We continue to make excellent time south. We crossed to the eastern side of the Gulf Stream early this afternoon, and are now pointed pretty much straight at our destination of Port Everglades, Florida

Today’s weather had the wind complete its shift from northwest to east while continuing to blow a steady 15 to 25 knots. Even though this has been our first cloudy day on the passage, it has been the first day we haven’t had call to complain about the cold either! The seas are a bit lumpy, but not anything intimidating or uncomfortable. Other than a light sprinkle of rain, it has been good.

The only excitement of the trip so far occurred yesterday. We set the mizzenmast staysail to take advantage of the quartering wind, and for the better part of an hour everything was smooth fast and happy sailing with just the mizzen and jib. I was looking out behind us, and saw the “cat’s paw” ripples of an approaching wind gust. Since the wind had lightened up a bit, I was thinking this was a good thing. Not so much.

Although the wind gust wasn’t that strong, it was at least 30 degrees off the direction of the steady wind. This immediately backwinded both sails, and spun the boat around. The lightweight nylon of the staysail did not survive this abuse. It took us quite some time to sort out the resulting mess and get moving along again.

Right now we are about 300 Miles due north of Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, and about 130 miles off the coast of Georgia. Our arrival at Port Everglades is going to be 36 to 44 hours, sometime Saturday before noon. Everybody is happy and healthy, so all is good!