The weather looks terrible, lets go sailing anyway

Alright alright, we should have known better but it's been so long since we've been sailing and had a few days on the boat.

Sure the forecast was saying 20-25knots (and gusts a little higher) which in itself I have no problem with.  In fact it's 'spirited sailing'  The issue was, we wanted to go to Fitzroy Island.  It's our little escape location.  But sadly it lies directly upwind of us once we get out of the harbour.

Our little Westsail 32 is a heavy full keeled boat that does go to windward 'OK' but she has a bluff bow.  A bluff bow is great because she's a pretty dry boat as any waves we hit are pushed to the side and dont come raining down over the top and onto us in the cockpit.  One the other hand, the energy used to push the water to the sides is taken from the forward motion....meaning we go slow down and in some sever cases if the waves are steep and tall enough she will nearly stop.  

So to try and counter this we would bear away (point a little away from the wind) to gain some speed at the cost of direction to our detination.  Then we dicovered that not only we're we dealing with the normal amount of leeway those same steep and tall waves would push us sideways making our true leeway even worse.

So after sailiong for 2 hours and making an actual 1NM toward our detination we had a quick discission and decided we would head to Mission Bay in the shelter of Cape Grafton and anchor there for the night.  

Two reefs in the main and only the Stay Sail up, the boat was safe but the reality of having Fitzroy and our destination was not so good.

We werent the only boat the hide in the bay that afternoon.  

So after a long day and virtually sailing on the spot we settled down to a not too rolly night.

In the morning, after checking the latest forecasts we decided to head back to our mooring and make plans to try again when the winds are a little more forgiving.