We finally left Fort Lauderdale yesterday morning & we are currently at 29 43.906, 80 00.089, which is just about Florida & Georgia boarder. The first 24 hours were not so fun. We had NE winds 15 to 20 knots, which means we are heading just off the wind. However, now the wind is about 5 knots and the seas have really calmed down. We should have this for about the next 24 hours. We will see what the weather will bring us after that. We may have to go into Cape Fear for a night. It just depends on the front coming off of Cape Hatteras. We did have a great time in Fort Lauderdale. We met up with our friends Quintin & Kris for a few happy hours. They took us out shopping one day and to Fort Lauderdale. We had lunch on the canal, it was fun to watch all the boats go by. Thanks for the great times! We also got our cabin measured for a new bed to be made, which is why we were not able to depart with the rest of the rally. We should have the new bed in the first week of June.

We have had fantastic downwind sailing for the last few days. We have just exited the Old Bahama Channel and are now pointing to Fort Lauderdale. We have a steady 15 to 20 knots winds from the ESE, which is now beam reaching to a reach and are averaging 7.0. We are about 175 miles to go, which should put us in sometime tomorrow afternoon. Paul tried to surprise me this morning by making coffee for me as well as steak and eggs. Well, we are still in pretty good seas and instead of waking up with honey I made breakfast for you, I woke up to lots of swear words! Here a wave hit us and 6 eggs in the bowl getting ready to cook went all over the floor. What a mess, but what a great laugh.

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The last 48 hours have been interesting. Tuesday the winds started picking up and the seas were 4 to 7 behind us, which made Moonshadow bounce all over the place. I got up for my shift at 2 am Wednesday morning and on the way to the head a wave threw me into the nav station. The only damage was I broke my toe. Wednesday morning around 11:00 am we were heading through a squall and came upon a water spout. We immediately changed course and headed away from it. After that, the wind built to 15 to 20 knots from the east. Since then we have been downwind sailing, averaging 6.5 knots and the seas are about 8 to 10 feet. So, it is great sailing, but hard to sleep and hard to cook. However, we are having a great time and are about 363 miles from Fort Lauderdale. Life is good.

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We are still just motoring along at 6.0 knots. Our wind has been light and variable, however the seas are calm. The most excitement we have had is that Free Spirit is .7 miles away from us now. We had no luck catching any fish, but we are trying again today. The nights have been beautiful with a sliver of a moon that goes down around 2:00 am and Jim saw a great sunrise this morning. There are only three of us this trip and we decided for watches to do 3 hours on 6 hours off, so we all will get to see the sunrise & sunset at some point. The watches seem to working for us. Everyone is getting rest.

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So far our trip has been great. The first day we sailed 120 miles. Then the wind died on us, so we began to motor. We motored all day yesterday and now we are motor sailing along at 6 knots. The seas have been calm along with the weather. We are currently passing Dominican Republic. The fishing rods are out. Wish us luck on catching a fish!

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