Titusville to Jensen Beach

Friday, January 13th - (continued)

Later in the afternoon, the boat that was pushing the barge and trying to help the sailboat next to us came back without the barge.  He eventually was able to get the sailboat off the shallows but it took several tries including one where it looked like the front of the sailboat kinda came apart.  Bummer.  There was no way my little 20hp dinghy would have moved him.  A few minutes later both boats drifted by us.

The powerboat left and the small sailboat (pushed by the dinghy) slowly worked its way out to the ICW (over shallows again....) and north far away from us..

As we watched him go, I felt like a huge weight was off my shoulders with much less to worry about.  

We decided to stay another day to watch the SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch tomorrow.  

Saturday, January 14th - Day 5

Cloudy and windy (NW 20-30 knots).  Cool with highs in the 50s and lows in the high 30s

Last night was rough.  The winds that were supposed to be WNW ended up coming from farther north which sent 2-3 foot waves down at us from the north where this anchorage was open for over 6 miles to Titusville.  We did not sleep well but we were both so tired we slept through it after about 3am.

By morning the wind was howling from 30 - 40 knots and 41,000 pounds of Second Wind was jumping around pretty good.  It was time to move.  My plan was to pull up the anchor and motor through the Addison Point Bridge over to the eastern side where we might have a better view of the Falcon Heavy launch tonight.

Wow.  What a ride!  I was up on the bow trying to pull in the anchor chain and Laura was down below making sure the chain was falling right into the anchor locker.  I think I was moving up and down about 4 feet with the waves.  The chain was so hard to pull in that at one point I went back to the cockpit to see if I had left the transmmission in reverse.  Nope.  It was just the 35 knot winds blowing on the boat and masts.  Geez.

I eventually got the anchor loose and yelled to Laura to come up and man the windlass.  The boat was getting quickly blown toward the shallow water and I had to get on the helm.  It took almost full throttle to turn the boat back into the wind as Laura struggled with the last 10 feet of chain.

I called the bridge tender as we slowly motored to the draw bridge and I think I woke him up.  He probably figured no boats would be moving today with these high winds.

15 minutes later it was a whole new world as we slowly motored east on the calm southern side of the bridge.  We dropped anchor and relaxed the rest of the day.  

Here is a screen-shot from our chart plotter after the move.  North is at the top.  The purple line shows our track from the left side, down though the bridge to the anchorage on the south side of the bridge.  Barely had time to warm up the engine...

Oh.  1 hour before launch it was rescheduled to tomorrow.  Don't think I'm going to stick around because we have reservations in Jensen Beach which I've already changed once.  Plus there are no guarantees on tomorrow's launch so we'll probably head south.

Sunday, January 15th - Day 6

Clear with NW winds 10-12 knots dying during the morning.  Temps near 60 later in the day.

29nm today.  234nm from Savannah

Anchor up 8:30am and we slowly motored back to the ICW.  1/2 hour later we rolled out the jib, turned off the engine and sailed!  It was only for about 2 hours until the wind died and we had to motor again.  But, this was the first engine-off sailing of our trip. Laura took this short video while we were sailing.

Today was scheduled to be short as we only needed to make Melbourne which would set us up for Ft Pierce tomorrow.  As the winds calmed the boat traffic picked up - both local and cruisers.  It was a pretty day on the water and lots of folks were enjoying it.

We anchored at 2:15pm.  I worked a few boat jobs (dang antifreeze leak again) and we had a quiet evening on the boat.  

The SpaceX launch was scheduled for 5:56pm and it was beautiful.  From only 30 miles away we saw the whole thing including the ship going up and the two boosters coming back.  Laura took a great video with her Nikon of the whole thing but we have to wait for Wi-Fi to upload and share  It's 1.7 gigabytes....

Here was a pretty picture I took just after sunset. No more big winds!

Monday, January 16th - Day 7

44nm today - 309 total from Savannah

Warmer with highs near 70.  Winds light and variable.

We pulled the anchor at 8am and motored back to a very calm ICW.  This is one of my favorite areas to travel as we go from the wide open Indian River to weaving in and out of small islands.  Some of the islands have homes that are beautiful.  I think it would be neat to live on an island with only boat access.

I saw on the internet that the Donald Ross lift bridge was broken could not open for boaters.  This is just north of Lake Worth - what would be the next day's travel for us after today.  After checking on Facebook, I saw the area from Vero Beach to Hobe Sound is full of sailboats waiting to transit through there.  Powerboats under 30 feet in height can just go under the closed bridge.

This wouldn't be so bad but the off-shore winds and seas have not been good for running south out of Ft Pierce or St Lucie Inlets.  For example, today there are 5-6 foot seas near the coast.

As we got closer to Ft. Pierce, we could see boats anchored everywhere and the Ft. Pierce City Marina told us there were no open slips.  I had called yesterday and tried to reserve a week.  No room at the inn.

