Alas, with a deadline to be in Fort Pierce on Sunday, the final leg from the Turks and Caicos to Florida was a bit of a drag race.  We had five days to get here and nearly 700 miles to cover — an average of about 6 knots.  No concern for DZ when there’s wind, but a problem if there isn’t.  The Gulf Stream helped us out with 2-3 knots of favorable push over the last 24 hours, and we did well over 6 knots for a couple days in the middle.  But the winds also dropped off to nothing on a couple days, which left us using the engine a lot — something we resisted on the ARC and that hadn’t been needed in our island hopping to this point.  Nonetheless, WE MADE IT!!!

Noteworthy on this last passage...

- Discovering provisions laid in in Portugal (fried cured chorizo — delicious!) 

- LOTS more vessel traffic than in mid-ocean.  And unlike in mid-ocean, the commercial traffic doesn’t get out of your way!

- At-sea boarding and inspection by USCG

- Managed to avoid losing my sunglasses overboard across 5000 nautical miles of ocean, only to lose them within sight of Fort Pierce — Doh! 

Uh Oh...