Sunny Florida

Moonstone of Aberdour
Allan and Claire Foster
Mon 14 Dec 2015 00:15
"25:47.287N 80:10.347W"

We hauled Moonstone out of the water in Titusville, painted her bottom and attended to dozens of little jobs that had required our attention for many months.  The yard is one of the few in the south of the USA that lets you do the work on your own boat rather than employing their contractors and without imposing a large financial penalty.  When we arrived there, there were nearly 20 Canadian yachts hauled out and by the time we left it was down two or three.....they, like us, were heading south quickly for the sunshine.

Our plan on relaunch was to head out into the Atlantic and sail quickly down to Miami but we were quickly thwarted at the sea lock at Cape Canaveral that due to repairs was only operating late in the evening or first thing in the morning but never mind we took the long delay in our stride.  On entering the Atlantic we met an uncomfortably big sea that meant for the first twelve hours or so we rolled heavily making life on board difficult. We had a good sailing breeze from behind all the way to Fort Pierce where we had to resort to the engine for the rest of the way to Miami.

Miami is big and busy, we joined a queue of several cargo vessels and four cruise ships to enter the port and after a confusing entrance where we were turned back at one point due to security issues we have found a sheltered anchorage by the Miami Yacht Club