Well folks,
As it turns out, this will may be my final blog regarding this trip around the globe on a sailboat. Lord willing, I'll get another go at it someday, but for now I'm happy being back on solid ground, working at Island Time Grill. Here's what happened in a nutshell: We sailed away on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon (my parents and sister took a picture of us just before going under a bridge in St. Pete). The waves were a bit choppy once we got under way, but all three sails were filled and we did about 7 knots down past the Florida Keys! After about two days at sea, two hours on the wheel and four off, our hands backs were started to ache and our eyes were beginning to get heavy (the waves only increased in size as we headed south and it was harder to keep our course). Jeremy and I were having a great time though, and neither one of us knew anything was out of the ordinary until the Captain let us know we were fighting the worst waves he'd seen in late October in the Gulf. Anyway, the swell got progressively worse, and the captain made the decision not to stop in Tortuga, but to head on down to the Marina Hemmingway in Cuba ( the decision was a wise one, seeing as we made it down to the Dry Tortugas just at nightfall, a terrible time and place to come into a harbor). It was about this time (around midnight on Wednesday I believe), that everything took a negative turn- to say the least. We were fighting some pretty rough seas, and the wind was strong enough to blow us off course in a instant. All of a sudden, we heard a strange noise and watched in disbelief as a cable (chain strap for the main sail's halyard) started whizzing around violently, slicing through the jib sail. Under the Captain's orders, I leaned halfway off the boat to catch the cable while holding onto another for dear life (reminded me of a scene from The Perfect Storm). I caught and secured it before it could tear through the main sail. In a matter of minutes, the wiry menace which should have never come out of the boat, had completely destroyed our two front sails. Next, the Captain ordered me, as Chief Mate, to do a jibe (change directions of the main sail, swinging the boom to the opposite side). As the boom swung around, the entire main sail fell right in front of all three of us (A thin wire, impossible to see clearly at night, had wrapped around the top of the sail, slicing clean through it during the jibe). So that was it, we had lost all of our sails. We had no choice but to turn the 35hp diesel engine on and head north toward the U.S. Needless to say, we were disappointed, but we were heading to Key West to repair/replace the sails and keep going. As daybreak came, so did the straw that broke the camel's back. I was on the wheel, enjoying the light breeze and much calmer seas, when smoke started coming from the engine room! I yelled for the Captain, and we shut of the engine (which had blown gaskets and leaked oil all over the floorboard). We were dead in the water and out of U.S. radio range. It took about ten minutes of sending out a distress signal before someone responded (a military vessel heard us, and relayed our situation to Fort Jefferson in the Tortugas, who in turn called the U.S. Coast Gaurd). So we sat on the deck, in fairly good spirits considering (Jeremy sang Dido's 'I will go down with this ship' and we watched Smokey and the Bandit on my laptop), and waited. It took the Coast Guard about seven hours to get to us, and eleven to tow us into Key West, where the boat and Captain are currently dry-docked.

We are back in Sarasota now. I say 'we' because Jeremy has decided to move down from Atlanta and work in the restaurant. I bought a bicycle from Chef Dave (I sold my truck before the trip and cancelled my insurance) and still dream of the islands. Jimmy Buffet has a great song called 'Someday I Will', that pretty much sums up my thoughts about my future with sailing.