Nearly There!

We had our best run ever yesterday. The Florida Current was sweeping us along with a healthy breeze and we were average 8.5kts for several hours. James was worried about midnight arrivals at Canaveral.

The Northwest Providence Channel was worse than passing Dover at home. It was literally heaving with cruise ships inbound to Nassau and commercial craft for Freetown. At one point I had 34 ships on the AIS as I passed the oil terminal.

By morning, we were still hurtling along when the weather began to change. A new cold front was drifting south and we ran into it just off the west of Grand Bahama Island. The wind increased and veered rapidly round to the northwest - bang on the nose. I had to wake James to reduce sail in a hurry and consider our options. The direction was not forecast for this area and James was concerned that if it built into a true "norther" we'd get hammered by the steep seas it would generate in the Straits of Florida. We tacked and battled it for a time whilst I tried to persuade any Bahamian station or marina to give us a meaningful forecast - they were all a bit too laid back to be honest. We recalculated a course for Lake Worth, the nearest mainland inlet, and decided to give it a couple of hours.

The wind stayed put in the NW, then dropped. James began to motor. The wind shifted - we tacked. It shifted again - we tacked again. It died - we resumes a direct course for Canaveral and now has come back in WNW so we are motor sailing back on our original course. With just over 100nm to run, we are estimating Canaveral at lunchtime tomorrow and will be grateful of a few unbroken nights' sleep. The children have behaved brilliantly whilst James and I try to catch up on lost hours' rest during the day but they will be pleased to have our full attention again and the chance to run around on land.