Offshore running up the Florida coastline
It was still a little roily this morning with the beam seas still working us over. No wind to sail by yet.
We just sailed along and kept moving up the coast. We were between 30 and 32 miles offshore today. We did not have any cell phone coverage out here but the VHF would chatter a bit. We did not try to call anyone though. Around 4 pm we’re approaching the St Mary’s River Sea Buoy and when about 7 miles offshore the cell phones worked again. We all checked in with loved ones then.
At one point around 11:30am we stopped and killed the engine. It was dead calm on the water. Kourtney and I went for a “mid” ocean swim. She was nervous after watching Shark Week last week, but I was giving the sharks a fighting chance since I had a tuna sandwich for lunch and thus tuna fish on the breath. We put the 24 gallons of diesel we had on the deck into the tank. I checked the engine oil level and it was fine. We fired up and continued on.
It was another hot one this afternoon with little wind and a heat index of 105 –110 degrees. We crossed the St. Mary’s Inlet around 4pm and entered Georgia – Florida GOODBYE!!
When we turned to hug the Georgia/South Carolina coast about 8 – 10 miles offshore the wind came up and we could finally sail. With just motor sailing with the Genoa we cranked the RPMs back to 2000 and sailed at 7.3 – 7.9 knots – felt great. Buck analyzed the control line on the Genoa and determined that the current application was totally impractical. No way to properly reef the sail – we worked out an arrangement to add later that would address this problem. Now this is a proper shakedown cruise. We planned to drop the sail around dark since thunderstorms were expected tonight.
At 7pm the crew is relaxing in the cockpit reading after a dinner of sandwiches and pickles and beer of course. I’m on watch from 6 – 9pm followed by Kourtney then Buck.
The sailing life is good.
It was still a little roily this morning with the beam seas still working us over. No wind to sail by yet.
We just sailed along and kept moving up the coast. We were between 30 and 32 miles offshore today. We did not have any cell phone coverage out here but the VHF would chatter a bit. We did not try to call anyone though. Around 4 pm we’re approaching the St Mary’s River Sea Buoy and when about 7 miles offshore the cell phones worked again. We all checked in with loved ones then.
At one point around 11:30am we stopped and killed the engine. It was dead calm on the water. Kourtney and I went for a “mid” ocean swim. She was nervous after watching Shark Week last week, but I was giving the sharks a fighting chance since I had a tuna sandwich for lunch and thus tuna fish on the breath. We put the 24 gallons of diesel we had on the deck into the tank. I checked the engine oil level and it was fine. We fired up and continued on.
It was another hot one this afternoon with little wind and a heat index of 105 –110 degrees. We crossed the St. Mary’s Inlet around 4pm and entered Georgia – Florida GOODBYE!!
When we turned to hug the Georgia/South Carolina coast about 8 – 10 miles offshore the wind came up and we could finally sail. With just motor sailing with the Genoa we cranked the RPMs back to 2000 and sailed at 7.3 – 7.9 knots – felt great. Buck analyzed the control line on the Genoa and determined that the current application was totally impractical. No way to properly reef the sail – we worked out an arrangement to add later that would address this problem. Now this is a proper shakedown cruise. We planned to drop the sail around dark since thunderstorms were expected tonight.
At 7pm the crew is relaxing in the cockpit reading after a dinner of sandwiches and pickles and beer of course. I’m on watch from 6 – 9pm followed by Kourtney then Buck.
The sailing life is good.
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