Starting North 2023 - Marathon to Vero Beach

Beautiful Marathon Winter

We had arrived in Marathon on January 21st and had a great 2+ months at Burdines Waterfront Marina.  The weather was awesome without the cold fronts coming down every couple weeks like some past Winters.  

Most of our friends here have moved on to other pastures and only Sal and Ina (our dock neighbors) were here to share the fun.  Sal plays a wonderful harmonica so on the windy evenings (wind keeps away the no-see-ums) we got together under the tiki-hut for happy-hour and I played guitar, flute and Uke with Sal's harmonica and Laura singing along to many Caribbean or folk songs on our list.  

I have several videos posted on our YouTube channel from previous years and we took this one for our friend Joyce who loved the song.  

One big project for my Winter was installing StarLink internet on the boat.  The marina Wi-Fi was very sporadic and we had maxed out our Hot-Spot on both phones for the ride down here.  Having StarLink made a huge difference in our lives.  No more wondering where our evening  streaming TV was going to come from or how long it was going to work.

It was a little inconvenient not to have a car but we traded Sal and Ina good Wi-Fi (from our StarLink) for car rides to grocery and a few other places.  It was a great trade for us since it didn't cost us any more then using StarLink ourselves.  StarLink is advertised as being able to support (5) hi-def video downloads at once - I didn't try it but it had no problem running us and two neighbor boats.

I worked several smaller boat jobs including finally fixing our engine antifreeze leak.  When Laura's nephew Jon was here we isolated the leak to one hose connection on the heat-exchanger.  When I took the hose off, I could see the fitting on the heat-exchanger had corroded to where the clamp would no longer seal the hose. Here is the nipple after I cleaned it up with a wire wheel.  The big indent I circled in red.  This was probably caused from Galvanic Corrosion which occurs in salt water from dissimilar metals.  Like if you have stainless steel and aluminum near each other in salt water, they make a little electrical current which corrodes one of them.  Sacrificial zincs on boats help to prevent this.  I'm simplifying here but if you want to know more, there are lots of articles on the Internet about Galvanic Corrosion.

The best method to fix this would have been remove the heat-exchanger and take it to a welder.  They would cut off the nipple and weld on a new one (from a piece of aluminum pipe the right size) and I would put it all back together.  I've done this in the past and it takes several days of work to take everything apart and put it back together.  I basically have to take apart the whole right side of the engine.

I thought instead I'd try something less complicated.  I had used JB Weld in the past to fix a few other problems and, while researching their offerings for aluminum, I found their two-part JB Marine.  It seemed perfect.  Laura picked me up a couple tubes from Home Depot after one of her Publix runs and I went to work.  The stuff was not as hard as the normal JB Weld and more like toothpaste consistency. But it went on pretty well and I was able to shape it with a small piece of wood before it cured.  Then, only 3 hours later I could sand it round until my hands got really sore.  Here was the finished product.  The JB Marine is so white it kinda washes out the picture but you can see how much more round the nipple is now.

After putting everything back together I still had a small leak that was fixed by just tightening the clamp with a small wrench.  Good news is over 20 hours of engine time later it still doesn't leak.

Laura's granddaughter Kara came to visit and had a fun time snorkeling and beach combing.  Here she was just coming back to the boat after nice snorkeling at Sombrero Reef.  Lara kept a close eye on her and is over to the right.

Laura's long-time friend Catherine also visited.  She and Laura had a great time reminiscing, beach combing and sightseeing a bit since Catherine had rented a car and we had wheels for a week.  Here they are on the bow of Second Wind on Catherine's first ever sail.  We had a beautiful day on the water with Catherine, Sal and Ina plus Jon and Margaret (s/v Quicksilver) joined us.  Some how, we never took a picture of everyone together.  Bummer.

 We had a little going away party with Sal and Ina at Porky's Restaurant.  Sal was playing harmonica with "Donny" so Laura and I walked up there for dinner and sat with Ina.  Here we are full and happy after dinner and the band quit for the night.

I love this picture because it's so colorful.  I guess I didn't get the memo and wore a white shirt...

