We're in Hollywood!

We are in the middle (grey boat, we are wearing red) in this picture taken right after the start.  We got held up behind a crowded group at the boat that resulted in a t-bone.  It resulted in a rough first 30 minutes or so trying to fight for a clear lane.

First off we're in Hollywood, FL... we aren't quite rockstars yet.  

We sailed around 90 miles today starting just after 10 am with a light upwind beat with speeds of 6-8mph.  Soon into the race some F-18s were able to put up their spinnaker on a tight reach. Unforuntatley, the 20's spinnaker cannot be carried as high.  It was quite frustrating watching them sail quicker because of this.  We tried to put it up but it forced us to bear off way too much so we dropped it.  A couple hours in the wind clocked around just enough that we were able to put the chute back up and start sailing a double trapezed reach.  A double trapped reach in flat water is really a distance racers dream, however it kept taking us in toward the shallows so we had to drop it and head upwind away from shore a few times.  Only a few hours in we saw our first turtle (we saw 2 or 3 total)... they really blend into the water well!  Over the course of the day we sailed by many shallow spots, luckily our new GPS held up perfect and showed all of them to us, we didn't even have any  close  calls (feels good after running aground several times in the Steeplechase). 

The wind lightened up a bit entering Key Biscayne so we took turns being alone on the wire.  That didn't last long and we were double trapezed again reaching up the beaches of Miami at speeds of 16-21mph.   We got lucky enough to see some other sealife but we aren't quite sure what one of them was as it dove under the water once we got closer.

About 85 miles in we spotted the finish and were reaching REALLY fast, double trapezed, towards the shore.  We got close to shore a little too soon and had to drop the chute for a few minutes but raised it again to try to slip by Pirates of the Chesepeake who was right ahead of us.  We were flying in on starboard tack but in order to avoid uneccesary risks chose to take their stern and give them some room before we finished.  We then gybed and screamed into the beach, dropping the spinnaker about 20 feet off of it and running the boat up on the sand.  All and all we are really happy with our performance.  We didn't stick around to see how many boats we finished ahead of but we think it was 6-8.  We can't forget that there is a LONG way to go and anything could happen.  We are psyched for tomorrow, it's actually a "short" leg coming in at just over 60 miles!

Final note: Our Spot locater beacon turned off at some point early on.  We apologize for that and will try to make sure it stays on tomorrow.