Warderick Wells
We left Shroud Cay on a forecast of 12-17 knots of favorable wind and 3-5 foot seas. Let me tell you what I’ve learned about forecasts: they are sometimes made up. They are made up to encourage boaters to get out and sail, I guess. Often, they have little to do with reality. This was one of those times. The wind direction was less favorable than predicted, which was ok but meant that, in order to sail, we had to go a little wide of our destination. OK, we do this all the time. No big deal. The wind was also 20-25 knots as the day went on, gusting 30ish. Well, that’s a good bit of wind, but we have had 30 knot gusts before. Not ideal, but doable. Our boat can handle that, and so can we. The real issue was the sea state. 3-5 feet? Try 6-8. Gross. Uncomfortable. Hard on the boat, hard on the crew. And it caused us to make ridiculously slow progress. We had planned to get into Warderick Wells at slack tide, but instead we got to come in against the running tide to take a mooring in the narrow river of water at this park. We made it fine, but my nerves were shot by the time we did. Read more