Aboard s.v. Trudy Mae

We arrived in Titusville as planned on Thursday and anchored out in front of the Titusville Municipal Marina. We arrived early enough to hop in the dinghy and go in and check out the neighbourhood before heading back and cooking supper.

As predicted, the winds kicked up on Friday ...and Saturday...but it was still warm. We did a bit of shopping and caught up on a few maintenance jobs...but mostly relaxed and read and enjoyed the weather.

When we went to bed on Saturday night the sky was clear and the Endeavour launch was still a 'go' with an 80% chance the weather would be clear enough at the 4:39 am launch time. We set the alarm for 3:45 am and went to bed.

At 3:45 when the alarm went off...we hit the snooze button...but just once. Then we were up checking the sky, the NASA website, making coffee and trying to find a radio station covering the launch. The latest update on the NASA website said they were still a 'go' if the weather cleared. Doug managed to find a radio station covering the launch at about 4:30....just in time for the announcement that they were 'scrubbing' the launch due to the weather and were going to try again the following morning at 4:14 am...so we went back to bed.

Sunday was another windy day, but that allowed the luxury of watching the entire Superbowl (and all of the American Superbowl commercials) AND enjoying cold beer as the wind generator had no problem keeping up with our energy consumption.

We checked the NASA website before turning in and it reported a 60% probability for launch dependant on the weather. We set the alarm again and crossed our fingers.
At 3:45 the alarm went off and we hopped out of bed and repeated the same routine as the previous night. Patchy clouds filled the sky, but NASA said the weather in Florida was fine, but in order to launch at least one of the 3 alternate landing sites (in Spain and France) had to have clear weather as well...so we waited. About 5 minutes before the scheduled launch NASA announced the weather had cleared at one of the alternate landing sites and they were a 'go' for launch.

We listened to the count down on the radio while standing in the cockpit, camera poised. At 5 seconds to go the sky lit up and it was like sunset in reverse as this huge fireball of light silently lifted off the horizon. It was so bright you couldn't distinguish the shuttle from the rockets it was attached to...it was just one big glowing ball of light rising in the sky. There was a full 5 seconds of silence before the thunderous roar of liftoff travelled the 5 miles between us and the launch pad and engulfed us. Endeavour climbed up past the clouds and the bright sky faded back to darkness as the roar turned to a rumble and then faded back to silence. We watched until it looked like a bright star in the night sky...or maybe an orbiting satellite. It was all over in less than a minute.

We continued to listen to the radio, but after a few minutes they returned to their regular programming once Endeavour was past the point where they could make an emergency landing at one of the alternate landing sites. The astronauts were 'safely' on their way to the space station...so we headed back to bed for a bit more sleep.