Cape Canaveral, FL 27 November 2008

Happy Thanksgiving

Gordon and Joyce

November 26, 2008 Cape Canaveral, Florida

We motor sailed from West Palm Beach Florida to Cape Canaveral-mostly motored! The seas were a little confused for the first 4 hours with easterly swells and almost no wind. By midnight the seas were calm and the stars shone with very little moonlight, however since we were only a few miles off shore the shore lights shone bright. Very little traffic- a few boats heading south and when we got to Port Canaveral there was some shipping traffic waiting to come into the channel. It will be nice to spend Thanksgiving with mom and some of her friends at a Thanksgiving party being held by one of the church choir members. We slept yesterday and we are cleaning up the boat today. All the nooks and crannies are being checked and cleaned up spic and span!

November 20, 2008 West Palm Beach, Florida

We left Cape Canaveral on the morning of November 13th and arrived in West Palm Beach on the following morning. We had favorable winds and about three foot seas with a 2-3 foot swell. We did have an opposing current but we did need to slow the boat as we did not want to enter West Palm Beach in the dark so things worked out well. We have been at anchor at Lake Worth with many other boats waiting for the weather to bring fair winds and calm seas. It has been a week of consistent cold fronts every 3 days producing high seas and unfavorable winds to continue our journey south to the Keys and then northwest up the coast of Florida to Venice. The long term forecast does not look favorable for our journey south. We will most likely head back to Cape Canaveral on Monday and keep the boat there while we take the highway to our place in Venice! We are in a beautiful setting with lovely Florida Mansions as our backdrop. We have taken several dingy rides to the shore and have enjoyed walks to the Mall-even took in a movie to see the current James Bond flick.

November 10, 2008 Port Canaveral, Florida

I guess it is about time we did a log update. We had an uneventful trip from the Neuse River to Beaufort, N.C. and then out of the Intercoastal Waterway to the Atlantic Ocean. A good sail got us to Georgetown, South Carolina. Since it was still Hurricane season and our boat insurance prohibited us from going into Florida waters we left the boat in Georgetown , rented a car and drove to our place in Venice, Florida. It was nice to have some land downtime. After a week we headed back to South Carolina and then took a three day sail from Georgetown, South Carolina (which is about 40 miles north of Charleston) to Cape Canaveral Florida. The seas were calm and at night we had a brilliant 3/4 moon and saw several "falling stars " lighting up the skies. The last three hours as we approached the Cape, the winds picked up and a following sea had us in a sleigh ride to Port Canaveral. At 5 a.m. the cruise ships were sighted at the outer buoy not far from the channel into the port. We saw the launch pads about 10 miles off shore for miles before reaching the port. The next shuttle launch is a few days from now. We are resting up today and hope to do a 24 hour run to Miami.



The 2008 Wooden Boat Show was held in Georgetown while we were there. The participants have 4 hours to make a wooden boat and then they race it about 200 feet and hope they don't drown in a large leak. It was fun to watch the crown cheering their favorites to the finish line. Many of the racers got caught in a swift current that steered them into the watching boats as you can see this rower near the watching fleet trying to row the boat out of the current.