Early on April 4th we took Clara ashore to fly home and we left Lake Worth later in the morning, bound for Fernandina Beach, Florida by way of Cape Canaveral – a hastily added waypoint. Only the day before we learned that the space shuttle Discovery with its historic crew that included four women was scheduled to launch at 6:21 am on the 5th which presented an opportunity we couldn't pass up: to watch the launch from the boat as we passed just offshore! Could we time this with the forecast winds to pull it off? This would be a three day, two night passage with an exciting intermission! What drama!!

We had a nice sail departing Lake Worth and heading north along the coast . It was a bit too nice as we were going faster than anticipated to position ourselves just off Cape Canaveral at the time of the launch. When we got to the Cape vicinity a couple hours too early, we sailed a circular pattern to kill time. Better than being too late.

During the passage to the Cape we communicated with the Coast Guard to confirm the boundaries of the strictly enforced Cape permanent security zone and the temporary launch corridor safety exclusion zone. The permanent security zone is well documented and shown on nautical charts and conforms to the three mile offshore boundary. The launch corridor exclusion zone, however, is only established for launches, extends further offshore than the security zone and can vary for each launch so it’s not documented on the charts. We heard two different descriptions of it for this launch. We relied on the most recent description conveyed to us over radio by the Coast Guard at Cape Canaveral (after he obviously heard another entity giving us less-than-accurate information) . We identified the closest, legal location to the launch site we could be and navigated to be there for launch time 6:21am. This was a point three miles offshore and on the southern boundary of the launch corridor. We could plainly see the shuttle sitting on the launch pad and estimated we were about 5 miles away from it. We were not the only ones with this plan as we could see the lights of numerous other boats in the general area, but none as close as us. 

Shortly before launch time we were approached by a motor vessel with a spot light and assumed it was the Coast Guard on patrol monitoring the exclusion zone. It was still pitch dark. The vessel turned out to be a Customs and Border Patrol boat and the officers questioned what we were doing and made sure we understood where the exclusion zones were, handing us a printed flyer with that information (just shows you how close those officers are prepared to come to another vessel!). They confirmed we were still outside the zones and then left us alone .

Getting closer to launch time, we were right where we wanted to be and the weather was perfect – calm wind and cloudless sky. Now it was up to NASA – would the launch be delayed? Right on time at 6:21am, the shuttle blasted off and we got quite a show! The sound was deafening and the bright light of the booster rockets was brilliant in the night sky. The shuttle arced high and in front of us and we were sure we had the best seats in the house. Wow, wow, wow. What a thrill! We could see the shuttle travel almost all the way to the horizon where it was finally obscured by clouds just being lit by the rising sun. The shuttle’s contrail was already being illuminated by sunlight and was right over us, turning pink and orange like a serpentine morning cloud.

Suffice to say the remainder of our passage to Fernandina Beach was less exciting. The wind died and it was a motor boat ride. Fortunately we were entertained for quite a while by a tiny bird that hitchhiked on the boat for a good length of the trip, only finally leaving us when we got close to our destination and it could sense nearby land . It’s quite amazing to think of how such a small creature could even survive out in the ocean with nowhere to land in sight! It must have been exhausted and quite relieved to be able to land on the boat for a while. But it didn’t eat any of the bread crumbs Donna put out for it. It visited all over the boat, including landing once on Dave’s cap and once on Donna’s hip (clinging to her sweater). We’ve included some of the fun pictures we were able to capture while it spent hours with us.

We arrived at Fernandina Beach around 10:00 am on April 6th and anchored in a creek outside of the town area, actually across the state line in Georgia. We were concerned as we sailed our approach to town because the prominent shore-side presence consisted of two large paper mills right outside town, hiding any view of the town itself. Never having been here before, we started to wonder whether there could be a nice cute town beyond that "scenery". Fortunately, there was and we enjoyed our visit, going ashore to walk the quaint town.