Departure day

   We have a 165 mile ocean passage to do this week. Forecast said 3-4' seas, 10-12kt winds. My, how forecasts change. So not we are facing another small craft advisory, this means it will be rough, and windy.
5'-6' seas will be the sailing conditions, with 7's Saturday night. We may see 12' sets. With the high wind we may just run the 90% jib, alone. With just this one headsail we will most likely go about 6-8kts. Should make for a quick passage. If money was not tight I would be tempted to keep going to key west.

   The waves are forecast to be right on the beam, woohoo, lots of rolling about tonight! The wind forecast says we will be sailing down wind. I am tempted to use the foresail, but the wind will be so high, 25kts, I would have to have 3 reefs in it. What I desire to work out is how do some sailors lash off the wheel, and in what conditions? I have seen it done on videos, but when? That would be a nice break to not use the autopilot. In fact we will try to hand steer most of the trip, with the exception of when i am sleeping on watch tonight.

It has been so cold here lately that the water from the hose was ice cold, after they turned it on today.

   Here you can see the condensation on the water fill pipe. Cold drinks today! 

   We finally have the dingy well secured, and no lashings on the deck. I ran the spinnaker halyard to the bow pulpit,  so it is not out of the way, and very secure. I guess if i was a pro i would use the spinnaker on this downwind trip, but if i get off a bit, we would broach, and Dana would be cross.

   Goodbye SJYH. I can say this place is very nice. There are a bunch of things i enjoyed,and a few i did not. The best part was the courtesy car. The docks are very clean, power is high quality. The inter net was sort of fixed while we were here, but they are strict on the policy's. Far from an open net. The staff is nice, most of them. There is a bar, and it does attract a roudy crowd, but is far enough from the docks, you do not hear them.

   

   What bugged me? There is an abundance of full time, multi-year, residents here. Many of those have very very very run down boats, and do not bother to keep them nice looking. One of them is building a pilot house out of plywood. The internet is restricted, and monitored. The area is nice, but far from anything, so you cannot walk someplace, you must drive.

Look for a video of our departure if I get the camera charged in time.