Nearing port, another sighting, and loving the warm.

Today was great!

A portion of today was spent flopping about in mild 2' seas and only moving about 4 kts, however since 1pm EST I've had steady, stronger winds pushing my speed ever higher. My trip log on my tablet indicated a max speed of 9.3 kts recently! Even now I'm going 7.5 kts, but I suspect I must be enjoying the Gulf current because it doesn't feel so fast. As an added bonus the seas have dropped down to 1'. What has further made my life better is that I identified why my mast was making really loud creaking noises and I have effectively eliminated them. If this speed keeps up (and I doubt it), I might be at Dry Tortugas Sunday evening. It is currently 160 nm away. Otherwise I'll plan my sailings to make landfall Monday morning. According to the charts it is well marked, but I'd rather enter a foreign reef with daylight to guide and protect me.

 Whatever cold was trying to ambush my throat yesterday has moved up into my nose causing it to run all day, and I've been sneezing a lot also. At least I feel like things are getting better. I'm hoping I'll sleep better tonight with less squeaking and short seas.

 I saw a single motorboat today, a 50' or so sportfisher far off on the horizon and hauling North. I had to run the generator a few hours to get the batteries up for another night. My Nav lights burn about 2A because they're one of the few things I haven't converted to LED's. I suppose I should have talked to Rick before I left. Combine that with autopilot and radar, and it's drawing a bit of juice, about 25% of my battery bank every night. I suspect the solar would work fine, but on this southerly tack the panels are shaded almost all day. 

Also, I discovered that out here on the waves and steady winds, I need to turn the gains on the autopilot way down, otherwise the AP is overshooting on every single wave which burns lots of juice and makes the boat steer like it's drunk. After I turned the gains down she has behaved as pretty as you can please, but in the presence of gusts I'll have to remember to turn the gains back up. It may also be the slighter seas.