Final Departure Preparations

Weather: The weather station said it reached 53 degrees in Key West. On board, the temp stayed at 68 degrees all night. At 0800, the temp dropped to 67 degrees and no lower. Still, good evidence that this cold front actually brought cooler temperatures in addition o plenty of wind! The morning dawned bright and sunny with nary a cloud in the sky. According to the weather report, clouds are due to show up some time or another. Since the wind is out of the north, we are expecting a good day for the solar collector.

As luck would have it, by early afternoon, it clouded over so the solar panel wasn’t able to collect much energy today.

Comment: Our planned departure isn’t happening today. Even though the wind moderated in the early morning hours, we decided to postpone our departure until tomorrow. By this afternoon, the wind dropped to around 12 knots. It was once again relatively calm in the harbor.

After attending to departure preparations, we hoped into the dinghy for a trip to the water faucet and the Chevron gas station where we filled our water and gas jugs respectively. While returning Joe’s (Sigi 7) hat left on board sunshine a couple of days ago, we bid final farewells to Pat and Ray aboard “Reflection.” We hope they’ll be able to stop by the house on their car trip to Maine.

Back onboard SUNSHINE, we mounted the dinghy motor to the stern rail, hoisted the dinghy on the davits and tied it down tight. Everything is shipshape for an early morning departure.