On April 1, 2008 at 11:00am we left from the Ft. Myers Yacht Basin Marina with full tanks (600 gallons of diesel) to cruise the 65 miles to Marco Island. Our goal was to reach Marco in time for dinner with relatives Kent and Lisa Anderson and their daughter Kirstin, who will be entering the University of Florida this fall.
I estimated about 7 hours for the journey and we made it in 6, despite some pretty heavy waves as we challenged head-on winds in the 15 knot range. We had about 3 hours of the trip where the waves were crashing over the bow -- but the Grand Banks is made for this and performed flawlessly.
On the technical side FYI, the Grand Banks 42 Motoryacht is powered by twin Caterpillar 3208 V-8 diesel engines. We have a 3 cylinder 8KW generator for AC power when not at a marina. There are two helm stations, both fully equipped with Garmin Chartplotters and Raytheon Autopilots. I got a chance to use the autopilot almost all of the cruise to Marco Island. I set the bearing on the Garmin to a point on the map (called a waypoint) and marked it. The Garmin then posts a line to follow. I could have just stayed on that line by using the steering wheel. But since the Garmin is linked to the autopilot, I just push the Track button on the autopilot and it automatically follows the line on the map, hands off! (I know most of you boaters reading this are aware of this but a lot of my friends in Minnesota need to be brought up to date on open sea boating navigation)
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Hey, I use a Garmin for navigation, too! But the last time I used it to go from Ft. Myers to Marco Island, it took me about 25 minutes at 2,500' above ground level! :-)
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