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The Gulf of Mexico – By far the worst weather yet.

We set out at 10 in the morning for the Keys. There was a ton of wind but for some reason we couldn’t get our speed up. We must have been fighting some nasty currents. All day it was painfully slow progress and we could only go north or south because the wind was coming out of the east. The only place we wanted to go.

“You damn sailboaters and your zigzags”. -Vegas

The waves were the biggest we’ve seen yet. They were above our Bimini top at times. If we thought 5 foot waves were uncomfortable the first night 10 foot waves were unbearable. And they were a sad 4 seconds apart. For some reason, it isn’t so bad when you’re sitting in the cockpit. You can brace yourself against the seat across from you, but doing any single thing else uses every muscle group and is a test of human patience, endurance and fortitude. Just running down to get a glass of water today went something like this;
Hold on tight
Brace with all 4 points of contact
Stand up
Get thrown back down
Stand back up
Hold on tighter
Step
Hold on tight
Wait out giant scary crashing wave that makes the boat sound like it’s breaking apart
Hold on tight
Step down
Hold on tight
Wait for wave to pass
Hold on tight
Step down again
Hold on tight
Wait for wave to pass
Hold on tight
With one hand, place cup in sink
Wait for wave to pass
Hold tighter
Turn on water
Hold cup in place
Wait for wave to pass
Somehow hold cup and turn off water with one hand
Wait for wave to pass
Get distracted by your precious glass of nature’s candy, which you’ve been putting off getting for hours
Raise it to your lips
You deserve this
You’re a champion
Fall over
Start again

Surprisingly, Boatcat is doing awesome. Much better already. He wants to go kill stuff, for sure, but he is not crying or throwing up anymore.

Whew.

All aboard the nap train!

We all desperately needed naps that day but were tossed about in bed instead. More then once I hit the ceiling. I had to COOK in this. I had to! The idea of feeding these poor babies cold soup out of can when they were going through all of this made me very sad. So I cooked. It must have been really funny when I was thrown across the cockpit door, from one end of the boat to the other, balancing a pot all the while as I fell. I saved it. I’m pretty proud of that. My men had warm food.

Right after we ate, we caught another Mackerel. Seriously, does the gulf have anything but Mackerel? It was the biggest one yet. We had to fight it in the boat and filet it and clean it and cook it for later, all while desperately trying not to fall down or fall off the boat or hit our heads on stuff.

Also, let me tell you, today made us all real sorry about the rum party we had last night.

I don’t even want to talk about peeing anymore.