Bermuda Anyone?

The storm on Thursday lasted for about 5 hours.  It was so strong that at one point, when Baxter was at the helm, a wave crashed over the hard dodger and hit him so hard that it knocked him down.  He looked at Luis, who was under the dodger and saw a flashing light being reflected.  As it turns out, the wave that hit Baxter was so big that it activated his light strobe on his life jacket.  Those strobes are set to a psi that will only be triggered once you are submerged in water.

Ahem….anyway - By midnight, the winds subsided to a mere 25kts gusting to 30kts.  Seas were about 18 feet and we were relieved.  That lasted through most of the morning Friday and continued to slowly dissipate.  It was a nice break and we could finally begin to relax, until we read the next forecast which indicated a new LO predicted between the Bahamas and Bermuda by Tuesday.  In order to avoid the storm, we would need to be south of 28 degrees north latitude.  Our current latitude was 34 degrees so that was about 360 miles in 4 days – not impossible, but what was the margin of error?  What if we were only 300 miles?  One option was to stop in Bermuda.  We were 200 miles northwest and it was very tempting.  In fact, I emailed the customs office to determine if Kala would be allowed, just in case.  I contacted our weather forecaster to get more specific details about the new storm and as a crew, we decided to press on to the BVI.  About eight other boats, including Stella Blue who had lost their autopilot during the passage, did divert to Bermuda and they are having a great time!  Bermuda apparently is an awesome little country and we will definitely put that on our list of possibilities.

Baxter reviewing the charts to see if our position allows us to avoid the front or if Bermuda is a better option.  Notice the big swell behind him.

We had a line in the water and Katie was super excited to see what we landed

Cute little mahi maui but too small really for us to filet.  We threw him back and gave him a second chance - we thought it might help score us points in the Karma bank.

In her element.  Chillaxin' in the sun.

Baxter and Luis fixing a bolt that came loose on the goose neck (the place where the boom attaches to the mast.)  If the boom broke, that would be a very very bad day!