The forecast for sustained 20 - 30 knot winds and big seas persisted. Although not ideal, it would be ok for any point of sail other than...you guessed it, upwind. How is it that we've crossed the Caribbean and back 4 times already and 90% of our sailing has been upwind? Faithful blog readers may remember our crossing last year: we had a better forecast than this one, but it was big, very uncomfortable, and a bit scary as we had a furling line break in the middle of the night with 30 knot winds. So this year we left home quite a bit earlier hoping to cross ahead of the Christmas Winds which notoriously begin around, duh, Christmas. But Louis' grim face as we listened to the weather forecast this morning said it all: "We're going to get our butts kicked" he proclaimed. We gave it a few more days and then the long range forecast worsened. The window for a safe, albeit uncomfortable, 3-day crossing tightened, and we decided to head out the next morning.

The day was spent in a flurry of activity prepping all systems, fueling up, readying the boat, and cooking meals for the trip. With a planned 6:00am departure time, we were finally underway the next day by 9:00am on a beautiful beam reach in the lee of Bonaire. As Louis noted, "well, it's 6:00am in California"! Our friends on Inner Wisdom were on deck waving goodbye while Denali Rose blew their horn in honor of our departure...nice!

P.S. What do you think of Scappatella's little Christmas tree?. It's a 4" high "Island Norfolk Pine". Ain't it cute?