The sunrise picture above was taken as we entered the Hawk Channel early yesterday morning. I personally hope it is the last sunrise I will witness for at least a week or so. This leaving at, as our friend Jennifer on m/v Close Knit would say, the butt crack of dawn gets old fast. However, we wanted to be ahead of the big winds they were calling for in the keys. They were supposed to arrive in the early afternoon but fortunately they didn't show up until late afternoon.

As it turned out we made very good time and ended up having to slow down and wait for the tide to rise. It was a race to see who would be last between us and s/v Gypsy Song. Turned out we followed them through the channel and picked up a ball at about the same time. Of course since it was Thanksgiving and there was no one to assign us a ball we ended up moving to a new ball first thing this morning

Last night, after snacks and drinks on s/v KIT with Steve and Kathy, we came back to the boat and forced ourselves to stay awake until sailors' midnight (9:00 p.m.) Even at that I had a hard time not getting up out of bed before sunrise. Even Ben was up early and playing his tin whistle before seven this morning. But not to worry, Ben is a normal teenager and he'll get back into the sleeping in routine in the next day or two.