High wind plus an opposing current equals one miserable night as we bounce along, getting smacked about on a frequent basis by the waves. As Steve would put it, "MTWR (as in Mr. Toad's Wild Ride)". At first I was concerned about Alex, as this is his first offshore experience and we weren't sure what he'd think of this.
Well obviously we didn't need to worry. He's in his glory, like a kid who has just been given a pass for unlimited rides on the roller coaster. Once we got through the night, we had a fix it day. First the head on the galley faucet broke off and we had to jury rig a clamp to keep the hose from retracting. Not to be out done, the lid and seat on the head came apart and had to be reassembled.
We should have known better than to touch the chart plotter during our current "winning streak", but it was time to put the Caribbean chip in it. We no sooner put the new chip in, when we lost all our data and way points. We rebooted multiple occasions and finally got the chart plotter back up, but lost some of the fine tuning navigation details we had programmed in. Alex's IT background came in handy as he patiently worked it out.
Andrea