Matanilla Shoal on the Little Bahama Bank to Cocoa, Florida– 125 nautical miles sailed
After playing chicken with five or six freighters in the darkness, the marine traffic dried up and SeaLight was alone and fully in the grips of the Gulf Stream. I watched, astonished, as our regular cruising speed of 6.5 accelerated up to 7, then 8, then all the way up to 9.5 knots and the sea temperature rocketed from 25 to 30 degrees all in a matter of miles. It was much more fun enjoying the boost from the Gulf Stream than fighting it on the way from Florida to Bimini back in January.
We motored all night and all day in excellent sea conditions, with glassy waters and some large well-spaced ocean swell that we rode up and down, making for a very comfortable passage. We reached the Cape Canaveral channel at around 3:30pm and cleared through US Customs and Border Control almost instantly through their CBP Roam app. We were surprised as they did not do a video interview as we’ve experienced in the past, but we received an email verification stating we were cleared for the US and no further action was required. Being ultra cautious we made a few calls to various CBP numbers to confirm we were indeed good to go, and sent an email to a CBP support contact, but got little in the way of response.
The Cape Canaveral inlet is the safest and largest in all of Florida and opens up into a huge cruise ship port, then two opening bridges, a lock, several marinas, and a four-mile-long canal that leads to the Indian River section of the ICW. Besides the mythically huge cruise ships (The Wonder of the Seas being the largest was saw with 7,000 passengers), there were dozens of small power boats with families out for a Sunday cruise. From outside the inlet you could see many rocket launch towers to the north and I was excited to learn there was a SpaceX launch scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.
We passed through the cruise ship port then reached the entrance of the lock and had to wait a few minutes for it to open. We noticed four or five dolphins playing around in front of the gate and around the waiting boats. The Daily Dolphins are back! We’d missed them so much, as dolphin sightings in the Bahamas were rare. As the lock door slowly opened, the dolphins moved to one side to let the boats through, waited patiently, then swam right into the lock. We were taking pictures and videos from the boat deck like a couple of dopey tourists as all the other local powerboaters roundly ignored them, so I can only assume this is a regular occurrence. I later read online that manatees too will often make use of the lock to get to and from the ocean.
We reached the small town of Cocoa at 6pm, dropped the anchor, and breathed a huge sigh of relief after 34 hours on the water and 230 nautical miles, possibly the longest we've ever done in one passage. The original plan had been to take the dinghy into Cocoa to have a look around, but I was totally spent and being Sunday evening, there likely wasn’t much going on anyway. Instead, we made dinner, watched a movie, and had a quiet first night back in the United States of America.
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