It is very unfortunate for me that Jack and I now have a schedule to keep. Jack must be back at work on Monday so we looked at the weather and the flights and decided he needs to be in Nassau on Saturday afternoon for a flight home. For the average person this is not a problem. Nassau is 74 miles away. For a worry cruiser that I am it is not good. All my major boating mishaps have occurred because of a need to be somewhere at a certain time. One of the bigger errs was when Sheril and I ended a night sail in the bahamas on our 23 footer with a desperate midnight flashlight navigation job over one of the biggest Staghorn Coral reefs in this hemisphere. I looked over that reef last night from the Hopetown Lodge with a Goombay Smash in hand and I still can't believe we did it.
Jack and I must have an angel in the rigging. We motored off the bank in calms and continued motoring on and off offshore till about 3 when the winds kicked in for a perfect 6 knot close reach under a rising moon in 10 knots of wind. No storms, no collisions with crates, whales, or submarines, no major system failures that I constantly fret over at night. As the sun came up and the nocturnal demons went to their hiding place I was wishing the trip were longer. Jack and I spelled each other so we slept some but this night sail and the one across the Gulf Stream have given me a foothold of courage to face the many night passages between here and the Virgin Islands.
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