Toughest trip yet. (Solo)

Lexi DeLeon

oof. a tough one. I left marsh harbour with the goal of sailing to green turtle. The first hour or so of the trip was great. just sails ups, cruising bout 3.5 kts… not getting there fast but getting there! Then the squalls hit… wind was coming from every direction, pouring rain. no biggy, i turned on the motor and kept cruising. As I got to Don’t rock passage the swell picked up and was going to make for a rough but doable cross over the sandbar… that was until 7ft, 6ft,5ft,4ft,3ft… luckily I draft less than that so no issue, however with the swell i was concerned of hitting bottom while bouncing around so i made the tough decision to turn around. This brought its own set of challenges now going head into the swell which sadie didn’t love. On top of that we have been having an issue where our sail is getting caught and wrapped around the bottom of the furler with the only way of untangling is completely pulling out all the lines and rerunning them which is obviously terrible while the winds blowing and underway. The last two times this has happened i’ve been able to pull it tight enough to stay until i got anchored. This time though… not so lucky the wind caught it and started flapping all around getting tangled even more. I put on auto pilot and went to the bow to handle this situation, the autopilot couldn’t keep up and sadie was getting pushed sideways, I ran to the back of the boat to steer and realized we had been pushed so far sideways we were about to be on a wreck and another sandbar. I quickly steered us away and just wrapped limes around the sail to hold it down. I’m suprised it survived the 30kt gusts but it did until I was able to get into the nearest anchorage.. that had zero protection. To add onto all the stress of the day already- as i was pulling into the anchorage the engine died 3 times. I’m sure I would’ve handled this better with more experience or with the help of someone else but i’m proud of myself for staying calm (i didn’t even cry once.. 🤣🤣) and figuring it out.

Boat & Crew

Sadie

Gemini, 105m

Grace R

Owner

Hadley Mae

Pet, Female

Lexi DeLeon

Owner