August 13, 2007 -- TOASTED!!

Ran up to Cape Canaveral then went Offshore – to Charleston hopefully

Ohhh it was hot on anchor last night. I didn’t want to run the Genset and AC just yet -- too much new stuff to deal with. The batteries were down to 11.95 Volts by morning – not good – 3 year old AGM batteries.

We got underway early – 7:15am. However the Lighthouse Windlass looked like it was slipping on the retrieval with only a moderate load on it.

We made it to the Barge canal of Cape Canaveral by 11am. We encountered the first Bascule bridge at 11:10am and had to wait 20 minutes for it to open. Then we went onto the Lock. I called when it was in site and I was informed that a Government ship was coming through the Bascule bridge and would immediately enter the locks. We needed to wait and KEEP CLEAR!! That process took nearly 40 minutes..The “Government” ship that came through was a NASA vessel – big whoop huh.. Then our turn came and it went pretty well – only 10 minutes. We went right through the triple Bascule bridges and entered the Cape Canaveral port proper.

We hailed Cape Marina about 12:30pm for accessing the fuel dock. Repeated calls went unanswered. We finally just landed and I searched for the office on foot. I spoke with a woman there and she explained that it was lunch time and there would be no one available until after 1pm.. This is a BIG place!! We took advantage of the time to bring the dinghy aboard and lash it down. I had trouble getting out of the dinghy and back on the side of the boat so I just let go and fell into the water – to both cool off and get back on Temptation via the Swim platform.

Ohh it was HOT!!! The fuel attendant finally showed up but admitted he was new to the job.. He could not get the pump to come on so it would pump continuously. Finally someone else showed up and we moved to another pump.

The gauge showed ½ full but it only took 23 gallons to fill it up. I also filled the 4 deck 6-gallon deck cans for an additional 24 gallons.

Ohh it was hot – I was beginning to wilt but Buck was going strong – thank goodness. We then filled the water tanks and took a few minutes to cool off. We finally left the Fuel dock at 2:30pm and headed for sea. It was a great day with calm seas – this is definitely going to be a motor trip.

We set up on a 3 hour watch with me going first followed by Kourtney then Buck. We just ate snacks and leftovers for dinner and just motored into the evening.

The evening was mild then about 11pm the wind clocked to our starboard side. Soon we were moderately rolling to beam on waves.

My next watch was 12am – 3am. Five minutes into it Kourtney came up and hung on the rail – she did not feel well. Uh Oh and she was supposed to relieve me at 3am!! Doesn’t look good.

She stayed in the cockpit and focused on the horizon awhile. Then rolled up in a sheet and slept awhile. Wow at 3am she was a new person. She felt good and did her whole watch – that was GREAT.

I couldn’t sleep very well – my fan didn’t work well and I was just too keyed up – the motion was unpleasant also. I slept maybe 2 hours. At 6am when Buck took over I made coffee and watched the sunrise with him.

It was a long night. I saw 3 large boats pass us at 6 – 10 nm away. When waiting for dawn – it never comes soon enough.

Overall not a bad night for our first one at sea.