Thursday, April 15th - Day 1
Air temp 71, Water temp 74, Winds SE @ 10-14
Yesterday we finished up our "before we leave" list, Laura did a last fresh grocery run and we had a last happy-hour with our friends Sal and Ina. Last night I had filled the water tank and put away the water hose. We were ready!
I had the alarm set for 6am figuring we would be off the dock before sunrise. But, as usual, I did not sleep well the night before leaving and decided to get up at 5:30am to start our departure. It was a nice morning - warm and calm - and I took my time to remove and stow away all the extra dock lines and power cord. Winds were out of the SE and only about 5 knots as we untied the last dock line. I love it when the boat just sits there at the dock with a light wind holding her. A little reverse and we were away. A few minutes later we said a sad good-bye to our friends and marina we had been at for 4 months. It was just light enough to see the channel markers as we motored out of Boot Key Harbor.
We rounded the turn outside the #1 and #2 channel markers and headed south around Boot Key. There were about 15 boats anchored outside the harbor. Will they be taking advantage of the SE to S winds today and head north? 3 miles later we turned the boat east into the sunrise and raised our jib and mainsail. Laura took this colorful picture of our morning sunrise.
It was a nice day for our first travel on the water in several months. We had taken the boat out a few times for sailing with family and friends but just relaxing and cruising is a different environment.
Later in the morning as we turned more northerly around The Keys, the winds were favorable for sailing and we turned the engine off for several hours.
Because we had left early and were making good time, we had a few options about where to stay tonight. We could anchor off Rodriquez Key and be protected from the SE to S winds. But, we would be there around 3pm. Traveling 20 miles farther would bring us to Anglefish Creek around 6pm. Dang. Just at low tide and, from experience, we need about 1/2 foot of tide to make it through the channel. Now what? I did slow the boat down thinking we would need to wait until 7pm for higher water at Anglefish Creek.
But, as we got closer, I realized maybe we could go a little farther and anchor on the ocean side of Elliott Key. This is not a place I would normally pick because it is open to the ocean waves and swells. As we sailed closer, the seas were pretty calm - maybe 1/2 foot of small chop. We decided to anchor just past Caesar Creek and maybe use the shallow creek entrance as a breakwater for the swells. Plus, this would save us an hour today and an hour tomorrow morning from not running to anchor on the Biscayne Bay side.
We did anchor just north of Caesar Creek off Elliott Key and it was pretty nice. The boat behaved and pointed into the wind and small chop. It was a long day and neither of us slept well the night before . We hit the sack at 9pm.
Pretty sunset over Elliott Key.
71.5nm in 12 hours and 20 minutes
4.5 hours of engine-off sailing
Friday, April 16th - Day 2
Air temp 75, Water temp 74 (78 in the Gulf Stream), Winds light
I slept excellent and woke up refreshed just before the alarm at 5am. I was up doing engine checks and preparing to get underway while Laura struggled out of bed. This is a real turn-around for us. I'm usually the straggler.
We had our navigation lights on as we pulled anchor at 5:30am in the dark. It was very calm and comfortable as we motor-sailed north toward Miami.
I decided to head out over the reef just north of Fowey Rocks Light to try and get into the Gulf Stream current as soon as possible. It worked out really well and just a few miles off-shore our speed picked up from 6 to 8 knots. Then 9 knots.... then 10. Whoa! Hold on! I took this picture of our GPS shortly afterwards. The boat speed (over ground) is in the upper left corner. 10 knots is crazy for our boat and we must have had about 4 knot of current helping us.
At one point we had a little help from the wind in our sails and actually hit 11 knots. But by then I had gotten tired of taking pictures of the GPS.
We motored passed Miami just after sunrise. As we were farther off-shore then usual, I was able to take this picture of the whole area. Key Biscayne is on the left, downtown Miami in the middle and Miami Beach on the right.
It was a lovely day on the ocean. Not enough wind to sail at more than 3 or 4 knots so we kept the motor running all day. Later in the morning the wind almost died completely and the water turned very glassy. Notice the water difference from the last picture of Miami.
I kept the boat between 6 and 7 miles off-shore (as shown on the RADAR) and the Gulf Stream cooperated by staying that close to shore today. Some days we've had to be out 10 miles off Ft. Lauderdale to stay in the stream.
We really racked up the miles at 10 knots for many hours. The boat was calm and winds helped a little in the afternoon when they came up to 7-8 knots out of the east.
Now we had another decision to make. Our goal for today was Lake Worth inlet where we would anchor just inside the inlet and come back out tomorrow morning for a run to Ft. Pierce. But, we were making such good time that I looked at other options. We could not make Ft. Pierce before dark but if we ran all night we could easily be in Cape Canaveral tomorrow morning. That would take a big chunk off our Florida travels.
