Florida or Bust!! - Crossing the Stream

Anchor to Anchor

April 22, 2010 Mackie Shoal, Great Bahama Bank to Ft. Pierce, Florida

28 hours - 140 miles

La 27.28.3'N Lo 080.19.6'W

With a fair wind upon us we abandoned our plan to stage for our crossing to Florida, at Bimini, and decided to start our passage from Mackie Shoal, on the banks.

We sailed on a course of 316 degrees true off of the Great Bahama Bank with perfect wind (N/E 10-15 knots) into an absolutely breathtakingly beautiful sunset. While marvelling at the multitude of colours in the sky we noticed a red squiggly line in the distance at 330 degrees true. A cruise ship was passing and we wondered if they had fired a flare but we quickly concluded that the space shuttle had launched, (Cape Canaveral being 130 miles across the open Atlantic waters off our starboard bow).

We watched in awe as the shuttle sped (seemingly) towards us overhead, the air visibly streaming around it, vapour trail pouring behind. As it appeared to reach our location we clearly viewed the fuel tanks dropping away. The look that Barry and I exchanged was priceless as we both attempted to ascertain whether the shuttle's discarded appendage would burn up in the atmosphere or drop into the sea (or our cock-pit). Well, we didn't see anything splash so we can only assume it burned up.

As we slipped off of the Great Bahama Bank into the very deep Atlantic Ocean waters we were over-whelmed by the strong smell of fish. Obviously the waters were dense with them as they came up against the shallow banks.

We had a great sail through the night but regrettably at dawn as the brilliant red, fire-ball sun rose behind us, the wind died out. We were about half way across when we commenced motor-sailing.

We rode the Gulf Stream north as best we could between the towed barges and freighters and worked our way north along Florida's coast, entering at the Ft. Pierce Inlet.

Unable to reach U.S. Customs by phone on the toll-free number we received in Culebra when we bought our cruising permit, we ended up both going by taxi to the Ft. Pierce airport to check in.

Florida found - l831 miles and 84 days from Grenada