We had planned on leaving around April 1st and it turned out that April 2nd started several days of nice travel weather for us.  We had been taking advantage of food sales at Publix so had our freezers mostly stocked.  Just a trip for fresh groceries and a few "before we leave" boat jobs for me like changing fuel filters, etc.

Saturday (April 1st), in the late afternoon, we moved the boat to the fuel dock to fill up our tank and make an easy get away in the morning.  We were ready!

Sunday, April 2nd (Day 1)

Sunny with light SE winds.  Water temp 83.  Morning temp 77.  

71nm today

I had topped off our water tank last night and put away our hose.  That was the last piece before leaving.  The alarm was set for 6:15am and we were up right away when it went off.  I hadn't slept well (never do the night before we leave) but was energized to get going.

We were supposed to be off the fuel dock before they opened at 7am and we cast off our lines at 6:55.  Here we go!  Laura took this picture of the Burdines fuel dock behind us just before we left.  Calm and pretty.

We motored out of the harbor and turned south (into the wind) to get around Boot Key.  As we turned east to head up the Hawk Channel the winds moved to the beam so we rolled out the jib and main.  The light winds added about 1 knot to our speed.

This was about 1/2 hour after sunrise.  Very pretty day on the water.

As we approached Islamorada a few hours later, the SE swell went away and the waters became so clear you could see the bottom clearly 30 feet away.  Laura went out on the bow seat and enjoyed the view for quite a while.

I knew we had 2-3 days of nice travel weather and my goal was to get passed the 40 bridges from Miami to Stuart by traveling out on the ocean.  Since the winds were less than 10 knots, we decided to anchor near Elliot Key.  This is a pretty anchorage but wide open to the east and south.  This evening it was fine and we dropped the anchor on a sandy bottom just at 7pm.  A long 12-hour day for us to make the start of our trip.  But, it would set us up nicely for the longer run to Lake Worth on the ocean tomorrow.

Monday, April 3rd (Day 2)

Sunny with light winds.  Sea temp 80.  Morning temp 75

89nm today - 160 total miles

It was a very warm night in the boat.  Even after running the air-conditioner for a couple hours off the Honda generator, our cabin was 83 degrees.  We had everything open but the winds subsided after dark and we only had a fan blowing fresh (warm) air on us from outside.  Around midnight, I moved to the sofa under the open hatches which was much cooler and slept for several hours.  I needed it after not sleeping much the previous night.

I had the alarm set for 6am because I wanted to change out the house water pump which was giving us problems yesterday.  Maybe because of the 120 degree engine room all day, the pump overheated several times and we didn't have any water coming out of the faucets or shower.  After turning off the pump for a couple hours, it came back but eventually quit again.  I didn't change it last night because I wanted the engine room to cool down first.

We had a spare pump (I've changed several of these in the past 17 years) and it's about the easiest thing to change on the whole boat.  It's very accessible - just inside the engine room door - and the hose fittings just unplug from the old pump and plug into the new one.  I had the old pump removed and the new pump installed in less than 1/2 hour.  By 7am we were hauling up the anchor and getting underway.

This was the sunrise a few minutes later.

It was another beautiful morning on the water.  We ran up the Hawk Channel about 5 miles until there was a clear opening over the reef to the ocean.  I turned slightly eastward and we motor-sailed onto a calm North Atlantic.

My plan was to head away from the coast until we were in the Gulf Stream.  This would add 2-3 knots to our speed - pushing us north - and enable us to make the almost 100 nautical miles to Lake Worth from where we started.  After only getting to about 3 miles off-shore we started picking up speed from 6 knots...  7 knots...  8 knots...  I love this part of the trip!  It seems like we are zooming and the miles really count down fast on the GPS to our destination.

A couple hours later we were off Miami and Laura got a great picture of the city.  Notice how calm it was.

We never had enough wind to help much with our speed but we averaged 8.5 to 9 knots all day on a fairly calm ocean.  Plus the 6-7 knot wind in our big sails really stopped most of the boat movement on the occasional swell.  I expected to see more sailboats heading north.  Didn't see another sailboat all day until almost to Lake Worth.

