TWO TICKETS TO THE RODEO

It’s like riding a bronco with a fire hose spraying in your face: four unrelenting knots of current pushing you into 4 to 6ft smackers. Lumpy. Bumpy. A rodeo. A mistake. Anything but pleasant. When my partner, Phillip, and I were planning our first voyage to the Bahamas on our 1985 Niagara 35, Plaintiff’s Rest, that’s what people told us crossing the Gulf Stream in any kind of north wind would feel like.

But we did it anyway, and our two passages across the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf Stream taught us many lessons. Ironically, crossing with a north wind was not the bull ride we anticipated, and surprisingly, crossing back with a south wind was not the gallant trot we thought it would