January 05, 2000 -- Back to West End

January 5, 2000 -- Back to West End After considering our options, and reviewing the charts, we decided that the wisest move for us would be to return to West End instead of continuing on with Henri and Anne to Great Harbor. This way when our weather window came, we would be ready to scoot across to West Palm Beach. We left out of Port Lucya at just about high tide at 1130 GMT. We never had less than 1 foot of water under the keel. Shortly after we cleared the jetties, we heard Sharon Ann hailing Sea Flat. After they were done chatting, we called the Sharon Ann. It was the same Sharon Ann that we had gone around Hatteras with! They were only 2 slips down from us and neither of us ever realized it, though we did make introductions. They are also headed south to Trinidad, so we are sure to meet up with them. At 1520 GMT, we passed a frontal boundary and the winds went from a sedate 4 knots to a roaring 15 knots. After looking at everything, we decided to try this tacking thing and put the sails out. We sailed for just over two hours, the winds started to climb and we decided that we needed to beat feet to get in before the winds climbed any higher. We dropped sails and moved quickly to West End under power. At 1813 GMT, we were safely tied up at the Old Bahama Bay marina, facing the direction that we wanted to (ready to go out), though this was not intentional!