An update at sea

Below is an excerpt from a quick email update I sent my family. This will give you the highlights until we have time to write the whole story (Amelia is working on it and has it half written) but I wanted to keep you all in the loop.
J
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April 25th - 3am

We are about 4 days out of the Las Perlas and heading back. We hit torrential rain a couple of days ago and 25-30 knot wind on the nose. With both the current and the point of sail Artemo just doesn't like it. We had the engine just revved up high to make any ground. Regardless after about 48 hours or more of this we (Gromit was with us) we decided to heave to at sea and get everyone some much needed sleep and food. There we both sat looking like we were anchored at sea (only difference the HUGE waves), so strange. Graham and I have decided to head back to Panama. Given the torrential rain we could see how much our decks need redoing, it was raining inside the boat and worst of all our anchor windlass ripped almost (thank god 2 bolts held) completely from the bow. We also had a small electrical fire from all the rain inside. Ok, enough with the bad stuff. Things happen for a reason and I am glad it happened fairly soon out of the gate. We said goodbye to the Gromits at sea. very sad and we are on our way back. Wind is nice and the seas are good. We are doing about 6 knots with wind just behind our beam. Everyone is asleep and I am on watch. On the plus side we are all good with the sailing part, just not the problems part :-)! I will keep you posted but don't worry if you don't hear from us. Our SSB is only working sometimes due to the fire (more like smoldering).

ps I am trying to get Graham to write the next blog with our latest decision. We just decided all this in the past 10 hours! Gotta love the adventure. This is living baby. Miss ya

pss San Blas are a great place for a visit! ;-)

psss - cc to everyone I love. Don't worry. We are actually in good spirits and quite proud of ourselves for the way we managed the weather and the problems. I got awesome kids and one heck of a great hubby. I should break into song now "love will keep us together, in any kind of weather"!
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