Kathryn’s Voyage Blog

Publish Date: Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Location: Cape Canerveral, FL
Coordinates: 28° 43.189′ N  80° 28.919′ W

The voyage is going smoothly, and the boat is handling beautifully. We have had 3 to 4 foot following seas most of the day. I stood my first night watch last night from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. with Dave close by to answer questions and help get me oriented.

Now I am standing my first night watch alone, while Dave sleeps. He took the 9:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. watch, so I could have the 3:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. watch (which only has three hours of darkness). The watch change occurred just off the Florida coast near Cape Canaveral. We are about 8 miles off-shore, but I can still see the shuttle launch pad with it’s lights from here —very cool!

We have a hard and fast rule on the boat that under NO circumstances can the person on watch at night go outside. However, you can open the half door in the pilot house to see the stars. There is no moon tonight, so the sky is alive with twinkling.

Here are a couple of observations or surprises:
– Even with the pilot house instruments adjusted to be as dim as possible, the amount of glare they throw on the windows is amazing. It makes it very difficult to see out the windows.
– Of course, you can’t see much out the windows any way because the sea and sky blend together in an inky blackness.
– Over the past few months Dave has worked with me to understand how to read our radar, and be comfortable with it in the daylight, so I would be ready to trust it at night. Thank you Dave—it helped alot!
– There is far more on the radar than I would have expected at 4:00 in the morning

I have had something on my radar dead ahead of us for the last hour an a half. I have been slowly closing the gap, but for the life of me I can’t see anything out there. And, surprisingly you can see things once your eyes adjust, for instance I have seen the Disney cruise ship Wonder pass in front of me to go into Port Canveral, followed by a tug and barge an hour later. There is sailboat off our port stern, and a variety of navigational markers and buoys along the way. The big question is whether or not to wake up Dave, which I know he wouldn’t mind, but I also want to gain some confidence as well. In the end, the radar contact finally disappeared as we appeared to be right on top of it, and I still have no idea what it was. And, yes I’m confident I didn’t run over something. 🙂

Watch goes surprisingly fast, with checking the gauges, position/course, and radar ever 15 minutes, and the engine room on the top of each hour. FYI—standing up definitely helps when feeling a little drowsy. In the end, it wasn’t as scary as I had expected it to be, of course, that may be because everything went smoothly. Who knows about the next time? One of the many things I have learned in the last month, is that every day is different. There are no absolutes.