Thursday, April 11th - Titusville (Day 8)
Windy and storms. Temp 78. Water temp 72
Not much going on today because we were watching the storms approach then sitting through them. Once the storms hit, there was a lot of rain but the winds actually died down from the past few days. After the storms it was a fairly nice evening. I took this picture around 6:15pm. There was patchy Sun and much calmer water.
We spent a quiet evening on the boat and prepared to get underway tomorrow to Daytona.
Friday, April 12 - Titusville to Daytona (Day 9)
Partly cloudy with sporadic winds. Winds NW @ 8-20 knots
43 Nautical miles today. 355 total trip miles
We were both anxious to go after sitting through bad weather for a couple days. We dropped the mooring at 8am and motored almost all day up the ICW.
It seemed the ICW cruiser traffic had picked up and we were passed by several powerboats during the morning. This was the view looking back shortly after leaving the marina.
Today was going to set the tone for the next week or so. We had the tidal currents against us all day. How this works is approaching New Smyrna Beach and the Ponce Inlet, the tide was rising so the water was coming in the inlet against us. We we passed through the George Munson Bridge and cruised past the inlet, it was just passed high tide and the current was against us all the way to Daytona. I hate it when that happens....
Once passed New Smyrna we tried to get some help from the jib but the winds were constantly changing in direction and speed. We quickly gave up on that and just motored. You can see we only had a tiny amount of the jib out because the winds gusts were blowing us over. Daytona high-rises in the background.
We anchored by the Memorial Bridge at 4pm. I don't think we've slept well the past few nights because of winds and storms so we decided to skip our normal dinghy ride to Caribbean Jacks. We still have fond memories of their awesome Mahi BLTs.
Dinner was in the cockpit watching the sunset. It was a quiet night on the boat and we both slept well.
Saturday, April 13th - Daytona to St. Augustine (Day 10)
Sunny and warm. N to E winds at 10-15.
47 nautical miles today. 402 total trip miles
We had made reservations for a mooring in St. Augustine for Saturday and Sunday. Pam and Russ on Apre' Ski were also going to be there on Sunday.
It was a pretty weekend day so lots of smaller local boats cruising around. Many would zoom by us in one direction then, a couple hours later, zoom back the other way. Where did they go?
Once again, the currents were against us most of the day and I think we averaged about 5 knots except for some help the last 4 miles. Temperature was pleasant and we were still in shorts and light shirts. We enjoyed the cruise.
As we approached St. Augustine, I called the marina on the marine radio. They told me our mooring was on the north (other) side of the bridge. The Bridge of Lions bridge only opens on the hour and 1/2 hour. It turned out that we only had to wait about 5 minutes for their 4:30 opening then we motored over to the mooring.
I was able to get a quick picture of Laura attaching our mooring lines to the mooring pendant so maybe this will help explain what she does. If you double-click on the picture it will blow up a bit.
She has to extend our boat hook all the way to reach down into the water and pick up the mooring pendant. This is a heavy line attached to the mooring ball. The mooring ball is attached to the bottom - usually through a big screw-in anchor. In this picture, she has picked up the mooring pendant and is holding it with the boat hook in her right hand. In her left hand she has our line which is attached to the boat. She has to put that line through the thimble (the little circle thing near her knees) then bring it back and attached that end to the boat (without dropping our boat hook into the water). Now that mooring line is secure and she does it again on the other side. This gives us (2) 5/8" mooring lines for redundancy. We've done this probably 100-200 times so she is really experienced.
A short time later the boat was secure and we cleaned up from our daily travels.
I had been talking to our friend Paul who lives in the area so we decided to meet at O.C. Whites for dinner. It is very close - just across the street from the marina office.
We dropped the dinghy and motored into the marina with a bag of laundry. Laura started (2) washers while I walked to the office to pay our mooring fee ($63 for 2 nights). We then walked across the street and got a table right away (I was expecting to be put on a wait list). I was surprised we got a table so quickly because the whole town was a zoo (again!) as it was "Race Weekend". Paul and Ursula came in a few minutes later. It was a fun evening and we enjoyed the same GOOD guitar player / singer that was here in December.
Sometime in the evening Laura went over and put the clothes in the dryer. After dinner and good-byes, we went back and folded everything before hauling back to the boat. I pulled the dinghy up on the davits and we hit the sack - tired but very happy.
Sunday, April 14th - St. Augustine (Day 11)
Sunny and pleasant. Light N to NE winds. Temps high 70s
In the morning we dropped the dinghy and did our "grocery run". After tying up at the marina, we walked the 2 miles to Winn Dixie on a very pretty, comfortable day. Again we were in shorts and light shirts enjoying the great weather.
We stocked up a little more than we planned because the prices were so good after being in the Florida Keys the past several months. They had a sale on thick t-bone steaks for $5.99 / pound. How could we beat that? Paul came to pick us up which saved on the Uber. We loaded up the dinghy and said "Hi" to Russ and Pam who had just tied up to a mooring about 4 boats behind Second Wind. We made plans to meet later for a walk around town and some place for munchies / drinks.
There are boats that spend all winter on moorings in Marathon and live a nice life. One of the not-so-nice parts is groceries. When we are on a mooring, each grocery item is moved 10 times before being put away on the boat. Check it out.
- Place item in shopping cart
- Move to checkout counter
- Put in bag and place in cart
- Move from cart to car
- Move from car to dock-cart
- Put in dinghy
- From dinghy, put bags up on the side of the boat
- Move from side of the boat into the cockpit
- Hand bags down the stairs into the salon
- Put each item away
Crazy, right?
After putting everything away and vacuum sealing the meats before freezing, we relaxed a bit before taking the dinghy back to Russ and Pam. They decided to ride with us so we all went into the marina together in our dinghy Passing Wind (just made that up but it would be a good name??).
We had fun walking with Russ and Pam around "Old Town" St. Augustine and eventually settled on a sidewalk table for cocktails and munchies at the River and Fort restaurant. It was a very pleasant few hours watching the world go by. It reminded me of South Beach in Miami where you can get a restaurant table right next to the sidewalk and enjoy the sights. It was a very nice restaurant with excellent views of the fort (Castillo de San Marcos National Monument) and Mantanzas River. I guess that's where it got the name..... So sorry I didn't get a picture of us at the restaurant. It was a very pretty place and we looked good as usual.
Walking back to the marina, I took this nice picture of the boat. We're the one on the left.
We took the dinghy back to Apre' Ski where Pam and Russ invited us in for a little boat party. This was our second party day in a row and we were getting a little run down.
Back to our boat and we had to turn on some lights to take the motor off the dinghy in preparation for an off-shore run tomorrow. We're pretty good at this now and maybe 1/2 hour later the outboard was secure on the rail mount, I flushed it for a few minutes with fresh water, and hauled up the dinghy including extra straps to prevent ocean flopping around.
We ran the generator for a little while to charge batteries a bit while watching maybe one TV show before hitting the sack. We had a 8am appointment for tomorrow morning with St. Augustine inlet. It was to be a crazy next three days but that's another story for later.
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