I had my daughter and I in a pickle. With just the deeply reefed main up running with the waves since noon, I was spent. She was valiantly fighting seasickness and helping me all she could, but the wheel was out of the question. In fact, I was having problems steering down some waves. And then I gybed!

The preventer I had rigged from the boomend to the deck was overpowered and the boom rose and smashed into the back stay. Everything held, this time,....

It was time to heave to. With MJ on the bridgedeck and in the companionway(just in case), I swung the wheel to starboard while yanking the full length of the mainsheet. Grinding the winch under the dodger, MJ had it singing like I've never heard it and in what seemed like a second, we had Christmas dead into the wind and sheeted bar tight.

The small main shuttered a couple times, we fell off to port, it filled, and we settled. Xmas had plenty of power to hold us 45 degrees to wind and waves. A lot of spray overhead and hitting the dodger but we were solid, and safe. At one time she tacked, so I ended up with the rudder near amidships where she fore reached NW at times at 2 knots.

It was no picnic but compared to a few minutes before, I was pretty happy. My arms were real happy. We spent the next 3 hours hove to, heading westward toward Cape Ann about 40 miles away. It was a 10 nm detour, but by 2:00 am, the winds had abated, we'd gotten some much needed rest and even slept. MJ had worked through seasickness and was fine and raring to go.

So we got back to work and headed south. Instead of the Cape Cod Canal, we opted to head for Boston, 20 nm's closer. We hit the big harbor at 12:00 noon, 24 hours after leaving Port Clyde. Good time, even with a 3 hour sleep over. We had MJ's college roommate over for dinner hanging on a mooring off Worlds End. After a good nights sleep, we beat our brains out going dead to windward(it's always dead to windward in Cape Cod Bay) joking about sinking as Xmas kept taking on 5 gallons of seawater/10 minutes(another story,...).

We'd later catch up with our crossing companions, Fiona and Iain and hear what a lark the crossing was for them! My hat is off to the seasoned cruisers. I was carrying too much sail(which I knew) and I underestimated the conditions(Iain reported 37 knots of wind at the height). This was out of our league on Christmas, simple as that.

My daughter was the best helping me by navigating, keeping us fed, never gave in to what must feel like a slow death(I've never been seasick). She rallied and we had a blast!

That was the start of our vacation, which was terrific!

I'm still now sure how I got us into that pickle out there, but today there is a deep gouge in the end of our spruce boom where the backstay tried to saw through it. I'm just going to varnish over that gouge. From now on, whenever I tension the outhaul on the main, I'll see that gouge and remember that pickle I got us into.