December 19-22, 2000 -- The Calm, The Storm, The Exit

On December 19, the winds were calm in the morning, so we took advantage of that and stayed quiet. The winds slowly started building after noon, so we started checking our fenders. Around 7:00 PM, the winds hit 40 for about 15 minutes, before dropping below 25 again, where they would stay for most of the rest of the night. On December 20, The winds dropped below 20 early this morning. It looks like there will be a weather window for tomorrow. In preparation, we headed out to the grocery store, and to Wal Mart to get an electric blanket. We returned to the boat and continued getting ready to go off shore. On a whim, we invited a couple of friends to go with us. They have been stuck in St. Mary's almost as long as we have been stuck in Fernandina Beach. Unfortunately, they can't take advantage of this weather window because they are waiting on packages. They arrived around 8:00 PM, and we left the dock around 0313 GMT (10:30 PM) because of forecast winds on Friday afternoon. The first part of the trip was very cold! We stood shortened watches, so that no one would get too cold! By morning, things started warming up a bit. At 1350 Bob spotted a dolphin off the starboard bow. At 1509, Mike did his flipper call, it is now officially an offshore passage. At 1720, Mike spotted a school of dolphins with babies. At 2129, I spotted dolphins, in fact one did a flip at the bow. At 0413 on December 22, the Coast Guard reported a partially submerged vessel at 76 degrees 41 minutes by 82 degrees 01 minutes. They later clarified that it was a 60 foot tug that had sunk! At 0925, shortly before we came to the Lake Worth inlet, Mike flipped the raycor filters on our main engines. At 1230 GMT December 22, we dropped anchor in Lake Worth. After taking a nap, Brenda and I went to the grocery store to get a turkey for Christmas