Arriving in Gulfport MS, Finally!

It was so nice to have a day without being constrained from moving about the boat by the waves. I felt so refreshed and rejuvenated from the day before, I had the brilliant idea of setting my alarm that night for 1:00 am so I could bring Chris a hot cup of coffee and see if he needed a nap. Bad idea.

While he appreciated the coffee, he was fine at the helm and told me to go back to sleep. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get back to sleep and spent the rest of the night tossing and turning. That meant when it was my turn to take the helm, I was nearly as tired as Chris.

As we sailed down-wind, setting our sails wing-on-wing to garner a little more help from the sightly lethargic breeze seemed good to us. This meant untying the preventer line that held the boom in place. Chris was unable to loosen the knots, so he asked me to try while he pushed against the boom to slacken the line. Tired sailors tend to make poor decisions.

I gave it my best effort but wasn’t any more successful than he was. “I can’t loosen them,” I said, so Chris let the boom go. Unfortunately, my hand was not clear of the line. A slight gust of wind swung it back and before either of us could react, the rope was wrapped taut around my hand, pinning it to the metal grab rail. Thanks be to God the wind was as light as it was, or the result could have been gruesome. Chris worked frantically to free me and I escaped with only a few cuts and scrapes along the back of my hand and a swollen, bruised wrist.

Not a great time to be injured as I wasn’t much help with the sails for the rest of the day. We decided to just bring them in and motor the rest of the way.

Thankfully there wasn’t much to do. Still nothing to look at but empty, flat seas and oil platforms. Even the pelicans appeared to have abandoned me. But as Chris lay sleeping and the day wore on, the horizon in front of us began to look different. There was a dark, slightly ominous line of sky that stretched between the water’s surface and the clouds above. I was concerned but didn’t want to wake Chris. I figured if a storm was coming, he would need to be well rested, but when he finally woke up, I breathed a sigh of relief even though I knew he should be getting a few hours more slumber.

The view ahead...

....the view behind.

Chris said the direction of the wind had changed and was now coming from the north. That wasn’t supposed to happen yet, it had arrived a couple of days earlier than forecasted. He also said that there wasn’t much we could do about it since there was nowhere to seek refuge.

It was clear we were not going to make our destination by nightfall and as we neared Cat Island we considered trying to anchor there. While we debated which of our options would be the most difficult to do in the dark, setting up anchor or navigating into Gulfport, we began to see flashes of lightning in the distance to our left. That settled it. We agreed that we would try to race the storm to port rather than sit like ducks while it passed over us at anchor.

We increased our motoring speed but it was after 10pm when we finally entered the ship channel into Gulfport. We called ahead to the marina and were told we could check in at the 24-hour fuel dock. Turns out, the ship channel is like 10 miles long and it would be after midnight before we made it into our slip. We were so thankful for the staff here at the municipal marina who after getting us checked in at the fuel station met us at the end of the 900 ft dock to help us with our dock lines. We were extra tired and therefore extra grateful.

As soon as we were properly tied up, we hit the laundry room with the bags of wet clothes and linens that had been sitting for two days now. While they were washing, we showered. While they were drying, we ate our bowls of instant ramen. And then we were off to bed, at the same time, finally!

It had been a long trip, longer than we expected and we had a lot to be thankful for. We were thankful that we made it safe, didn’t get caught out in the bad weather that seemed to move off to the left as we approached and that the rain held off until we were settled in for the night. We were also thankful to those friends and family members who think to pray for us while we are traveling, so if that is you….