Made it to the Miami Yacht Club by 9pm. Missed the meeting but plenty of people still there. I had a late start 10:34 and did the first 30 miles solo and picked up Bruce McKeever at Delray for the rest of the journey.

It started with very light NW winds at my back jibing down wind. Right off the bat, I had a mexican stand off with the Palm Beach Pricess coming out of the inlet. I had plenty of room to cross in front but they started veering course to match mine and slowed. I had to turn upwind and head straight East until they finally powered up and continued out.

I spent much of the first five miles sorting out my gear on deck and figuring out the SPOT tracker which I just got the day before. I though I had turned on the tracking after I sent an OK to mark the start but I messed it up somehow.

The wind started picking up a little at the Lake Worth Pier but was still NW so I had to stay out pretty far to get clean wind. Around Dog Beach (Briny Breezes) the wind direction shifted NE.

I stopped at Delray Beach where I picked up Bruce and talked with a couple of the Delray Beach Sailors. We tried rigging the screecher that I has stowed on board but the sheet I had for it would not fit for some reason and we stowed it back.

Besides good company, Bruce brought good wind. Wind had shifted more out of the east and picked up ablut 8 mph. Now we were able to run straight up the coast at a good clip.

At Pompano we saw a small inflatable approaching and sure enough it was Hogitz and company. It was a great surprise but they were extremely skeptical that we would make it to the Yacht Club.

The sun dropped just as we were approaching Government cut and I installed the red, green and white glow sticks. It was awesome going through the port and seeing downtown Miami at night. We went in the main inlet but we veered left after Fisher Island to avoid going through the cruise ship lane. I had a Homeland Security escort the last time I did that.

The trickiest part of the trip was navigating the two bridges leading to the Miami Yacht Club and pulling into the Yacht Club without hitting other boats. The wind had picked up conciderably and they had a small craft advisory out. The wind was also doing 40 degree shifts that made it very intesting.

Marcus, our ground crew, was waiting on shore to help and slowly many other sailors came by to check out the boat and talk about our trip and the upcoming race.

A big thanks goes out to Mike Shappell (www.TheManShed.net)who painted the boat and helped with building the cooler in the hull and fixing 30 years of abuse. There were many compliments on how great the boat looked.

Eric, thanks for getting my packet for me. hogitz, thanks for meeting us out on the water and back at the club. What a way to meet on the water. Glad we were able prove you wrong by getting in at a decent time.

Looking forward to the Miami Key Largo Race tomorrow and the Keys 100 next weekend.