As planned, we left Miami on Sunday, February 13th. Our friends Dawn, Chris and Holly came down on Saturday for a nice dinner celebration and to see us off the next morning. The morning was spectacular - 75 degrees, sunny, perfect wind conditions. After much fanfare (pictures, streamers, noisemakers, etc) our departure began without a hitch. Actually, we lost three fenders overboard before we got out to the open ocean, but they were all recovered successfully. We counted this as our first, and hopefully only, man overboard drill.

Within the first hour of the sail, we saw a few dolphins and caught a 5lb tuna. The new radar worked spectacularly. The watermaker, on the other hand, didn't, but was quickly fixed once we arrived in Key West. The seas were pretty rough all night, so none of us felt great, but we averaged 7-8 knots and made it down to Key West in about 20 hours ahead of schedule!