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Every sailor that's gone beyond the range markers can tell you a story about some scary passages.  Here is our latest...

Seventy two hours ago we left Rum Cay for the Turks & Caicos Islands.  The winds were light and the swells were smooth, slow and spaced comfortably.  Armed with the latest weather information from a passing freighter, we made a stop in Clarence Town, Long Island and had a perfect beam reach through the Crooked Island Passage.  The rude awakening came in the dark on a moonless night as we cut between the islands and exposed ourselves to the open ocean of the Mayaguana Passage... aka the Atlantic Ocean.  20 - 25 knots of wind and 6 - 8 ft. seas became the norm, often interrupted by squalls (30+ knots of wind and 12 - 15 ft. seas).  We held a reefed main occasionally, but often motored directly into the weather.  Sleep was counted in minutes and food was forgotten as attention at the helm was constant.  In an optimistic world our 170 mile crossing would have taken us 1.5 days.  In the real world, where our average speed was 2.5 knots (3 miles per hour), the 170 miles took us nearly 4 full days. 

As we now sit tied to a dock in Provo and reflect on the last leg of our journey, we are grateful to the Perkins Engine Corporation for a durable, fuel efficient, and trustworthy motor. We're also thankful that Mr. Valentijn, the designer of the Endeavour 42, created this sailboat like a tank.  The boat handled everything very well and we know that someone was looking out for us over the last few days. 
 

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