We made it! And still married! As usual, some of the weather guessers were wrong. We left Ft. Lauderdale at 3:15 am with a clear sky, light east winds, and a full moon. The seas outside the inlet were choppy and confused but no problems Set course for West End on Grand Bahama a 68 nautical mile trip and immediately had to change course twice for slow moving freighters. It is hard to judge speed and size just from lights at a distance so we gave then a wide berth and had no problems.

Once in the Gulf Stream, we encountered large (4-6 ft) rolling waves from the NW which pitched us back and forth. And so it went the rest of the trip. Rocking from 4 am until sunup was a challenge not to get sick. But we both made it. Karen found that sitting up on the floor of the cockpit was the best. She was outside but in the center of the boat and as low as possible. Also she didn't see what was coming. So she cat napped why I watched for traffic and Otto (the autopilot) steered.

Serenity handled the waves nicely but rocked quite a bit since we had no sails up. As usual, the wind was directly on our nose. The forecast light SE breezes were ESE and increased all day. Although our course was 65 degrees, we had to steer 105 degrees due to the Gulf Stream pushing us north at 3 knots when we were doing about 5.5 knots under power.

About 1 pm the winds were beginning to change the waves from NW rollers to confused rollers with 1-3 ft wind driven waves from the ESE. When the two combined, about every 2 minutes, Serenity pitched up and down, buried the bow in the second and third waves and just about stopped. Amazingly enough, almost all the spray whipped straight out to the sides and we stayed dry.

By 3 pm we were out of the Gulf Stream and could steer our course of 65 degrees. This allowed us to put out a bit of the jib and with the sail up, the ride smoothed out and we were suddenly doing 6.5 to 7 knots. The wind slowed as we approached West End and we were under full jib for the last 1/2 hour. Serenity docked at West End at 4:50, just ten minutes before Customs closed. About a 75 mile total trip, 13 1/2 hours, and 8 gallons of diesel.

The Old Bahama Bay Club here at West End is only 1/4 occuppied and you can see the effects of the economy. But, we had a fantastic dinner; Karen grilled grouper, I mahi-mahi; and the people are friendly. We plan a morning of cleaning and laundry before heading off to Mangrove Cay for the night.

Right now our itenerary looks something like, Day 1 Mangrove Cay, Day2 Great Sale Cay, Day 3 Stangers or Allens-Pensacola, Day 4 Foxtown. Foxtown is probably the first place we will be close enough to call anyone. We will call Dean and let him send an email out to family. Do not be suprised if we haven't called before May 6th, as we don't know what the weather will do to the plans.