It is interesting to watch the latitude (N26 xx.xxx) change - I am truly making progress heading north! Check out this on Google maps. This is why I would never want to live down here. There is not a square inch not developed down here. Wall to wall houses. Oh well, it works for some people.

A couple more pics for you today. You guys might think I am nuts, but the picture of the guy on the catamaran is there because at one point I turned around and there he was, sailing right behind me in the same direction about 50 feet back. Never saw him coming. This was about 3 miles offshore. But you can also tell that it was a light wind day. Absolutely gorgeous, but it made for a slow day sailing. Slow that is, until I found something: the Gulf Stream. I must have been on the edge of it based on where the Navy Oceanography something or another that reports on these kinds of things says the center of it is today, but I was loping along at 4 knots hull speed when all of a sudden I looked at the GPS and I was doing 8.2 kts. This boat doesn't sail that fast, even with all conditions perfect. The difference of course was the current of the Gulf Stream carrying me along. Amazing! See Peter, I was listening! Anyway, I did that for about 3 hours and that really helped me make up time of when I was hardly moving at all. All told, I travelled 48 miles in exactly 8 hours, left Ft. Lauderdale at 0645 and arrived at the Lake Worth inlet at 1445. What a great day!

I also worked on a couple of projects at the end of the day. One was to adjust the nut where the propeller shaft exits the hull to slow down a drip that is supposed to happen (lubricates the cutlass bearing where the shaft travels through to the outside) and the other was to do the final run of the wires for the wind generator. I always hate doing that kind of thing on the boat because it means I have to do my Harry Houdini impersonation and fit my body into places it is not meant to be. Anyway, those things are both done and I am very happy about that.

The other picture is of a boat nearly identical to Kristinly which sailed beside me all day and even anchored in the same anchorage. His main sail furls into the mast, but other than that, it looks identical to Kristinly. I tried to hail him several times on the radio but no answer. I could see the name on the transom: Lady M and they are from Quebec. Maybe they don't speak English! Anyway, Lady M is nearly a mirror image of Kristinly and I saw them taking pictures of us also. It would be cool if they are traveling all the way back north (and they are nice people) to kind of hook up and sail together, assuming our plans would be the same. It will be interesting to see if they leave at the same time tomorrow. If they do, I will just drive up beside them and introduce myself. They can run but they can't hide!

I have made my plans for the next several days. I will sail 54 miles to Ft. Pierce tomorrow and spend the night there. Thursday will be a long day sailing 71 miles to Cape Canaveral. And then Friday will be the beginning of another overnighter, sailing 154 miles to the Saint Johns River. The weather forecast is very good, although fairly light winds, and so I will sail outside from inlet to inlet. I can make much better time that way by not having to deal with bridge openings and zing zagging through the ICW. This is all subject to change should the weather change, but that's the plan. As I have said many times to my colleagues at VCS, the only thing you know for sure about a plan is it's wrong. Being flexible enough to adapt to new circumstances is what kept me alive in the business world, and it sure as hell will help do that (literally) out here.

I need to take a shower - it was 86 degrees today and I was very hot and sweaty when working down below for two hours at the end of the day. I stink! I know, TMI!