After getting underway at 4:06 p.m., we navigated through Port Everglades, avoiding the large container ship and its tugs.  As of 7:27, we are about 2 nautical miles off of Miami Beach.

Early this morning, we flew to Ft. Lauderdale.  Captain Dale picked us up at the airport and we spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon getting reacquainted with Beatitude and  provisioning for our maiden voyage upon her.   We will do an overnight passage tonight and hope to reach Marathon, in the keys, tomorrow evening where we will have dinner ashore and spend the night in port.  We have a 5 day window (set by my work schedule in the hospital) in which to travel safely to our home port in Bradenton.

Unfortunately, the wind is on our nose (blowing directly from the direction we need to go, for you non-sailing folks) so we have been motoring and not sailing  today.   That may continue overnight.  We’ll see about tomorrow.  We’ve had dinner aboard and are preparing for our 3 hour on/3 hour off watch schedule for tonight.   Pictures to come at some point  when good internet access  is available.   I am able to put this post up from my iPad thanks to excellent 3G from 2 miles offshore.