My little voice spoke clearly to me; it was telling me that this could be a bad spot. There was no south easterly protection at all. But Flying Cloud was there and it was a flat calm. I disregarded my little voice; it was almost dark and we'd traveled almost 60 miles.

We anchored and immediately felt the humidity. It was hot and sticky. I jumped in the water 88.5 degree water and could still feel myself sweating.

Just before bed Kathy yelled in a very annoyed voice, "How did our sheets get wet?"

Tara lazily replied, "Oh sorry. I got it wet earlier because I forgot to change out of my bathing suit," as if it wasn't a big deal that we got to sleep on a wet bed. I was too tired to give her lecture and made a mental note to pour water all over her bed in the future.

We went to bed and slept poorly on our wet bed. The humidity was high and I think it was raining inside. Crew morale dropped to a new low. Kathy was baking next to me and making me miserable. I started plotting for a way to get rid of her. I could tell that she was thinking the same thing. It was just of matter of who was going to get rid of WHO first.

Kathy woke up early the next morning and started making breakfast. She was making a lot of noise so I gave up on trying to go back to sleep. I went into the saloon and sat down. She pretended to be in a better mood as she got out the pancake mix. I sat there watching and then had an epiphany: "That's how she's goin' do it! She's going to poison me!"

I sat there pondering how I was going to get out of this. She would serve me pancakes and I couldn't refuse; she'd know that I was on to her; besides - I was out of Trix. It was so blatantly obvious what she was doing. Tide detergent was on the counter next to the pancakes. Did she think I was an idiot; that I wouldn't notice?

It was so hot. I couldn't breathe because the air was mostly water. The kids woke up. Kathy was being nice to them. She fed them pancakes. I was getting served last, of course. "How much easier it'll be to poison me," I though. Kathy had "supposedly" already eaten.

Casey ate and then Tara. She'd be asking me if I wanted pancakes next. I had nothing else to eat for breakfast. This was a perfect plan. I could see the future laid out before me. "It was horrible!" she'd exclaim using beads of sweat as tears. "Just fell over the side of the boat at night. We couldn't find him." It was so clear now why she'd been reading all of those Monk detective books.

Then, a miracle occurred: a breeze came; the boat cooled. I saw Kathy look at the Tide bottle and nod her head no, and I knew I was going to live to see the rest of this day.

I ate my pancakes and decided to rest. I hadn't slept well and I'd just been through a major ordeal with Kathy trying to kill me and all. Kathy had other ideas though. She, Casey, and Tara removed all of the junk out of the dinghy and lowered it down into the water. She wanted to go to shore. I started thinking that maybe Kathy thought that she needed a better poison. I tried to talk her out of it.

"It's pretty windy outside," I said. The breeze kept picking up. Kathy asked me to fill the gas tank in the dinghy. The chop had really increased. I looked towards Flying Cloud and they were pitch-polling a bit. I was sure that we were doing the same. Kathy wanted me to put the engine on and I told her with all the authority I could muster, "No. It's too rough. I can't do it." I closed my eyes and turned my head waiting for the first blow, but it didn't come. Kathy looked outside and agreed that it was getting too rough. Phew.

The breeze I'd been praying for quickly magnified. The wind was now blowing around 15 knots. My little voice was talking indignantly to me. "See! This is what happens you anchor in a place with no protection." I looked out over the horizon and saw white caps appear. I looked back at Flying Cloud. "He'll fare no better," I thought.

I called Flying Cloud on the VHF. He'd done some checking and the breeze was supposed to calm in the later afternoon. The thought of trying to pull the anchor up and decided that it was time to watch Star Trek instead. Casey and I decided to watch two episodes - a rare treat.

After 5 hours of rocking back and forth I looked outside. White caps were all around us. I looked a Flying Cloud and she was all over the place - a mirror of our own image. Talking to Flying Cloud, we'd agreed that it was just a matter of time before the wind calmed down.

I was hungry and decided I needed a snack. I grabbed one of our few remaining Hershey Bars and a tub of peanut butter. I mixed them together and made the poor man's Reese's peanut butter cup. Note to the reader: This food does not appear to alleviate sea sickness. My stomach really started to hurt. I laid down and tried to sleep.

After another fitful sleep I woke up and ate dinner. Tara, who likes to complain about sea sickness when the boat's at dock in a slip, was having a great time playing Sims on her computer. Casey was doing the same on hers. Kathy was making dinner. For the first time on our trip I was getting queasy. That could only mean one thing: Kathy had poisoned me. (It was only a matter of time.) I knew that I had to get even before it was too late.

