After a day delay, which we actually needed just to get ourselves packed and the boat provisioned, we had mom and dad drop us of in Stuart midday. We had already picked up a new block (pulley) and the only thing left was to hoist Derek up the mast (all the way up) for a block replacement. After knot tying lessons with me, he finally figured out the bowline knot and up the mast he goes. You realize how tall our mast is when you have to physically hoist a 165 lb man 60 feet with a line and a winch!
After an hour or so, Derek was back down on the boat deck. After a quick engine fluid check, Soul was powered up and ready for her next great leg of the journey! We left the docks around 2 PM and opted to take on the St. Lucie Inlet...never done it before, it was low tide, just dredged and we really didn't have any desire to motor all the way to West Palm in the Intracoastal Waterway. So, in a sand shifting inlet, we carefully navigated out to the open ocean, the lowest water was about 4.2 feet, so there is definitely some sand moving on the bottom, but with our 3.5 ft draw, we were out in open water in no time.
The winds were great, so we hoisted the main, unfurled the jib and shut down the engines. The Gulf Stream is only 5-7 miles offshore near Stuart, FL and its current runs NE, so we tried to grab the counter current closer to shore so we weren't fighting the current all the way to West Palm. We sailed under clear skies to Lake Worth inlet and an hour before sunset anchored up south of Peanut Island. We radioed "Luna Sea" (Steve and Bonnie) to confirm a 3:30AM rendezvous on the outside of the inlet for our sister sail to the Bahamas!!!