Day one was much less eventful than the first day of the passage from Ft Lauderdale to Charleston. Weather was as forecasted and quite mild. We motored and motor-sailed the whole time as the wind was consistently under 10 knots on the stern and we wanted to average a minimum speed of 5.5 knots. Seas have been extremely mild with a slight swell from the SE and wind waves under 2 feet, and while we had a good lightning show from a storm offshore, we stayed dry and had no concerns with thunderstorms in our vicinity.
I saw several pods of dolphins busy fishing and one small pod came over to swim with us for a little while. Early this morning Jen spotted a very large sea turtle with a brown shell. We passed within 15 feet of it and she estimated the shell to be almost 3 feet in diameter with a head about the size of her forearm. Quinn and I missed out as we were dozing.
As I write this we’re being investigated by a US Navy helicopter based either on a cruiser that is about 3 miles off our port or maybe an aircraft carrier nearby that we can’t see. We have several very large blobs on our radar that are too far away to identify. I was seeing a hit very close by behind us on the radar that wasn’t there a minute ago so I grabbed the binoculars to investigate. No ship, but one big helicopter heading straight for us. They veered off about a quarter mile away and headed towards one of the unidentified blobs. Nice diversion from an otherwise quiet day at sea.
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