Hey Dave,

On Saturday afternoon, I came back inside at Ponce Inlet rather than continuing on out around Cape Canaveral... I'd had a pretty rough night on Friday off Georgia and N. Florida, and wasn't looking forward to dodging the procession of cruise ships returning and leaving Port Canaveral on Saturday night, either... But, I really wanted to stop that night and catch the NFL playoffs anyway, likely would have had trouble picking them up off Canaveral, so that's my story, and I'm sticking to it...

Spent the night near Titusville, and after about 2 hours of motoring early Sunday morning, I was blessed for the remainder of the day with a light to moderate northerly, blowing straight down the Indian River - which just happens to be the finest stretch of the ICW south of NC to do any sailing... Arrow straight channel for miles and miles, nothing but high level bridges south of Addison Point, I couldn't have possibly gotten a finer day's sailing DDW down to Sebastian... Sure, maybe 5 more knots of breeze would have been nice, but it was an extraordinarily relaxing day of sailing, with just enough breeze to maintain an average speed of perhaps 70% of hull speed, or what I would have been making under power...

Of course, I was eventually passed by a couple of bigger, faster boats... Both under power, driven from inside cockpit greenhouses... (grin) In fairness, one guy had actually unfurled his jib... Primarily just for visual effect, I suppose, it was hanging pretty limp as his speed under power nearly matched the apparent wind...

Needless to say, sailing through such a populated area on a Sunday NFL playoff day, I left the ambiguously gay spinnaker in the bag... Wing and wing was the way to go that day anyway, or at least that's my story... (grin)

best regards,

Jon