Day 94, Year 11: Passage to FL, Day 5—Headed Down the Florida Coast
Date: Sunday, January 24, 2016
Weather: Sunny, High 48, Low 38 F Tonight F; Wind 3-5 NE
Latitude: 30 06.962 N
Longitude: 081 17.081W
Location: Motor Sailing 3 Miles Off the Coast, 12 Miles N of St. Augustine
Miles Traveled: 42 nautical miles (9:30 am to 4:30 pm)
The wind is gone for now, the sun is shining with not a cloud in the sky, but the cool temperatures are following us south. Tomorrow we will be south of Cape Canaveral and the temperature should start inching up. So life is good. In last night’s log I said we would probably duck in at Cape Canaveral and finish the trip to West Palm on the inside. But we won’t be doing that. Thanks to Active Captain, we read last night that the lock in the Canaveral Barge Canal is only open from 6-7 am and after 5 pm due to construction. It should again be open all day after the 1st of February, but that doesn’t help us much right now. We wouldn’t want to enter the canal in the dark, so we have decided to head on down the coast. We are going to hope that the WeatherUnderground forecast is right and that NOAA is not. WeatherUnderground does not predict the stronger SE winds, so hopefully we will just have 10 knots of adverse wind, not 15-20. In any case, we should now arrive in West Palm Beach on Tuesday morning. As always, that statement is subject to change. The weather rules and we’ll see where it leads us.
For now we are just motoring along with only the main sail up to steady us. There is a 2-3 foot swell that gives us a gentle roll with what wind there is right behind us. It is cozy and warm in the cockpit and there is a full moon tonight which makes it my favorite kind of passage night. With a full moon, the moon rises when the sun sets and sets when the sun rises giving us light all night long.
My favorite photos of today are attached: a shrimp boat in Fernandina, sand dunes covered with vegetation on Fernandina Beach, and a “borrowed photo of the whale’s tail sculpture in Woods Hole in the snow.
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| 160124 Day 94 Passage to Florida–Day 5, Leaving Fernandina |
