We woke to heavy fog this morning. Our starting time was planned for 9:30 but it was 11:30 before we left the dock. Sailing to the Bahamas has begun.
After the fog rolled off we had to be content with motoring due to lack of wind. One and a half hours later we felt enough wind to convince us to put our sails up. We sailed at a maximum speed of 4 knots but we were sailing. We anchored about 5 hours after we started in the Manatee River. We will spend tomorrow here as well. There is great hiking in a forest preserve right where we are anchored. Tomorrow night we will be joined by 2 other boats. Can you say Party time. We will sail together for a while on Thursday but the other two boats are on a schedule to reach Miami and we are not. We will take our time and do some exploring as we head around the tip of Florida. Day one was hard to get started and leave the security of the Marina but we did it. Marina life was very enjoyable and we met a lot of people and made some good friends. Sitting in the harbor tonight with just the sounds or nature are what we really want out of sailing. We are looking forward to many more fun days to come.