Breathtaking skies

Tonight the skies are clear, and the heavens are breathtaking.  I'm about 150 miles west-northwest of Tampa, and I can faintly see its city glow on the horizon. However in every other direction I can see stars down to the horizon. If it weren't so cold outside I'd spend more time out there. In actuality the weather is lovely, I think the low tonight will be around 55, and the winds are soft and the seas are slight.

I've been floating along at a meager 4 kts, and at this rate I won't make the Tortugas until late Monday. But life is good, I have plenty of food, I've barely used 2 gallons of water and I drank most of that. Considering it may be about 2 weeks until I can do laundry I'm just being a dirty boy and am wearing the same thing. I might see if I can wear the same clothes until I arrive, then treat myself to a few gallons of a hot shower.

Today a pod of dolphins played alongside me, it was very cute! Most of the pod was juveniles, and they followed me at my slow pace for over 2 hours.

Sending an email like this takes about 15 minutes, so I typed much more in the text that will go on my blog.

I am surprised by how fast my boat is even in light winds, and it's very stable and comfortable despite the unruly sea state. I am getting more accustomed to the continuous motion.

I must say that life is a tad tough in 5' seas, I wonder how bad it would be in the winds of a winter storm? I have been reviewing Derek's trek from last year that he annotated on my chartbook. I can see he followed the coast closely on his return trip with winds from the East, presumably to avoid the worst of the waves. It is likely that I might do the same.

I haven't seen another boat all day, but tomorrow morning I should be coming to the same latitude as Tampa and I expect there might be big boat traffic.