We entered the Lake Worth channel just after a huge cruise ship came out.  I wouldn't want to meet him in the narrow channel!  It worked out we had the tidal current helping us and zoomed into the anchorage just south of the channel.

I think we've anchored here 5 or 6 times before and it's always a challenge.  Boats are everywhere with some on moorings.  This means they swing differently from anchored boats so you don't want to anchor too close to them.  After 10-15 minutes of hunting around I found an open spot near the channel and we dropped the hook at 6pm.  An hour less running than yesterday and almost 20 miles farther.  I love the Gulf Stream!

There was a breeze this evening as the winds picked up from the SE an hour or so before we entered the channel.  It gave us lots of fresh air through the boat with the open hatches on our cabin top.  I decided to close the other windows so we were sucking in air from the bow and letting it back out from our cabin.  This should cool everything down quickly, right.

Don't forget we had been running the engine for 11 hours and the engine room was almost 120 degrees.  That's a lot of heat to dissipate when the rest of the boat is pretty warm already.  I opened all the engine room doors to let the heat out.  This would make our bedroom much warmer now but I hoped the wind through the boat would cool it later on.

That cooled down the engine room nicely to low 90s so I closed it up and tried to cool down our cabin which was now 87 degrees.  After an hour or so it came down to 83 and now it was almost bedtime.  It was too warm for me to get comfortable (again!) so I slept most of the night on the sofa.  After midnight the winds died down (as predicted) which didn't help us cool the boat.

Tuesday, April 4th (Day 3)

Sunny with a few storms around.  Water temp 80.  Outside temp 78

49nm today - 209 total trip miles

It was another pretty morning with light winds.  We slept in a bit because we had a much shorter run today and pulled up our anchor at 8am.  The inlet was choppy as we pushed against the incoming tide and tried to stay away from the huge powerboat wakes.  The waves in the inlets are usually not typical of the ocean as they are greatly affected by wind against current.  I wasn't too worried as we bucked and buried the bow a few times because I figured the ocean would match the prediction like it did yesterday - 2 foot seas with a 6-8 second period.  Just a nice push from the stern.  Boy was I wrong....

We only had about 25nm on the ocean today if we took the short-cut and came in St. Lucie inlet.  I hoped we would stay out a little longer and do the 40nm to Ft Pierce so we'd be anchored a little earlier.

After turning north out of the Lake Worth inlet, the ride wasn't very nice.  We had a 2-3 foot swell on the starboard quarter with almost no wind to help with the sails.  This makes the boat to a cork-screw motion up, down and around the waves every couple minutes.  I decided to pull out 3/4 mainsail and sheet it in tight to cut down the roll.  It did make the ride tolerable and when just a couple miles off-shore we picked up 2 knots of current from the Gulf Stream.  Nice!  Only about 3+ hours to St. Lucie inlet.

About an hour after we turned north, we saw a few dark clouds over land to the west and another off-shore to our east.  Laura checked with Weather Underground (on her iPhone) and it said they were go away in an hour or so.  No worries...

We had taken down most of our side windows in the cockpit a couple days ago because of the heat.  Our plan is we could also put them back up in a few minutes if the weather was bad but the forecast was dry for the next several days.  

An hour later it started raining lightly and the wind picked up from the north clocking east.  Because I had a little sail out I turned the boat to stay pointed into the wind which gradually increased to almost 20 knots.  A few minutes later we were in a deluge and pointed back to Lake Worth.  Crap!  I didn't want to go back because these storms were going away, right?

1/2 hour later, here was the weather radar.  We are at the blue dot.

Weather Underground now showed the storms moving slowly west.  We were doing about 8 knots north so I figured we could just keep going and gradually get away from them.  The winds had died but it was still raining hard.  I turned the boat back to the north.  As we were moving cushions around, Laura accidentally pops my $200 sunglasses out onto the deck.  I run out on the deck to get them before they wash into the water.  Now I'm soaked and sitting in the rain running the boat.  Oh well.  It was a warm day and I couldn't get any wetter.  We put up our sunscreen canvas for a little protection but it doesn't help much.

