According to Goggle earth, it is 2266 NM miles from Cape Cod to the Bahamas to Charleston, SC and back to Cape Cod. According to Flighttrak (The flight scheduling software we use at work.) we did 2115 NM on Friday, not quite the same distance but pretty close.
We racked up those miles going from St. Louis to Gulfport, MS then to Ft. Lauderdale, FL on to Freeport in the Bahamas, back to Ft. Lauderdale and finally back to St. Louis. Five legs, a pass through Customs in Freeport and and Ft. Lauderdale, a bumpy passage off the coast of FL though some building cue's, 1 night landing and 7 hours 42 minutes spent sitting in the cockpit during a 13 hour duty day. By the time we coasted to a stop at home base I felt like I had swum those miles.
For some reason, while taking a year to sail up and down the East Coast seems a huge adventure, flying SUS - GPT - FXE - MYGF - FXE - SUS? Not so much. I guess it is all a matter of what you are used to. And maybe its a matter of time spent as well. A year of sailing would include innumerable small events, strange sights, new places, multiple anchorages, storms, calm days, broken equipment, and many new stories to tell. A day slinging around around the bottom right corner of the country? Well...there were some big boats in the waters between FL and Freeport, my coworker managed two near perfect landings vs my three, kind of average, thunkers and clearing Customs? Even the office at Ft. Lauderdale, (the bane of my customs encounters over the years) was a pleasant, quick affair. Hard to label Friday's travels as much of an adventure.
Still, it beats sitting in an office all day long.
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