A Tale of Two Chemists: Shirker

Shirker

Saturday December 19, 2020

After the excitement of seeing a rocket launch, the rest of the day was bound to seem a bit pedestrian. We set off from Cocoa (how did the town get that name?) and started motoring south toward Melbourne. After quite a while, I relieved Mike at the helm. All was going well until just as we approached a fixed bridge, a motor vessel was attempting to overtake us. Admittedly he had slowed considerably for which we were grateful. Then as we slowed down, a second motor vessel roared up to overtake both boats. Holy mackerel! I had to hand the whole mess over to Mike. After we had transited the bridge and the powerboats were gone, Mike asked: “How did I come to be at the controls again?”

It’s because I’m a shirker. Not for me is offering to do extra work. I don’t volunteer to pump out the dinghy or write up the logbook. As a member of the crew, I’m substandard. Perhaps I took my dad’s advice too seriously. He used to say: “Never volunteer.” That’s the voice of an experienced military man.

Interestingly, we saw several boats sailing down the ICW today. No doubt this was largely because the wind was still blowing from the north (despite a forecast of east winds). At least two of these boats had their spinnakers flying! Those sailors are pretty bold—not all of this area has good depth. I saw one catamaran sailing wing on wing. Whilst none of these boats were going anywhere fast, the catamaran seemed to be stationary. I was speculating that they were aground. Perhaps the wind was just a lot lighter than I thought.

Gloria

28 05.513 N, 80 35.250 W

As you can imagine Gloria does plenty of work on this boat …

The Falcon 9 rocket launch was incredible. We watched from the cockpit of Cotinga whilst at anchor in Cocoa. Even from ~25 miles away it was amazing. We simultaneously watched a Space X / National Reconnaissance Office live stream broadcast on my phone and then saw the rocket clear as day, although it took us a few moments to pick it up in the sky – higher and brighter than we anticipated. The rumble from the engines came quite a while after our first visual - as you’d expect. 8 minutes after the launch they managed a flawless landing of the 1st stage booster back at Cape Canaveral which we watched on the live stream but didn’t pick up by sight. However, shortly after landing we heard an almighty bang that we assume was the re-entry sonic boom.

Mike