Sunrise Jupiter

But even after we had sailed peacefully past Jupiter Inlet, Phil was still too excited about the adventure to really sleep. He tossed the cereal into bowls and served us breakfast.

By noon Phil was at the helm and ready to “see what this baby can do.” We spent the afternoon sailing for as much speed as Spun Key could take in tow. And it was Spun Key’s slapping in our wake that caused us to back down. According to our GPS we were making 8.6 knots at the time. So we still don’t know how fast she’ll really go with these old sails we have, but indications are good that we’ll have plenty of fun sailing ahead of us!

It was interesting to see the Atlantic coast line from a few miles out at seas. All you could see, for as far as the coast stretched, (from Jupiter to Palm Beach) were towers of condos. From so far out, the beaches and trees were not really visible. In many ways it reminded me of those haunting Sci-Fi movie shots: of flooded post-apocalyptic cities (such as NYC in Planet of the Apes or undersea in the Matrix).

In early afternoon we had a military helicopter fly really low above the beach between us and the condos ashore. We could easily see it's gun pointed outward. About half an hour later, we were buzzed by a formation of planes. It wasn't until later that we realized this was the time of Obama and McCain's campaign visit to south Florida.

Several times we had porpoise swimming in our wake. Once I had a school of about 6 that played in our wake for a few minutes. Then they all breached in unison, making a diagonal line off Spun Key’s bow. Phil saw a few turtles too. They would swim up along our side for a look, then dart back down, never to be seen again.