The storms followed us north and rained on us for the next 2 hours.  I don't know how much rain we got but I later had about 5 inches in the dinghy because of a clogged drain.  It was raining hard!  It always seemed to be brighter on the horizon but raining on us.  One of those days...

Even after the rain stopped 2 hours later, the predicted SE wind never showed.  We motored on a rolly ocean for another hour before coming in to St. Lucie inlet and back to the ICW for the first time this trip.  In the afternoon we finally had a little help from the winds as we motored down to Ft. Pierce so pulled out the jib for a little increased speed and lowered the engine RPM.

We turned off the ICW to the east and anchored way down past the Condos at 4pm.  Time to dry out!  We looked like a Chinese Laundry with all our clothes and towels hanging on the rail.

Our first cocktail hour in 4 days!  The evening was quiet and pretty as we sipped our drinks , had a few munchies and talked about future plans.  I grilled a pork loin for dinner.  Laura has been playing with mac 'n cheese as our friend Bobby gave us a couple lobsters for a going away present at Burdines.  We had been talking about Lobster Mac 'n Cheese for a few days but we didn't want to ruin the lobster if the cheese wasn't right.  I gotta tell ya, it was an award winning dish.  I grilled one of the lobster tails with the Loin and she added it to the Mac 'n Cheese she had fixed last night for a test.  Yumm!

Since we were anchored earlier than the past few days, I was hopeful we could cool down the engine room and boat to make sleeping easier.  It actually worked pretty well and our bedroom was down below 80 degrees for the first time in 4 days.  I slept good in my bed!

Wednesday, April 5th (Day 4)

Sunny and warm.  Light east winds.  Water temp 80.  Outside temp 73

15nm today - 224 total trip miles

It was much cooler on the boat last night and I slept a lot better.  The temps were a little cooler outside (went to low 70s), the SE wind stayed around to keep air moving through the boat, and we had anchored a little earlier to help cool down the engine room.

We've been discussing the past few days what our plans were for this trip north and specifically the next couple weeks.  We eventually need to be back in Catskill around May 21st or 22nd for Laura's flight out to attend her grandson Isaac's high school graduation.  That means planning for around May 1st to be in Chesapeake Bay which is 980 ICW miles from here.  We had a few days to hang out but had to be a little careful about having too many non-travel days.

Instead of hanging around Stuart (one of my favorite places), we decided to run to Vero Beach and see our friends Dean and Sue for a couple days.  That meant today was only a couple hours on the water so we slept in a bit and stopped at Ft. Pierce City Marina for diesel and water.  By 10am we had full tanks and were waiting for the Ft. Pierce North Bridge.  This was our first ICW bridge of the trip.  If the weather was nastier and we had come in Ft. Lauderdale (like 2 years ago), we would have had about 30 more bridges that had to open for us.  

Once through the bridge we motor-sailed with nice SE winds the next 2 hours to Vero Beach.  Actually, the winds were nice enough (and we were not in a hurry) that we could have shut down the engine and just jib-sailed this section.  But, our batteries were a little low so I wanted to charge them off the engine alternator for a while so kept the engine running at low RPM.  If the Vero Beach marina didn't have a mooring for us, we could have tied up to Dean and Sue.  I didn't want to bug them with my generator running to charge batteries later.

Jib sailing the calm ICW to Vero Beach -

 

Turns out the marina did have a mooring for us.  Laura did her normal great job of tying 2 lines to the mooring ball and we shut down everything after a long 3-hour travel day. 

We put up our solar panels for the first time this trip (running the engine all the time we don't need them) and settled into mooring life.  Dean and Sue stopped by in their dinghy a short time later and we had a nice reunion for an hour or so.  We invited them for dinner but they later declined after Dean found some boat problems he needed to work on.

I promised Laura beach time here so tomorrow we will dinghy to a spot we found a few years ago to pull the dinghy on-shore that's only 1/4 mile from the ocean beach.  Dean said there was happy-hour at the marina tomorrow so I'll bring my guitar for a little music.  That will be nice.

