After our last failed attempt, I wasn't sure if this was going to happen. Two weeks ago we tried to sail to PE and the waves were to short and the sea was unpleasant. We decided to go back and give up.
After a week of tension between the family, we decided that we still want to do this. My mom looked for a weather window. She saw a nice one for Sunday, it was a week away and its hard to predict weather so far into the week. So we just kept out eyes on it and waited.
Friday came and the weather still looked good. We launched a flight plan and started getting ready. The week took forever as we waited. All we wanted to do was leave.
Sunday came. We all got a good nights rest the day before, and were all up and ready to go. At about 9 we dropped the lines and headed out. We called port control and they said the bar had a massive swell. That's not the thing you like to hear when you just started sailing.
My mom already started to panic saying if port control says it bad, then its really bad. But we said let's look and we'll decide. We motored to the exit of the harbour and we saw a wall of water. I couldn't see past the wave. There was a blue water everywhere. But we easily floated over the wave. But then there was another that seemed bigger. My dad tried to stay in the middle of the waves because they were crashing on both sides of us.
Five heart attacks later, we were past the bar of East London. The waves instantly became smaller and very pleasant. I knew we weren't going to turn around, trying to get back in would be even more dangerous then carrying on.
The wind was calm and the waves were peaceful, so we let out the genoa and I headed back in and watch some series on the laptop. Every hour on the hour we plotted our course on the chart. I decided to learn how to do this in case my mom one day get too sick to do this and I can jump in.
At about two in the morning my mom sent me to bed. I went to bed and listened to the boat sail. I woke up at about five in the morning when I had a heated argument with myself to get out of bed:
Me: it's daylight, we have to get up and help.
Me: no, my mom will wake me up if they need me.
Me: my mom said get up at daylight.
Me: she'll wake me if she needs me.
This went on for about two hours and I wasn't tired anymore and got out of bed. I sat outside with my mom for most of the day whilst my dad tried to get some sleep in before we docked.
Whilst I was a sleep we slowed down our speed by half. My parents know I know the most, I need to be awake to keep the boat up to speed. It took about five more hours to get to PE harbour. We got in about lunch time.
We docked and we all were cranky because no-one has had a good nights sleep. So we communicated through fighting. But we got the boat tied up and went for lunch.
When we got back from lunch we saw kids on a neighbouring boat. We introduced ourselves and we got along well. I spent the rest of the day talking to them. It's good to find someone my own age, or close to, at a yacht club.
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