"Hey! Look at this," I said pointing to one of our movies, "Babe! Who wants to watch Babe?" I counted slowly in my head. One. Two.

"What's Babe about Dad?" Casey asked. She took the bait. I told her it was a delightful story about a pig that this it's a sheep dog. She was in. That was two; I just needed a third.

Kathy was busy with dinner and replied with her normal apathetic I'm-too-good-for-television tone. "I don't care." That was three. It was a lock.

"Dad! I don't want to watch a movie about a stupid pig," Tara protested. But it was too late. I had the votes and she knew it.

Half way through the movie Tara and Kathy ran out of the boat. They were ghost white. The saccharine movie proved too much for their delicate palates. "Touch?," I said under my breath as they vacated. Casey and I enjoyed the rest of the movie. That'll teach her to poison me. She doesn't know who she's messing with.

The winds never calmed. I kept looking at the knot meter which bounced from 8 to 20 knots. The swells were 4 to 5 feet that sometimes broke over the bow. As it got dark the overcast skies blocked the stars and moon and it got very, very dark. You know - In the movies when a ship is in a storm, it's for like 30 seconds. After 10 hours it starts to get to you. I decided I just wanted the movie storm.

In the morning it was still blowing hard. The swell had decreased though. I talked to Flying Cloud and they were bailing. I was confident that we were at the end of the storm, but got out my chart books and took a look just in case. I came back out an hour later and Flying Cloud was gone. We were all alone.

Being all alone really changes your perspective on many things. I ran down below. "We've got to get out of here!" I said as I started cramming things into small places. Kathy had better ideas, "Let's see if it gets better for Flying Cloud first." I ignored her and kept stuffing things into small places. I was panicking - we were all alone. I was pretty sure that Kathy just wanted to finish her Sudoku puzzle. We were going to die because of Sudoku; I couldn't believe it!

After an hour we called Flying Cloud and they told us that it was looking better. We were still getting pounded. I didn't like how our dinghy was getting tossed around behind the boat, so I started thinking about how we were going to hoist it back onto the boat in 20 knot winds.

After 3 hours, Kathy was ready. She'd given up on her latest game of Spider having switched from Sudoku. We moved outside and attempted to hoist the dinghy. Kathy didn't feel comfortable maneuvering the dinghy in the high winds and offered to winch it up instead. As she winched the dinghy up she would take many unsanctioned breaks.

"What are you doing?!" I'd asked as I tried to hold the dinghy as it was being blown all around. "I'm tired. I'm just taking a break. This is hard work"

I swear I saw her checking her nails at one point. We got the dinghy 4 feet up when it came quickly crashing back down into the water. "Oops! Sorry." Kathy said. She had an override on the winch and lost the dinghy trying to fix it. I, of course, was very understanding. This is what I said:

"Dear, is everything okay? Are you all right? You're doing great. We'll get it next time."

Unfortunately, Kathy misread my encouraging words and interpreted them as this:

"What are you doing?! Are you trying to kill me?! Come on - you need to focus on what you're doing! We have to get the dinghy up NOW!"

A strong marriage is all about communication. She wasn't even trying to understand what I was saying.

We got the dinghy stowed and loaded with all of our junk. I reefed the main sail, and we were all ready. We said a quick prayer and Casey and I ran to the bow. I put on my gloves that are now wrapped with duct tape. I grabbed the chain and began pulling. The boat was being blown back hard by the wind. Kathy slowly maneuvered the boat into forward. I pulled hard and got a little frustrated with Casey because the boat kept finding its way port or starboard of the anchor chain.

Once we were over the anchor I quickly realized that for the first time on our trip something had happened - the anchor had set. Our CQR has been a real pain on this whole trip because it refuses to set well in the sand. I've talked to other cruisers in the sea and they've bailed on the CQR. I plan to do the same.

I pulled hard and it didn't budge. I wrapped the chain around a cleat and had Kathy move the boat forward and it broke the anchor loose. We got everything stowed and pulled up the mainsail. We let out the jib and we were doing 7.2 knots. The boat was healing and we killed the engine. We were sailing.

After 1 mile we turned the corner and the wind started to die. 17 knots quickly dropped down to 11. 20 minutes later and we were in 5 knots of wind. We ended up motoring to San Marcos Island. After anchoring next to Flying Cloud we relaxed and just before we went to sleep I threw a cup of water on Tara's bed