We rise at 3:30am after a very bouncy nap anchored in the Atlantic. Checking in with Holokai we find that he has been up since midnight and is eager to get underway before the now brisk winds make raising his anchor solo more treacherous than he’d prefer. So, the Casstaway crew make necessary preparations to follow Holokai quickly, including donning our PFDs and safety gear and packing a bag of provisions for snacking underway. Todd attaches himself to the jack line and raises anchor in very windy, bouncy darkness and Tanya clenches at the helm. By 4:30am Tanya is heading toward our set course and Todd is assessing the situation for raising sails.
With wind on our beam at 14 knots, we raise both sails as quickly as possible to help mitigate the rough seas. Now having a much smoother ride Tanya makes coffee and we settle in for the morning. Things go smoothly until around 10:00 am when winds force us to reef both sails, then put the windows down as a squall approaches. After the squall winds die completely, sails go down,, and we motor for hours in hot sun. And so the day goes, good, bad and ugly, until we finally reach our anchorage at Rodriguez Bay around 8:00pm. It took much longer than expected but we are finally back in the USA.
