Overnight run

 It's too far to go from Key West, Florida to Ft. Meyers, FL in one day of daylight.  We left Key West at 2pm yesterday afternoon. The weather forecast was picture perfect. With only 18 hours of running time we thought it would be a great overnight run.  As we pulled out of the marina in Key West we found the weather forecast to be wrong.  We hoped the seas would calm down as we got further away from the marina.  It didn't. The worst thing about getting seasick is not only the throwing up part but also David has to run  the boat by himself and take of me.  I remembered I had asked for some scopolamine patches from my doc last time we were in Phoenix.  David found them and put one on behind my ear.  Seemed like 10 minutes I was feeling better.  Finally at 3am the seas slowed down from 4' to 6" swell, the wind died down from 21 knots to 5 knots and with a full moon it was a pretty sight. I was able to get up off the couch and took over driving from 2am to 5am so David could get some sleep.  The sunrise was very welcoming and pretty too.  Since Easter was yesterday and there was no way to fix a proper Easter Meal, we had ham sandwiches today after we got docked and had washed the boat.  We had taken on a lot of water over the bow and everything was crunchy with salt.  We took a few catnaps, fixed dinner and ended the day with some TV.  PS I forgot to mention our excitement from the trip.  Back in the beginning, Capt Bernie told us we'd get to know our boat's noises, oh pashaw I thought, well he was right. I was asleep and was woken up by a funny noise from the engine.  David went down to do an engine room check (which he does every couple of hours) and found there was indeed a god-aweful noise.  It sounded like somebody has poured a bucket of bolts into the guts of the engine. There were no other "symptoms" except for the noise.  David was able to find a diesel mechanic to come take a look at it.  We were concerned about having to get a new engine, $$$$ and time.  Turns out it was easy to diagnose, 5 minutes and no bleeding knuckles, a simple ball bearings had gone kaput.  The mechanic will be back in the morning with a new part and we will be able to go again.  YAY.  We went from Key West to Ft Meyers, 18 hours, 120 miles, 1 scopolomine patch, 1 L-Theanine capsule for Ellie.

  View out the pilot house window

  Our view for 10 hours

  The pink line is our route, we were 45 miles offshore

 Bird war!! the cormorant would not let the little baby white egret off the cord it was sitting on to hop up onto the dock



  Sunrise this morning

  Sunrise


  Moon set

  More early sunrise




  Still sunrise

Comments

  1. JackieApril 19, 2022 at 5:06 AM

    Sounds like you made it back to FL and got back in the groove. Beautiful sunrise. I'm so happy to back on your trip with you, I missed seeing the water and hearing about your ongoing adventure.
    Stay safe, see you next blog. Love and hugs.

    ReplyDelete

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