Always good...

Departing Daytona Marina's fuel dock

There is something unnerving about easing Kintala around multi-million dollar mega yachts. Like most older sailboats she is cumbersome in tight places, doesn't back very well, and is easily pushed around by the wind. One doesn't really helm the boat so much as give it suggestions. Sometimes she listens. Sometimes she doesn't. Fortunately this morning the boat and I were reading from the same page. We backed off the dock with stern swinging toward a big dollar sport fishing boat and the bow tracking past the bow of the mega-mega yacht that acted as our wind break for the last week. As we cleared the end of the dock shifting to neutral allowed the wind to push the bow exactly as I had hoped while we slowed. A bump of forward with a touch of rudder, and Kintala burbled out of the alley, tracked the length of her mega dock mate, and then settled with little ado at the diesel / gas / water / pump out dock.

It is always a delight when things work out just like they were planned.

With all the consumables topped off it came time to head south, for real this time. Turning onto the ICW the jib rolled out into the north wind while the hull rode the ebb tide. For the first time in so long that neither Deb nor I can remember the last time, the Beast was reduced to being nothing but a chunk of silent ballast hiding under the companionway steps. Ye 'ol Tartan wafted quietly downwind, dolphins gliding by both port and starboard now and again to nod their approval. The only downer on the day was the short distance we needed to cover, just 13 nm to anchor up behind Chicken Island.

Titusville would be the normal first day's stop out of Daytona but, as has become the norm, weather is the concern. The professional weather gurus are not sure what the low spinning up south and west of us has in mind. It could get pretty ugly, or not. Chicken Island (the perfect name for what we are doing) is a much better place to sit out big north and north-west winds than is Titusville. We may move tomorrow, we may not. But we are feeling pretty good about the day's choices since, less than an hour after the hook went down, the rains came.

It is always a delight when things work out.

Though the Islands are out of our reach this year, the feeling on board, amplified by a most excellent couple of hours of sailing, is that we are “on our way” once again. Our next “need to be someplace” is months away. All planning is being done without an immediate goal in mind. Move when it is good to move. Sit when it is good to sit. Live. Enjoy, Repeat.

It is always ...