We had a nice ride through Vero Beach with the multi-million dollar, beautiful homes everywhere.  The bridge-tender running the Ft. Pierce North Bridge was a lot of fun.  She obviously enjoyed her job and was very happy when we called for an opening.  What a difference from a few days ago when the bridge tenders didn't even answer us when we said thanks.

A short while later we pulled into the Ft. Pierce City Marina fuel dock and took on 95 gallons of diesel (from Myrtle Beach) and 10 gallons of gasoline that we had used for our Honda generator to keep warm on the cold nights.  Phew.  What a difference from a few years ago with the prices close to $5 per gallon.  But, we now had fuel for the winter down in the keys and shouldn't need to fill up again until we get back here in the spring.  After fueling and filling up our water tank, the boat was sitting a lot lower in the water with the addition of almost 2,000 pounds.  I always feel better when we fill up our fuel and water tanks.  Now we are independent for another few weeks....

We motored out of the marina and back to the ICW where we crossed and went into the anchorage south of Harbour Isle.  Wow.  This big anchorage had lots of anchored sailboats too.  I assume most were waiting for the Donald Ross Bridge to get fixed.  We went in near the end of the anchorage and found a nice open spot to drop the hook.  Anchor down at 4:15pm.

Here is a colorful sunset picture showing all the anchored boats. There are usually only 1 or 2 other boats anchored here.

Tuesday, January 17th - Day 8

Warm and sunny.  Calm winds

15nm today - 322 total miles from Savannah

We slept in this morning as the instructions for our mooring said not to arrive before 12pm.  Boats leaving the moorings were supposed to be off by 11am.

9:30am we left the anchorage while all the other boats stayed put.  We slowly motored down the ICW to Jensen Beach where we had to go about 1/2 mile passed the bridge before turning into the mooring field / anchorage.  As we approached our assigned mooring, I could see there was a boat still on it.  I yelled over to the gent on the sailboat who told me they had been on the mooring for the past two nights.  He didn't say they had it reserved for tonight.

I called the mooring field manager (Mike) and told him what was going on.  He said that boat should have left by 11am and he had told them there were no other moorings available.  Maybe 15 minutes later the boat finally dropped their mooring lines and motored about 1/4 mile where they dropped their anchor.  I was not a happy guy.  Idiot.

Laura did her normal great job of attaching our lines to the mooring with a little help from me because the mooring loop was very heavy.  A few minutes later we were secure and put the engine to bed for a few days.

We dropped the dinghy and lowered the outboard from the railing storage spot for the first time this trip.  It took 7-8 pulls for the engine to start but I remembered it hadn't been run since we left Catskill in September.

Laura and I took the dinghy to the dock, tied her up and walked ashore for the first time in 8 days.  We dropped some garbage and took Laura's first walk since her foot surgery in October - about 1/2 mile total.  It was a nice day and felt good to loosen up the legs.  Here is a picture we took from shore with Second Wind on the mooring.  She's the boat in the middle.

Our friends Chris and Bob were at their condo in Jupiter and we made plans for dinner together in Jensen Beach.  They picked us up at 4:30pm and we spent a nice evening at Mulligans.  Food and beverages were good and it was nice to see them again after almost 2 years.  After dinner they took us to the local Publix where we purchased fresh veggies, fruits and some dairy.  Our purchase was just about right for the 5 bags we brought with us to fit the dinghy on the ride back.

Back to the boat at 8:30pm in the dark.  We found her!  Laura put away groceries while I struggled with hauling up the dinghy.  I think there is some wear on the pulley sheaves which is making them hard to turn.  I'll check this out better in the next couple days. Both Laura and I slept well that night.  Her nephew Jon is flying in tomorrow to join us for a couple weeks.  

Wednesday, January 18th - Day 9

We were up early getting the boat reconfigured for another person including cleaning out our forward cabin and finding places to put all the stuff we normally keep there.  Laura spent most of the day cleaning up there while I took laundry into the dock.  I spent most of the afternoon washing, drying and folding the laundry then dinghy'd it all back to the boat trying to keep it dry with the increasing waves.  Success!

Jon took an Uber from the West Palm airport and arrived at the dinghy dock just after sunset.  By then the winds and seas had calmed a bit so we had a quiet ride to Second Wind.  Jon settled in with many directions from us on how to use "boat stuff".  Laura made a great dinner of Chicken Chow Mien and we relaxed in the cockpit afterwards with cocktails.  

My plan was to shop for more groceries with Jon tomorrow then use the low winds / seas on Friday and Saturday to get down to The Keys.  But, we've decided to stay in this area a few more days and enjoy the Jensen Beach / Stuart area a little bit.  Hope this is the right decision and we have another window for sailing down the coast in 3 - 5 days.  Wish us luck!