JAY SEA DEE TWENTY FOUR HOURS OUT

We have settled in to the voyage. Watches are going smoothly and changing nicely. Most of the last day was comfortable motorsailing. Right now it is slightly uncomfortable motoring. There is just no wind. Swells are six feet or less, but the boat is still rolling to and fro.

There has been some, but not much, excitement. As for marine life, we saw tens of manatees while still in the Banana River and Canaveral Canal. We saw a huge brown ray while still close to the beach. We regularly see flying fish.

As for traffic, in addition to seeing a few vessels mostly miles off, we saw a Navy vessel and were chased south a ways because of "operations that might be hazardous to our vessel." We should have wondered what operations. We learned later. Several hours after the Navy ship redirected us, a flash brightened the western sky, a great round white light rose into the sky, disappeared behind clouds, came out the top of the clouds, and continued directly overhead, racing off toward space! It was a spectacular rocket launch, punctuated by two sonic booms minutes after the rocket was gone.

The worst thing, most of the oranges have already rotted.

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At 5/26/2009 12:43 (UTC) our position was 29°00.95'N 078°10.86'W

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