The purpose of this blog is to communicate with our family and close friends while we cruise "New Horizons" to new destinations.

"We don't know exactly where we're going, but if we get lost, we'll just pull in somewhere's and ask directions."

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Day One, our adventure begins . . . . isn't this great!

Special thanks to Gene and Deb for joining for one last Bon Voyage, plenty of food and a hangover.

We took off at approximately 2 pm on Tuesday, May 12th, but we returned shortly thereafter. David dove down to check the prop and learned that there was a line wrapped around the prop. He was able to free it and so we finally got on our way at 4pm.

It was an interesting voyage to say the least. Weather forecast had been for 10-15 knot of easterly winds with a 20% chance of showers. We experienced southerly winds, 6 foot seas with 30-40 mph gusts, rain, thunder and lightning. Thanks NOAH! It took us over 19 hours to reach Ft Pierce, a mere 58 miles away.

The alternator began to act up. David soon learned that it was over-heating. Once he turned on the blower and removed the bottom steps to provide air circulation, all was fine . . . but quite noisy.

The Simrad WP30 autopilot, we have affectionately named "Detlef", after it's namesake Detlef and Lorena, (who sold us the unit) performed marvelously, we would really have been in trouble without it.

We enjoyed a lovely, sunny, breezy day at anchor near Harbortown Marina in Ft Pierce; drying out, cleaning up and catching up on sleep.