Day 93, Year 11: Passage to FL, Day 4—WINDY
Date: Saturday, January 23, 2016
Weather: Overcast, High 50, Low 30 F Tonight F; Wind 20 WNW
Location: Fernandina Harbor Marina Mooring Field, Fernandina Beach, FL
Today was spent inside the boat listening to the wind roaring outside. About 5:30 am, the wind piped up to 25 with higher gusts. It was so loud it woke me up and that’s no easy feat. I couldn’t sleep, so I finally got up and just listened to the weather on the HAM radio. Mark coughed a lot last night, which kept him awake much of the night, but this morning he was able to sleep and sleep he did. His cold seemed worse this morning, but is better this afternoon. So maybe the sleep helped. And this evening the wind is back down to 20 knots which sounds calm. If the wind actually calms down to less than 10 knots from the WNW by tomorrow morning, we have decided to make a short run outside and down to Cape Canaveral. Port Canaveral is one of the six big ship channels on the east coast of Florida, so it will be safe to duck in there on Monday and head to Coco Beach via the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) for Monday night. We’ll then stay in the ICW from there to West Palm Beach, arriving on Thursday or Friday if all goes well. Our hope to go all the way to Palm Beach on the outside has been thwarted by stronger than previously predicted south winds coming in on Monday evening. So we’ll just do a little outside and then a little inside. Once there we will decide what comes next. We are starting to rethink our Bahamas trip. Instead of going further south in Florida and then across to the Exuma islands, we are considering leaving from West Palm Beach and going across to the Abacos which are islands further north in the Bahamas. We’ll keep studying the possibilities and make our decision while in West Palm.
Last night I got an email from long-time friend, Patsy Decker. We met Patsy and her husband Eric through our son Justin back in the 1980’s and have kept in touch over the years. She read my log last night and emailed to see if we could get together for lunch today in Fernandina Beach. She and Eric spent the last two weeks in Cedar Key on the Gulf Coast of Florida and were heading north today. They would be driving right past here on I 95 and it would have been a great opportunity to get together. I had hope that we could launch the dinghy and go to shore, but when I got up this morning to that roaring wind I knew it was a lost cause. Getting the dinghy off the deck and into the water in these winds would have been difficult, maybe even dangerous, and the dinghy motor hasn’t been run since October. Reliable as our old motor is, you never know if you are going to have difficulties after such a long rest. Last year when we got to this area and launched the dinghy, the motor wouldn’t start. We had to have it serviced in Coco Beach before we could use it. So the whole proposition was just too risky. Patsy did call this afternoon and we talked for a bit. She and Eric now live in Chapel Hill instead of in Salisbury, Maryland, so maybe when we return to Little River in the spring we can meet.
When Patsy Decker and I were texting back and forth this morning, at one point she said, “It’s snowing in Lake City!” And when I talked to her this afternoon, she confirmed that they had snow flurries in more than one place in northern Florida. We will have a freeze in this county tonight, but nothing like those of you north of us are having. We talked to Ed and Lynne in Nyack, NY this afternoon and they confirmed that the white stuff has been coming down all day, accompanied by lots of wind. Later in the evening we talked to the Goldpebbles and they said Cape Cod was getting lots and lots of snow and plenty of wind as well. We called them because we got tagged on a photo Heather posted on Facebook. Today was the Boy Scout Pinewood Derby race and Sam and Jonah walked away with 1st and 2nd place overall. In addition, Sam won 1st place for his Den, Jonah won 1st place for his, and Jed entered a car in the Scout Masters race and he won that. While we were there recently, Granddad helped all three boys shape their cars and start the sanding process. After we left, Jed helped them with the painting and the placement of the weight in the underside of the car. This is obviously the key to winning and Jed has that figured out perfectly. Ollie is not yet a Scout, but he made a car and was absolutely delighted to be included. Congratulations to the Goldpebbles!
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| 160123 Day 93 Passage to Florida–Day 4, Pinewood Derby Winners |
