Green Blue Green

At Sea
24 46.27 N 080 49.57 W

We're on the move again. Hooray!

The weather report this morning was disappointing. The easterly winds will continue all week. Next weekend might bring a nice window to sail to Exumas, but the forecast could change before then. We decided enough was enough. We are motoring eastward against the wind. Once we get enough easting, we'll turn NE and be able to put up our sails. Not optimum but what the heck.

We left Boot Key Harbor around 10 and headed out past the reef. We hoped to catch the Gulf Stream to pick up a couple of knots. Our friend Tom who gives the weather reports in Boot Key Harbor has been saying for the past few days that the Gulf Stream was unusually close -- only 1 mile outside the reef. We went 7 miles out, and we still didn't find it. Tom must have been wrong. The ever present clouds that mark the Gulf Stream weren't present this morning. I think that we would have had to
go 15 miles out of our way to catch it, then ride the stream for only 30 miles, then work our way 15 miles back in to our anchorage for tonight. No gain there. Therefore, we changed plans and headed back in to Hawk Channel so we could motor against the wind but without waves.

If we just stayed out and sailed all night, we would arrive on the Bahamian Banks in the middle of the night. We'll anchor in Florida tonight, leave tomorrow at first light,and hope to make landfall in the Bahamas early Wednesday morning. We have also changed our target. Instead of Bimimi and the Exumas, we'll head for West End and the Abacos. That's because of the wind direction.

Poor Libby. She (and I) lusted after blue water once again. It has been so long that we deserve to lose our self identities as blue water sailors. We left in bright sunshine and the typical aqua colored water of the keys. When we passed outside the reef, there it was -- blue water. As I said, we went 7 miles out in that blue water, and then back in again. Soon we returned to the aqua green. We'll have to be patient. Tomorrow we should meet the Gulf Stream and enjoy it's impossibly deep
blue colors.