Schedules
They say the most dangerous thing on a cruising sailboat is a schedule. Those pesky things, that incessant taskmaster of getting all the things done and to all the places on time. There is truth in this, when sailing you must go where the wind takes you even if you have a reliable and strong diesel engine you still are not going to make miles directly into the wind, you must wait, thou shall not pass until King Neptune allows it. Neptune's schedule allowed me to stay at St. Augustine another night but the price would be an overnight passage to Fort Pierce, the the next inlet north of Stuart Florida, my next destination. Fort Pierce inlet was about 160 miles south, off I went and sailed with the engine off for the next eight hours, glorious! And then! I was relaxing in the cockpit letting the autopilot do it's thing when I saw something in the water, maybe trash, maybe sea grass, but no, it was a sea turtle!!! The first I have seen in t...