One of My Best Days

Robert and I had been sailing around the Bahamas for a few weeks and it was time to go home. This was in February, 2001.

We stopped in West End, on the big island to spend the night, before crossing the Gulf Stream back to the Florida coast.

On February 6 we left West End with a moderate wind out of the South. A North wind, against the current of the Stream, makes the waves stand high and the sailing is rough and not so pleasant. But on this day we were fortunate to have the south wind. The water was smooth.

As we got out of sight of land and into the Stream, Robert suggested we not go to Florida and up the coast, but rather ride the Gulf Stream straight back to the mouth of the Cape Fear River. Our final destination was the Southport Marina, NC. It would be about a 3 1/2 day sail. I agreed and Robert plotted the course and gave me our heading. We had run the engine about two hours getting out of the harbor and the batteries were charged. We were on sails alone, it was so smooth and peaceful. We turned on the auto pilot and took turns on watch. We did three hours on and three hours off, all day and all night. Robert cooked and navigated. I operated the engine and made sail trims and changes, and fixed things.

In the morning conditions were still perfect and the sky was clear. It was February 7, 2001, which was going to be one of my most memorable days. Robert fixed breakfast and brought the captain his coffee while the captain ran the engine two hours to charge the batteries for the day.

Oh yeah, and it was Pat’s birthday.

After breakfast we turned off the engine and enjoyed the silence. We ran on auto pilot. The weather was warm, the wind was coming off the Atlantic, the sea was calm. The gulf stream was adding about two knots to our speed. We were out of sight of land, about fifty miles off the coast of Florida. While on watch we just make sure the sails stayed full, and the auto pilot did its thing. Off watch we read or just relaxed.

We didn’t see any other boats or ships. We did see a Coast Guard plane fly over just to the South of us sometime in the morning. They called us up on the radio and said to continue out of the area, there was to be some testing.

Robert fixed lunch. We continued to enjoy the most perfect day of sailing we had ever experienced.

In the afternoon the Coast Guard plane came back going the other way, back toward Florida. They didn’t say anything to us that time.

Late in the day, as the sun was getting low, Robert fixed some crackers and cheese, and opened a bottle of wine. Then we sat there and watched a perfect sunset. As the sun touched the horizon in the West, the full moon appeared in the East.

Robert went below to check on Dinner. I happened to look Southwest and I saw the rocket lift off. We were 75 miles Northeast of Cape Canaveral. I called Robert and told him to “Get up here”.

We could see the fire ball and column of smoke lifting into the sky. We were so excited. We watched it climb until it got almost directly over our heads. We had looked away for a second and we heard two sonic booms. We looked up and there was a big cloud right over our heads, and we could see the two fuel tanks tumbling off to the East of the cloud. We watched the fuel tanks fall toward the ocean and disappear over the horizon.

We watched the shuttle, barely visible, disappearing in a Northeast direction, with the full moon below and a little to the right. Then we heard the sound of the rocket taking off in the Southwest.

I have since Googled the flight. It was STS-98.

Space Shuttle Atlantis

STS-98 Google