Perseverance. Family. Exploring your own boundaries. These are all parts of what I have chosen to make this trip of a lifetime about and to some extent, Bonnie is beginning to see these parts and find her own reasons for trying to do something that is so far outside the normal comfort zone. If you read this post all the way through, you will gain an insight into what “sailing” is about, what it can teach you and how it can test you.

On Saturday, November 27th, we finally had a great weather window to make the Gulf Stream crossing from Marathon Key to Bimini, Bahamas. A trip that would take us about 20 hours to complete. We had spent the better part of 3 weeks in Marathon fixing a couple of issues that came about with an older boat, but we felt that all had been taken care of and My Cay was in great shape to make the crossing. The forecast called for Northeast winds of 5 to 10/15 knots during the day and backing to North at night, but only to 15 knots. Our course would keep us beam reaching on the Northerly winds. Early Sunday they were expected to build more Northerly, but we would already be in Bimini by 6am on Sunday morning.

With the sun rising on Saturday morning, we traversed the small, shallow channel of Boot Key Harbor and turned north by Sombero Light. The next 10 hours would be a long motor up Hawk Channel inside the “reef” of the Florida Keys. We planned to exit the reef before sunset and start to head toward the Gulf Stream before night fall so we could all settle in for the 70 miles or so to the Bahamas.

With the lighter winds and smaller seas, we made great time up the coast and decided to motor another 10 miles farther than we had planned, it would still put is in the Gulf Stream before sunset and give us a better angle on the wind to Bimini. About 4:30pm, we turned East (exiting around The Elbow) and headed over a few shallow spots and quickly watched the depth drop off to 150 feet and then some. With the reef behind us, it was time to put up some sails and settle in on an East course to Bimini. There was excitement and great anticipation as we all began to realize we were about to make the Gulf Stream crossing!

Given the backing wind, sun setting and seas running about 4 feet, I decided that it would be best to reef our main sail and jib for the night. We were ahead of our schedule and with Bonnie and Dad on first watch, it would allow us to be a bit more relaxed. As we set course and settled in…..there was a tremendous crash from the stern and my heart jump. My brain immediately thought the dinghy davit had dropped off the stern.

I was close. Looking behind, one of the shackles holding our “car”/dinghy up in the air had given way. All of a sudden, there was our only means of transportation hanging by one line on the bow, with the stern of the dinghy and the engine dragging in the water. To make the situation more complicated, the sailboat was moving at 7 knots, waves were about 5 feet and the dinghy was now thrashing on the stern like a fish having just been caught.

Immediately, we rolled up the jib to stabilize the boat and turned downwind to ride with the seas to give us time to assess what the bleep we were going to do. A quick plan came together. With the dinghy banging against the stern of the boat, we needed to lower it and get it in the water to have it ride like we were towing it. I let the stern line of the davit go and the dinghy continued to hang in the air at a 45-degree angle. The line on the bow was pinched and wouldn’t allow the bow to lower down. Bonnie went below and got the biggest knife we have on board. Quickly we cut the line and dropped the dinghy in the water and snapped into a towing position.

It just wouldn’t be smart to tow the dinghy all the way to the Bahamas. We would risk the dinghy turning over and losing the engine. So our next task was to get the engine off the dinghy and secure the dinghy back in the davits without the proper lifting lines to get it out of the water. The only way that was going to happen would be to get someone in the dingy to undo the engine and get the dinghy alongside the “mother ship”.

Lifejacket on, over the stern I went and into the dinghy. After wrestling the dinghy with Bonnie on the helm and Dad working lines, we secured the dinghy on the side of the boat while it crashed and surged with each swell coming along. A good 45 minutes later, with the sun setting, we managed to get the engine off and secured on My Cay. After another 30 minutes and into the darkness, we secured the dinghy in the davits with a completely jury rigged set up. It would have to do for the night.

Tired, physically exhausted and a bit overwhelmed…..it was time to figure out how far off course we were and get back to the task at hand….crossing the Gulf Stream. We were into darkness by this point and it was approaching 7:00pm….this gear failure had cost us about an hour and a half of time. Seas were building and the breeze was picking up as we neared the edge of the Gulf Stream about 20 miles off shore.

Then our lives in a moment changed yet again.

Bonnie came bounding out of the cabin of the boat telling my Dad to call home immediately. Since we were already so far from shore, we were on the very edge of having cell phone coverage. He was able to make contact and the worst news we could imagine came through. His wife had passed away. We were 12 hours into our crossing, just about the mid-point and needing to make a fast decision on where to head to. It was now 8pm and nothing but darkness surrounded us. With the 3 of us in utter shock of the tragic news, we made the call the return to Marathon Key. We knew we had safe anchorage, a mooring ball and a way for Dad to be able to travel back to Ohio…..but it was a 9-hour sail downwind.

None of us slept the rest of the way. We each took turns on the helm, keeping each other awake, plotting our course and keeping focused on getting us “safely” back to Boot Key Harbor. Dad worked the phone until about 11pm making arrangements to get back to Ohio, but we just couldn’t sleep. Our bodies began to feel the effects of being awake and in the “weather” for so long. We had started out at 6am Saturday morning, it was now 3am somewhere along the Keys…just north of Marathon and we still needed to get into the anchorage and get Dad on his way to Miami. The wind was nearly at our stern and the waves were 5 feet keeping us on our toes as we surged forward with each wave passing beneath the hull of My Cay.

As the sun rose, we made our way through the Boot Key channel and nestled quietly up to the mooring we had left 24 hours before. Around 7am, we lowered the dinghy back in the water, put the engine on and hoped it would start…..we had fingers crossed that salt water had not gotten into the engine. Yamaha makes a quality product…no water and we had running engine!

My Dad made it back to Ohio about 1am Monday morning….he hadn’t slept, but sent us a text to let us know that he made it home safely and was thinking about us. Funny thing is, we were thinking about him, having to arrive home to an empty house, where his entire life had just changed in the hours before. He had been on a boat, off the coast of Florida and had to wait another 24 hours to get home to begin to deal with his emotions.

I won’t lie, there were thoughts by Bonnie and I to take the boat back to Bradenton and call off the trip. We were drained, emotionally, physically and looking for answers.

By the end of the day Sunday, we had the first initial answer.
Bonnie piped in, “We should keep going when the time is right.” “We shouldn’t give up yet.” The very words I needed to hear.

This is what I love about sailing, what I love about finding out what you are made of as a person. I look at my Dad, given all the circumstances, he persevered and made sure we all made it back safely…he played a part in our safety, when it could have been very easy to not be an active participant. To hear my wife be the first to say, let’s keep going, speaks volumes to how you can be tested, brought to the edge and find the next gear. It’s amazing to see people go beyond what they think is possible when you are on a sailboat. For me, it reminds me of all the times in my little Sunfish that things didn’t go right and I just had to figure it out….these are all things that we as humans need to remind ourselves of all the time. We can go farther, we can push beyond what we think we can handle and we can grow from adversity.

It was a hard 24 hours. But, we are better people and have re-learned many life lessons because of what we deal t with and how we all handled it.

We plan on staying in Boot Key another week and then resuming our trip. Chances are Bonnie and I will make the Gulf Stream crossing ourselves. This will be another challenge. We didn’t plan on 2 of us doing the crossing, so we will need to make a new plan and overcome new obstacles. That’s what it is all about.