the Worst day of the year by Jack

posted by Jack

The worst day we've had so far was December 26th, 2019. We were going back to the Virgin Islands, it was a rather rainy day when we set off. The waves were steep and close together. The only good thing about that day was that a third of the way to St. Thomas we had a very strong bite on the fishing pole. It turned out to be a huge dolphin fish; it was so big we were worried that it was going to break the pole. It was putting up a huge fight and the line was starting to chafe through. We reeled it in to about fifteen feet behind the boat when it started to really fight again. It went under and it must have ripped its jaw or lip because it came off the hook.
The rest of the way to St. Thomas still had pretty bad waves. We made a pit stop in Charlotte Amalie and continued on to St. John. It started to rain and the chop got worse. Then a storm came and it rained harder, we were all cold, wet, and miserable. Then the wind was coming on the nose. Everyone started getting sea sick. There was a 180 degree wind shift and the chop was coming from three different directions. Then there was another 180 degree wind shift ,we tacked twice without turning. The seas were really confused. And just when we thought it couldn't get any worse the wind died and we had to motor, we lost about three knots of speed. Everyone was cold, wet, sea sick, and overall miserable. We don't have any pictures of it because nobody wanted to go below and get the camera.

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