Monday, May 4, 2026 continued… As we left Kennedy Space Center, we discussed a dinner plan. We’d liked the food at Rising Tide so much that we decided to go back again tonight. It was another great meal, and with the happy hour specials, it was great value for the money. They had some really yummy mocktails, too.

Eric and Christi wanted to take advantage of the car to do more sightseeing, but Keith wanted to go back to Kosmos and talk to his friends online. Eric and Christi dropped Keith off, then took a drive south to Cocoa Beach to go to the famous pier.

After scoping it out from the edge of the parking area, we decided that it didn’t look interesting enough to pay the $6 per hour parking fee. Instead, we drove around the neighborhood to see if we could find Jeannie’s house. The area along the beach was lined with condos and hotels. Some were modern, but most looked like they dated back to the 1950s. The houses a little farther way from the beach were mostly bungalow-style track homes from the 1950s that had been gentrified. We couldn’t remember exactly what Jeannie’s house looked like, but we remembered enough that we were sure that it would have blended in with the real neighborhood.

We passed the famous Ron Jon surf shop. We’d figured it would be big, but we didn’t expect it to be majestic.

Once we’d felt like we’d seen enough, we headed back to the boat for the evening. Eric was pleased to see that, thanks to it being windy and mostly sunny all day, we’d actually increased our battery charge while we were gone and we didn’t need to run the generator.

Here was the sunrise on Tuesday.

We spent the morning getting Kosmos ready to go to sea. We untied from the dock at about 1045. The ride out of channel uneventful. This was looking back towards the yacht club.

Once in the ocean, there was 7 knots of wind and the swells were 3 – 4 feet plus a couple of feet of wind chop. Initially, we were in head seas and it was uncomfortable, but that only lasted for a couple of hours. Then we changed course to an angle that gave us quartering seas. Still not fun, but it did make the ride better. As the day worse on, we made several more mild course adjustments. With each, the ride improved and eventually became pleasant when the waves were hitting squarely on the starboard side.

Eric decided to run close to shore the entire way, so we could see land most of the time. It was a gorgeous day. Mostly sunny skies with wispy clouds and a nearly ideal temperature at 77-degrees Fahrenheit with low humidity. We made great time. In the head seas, we were doing 6-knots are 1650 RPM. Once we were in beam seas, Eric cranked the RPMs down to 1550 and we were average in the high 6 range. In the late afternoon, he cranked it down again to 1500 and we were still doing in the high 6 range. This was the dusk.

After dark, we did slow down a tad bit. Eric moved the RPMs back up to 1600 to maintain the speeds in the high 6 range. We also adjusted course again so the wind was on our tail, making the ride even better. The moon was 2/3 full and helped with visibility. We could see the lights from the shore, but were far enough away from shore that the light pollution didn’t dim our view of the stars.

We’re pleased to report that nothing exciting happened. We wish all passages could be this nice.