Four and one Half days later...

Well, we have suvived our first multi-day ocean passage. We are all cleared in and ready to explore the sights. We set out from Key West Saturday about 9:30 in the morning and motored for two days against currents to reach the west point of Cuba... Pretty uneventful except a Cuban Guard boat(unmarked) with a spotlight at night yelling at us, a blown alternator, and a Mahi-mahi! We got arount Cabo San antonio before a front was supposed to arrive and headed SE towards the Caymans. The front came through a little after midnight and started to blow pretty good from the SW. Seas were 4 to 6 foot with a small window of 8 footers and Kristen swears 10 on her night shift(I don't doubt it) Wind-Borne sailed like the champ she is and the Monitor self-steering vane we have named Hank was our best friend. He steered and corrected as we surfed down swells and we just basically read a book and tried to stay awake... So when you are sailing 24 hours a day, you need someone up at all times, so it pretty much broken into shifts. We had two 6 hour shifts from 06:00 to 12:00 and 12:00 to 18:00 and three four hour shifts through the night. 18:00 to 22:00, 22:00 to 02:00 and 02:00 to 06:00. We both thought the 02:00 to 06:00 was the worst. So as soon as you get off shift, you basically crash and hope to actually fall asleep before your next shift. Kristen made lee cloths for us which is like a hammock that comes up on the side of the couch in the main salon that keeps you in bed. It worked great! No one fell out of bed.
So we made it in to the Caymans and it is a beautiful place! The water is full of coral and really really blue water! Can't wait to go diving! Lots of cruise ships though. Three yesterday and two today. Sunburns everywhere!
We made it down here in four days and 6 hours and it was 550 Nautical miles. that is 129 miles a day on average. We were fighting a 1.5 to 2 knot current for most of the first two days, so I think that we made up for it on the last two... I know we were moving right along! I know we made a good decision with Skippy because I kept thinking I was so glad he wasn't having to go through this... Kristen did a great job as admiral and held all of her watches and did a wonderful job keeping us safe. We are planning our next move, but think we should be here for a few days anyways!
Love you all and miss you! Especially Skippy-Doo!