Good bye America….

We are now leaving America after 6 months, and it actually feels a little strange. The onward plan is Bahamas for Christmas, then to the Panama Canal and the Pacific. Very exciting.

It was very fitting that our last place to visit was Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Centre. There are many things we will remember about America but in particular it will be the scale and the ambition – nothing is too big, too far or too difficult and somehow the Space centre encapsulates all of this. We will also remember the people who have been unfailingly polite, welcoming and helpful. The OCC network and rallies have been great and hopefully we can keep up with many of our new friends. Our knowledge of American history is greatly improved albeit from a very low base.

There are somethings we are glad to leave behind – the food, the complete domination of the car and pick up, the urban sprawl and the excessive use/waste of energy in all its forms. Of course there are some things we will miss in particular superfast broadband and BBC Radio 4 in the morning via the internet. We have been frantically downloading books, pod casts, films and charts in preparation for lean broadband!

On the sail down to Cape Canaveral from St Augustine we had the first opportunity to use the new asymmetric spinnaker. This is a downwind sail for light winds and essential for the long downwind stretches in the Pacific. The more astute might think this looks very similar to the code zero. It does, but I can assure you the colours were picked with great care and are different, and more importantly the cut is different and this allows it to go downwind. Dare I say it, but this might just seem like some boat bling as it does seem rather subtle, but actually it goes really well and we can now do reasonable speeds in some very light downwind airs. This will be much appreciated in the Pacific.

Approaching Cape Canaveral there are some new notations on the charts which I do not think we will ever see again.

“Exercise caution while dragging the ocean floor since missile debris may exist in this area”

The lock we had to go through to get to our marina had to be specially enlarged to hold parts of the Saturn 5 rocket and the space shuttles. Much to our surprise the lock was opened, water lowered and risen just for us. A Capella must have looked rather small in this very large lock.

We really enjoyed The Kennedy Space centre. All the facts and figures are just enormous. There is amazing wildlife on the site – up to 6000 alligators and 300 different types of bird species! Yes, there are a few tacky bits but all in all a fascinating visit.

The VAB is where the rockets are assembled. It used to be the worlds biggest building by volume but now it is the sixth biggest. The doors are the biggest in the world and take 45 minutes to open. We could see this building from miles out at sea.

The launch pad 39B will launch NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) which will hopefully take man to Mars sometime in the 2030’s!

The Saturn 5 plus rockets and the moon landing module that we saw were the real machines. The moon landing research was rather abruptly stopped and the equipment was already built.

And now for the tacky bit