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We were up at 3;30 AM and underway at 4 AM sharp. Tide Hiker led the way out in the dark as we had our "mouse tracks" from our arrival to follow. The sky was clear and there was a slice of the moon, but the shore lights were very distracting. The water was dead calm. Cavara followed in our wake. All went well and we were out of the entrance in less than 30 minutes.
Once we got off shore into 50' of water we started working our way around the southern coast of the island. We passed Freeport where there is an oil refinery with a big off shore unloading facility that we needed to avoid and a big cement plant (closed) and a container transshipment facility.There was 4 or 5 very large ships at anchor.
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| Sunrise |
After 3 short legs for a total of about 10 miles we were able to adopt our final course for Ft Pierce of 306 degrees true. We would be on this course for about 100 miles. From the start we picked up about 1/2 knot current and as we reached into the Gulf Stream our speed slowly picked up until re reached a peak of 9 knots about 40 miles from Ft Pierce, after which it started to bleed off. Overall, we average just over 8 kts for the whole 112 NM. At one point the auto pilot "offset" for the current was about 14 degrees.
Meanwhile the weather was absolutely perfect. In the morning the seas were glassy with maybe a long 1 foot swell. Later in the day we may have seen a 2' swell, but no chop. We took turns taking a nap and it was just wonderful snoozing below feeling the boat move and hearing the water swishing along the hull. The only noteworthy event was spotting a very large black "bull" shark.
Ten miles or so from the coast our USA cell phones started to work so we spent an hour or so calling kids and friends.
We had estimated our travel time to be 14 hours and ETA at the channel buoy to be 6:00 PM, and we arrived 5 minutes late! Barb had arranged a reservation at a marina and we were secure by 7:00 PM. We were flying out quarantine flag so first job was to call Customs and get cleared in. Everyone was in bed by 9 PM
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| Cavara behind up |
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