And The Days Really Are Getting Longer!

SHIP'S LOG:

Every morning when I arise, I make coffee and sit in the cockpit and wait for the sunrise. Some mornings this means bundling up but most mornings the air is still, even if cold, and the coffee helps keep the chill off. I also listen to NOAA, I am not sure why, but part of their "presentation of products" as they like to say, is the time of sunrise and sunset at the local location. For most of the journey, the time of sunrise kept getting later and later and the time of sunset kept getting earlier and earlier. Perhaps it was the cold, but when it changed on December 21st/22nd I really wasn't paying much attention . In fact, I only noticed that the time of sunrise was getting earlier and earlier and the time of sunset was getting later and later a few days ago. That will give you an idea of how much I need a good jolt of coffee in the morning. But it is a wonderful thing, the days getting longer. Of course, actually we are just getting more hours of daylight and less of night, but who cares about the mechanics of the thing, summer is nigh. well, if not nigh, it is coming . . . eventually. Trust me on this.

I spent about an hour setting up the course to Fort Stuart. I am surprised that it took that long but then I am a bit out of practice. Basically it is a very straight run from here to the Port St. Lucie Inlet in Stuart( don't ask why the St. Lucie Inlet is not in Port St. Lucie or why they didn't call it the Fort Stuart Inlet) and then are convoluted stagger, through another "Hell Gate" - that's three on this trip - and into "Hooker Cove" on the St. Lucie River/ Okeechobee Waterway. It is a little over 20 miles as the dolphin swims, the weather is supposed to be nice and it should be a piece of cake.

I talked to Chuck Estell tonight and asked him about the rest of the east coast. He has done it a couple of times when drought prevented him from using the St. Lucie Canal across the Everglades. He agrees that anchorages are few in number between here and Miami but that from Miami down it is wide open. He is going to plow through his journals and see if he can come up with any spots that I don't already have down. I hope he does have a few because I will be unable to overnight in any marinas and I am not thrilled with the prospect of trying to do the distance in two big bites.

Strangely, even though I haven't finished going south, I find myself contemplating the journey back north.The turn around is still a good month and a half away, I have been thinking of some of the people and places that i Hope to see again on the way north. There are places that I have missed and/or by-passed ( Elizabeth City and the free wine and cheese for instance) that I would like to see and some places that I would like to spend more time in, like Charleston. And when I find myself thinking about that too much, I remind myself that I really don't have much of a tan, I haven't been swimming, I haven't seen "a Green Flash" and most of New England is buried under record snow and freezing with record low temperatures. That stops those "northerly" thoughts right quick! Onward!