Hold on Gilligan this is going to be a bumpy ride!

We departed Ft. Pierce Inlet at 6:30AM to a beautiful sunrise, the weather reports were calling for 3'-5' seas with 7 second intervals (smooth sailing).  What we actually had was 7'-8' seas with 2 second intervals (rough sailing).  To make matters worse, the 15-20 knot winds turned out to be 25-30 knots and couple this with direct bow rollers made for one rough ride.

Sunrise at Ft. Pierce Inlet

Before any departure, you should go through the entire vessel and prepare it for the trip.  Lock all the locks on the cabinet doors, make sure all windows are closed and locked, tie down the cockpit furniture, stow anything and everything that can fly and most importantly, PUT THE CLAMP ON THE REFRIGERATOR DOOR!     

Within an hour of departure the bow was slamming with such force that it was causing a great amount of water to come over the flybridge, we decided it was safer to go downstairs into the pilot house so we could stay safe, dry and keep an eye on the inside.   When we went down, it was like a scene from the Wizard of Oz  things were flying about everywhere and guess what I forgot to do...., CLAMP THE REFRIGERATOR DOOR SHUT!   90% of the contents of the overstocked fridge were all over the kitchen and cockpit floor.  To my disbelief, not one item broke or opened!   After spending about 15 minutes putting everything back I realized that I was seasick.   I won't go into details about the rest of my morning, but it was ugly to say the least.  Thank God for Captain Dave, because Captain Jack was done.   

HOLD ON!

The sea condition never changed for the entire trip, I don't care what course change we made, we still had rollers slamming into the bow.  After about 16 hours of torture and exhaustion we considered going into  Port Lucaya Harbour for safe cover.  After being informed by the Harbour Master that weather conditions were going to be the same for the next two days we decided to motor on and braved the storm to stay on schedule. I was  able to handle all of my watches thanks to the steady dose of Pepto Bismol, Ritz Crackers and Gatoraid administered by David. After 36 hours we finally made it to Nassau and all I can say is that the Atlantis on the horizon never looked so good!

Arriving in Nassau

We had a much better slip than the last time we stayed here and had a few great dock hands to help us with the lines.  After a quick tie up, a quick shower and a real bite of food we dropped from exhaustion.   That's all I have to say about this leg of the journey and I can only pray it gets better from here.