So to all of you who are following our story, my apologies for the delay in posting our latest updates and whereabouts! We’ve had very spotty internet at best over the past week or so, and every time I go to make a post, we’ve lost connection. HOWEVER, tonight we’re in Miami, and internet connection abounds, so I am going to play a little catch up on our doings of the past 10 days.
I believe that where I left off in our travels was our departure from beautiful St. Augustine…. headed to Canaveral. Our ride to Cape Canaveral was “epic” to quote the Hunter boys. We had a great run down, although somewhat rough due to the fact that the weather and wind predictions from NOAA and Passageweather.com were slightly off. We’d been hoping to catch the predicted weather window with some good Northwest winds to carry us down the coast and to Cape Canaveral. Unfortunately for us, the wind stayed Southwest, changing over to West for much of the trip, causing us to be sailing upwind for much of the way. The boat was heeled over to Port for much of the 20 hour trip, but on the fortunate side of things, despite having to sail close hauled for much of the way, we were able to hold our course for a good long stretch of the trip, only having to make a tack or two to reach our destination. Again, I thank my mom for my ability to sleep underway, and my lack of seasickness - which unfortunately our poor kitten experienced a little bout of. We got to Cape Canaveral without incedent, arriving at about 1:30 and we came through the locks at about 2. It was one of our more adventurous lockings, as it was pretty difficult with the current to tie up alongside, but we managed it. Unlike the locks we went through in the Dismal Swamp, the locks at Cape Canaveral were totally self service when it came to the tie up. The most exciting thing though about coming throug the locks was that we finally saw our first Manatee!! We crossed out of the locks and went to an anchorage just in the Banana River. Thankfully there were no launches scheduled, because just as we were about to go to bed our second night sitting there (as we were planning our trip out to Ft. Lauderdale/Port Everglades) we realized that we’d been anchored in a restricted zone designated as a safety zone for launches. Whoops!!! We actually sat at anchor in Cape Canaveral for two days/nights - sleeping much of the rest of the day on the day that we arrived, and then waiting out nasty cold wind for the next day and doing a few minor repairs before heading further south.
On the morning of the 20th, we pulled anchor and headed back through the locks (much easier the second time) and headed out of Cape Canaveral with our sights on Port Everglades. For the first 8 hours of our trip, we had lovely winds - full main up, Genny fully out with the wind off of our aft quarter and we were cruising along at a consistent 6.5+ knots going with the waves - a lovely sail. At about 5PM, the wind decided it was time to become squirrelly - shifting around 180 degrees back and oscillating between a good 10-15kts and a dismal 5kts or less… time to fire up the engine and motor sail. OK well you do what you have to do… so we kept plugging away. I went downstairs to nap while Brian drove awakening me at about 11. All was well, the engine was running beautifully, and the AutoPilot was doing much of the work, driving us along at a steady pace. Since I knew that Brian hadn’t had a good nap during his earlier break (due to the wind dying and the necessity of pulling in the Genny and turning on the engine) I bundled up, put on my headlamp, and hunkered down with my book, checking every few minutes visually, and popping downstairs every 30 to run the radar and check the chart to ensure that we were still on course. We got to our 3PM shift change… and as Brian and Skipper the kitten were both sound asleep downstairs, and I was coming close to the end of my book, I decided to let them both sleep for another hour or so, as everything was running smoothly and we were on course with nary a boat in sight. At quarter to 4, I went downstairs (having finished my book about 20 minutes previously) and woke Brian up. While he geared up, I put the kettle on for some tea, and when Brian came topsides with his tea, I went below to catch a few hours of sleep.
At a few minutes to 9, Brian poked his head below to wake me up. The sun was shining, the water was turquoise blue, there were flying fish jumping around us… and the autopilot had decided to quit about 30 minutes after I went to bed, so poor Brian had been actively steering the boat for the 5 hours or so that I had been sleeping. I quickly hopped into my foulies (more to ward off any chill than anything else) and popped topsides to relieve Brian so that he could catch a few hours of much needed sleep. We still had a couple of hours to go before we reached our waypoint for the turn into Port Everglades. While Brian slept, I steered the boat along our course - Genny out and engine running - taking us at a good clip along to our destination. I offered Skipper, who had come outside to lounge in the sun in the cockpit and keep me company, the lone flying fish that had made it onto the boat… no interest. At about noon we finally were approaching our turning point, so I woke Brian up, and we pulled in the Genny and turned into the channel to Port Everglades. On our way in, we got to witness something I’ve never seen before, a Coast Guard helicopter hovering over the channel and doing what looked like an in water rescue (although I don’t know, it could have been a drill). Regardless, we got to see the helicopter hoist someone in and out of the water while we were on our approach. They had cleared out by the time we reached the marker, and we cruised into Port Everglades, passing by a HUGE cruise ship that was docked at the entrance, turning through the turning basin, and making our way up the ICW channel to the anchorage at Lake Sylvia, which was quite lovely. Tired but thrilled to be in the warmth - we dropped anchor for a few hours, and while Brian slept, I reached out to our contact at Moran, Jamie, to let her know that we had arrived, and that we were going to catch a little rest before any next steps.
