April 26, 2022 - Back to Fort Pierce, Fla

April 26, 2022

1:00am- I got woken up from a deep sleep when we heard two guys talking on the VHF radio about passing Mangrove. We left the VHF radio on all night in case we needed to communicate with Sun Spirit. Right now we have no cell connection whatsoever to communicate.

2:00am- Made coffee in preparation for our departure from Mangrove to Fort Pierce. 

2:45am-Anchors up and off we go. For some reason, I always get excited when we leave in the dark. Wish I could take a photo of the sky. We can see the Milky Way. So beautiful. There is something special about leaving in the dark. Sun Spirit is right behind us.  

You can see the lights illuminating the sky from Freeport. 

3:45am-we put our radar on since we can see a bright light in the distance. One ship is going adjacent to us on our starboard and one is 5 miles ahead of us going to our starboard. Glad we have an AIS and radar. 

So far I have seen 2 falling stars. 

4:00am- As the approach the ship, we see on our AIS that the ships name is Grand Master and going at a speed of 9 knots. It is a supply boat. We can also see the other boat going 14 knots however don’t know their name yet since they are still too far to detect. 

As we got closer, we found out the other vessel was named Mermaid and was 120 ft long. We are not on a collision course. 

4:15am- Made another coffee for the Captain while he put out the head sail. 

4:30am- Unbelievable watching the orange crescent moon rise while viewing the Milky Way. I am surely going to miss this when I get home. It is unbelievably beautiful. 

4:45am- Steve pointed out Venus star appearing. The morning star. As the moon rises, it turned from orange to bright white and illuminates the sky and reflects on the water. 

6:45am- we watched the sunrise behind the “winglike” looking clouds. 

8:00am-  We both decided to eat tuna salad since we are hungry. Guess because we woke up so early, it feels like lunchtime. 

9:00am-  55 miles to go. We are motor sailing with the head sail up only to stabilize the boat rolling. We are getting a push from the current which helps. We have to keep shifting the sails from one side to the other. 

We kept hearing a distress signal from the US coast guard. Sounds like someone is in distress. 

9:30am- US Coast guard reported the distress call has been resolved. 

10:15am- We are starting to enter the Gulf Stream. The water gets hotter. Waves are 2-3 ft, following sea. 

We saw a seagull sitting in the water resting and then off he went towards the Bahamas.  Long way for him to go when you don’t see land all around us. 

11:00am- 42 miles left to go. Our ETA is showing arrival at 5:00pm. 

Besides Sun Spirit and the odd cargo boat, we don’t see any other boat.  

A lot of boaters were waiting until tomorrow to cross for some reason. 

For lunch, I made grouper, red cabbage and cheese quesadilla with a ginger ale. 

What more can my Captain ask for?  

1:00pm-  It is a lot more comfortable now. The wind at least fills our sails. No more cross waves. 

3:30pm- We we’re pleasantly surprised by 5 dolphins greeting us to Florida and swimming beside and at the bow of the boat. Always so exciting. 

4:00pm- We managed to get cellular connection and we’re able to report into Customs via CBP Roam. We had a video chat with the officer and he commented on our tan. We had to slow down the boat in order to hear him. He could see us but we couldn’t see him. Such an easy way to check in.  We covered 103nm today. 

It is weird to think we are in Florida. Steve called Fort Pierce City Marina to make reservations for possibly a week. The work will begin. Funny that we had to take out our fender and lines since we will not be anchoring. I prefer anchoring however it will make things easy to take everything out of the boat in preparation for haul out. 

Sue and Gunter will stay one night and then move on to their destination Green Cove Springs up by Jacksonville. 

5:00pm- Once we all got settled in our docks and showered, we went out for dinner. We were tired after a long day. In fact, Steve and I struggled to watch one series tonight. 

Here is where GAYa has been since January 1, 2022