Friends and family,                                                January 22, 2014

     I wish we had better news, but we have decided to pull the plug on our cruise and go home.  Our holidays with family and friends were nice, but a real sense of worry about the boat's mast repairs was still there.  We made a plan to take the boat back to Florida and have our Rhode Island boat expert fly down to pull the mast and do the assessment of damage and any needed repairs in a more thorough way.  Lynn checked this plan out with a veteran sailing friend and he said it was not a good idea to take a questionable boat across the Gulf Stream in a weather window between northerly storms.  

     So we made another plan, to get our Rhode Island boat expert to fly down to Freeport and, along with our insurance company's marine surveyor, to pull the mast and check out the foundation structures.  We made all the arrangements and flew back to Freeport to put them into action.  Lynn and Paul and Mike got the mast pulled by a local Bahamain crane operator, who turned out to be excellent.  We found that the mast and the aluminum mast base plate were ok, except for bolt holes that were rounded out and loose, so we had these filled in by a welding shop and new holes re-drilled.  The underlying fiberglass that holds the mast base bolts down appeared to our experts' assessment to be in good shape, no cracks, bolts not loose.  So the base plate was put back down, with epoxy all around the bolts and the plate edges and everything tightened back up.  Metal shims were bolted in front and side, so that, along with the shim that was already there in the back, they keep the base plate from moving in any direction.  I was the mechanical assistant all along, so I learned a whole lot more about our boat, leaving me in a better position next time I have to work on it.  This included additions to my onboard tool kit - a few items I was missing.  When the work was done, the experts' conclusion was that it was better than new, solid and good to go.

They left and Sally and I tried to shift gears from broken boat to shipshape boat, while watching another group of cruisers wait for a weather window, get ready to go, then wait again - trying to get southeast to Eluthera, a large island on the eastern edge of Great Bahama Bank.  I couldn't get my anxiety to calm down and remained way too worried for any enjoyment, so we arranged for the boat to stay at a marina in Freeport and flew home.

Our cruise was fun to start with, fun to and past the boat show.  I think it started to be more stressful after New Bern, North Carolina, when it turned cold, we repaired our brand new dingy for the second time and ran aground at Brown's Inlet just south of Moorhead City.  I made a list of all the goods and all the bads I could think of and the goods declined in the later part of the trip and the bads increased.  Thinking back on it, I now believe that we hit the Melbourne Bridge shrouding because I was already distracted by low oil pressure readings, along with still-leaking dingy, leaking hatch and crooked steering.  Then we went aground again and then, crossing the Gulf Stream found the mast base moving.

I usually am good in a crisis, able to perform while putting emotions aside.  I think I've been doing that for a while on this cruise and, finally, the dam for sidelined anxiety broke and out it came.  I just couldn't go on, so we gave it up and came home.  I am so sorry we won't be there enjoying the Abacos, but we had to do this.  We now just have to do some re-tooling and adjustments to being on land and see if some rest and time reduce the level of worry and stress; however, having family and friends has really helped. We are truly grateful for all the support you have given us both in starting our adventure and in putting it on hold for now. Your support has meant so much to us, thank you.

 Fair winds and calm seas to you all.  Love, Lynn and Sally Means