In Search of our Friends; Ganymede.

A power boat anchored beside us saw Ganymede come and go. They left yesterday at high tide to Boca Chica, We are in Boca Chica and Ganymede is not anchored where all the other boats are. Matt suggested going up the river a little further… There they were! We see them. We put the motor in full thrudle and went, the girls are excited, we are excited we are almost at the point of singing larai-larai-la la… when we hear a loud whistle.. OH NOOO!! Matt maneuvers quickly, the boat is turned as fast as possible and the verbal manifestation of having been terribly scared came out of my sweet husband’s mouth. Right there no more than 2 yards away were the electric cables crossing our path. We don’t know for sure if we would have made it under and across or with it and a RIP cross.. Some local fishermen told us that we could, so we tried again. Again we had to turn around. We will try again tomorrow. Now the whistle was not for the cable as we found out, but for a rock straight ahead of us. Cable or rock, the boat would have been toasted!

We are now anchored where everyone else is anchored and Ganymede is up the river. Matt got in the dinghy and went to see them. We were surprised! Very surprised to hear his statement “if I knew there was going to be another sailing passage like the one the night we left, I quit! Ben, his wife Danielle and her 3 daughters (all under 6) are full time sailors, fully committed and purist, they build their own boat, the travel with the bare minimum equipment, they write articles for sailing magazines, they are hard core sailors ( In my opinion). This whole time I was thinking he would put up with any sailing conditions and returning to the point of origin due to fear was a complete no-no for them, but the truth is that he tried to turn around, but his motor could not handle it. The thought of calling a Mayday crossed his mind, but he realized that no one could have help fast enough before their boat would run into the rocks. He needed to stay focus and rely only in his ability. I feel for them as I did for us that night. It was a gale of 40 knots of wind and heavy rain that would make anyone wonder if sailing is so great after all. We all hated it that night!