Why Lauren Landers Sailing stayed put instead of sailing to Tahiti

Lauren had planned to sail to Tahiti to handle errands, but the wind was blowing 25 to 30 knots and she decided to wait for a better window of around 10 knots. The night before she finally moved, conditions were even more challenging: the wind came over the mountains and would swing from dead calm to gusts of 30-plus knots within seconds, every couple of minutes. She was anchored close to a coral reef and spent the night worrying about losing her keel. At 3:30 in the morning the wind died, then shifted again, pushing her even closer to coral, so she moved anchor in the dark. She describes it as exhausting but notes the pick-up and drop were easy because the wind had completely died by then.