Neither of us really wanted to do the overnight especially when the swell kicked up from the NE later in the day. The boat started hobby-horsing pretty good and the ride was not comfortable at all. It was like we were in the Gulf Stream with a north wind pushing against the current. But, there was no north wind today. Maybe there had been yesterday?
As a compromise, we decided to head for St. Lucie inlet if we could anchor off the ICW before dark. As I turned toward shore later in the afternoon the Gulf Stream actually cooperated by keeping our speed up until we were just 6 miles away from the inlet. We entered St. Lucie inlet at 6:30pm. This was the first time I had been in this inlet and I would not have tried a new inlet in the dark. We are members of TowBoat/U.S. and I called them when we were just a couple miles away to see if there were any issues I should be aware of. They said we should have no problems with our draft but there was a dredge working the inlet. I did call the dredge on our VHF radio and they told me to stay south of them as they were working the north side of the channel.
We entered the channel and motored toward the ICW. Once again it was low tide and rather than cross into the shallow St. Lucie River I decided to turn north on the ICW and anchor by the Jensen Beach Bridge. Winds were out of the south by then and forecast to clock south to west overnight. We decided to anchor north of the bridge by the western shore. The only problem was I knew there was a shallow bar just off the ICW that we had to cross - again at low tide.
When we were here a few years ago, I found the "hole" in the bar by slowly motoring the boat around the area. I marked it on my GPS so had a good reference to use today. It worked well and we were anchored just after sunset but before dark. Wow! What a long day. I can't remember the last time we had motored more than 120 miles in a day without traveling overnight. Pretty sunset tonight with the Sun peeking through the clouds right on the horizon. We both hit the sack early again.
121nm in 14.5 hours (8.35 average!) - 192.5 total miles
Engine ran all day.
Saturday, April 17th - Day 3
Air temp 74, Water temp 75, Winds W-NW @ 10-12
We slept in a bit today with no alarm set. Our long last 2 days had gotten us passed all the 35 bridges between Ft. Lauderdale and Stuart so there was no reason to hurry. We were our own masters now.
Anchor up at 8am and back over the shallow bar into the ICW heading north. We had the ICW mostly to ourselves for a couple hours but the local boat traffic really picked up just before noon. Weekends on the ICW are usually very crowded if you are near cities and the weather is nice.
The winds were sporadic in strength so not really good enough to sail with the engine off. We went through our only bridge of the day that had to open for us - Ft. Pierce North Bridge - at 10:30am. Now we were free again!
Wow! The local boat traffic around Vero Beach was really crazy. Boats were zooming by so close that we were getting spray in the cockpit. The real winners were the 25-30 foot runabouts that think they are doing you a favor by slowing down to where they make the most wake possible. They wave and smile on their way by as poor Second Wind rolls 20 degrees side-to-side on their 3 foot wake.
Here is one of my favorite houses on the ICW. It is just north of Vero Beach. I like it because of the dock, big windows and little Tiki-Bar on the second floor over to the left. I can just see myself sitting there watching the world go by.
No rush anymore to make miles so we anchored at 5:45pm just south of the Eau Gallie bridge. Boat is running well (knock on wood here) with only a few minor problems on my list. I'm very pleased with this since all the changes I've made over the past few weeks to our electrical system.
58nm today (average 5.9 - our normal speed), 250.5 miles total
Engine ran all day.
Sunday, April 18th - Day 4
Air temp 74, Water temp 76, Winds W @ 10-12
We relaxed a bit in the morning as our goal for today was Titusville - only 35 miles away. There is a lot of rain and thunderstorms coming through the new few days so we've decided to stay on a mooring in Titusville and sit them out. I like moorings in storms because I have a little less worry about our anchor holding and a lot less worry about the boats around us dragging into us.
Anchor up at 9am as we motored toward the Eau Gallie bridge and turned north on the Indian River. Winds were nice for sailing so we turned off the engine a few minutes later and it stayed cool all day. We sailed for the next 3 1/2 hours on calm waters - it was very beautiful and relaxing.
Our friends Dean and Sue on Autumn Borne had left Vero Beach a few hours before we went by so were a little ahead of us. Dean and I kept touch by text message. A couple hours before Titusville, Dean texted me that they were anchored in Titusville and getting squalls to 30 knots. Whoa! We could see the storms on the horizon ahead of us and were tracking them on our cell phones. Our winds were 10-12 knots on the beam and it was beautiful here. But, I thought, "Better safe than sorry" so I rolled in about 2/3rds of the mainsail just in case.
