Leaving Belize - some foreshadowing

11-11-91
We spend 3 days at Bluefield, the Norther hit but not a very strong one. The wind is still out of the NW but expect it to finally switch around, a good window to Mujeres. So we are off, the northern entrance to Bluefield is narrow and tricky but I feel the light is right and decide to try it, not so sure when we get out there but it does look like a break in the reef over there, here it goes! Kinda blustry gloomy morning, the wind still on the nose up to English channel with a little drizzel. We cut across the Flats and at noon we are sailing out into the Carribean, Good-bye Belize. We make a tight tack I hope will clear us of Lighthouse reef, still waiting for the wind to shift and it isn’t cooperating. As night falls the lighthouse is abeam and we have clear water, the seas look pretty big after so long in the river and behind the reef. As night progresses, Heather is pretty freaked out about doing her watch alone, I stay up a little while to talk and she discovers that it will be okay, hah! On her second watch she wakes me, the wind has shifted and she can’t hold the course, should we tack? Against the wind and unabated current we haven’t done very well at all, so I agree but for some reason Palantir won’t come around into the wind. Finally after a bout 8 tries I give up and it does seem the wind has shifted back so we are making a course. Later I wonder our fate if we had been sucessful in tacking.