there we were planning on starting our trip home to St Petersburg.
The day we thought might be a good window turned out to be one of our roughest days on the water. We said goodbye to our good friends, Dan and Michele, who joined us from the very start of the trip. It was kind of sad leaving them on the dock with all their stuff while we shoved off. Then we started heading out the Northwest Channel with our other good friends, Jamie and Jenny who were going to join us for part of the journey home. We were prepared for what we thought was going to be an adventurous sail, but anxious to get underway. We made it out to the end of the channel from Key West and were hit with 10-12 foot seas. Mike didn’t even look at me as we were sitting at the helm wearing our foulies getting soaked from the spray of water coming over the bow, he just started turning the boat around and headed back to Key West. Once we were headed back he said…”You agree right?” Of course I did, and was happy he made the call. London was wedged between Jenny’s legs the whole time and agreed with our decision as well.
Now it was time to play the waiting game. No one felt sorry for us, when we told most people we couldn’t leave Key West because of the weather. I guess there are worse places we could have been stuck. We took advantage of our few days rest in Key West to enjoy some good food, and of course more alcohol, that’s what you do when you are on vacation. It took a few days, but we are finally getting our window and we are taking advantage and putting in some big days to try and make some ground before we lose it again. Hopefully the rest of the trip home is uneventful and we can enjoy some of those good sailing days every sailor looks forward to!