We had just passed the NASA Causeway Bridge when I could see the waves picking up on the water in front of us. I quickly started rolling in the jib and got about 4-5 rolls on it before we were hit by a 30 knot gust from the NW that quickly clocked to the NE. Our boat was going a little crazy and leaning over about 30 degrees as we tried to pull in the rest of our sails. I eventually had to turn downwind so we could roll in the last 1/2 of the jib and it took both Laura and I pulling on the jib roller line to get the sail in. Now we turned back upwind (with the engine at high RPMs) to pull in the last 1/3rd of the main. It came in fairly easy and we sat back trying to get our breaths. I guess the next time someone tells me there are squalls within 10 miles, I'm gonna pull in all my sails and just motor. But it's a darn good thing I had pulled much of the sails in. If we had our big sails out when that squall hit we could have gotten knocked over or pushed into the shallow water. Thank you Dean!
The winds died slowly and were only about 15 knots by time we picked up a mooring in Titusville. I went up on deck to see about a few repairs while Laura called the marina and paid for two nights on the mooring ($38.52 for 2 nights).
We had broken the topping lift line on our staysail and jammed part of our mainsheet track. That was weird because we didn't even have the staysail up. Anyway, I was able to fix the topping lift fairly quickly by cutting away some of the frayed line and reconnecting to the snap-shackle. The mainsheet traveler was a little harder.
Twice during the storm the mainsail had jibbed really hard to the opposite side. One of the stoppers had become jammed and wouldn't move. It took me about 1/2 hour of prying to get it loose but it still doesn't work as well as the other side. I'm going to have to replace this in the future but it works OK now.
Laura made homemade pizza for dinner and we celebrated our arrival here with a bottle of Gnarley Head Old Vine Zin. Sorry I didn't get a "before" picture but here was the remainder of the Shrimp and Broccoli Alfredo Pizza. It was yummy!
I practiced my flute (first time in 5 days and it showed) and we relaxed on the boat. Tomorrow a few more boat jobs and maybe shore-leave?
34nm today, 284.5 miles total
3 1/2 hours of engine-off sailing
Monday, April 19th - Day 5
Lots of thunderstorms during the night woke us several times. This was the first major storm since we replaced 14 of our portlights, re-bedded all of our lifeline stanchions and repainted the decks over this past winter. The results were pretty impressive. All of the leaks we had been experiencing for the past many years were gone. We only had a slow drip through 2 of the new portlights but a little tightening of the latches and they both stopped.
I worked on commissioning our Electra-Scan waste treatment system and it is working great now.
One problem bugging me from my battery work is our engine alternator is only charging our batteries at about 50 amps. It is a 150 amp alternator! I think the problem is I turned down the voltage regulator settings to save the belts a bit but it shouldn't have made that much difference. Back to work....
I pulled our the manual for the Balmar MaxCharge MC-614 voltage regulator and read through the settings. It showed that the display on the regulator cycled through several readings and I watched the regulator and wrote them all down. I then went back to the table to check them out. Hmmm. It seems the voltage regulator thinks the batteries are currently at 13.9 volts. It is set to charge them to 14.0 volts so it has cut down the charging current. I checked the batteries are they are at 13.3 volts. The voltage regulator is wrong. OK. If the regulator is working correctly (I didn't have a spare) then there is a bad, high-resistance connection somewhere that is affecting the voltage it is seeing.
I ran a new wire from the "battery voltage sense" on the regulator to the positive battery hookup. I ran the engine and the regulator still saw 13.9 volts on the batteries. Hmmm. Well, there are two sides to an electrical circuit. Let's check the ground wires. I had removed the ground wires from the alternator as part of my Lithium battery project to connect the Alternator Protect Device. I went back to there and pulled it all apart. The main 2-0 battery cable looked corroded (I couldn't see this before because I hadn't taken it off) and probably needed a new connector that would more closely match the bolt size on the alternator. It turns out I had a new connector of the correct size left over from my battery project. Laura helped me cut off the old terminal with a sawsall and hacksaw blade. I crimped on a new terminal and put a large heatshrink over it all. Excellent!
Hook everything back up and it seems to work much better! Even running the engine at low RPM the alternator is now putting out 60 amps instead of 30 amps before. Plus I can see from the voltage regulator display that it now sees the battery voltage at 13.3. Yea!
Last project is write up 5 days of travel in the blog. Done!
We will probably stay here Tuesday night and leave for Daytona on Wednesday. The rain and storms are supposed to be south of us so our travel should be nice with sunny days and cooler nights with north winds. I'll let you know how it goes....
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