We decided to leave Boot Key Harbor today instead of Thursday; nasty weather is coming Thursday night and Friday and we wanted to avoid it if at all possible. The plan is to be in Miaimi when the bad weather hits. We've recently noticed a significant change in the weather pattern down here. It's seems to be more humid with hot, sticky nights and thunderstorms more often. That's another factor fueling the decision to start to slowly head north. Also, more fronts seems to be coming thru on a regular basis.

Anyway, we dropped our mooring ball at 7:55 am and said goodbye to the City Marina folks. The wind is SE 15-20. At 9:00 am we put double reef main, reefed jib and staysail up without the engine. Doing 6.5 knots SOG. Wind 20 knots apparant, waves 2-4 feet.

Evenually we took the jib down so we wouldn't heel quite as much. More comfortable. That tended to slow us down a bit though. Now our SOG is 5 - 5.5 knots.

Around 1:15 pm we took the stay sail down and deployed the full jib sail to stop the wallowing in the waves. SOG 6.5 knots in 15 knots apparant wind.

Dropped the hook at Rodriguez Key at 4:30 pm. Turned out to be a terrific sail. Lots of company at Rodriguez.

52 miles