On the Way to the Dry Tortugas

One of our visitors
Modern Lighthouse
You can see the pecking order here!
Incredible Blue of the ocean
The winner of the top bunk
Night sailing
The weather window wasn't as promised. We had to continue with the engine break-in
which uses quite a bit a fuel so we planned to mostly sail out then we could motor back
if need be. The winds were as predicted until about midnight then they died to about
3 kts. You can't move this heavy a boat with that much wind and we didn't want to try
and run the spinnaker at night for safety's sake. So we used our precious fuel and motored.
The upside was that we finished the break-in process. YEAH! We kept going figuring, in
our best Scarlett O'Hara mode, we'd worry about the trip back tomorrow. It was a beautiful
trip. We saw dolphins, turtles and a wide variety of bird life. Amazingly, we saw only 1
boat. On the previous trip 2 years ago we saw several. Once again, we were a resting spot
for birds. Fortunately, none of them died. We were treated to a show by two of the
little white herons. One was up on the bow pulpit and the other one wanted up there too.
Every time he tried to jump up, the other bird pecked him back to the lower rung. Reminded
us of kids fighting over who got the top bunk. Over the course of the night, we had over a
dozen birds come and go. Some stayed for over an hour, some only 10 minutes. They didn't
seem to mind us but refused any water. I guess we were just cheap transportation. They
were all polite enough to not leave any calling cards behind. The boat gets dirty enough
with salt residue with a crossing.