So we were up at 5:00 a.m. and ready by 6:45 to leave the dock and head out to Rodrigues Cay where we would anchor and wait till about noon to make our way to the Bahamas. The winds were up a bit and on our nose making an exit out of the harbor but that would change when we make out turn.

Greg and I decide to deploy the main sheet to help stableize the boat and ready us for sailing when we make our turn. Out comes the sail and while we want it out we know we need to reef it. Greg goes out to “eye” the reef and comes back with word that the sail is torn. Now do we go on to Nassau for the repair or head back into Tavernier. Knowing we have a tide issue at Tavernier, we don’t have long to make decisions, so we opt to head back in. Yes three hours after high tide we bumped really well going back into Tavernier Harbor.

Once we were tied back up, we dropped the sail to see just how back the tear was. So the tear was actually at the seam and was not a tear but a wearing of threads on the prior sew. With it being a seam, we laid it on the dock and I pulled out our sail repair kit. Now we were wishing we had brought our sailrite sewing machine with us. Oh well.....know we know!

A two foot section needed to be reinforced and stitched. Within a couple of hours we are done and ready to raise the sail again. We have an in mast furling main so we needed to see that it went back in properly. YAY......it works and we are ready to go again, but we won’t have a high tide till the evening. We will wait till tomorrow morning and try to make that passage again.

Thanks to Mari-Etta and Ed for being there to offer help and encouragement. We knew we had a place to come back to.....that made our decision pretty easy.