ATLANTIC 1000 Images

DAY 4 – Cocoa Beach to Ormond Beach

Skippers briefing at 9 am – the military is there - all dressed in camouflage uniform. The Cape Canaveral Space centre is a national asset – we will protect it as such. Be warned – there will be many eyes watching you. We check again the restricted area around the Cape.

I can hardly keep my eyes open and I really struggled to get out of bed this morning – it was like I had been run over by a bus – or used as a punch bag at the local gym. I force breakfast down – with little appetite but know that I need to eat.

The beach prep goes easily and no stress today – we had replaced all our gudgeons last night with stronger ones. The wind is 12 to 15 knots from the ESE. Bang and we are off – a great start and we take and early lead punching thru the surf ahead of the rest – this time we not going to give it up easily – we led the pack around the Cape on a close reach for approximately the first 12 miles.

The coast then dipped back to the north and we put up the spinnakers. Team Castrol and Team Tybee attack from either side of us and we try to defend the hedging our bets in the middle. Castrol gets away down the coast and we lock into a battle with team Tybee (last year’s winners). From now on its work – and we just get on with it – a turtle here and some fish there – lots of pulling on the spinnaker – the odd ‘powergel’ and a suck of water form the camel back.

Every now and again I squirt a powergel into Roberto’s mouth – he has his hands busy and I have one free – its what they call team work ! We sail mostly in silence – everyone to his own thoughts – I think of nice relaxing days with Patricia doing nice stuff together - every now and again I give Roberto some encouragement – to keep the moral going ….

We attack and gybe back to the shore and make some gains, Tybee and Castrol cover – it’s a never ending duel. Later a few miles offshore we head back to the beach Tybee and Castrol continue out to sea. When we gybe back and take up a parallel course to the beach I see a muddy light brown patch up ahead. Shit – it’s a sandbank I think – we won’t be able to cross – later we discover it’s an inlet and only water discoloration – I sigh with relief. Almost simultaneously we see a coast guard vessel towing another smaller boat right in front of us. He goes left - we go left, he goes right and we go right – total confusion - our relative speed of approach is fast - we eventually go above him and find our selves in a tight spot and have to luff head to wind and let him pass – not very fast! - but a least we did not capsize.

We look up see our two adversaries in the distance – our last gybe has cost us a lot of ground but we press on – we are in a solid third position - the 4rth boat way behind us. We have lost touch with the leaders but are happy - we have made up some time on the guys in front of us in the overall placings.

HOME