blown away.................. from P

We had a quick, exciting sail yesterday - only about 15 miles - from Marathon harbor to Bahia Honda. We averaged 6.5 knots with only a reefed jib sail, bouncing and rolling on the 4 foot seas. It is blowing like the proverbial hounds of hell down here. We have anchored off the Bahia Honda beach once before and loved it, but conditions were different then. We set two anchors yesterday afternoon, then at sunset we realized we were dragging, so we had to pull them both up and reset. We are holding well right now. Today is the ninth straight day of winds from the east averaging 20 knots windspeed. My anemometer is currently showing 19 knots, then it goes up to 25 with the gusts. The NOAA promises two more days of this. This will definitely break our old record of continuous high winds. We had hunkered down on a mooring ball in Marathon harbor but our week was up, and it was time to head toward Key West. This is a stop along the way. We have to be in KW by Friday afternoon, as my brother is flying in to sail with us for a while. We are anchored 300 feet from the beach (in the lee) in about 9 feet of water, and we are bouncing and pitching so hard that we had to hold with one hand so that we could pour our cereal with the other. So much for getting in a snorkel trip this week. Right now we are just hanging on, and planning for another wild sail tomorrow.