Last night was no fun. Thunderstorms which weren’t that bad themselves but the no wind and confused seas afterwards were. Headsail up, down, up down, engine on, off, on, off. Due to lightning in the distance, Jeremy put the EPIRB, handheld VHF (also has a backup GPS), and the handheld compass in the oven. No, I’m not kidding, it makes a Faraday cage to protect them in case of lightning strike. If all the other electronics got fried, at least we would have those (and in case you are wondering, we do carry a sextant, and will practice with it). And I said yesterday we had been cold at night, but not last night, in foul weather gear, and sweating. Jeremy has to get a new pair of bottoms for his in Florida. Years ago, we bought some top of the line Henri Lloyd’s from England but his got irreparably torn and he replaced them with some cheaper ones. You usually get what you pay for; as they are already leaking through the seat. We got through the night, and it was one of those when I thought “ what am I doing this for?”

 It has been beastly hot, but at least we are sailing most of the time. The best course we can make now with a southerly wind which is probably due to become southeasterly, is to Boca Grande on the west coast of Florida, hopefully arriving sometime tomorrow morning. Current plans are to head for Boca Grande Marina there, get fuel, do laundry, and take real showers as opposed to salt water bucket baths in the cockpit. We may get to see friends there and will spend the night and a day. There is no way to make the Keys right now without motoring all the way and we might run out of fuel. One of the things about cruising, good and bad, is that you have to be flexible. The gulf crossing from west to east is never easy.

We’ve been eating pretty well, though nothing fancy. It’s just too hot to cook much. We have a little 12 volt fridge, which we never had on previous trips, and we can keep a few cold drinks, mayo, lunch meat, and cheese. We buy the little cartons of long life UHT milk which is hard to find in the local groceries, but if you look it’s in the kid’s drink section or near the coffee creamers you sometimes can find it. But it’s amazing how well our oranges, apples, lemons, potatoes, onions, garlic, tomatoes (bought green), cabbage, and even butter, have kept without refrigeration. We are still eating crunchy slaws made with the cabbage after almost 2 weeks!

Congratulations to all my colleagues in the class of 2008 who are graduating from the dental school today. 

I miss our dog Woodie, but she is probably having a lot of fun at her “summer home”.

Janet

Me too. This has been one of the most trying Gulf crossing I have done (and I have done quite a few). I was ready to give up last night too especially after not getting much sleep but, as always, today is better and I suspect that after a shower ashore and  a night in a marina I will be ready to carry on.

Jeremy

PS. We don’t plan on doing a blog entry tomorrow unless we are still at sea!