Lake Worth, Florida, to Beaufort, North Carolina

Cool note that has nothing to do with our sail per se: After we exited the channel from Lake Worth, we saw two sea turtles on the ocean surface. Usually a turtle will dive when you get within ~20 feet of it, but these two just remained on the surface, nose to nose, like they were having a little kaffee klatch or something (“Well, I laid my eggs on the beach last night.” “Oh, did you? I figured I’d wait until tonight, when the waves are a bit smaller…”).

Back to our blog subject: Currently (no pun intended; all right, maybe a little) the Gulf Stream flows about four nautical miles east of the Lake Worth Inlet, Florida, where we started our run to North Carolina (NOAA weather radio gives information on Gulf Stream location). So our first 24 hours out we made a terrific 185 nautical miles out of about 500 total miles for the trip. The water of the Gulf Stream is beautifully clear and blue, and very deep. Our depth sounder worked well until about 400 feet depth, then went wonky until we came back in to a couple of hundred feet. A pretty nice feeling after all the shallows in Florida. There was a low-pressure system in Florida during our run, and it produced lots of thunderstorms. We were successful in avoiding many, but not all of them. One of them, however, gave us a fantastic rainbow, as seen here over Chris’ shoulder. We could see the entire arc, and it even doubled for a short time.

Our last day out was beautifully clear, and Chris tossed a line over the side. We’re low-tech when it comes to fishing; a line with a lure and hook, attached to a cleat off of the stern of the boat. But it paid off, and he caught a beautiful mahi mahi! The fillets lasted us for three full days. Delicious!