Sailing with Dummies

Notice that I didn't say, Sailing FOR Dummies.

We started our move from Miami to Key West for the winter.  We arrived late Friday night, and decided to hang around Miami/CocoGrove on Saturday because thee forecast called for bad weather.  It wound up being pretty darn nice.

Anyhow, we proceed to go out that night and took after wine like it was in shortage or something.  Now, ironically, did I not just post, DON'T DRINK THE NIGHT BEFORE if you tend to seasick?

Obviously, I don't listen to my own advice.

So, Sunday morning looms and we take off, and the squalls hit turning Biscayne Bay and Hemi D into a huge tilt-a-whirl. However, with Dramamine and Seabands on, I'm still doing well. Husband is turning three shades of green. He goes down below, but feels guilty because I'm up above in full foulies looking like a drowned rat.

We get to the Biscayne Channel and things calm down enough for my husband to regain his equilibrium.  He starts looking at radar and runs up excited that it clear where we are going.  I give him a sly grin and say, it's clear where we've been. Sure enough there is blue sky behind us.

At this point, I start wondering if my spouse is going to render me unconsicious and I'll wake up and we are back in our slip at Dinner Key Marina.

Now on the Atlantic side of the Biscayne Bay channel there's this area called the breakers. Not always fun on a good day, at 30kt winds on your port bow and 3-4 ft waves, you are in for some adventure.  HemiD was NOT HAPPY.  Oh, and you get to do this for about 1.5 miles.  Yesterday, it was the longest 1.5 miles in my life.  I finally turned the helm over to my spouse after I got exhausted fighting the waves.

Fortunately, the rain stopped, I stayed up to help watch the day markers.

Soon, we got on our course and decided to motor down to Key Largo and fly full jib, we were still getting some pretty strong winds from the N to NE and NW and we didn't want to worry about our main jibing.

Then, as things calm down, I realize. Holy crap, I'm sicker than a dog. I went to lay down for awhile, the boat was pretty smooth for the wave action and wind.  That didn't help, so I decided to go back up top and give Tim his chance to rest and as I was putting my foulies back on, I made the mistake of looking up and seeing wave action off the stern of the boat. And I was done. 

So, I'm going to have to learn to live with this so I got up above, send Tim down to rest, and quickly ran to leave over the stern seat to hurl.  Which is the exact time my husband came up with my life vest, saw me leaned over the the stern rail and said "What the hell are you doing?  Looking for dolphins? That's not safe at all! You know better!"

<<sounds of heaving my guts out>>

"Oh."

Points to the spouse for my safety.  Hilarity afterwards.  Because after I got sick, I felt like new. And merrily put my life vest back on and sent Tim to rest.

So the new phrase if I have to bless the waters is:  'I'm going to look for dolphins'

After that the rest of the trips was uneventful.  HemiD did some surfing of 9kts at times, and we wound up making it to Key Largo two hours before we thought we would considering the events of the morning.

However, there was no alcohol (well, one glass of wine) last night, and we are off to Marathon as soon as the tide permits.  Supposed to be a beautiful day.

So, all in all, Tim and I have learned that we can handle a squall, we know that running with bad weather will be our best bet, and sometimes 'looking for dolphins' is the best way to abate your seasickness.