The Bitter End was a sweet spot on the itinerary. It cooled down a bit overnight, and for once, we did not have a squall wake us in the middle of the night. We got a late start as we took our time getting up, making coffee and general bumming. We took our trash to shore and paid them $5 for the convenience. Our water was getting short; it was somewhere between 1/2 to empty. We were not so sure if we should've trusted the reading.
We left the harbor under the engine as the wind was feeling strong. Turns out today was a much stronger day than yesterday.
We set sail, and thought, "Well yesterday was so nice and exhilarating, let's continue". The problem was, we were dealing with 17 knots at the start. It quickly ramped up. We got out at 11am and thought we would make it to the Dog Islands for "Some Snorkeling" before wrapping around Scrub Island, Great Camanoe and moor in Guana Island. That was the plan anyway. It wasn't the execution.
This is the kind of day where "Ugly Chronicles" means what it says. We were somewhat running downwind to make it to the Dog Islands when gusts of 22+ knots set in. WE NEEDED TO REEF! So, running through the process, we had to point upwind to release the power on the sails and reef them up. We were going for 50% power. An upwind hit us in the process and forced us into an uncontrolled jibe. Don't know how that happened but happened it did. We swung violently about and had to rush to correct. We reefed down to 75%, and all was manageable again. We continued sailing, and reached 6.2 knots on the boat (Fast). Alexa and Dillion were a bit concerned. I laughed it off. "It's sailing kids"! It was about then I checked my heartbeat rate on my watch. "Hmm, I guess it was disconcerting".
Given our late start, and the tuning we had to do on the sails, we knew we couldn't make it to our desited mooring in the Great Camanoe, so we decided to sail around the Dog Islands and moor around Marina Cay, it was a nicely protected area where we were able to be protected by the strong winds.
Wasn't much to do here, it was later in the day, so we cooked up some chicken and ate topside again. Pretty exciting day. We were over halfway now, we haven't used much fuel, but now had to switch to Water-Tank-2. We were out of beer, and provisions were running low. Next stop was our provision restocking.