We got back to the boat around 7am the following morning. Saturday 6.22. The boat had drifted just inside the swim zone and we were rubbing our hull in the sand. We quickly loaded up the dinghy, boarded the boat and motored away from the beach before putting up our sails.

This wasn’t the best for sailing. It was a mostly beautiful day with 70 degree temperatures and sunshine but, we lost our head wind within ten minutes each time we thought we were making progress, sat through a dead zone in the ocean while we waited for a surge to pass through and took on an unforeseen storm cloud just before pulling into a mooring at 7:30 last night.

After a straight 12 hours of ‘sailing’, the dogs were over it, we were hungry and losing sunlight. About a mile out from our chosen mooring area, we saw a nasty cloud rolling in and decided to drop sail and motor ourselves the rest of the way.

The moment Shaun set foot on the bow and tried to drop our jib, the storm hit us- HARD.  We whipped around in circles in torrential rain and wind for what felt like an eternity. Shaun screaming at me, me screaming at him; everyone held on for life as the boat swayed almost a full 90 degrees sideways back and forth from portside to starboard and back.

We were ultimately swept into a pit of rocks on the outskirt of Phinney’s Harbor. The Harbormaster, Towboat US and the Coast Guard arrived and gave us amazing assistance and advised us on how to get ourselves off the rocks with the incoming tides instead of taking the $3100+ bill for their help. We waited almost 3 hours for the tide, placed our anchor in a strategic location and were able to motor ourselves out of what we thought would be the end of our trip and onto a mooring in Monument Beach.

Today, we are anchored in the harbor catching our breaths. We just took a dive around the hull and it doesn’t appear that we’ve taken much damage, if any. We thought we lost a sail but the small tear in the seam is no match for my mediocre sewing skills. Our bodies are sore and I am covered in gnarly bruises.

Nothing about yesterday was good but everything about today is amazing! We are grateful for each other, our trusty vessel, resilient pups and the help of kind strangers. ❤️⛵️