We're Here! Thank goodness.

Florida

30 45.679 N 081 28.419 W

 

Well, it sure has been a problematical migration, but the major milestone is behind us. We are in Florida and it is warm.

Our 35 hour passage was OK. Not the best, nor the worst. We had wind, for the first 15 hours. Indeed, for two or three hours we screamed along at 8-9 knots. In case you don't know, that is much faster than Tarwathie's hull speed and supposedly impossible to achieve.

But then the wind died and we had to motor the last 15 hours. So be it. We were tired of waiting for ideal windows.

Along the way we had dolphins, no whales, and two birdie num nums. Let me explain. Num nums are the name we use for land birds that find Tarwathie as a haven more than twenty miles off shore. We presume that these birds would have died if they didn't find something dry to land on. Typically, they ride along with us until we get close enough to land for them to fly off. Can this be the mechanism for bird life to spread its genes to remote islands? Most num nums are goldfinches, as was one of these. The other was a sparrow.

I had a special treat as the goldfinch managed to catch a moth way out there at sea. He landed near my knee with his catch (by then he had become partially tame.). I watched as he waited until the moth's fluttering slowed and stopped. The the coup de grace. Then munch munch leading to the finale. In one fluid motion he flipped the corpse 90 degrees then swallowed it whole head first. Pretty slick. He did not burp that I heard.

The nighttime cold at sea was not as bad as we feared. I suppose it was the moderating effect of the water surface. Within two meters of the surface, it's hard for the wind to be significantly warmer or colder than the water.