Plans....  always up in the air.  We've paid for 2 night here and could tentatively stay longer.  I've been watching the weather and if we leave on Friday, we need a plan to hunker-down somewhere by Sunday for big north winds and thunderstorms later in the day.  Then Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are rain, storms and high east winds.  We could stay here though all that (8 or 9 days) or use the nice weather Friday and Saturday to get to Titusville and maybe stay on a mooring there for the crappy weather next week.  Don't know if they would even have a mooring available - they are first-come, first-served.  What to do....

I'll let you know what we decide...

Jensen Beach to Marathon

Thursday, January 19th - Day 10

It was a fun morning catching up with the family news from Jon.  He was quickly fitting into the boat life and immediately changed his cowboy boots for sandals.  

Instead of doing groceries from here, we decided to wait and do them tomorrow in Stuart.  The park where we can dock the dinghy is only about 1/2 mile from the Publix there.  Instead, Jon and I walked into town and picked up a few things at the liquor store we needed for proper cruising.  It was a nice walk about a mile each way and Jensen Beach is a cute town with wide sidewalks and lots of palms.  

Back on the boat we worked a few boat jobs to get things ready for moving tomorrow.  We enjoyed cocktails and munchies in the cockpit watching a beautiful sunset.  Here's the three of us with the Sun setting in the background.

A short while later the Sun really lit up the clouds and water.  

Laura made us a great dinner and we relaxed and talked the rest of the evening.  Underway again tomorrow!

Friday, January 20th - Day 11

187nm (2 days and 1 night), 511 total miles from Savannah.  Temps mid-60s rising to mid-70s in the afternoon.  Sunny with winds under 10 knots.

Those of you that have been following us for a while know that we are very flexible with our schedule and plans.  As you can see from the "187nm" above, we didn't motor the 10 miles to Stuart and anchor for a few days.  We slept in a bit and left the mooring at 9:20am slowly motoring south while I checked that the boat was running good then browsed the weather for the next week.  

The weather window for running down the coast to The Keys 4-5 days from now didn't look as good as it did yesterday.  I was looking for fairly calm seas (3-4 ft or less?) and winds under 20 - not from the south.  The window had shortened plus there was no repair date yet on the Donald Ross bridge.  If we couldn't go through this bridge (maybe next week?), we'd have to leave the ICW much farther north - at least St. Lucy Inlet near Stuart.  If they fixed the bridge, we could jump off-shore from Lake Worth and make Miami (<>60 nautical miles) in a long day.  Without the bridge, we would have to do an overnight sail.

Today, tonight and tomorrow looked very nice for that trip so we changed plans, configured the boat for an ocean passage and motored out the St. Lucy Inlet.  About an hour after leaving the mooring, we were motor-sailing south down the ocean toward Miami and The Keys.

Our plan was to get passed Miami around midnight and maybe go into Biscayne Bay and anchor for a few hours sleep before running tomorrow to a protected anchorage near Key Largo for the coming high winds tomorrow night.

It was a very nice ride with the winds helping a little on the big sails but not enough help to turn off the engine.  Again, no pure sailing for this trip.  

Laura and I napped during the day and she tried to sleep until about 10:30pm when I would go down for a snooze.  

There were small fishing boats everywhere.  It was warm and sunny with no wind or waves so everybody was out here, near shore, fishing.  We needed to stay near shore to keep out of the gulf stream which slowed us down a bit during the day.  At one point I was 1/4 mile from the beach trying to get out of the contrary currents slowing us down.

Saturday at sea

It was a warm, comfortable evening and night.  Jon helped Laura keep watch for fishing boats while I slept about 3 hours.  Around 3am we approached the Miami ship channel (Government Cut) and I took over while Laura and Jon tried to sleep a bit.  No problems with the ship channel other than all the small fishing boats.  I did notice a large cruise-ship coming in about 1/2 hour later.

Now we had another decision to make.  If we entered Biscayne Bay and found a place to anchor later today for the high winds tomorrow, we might be there for 4 to 5 days waiting for weather to get to Marathon.  If we kept going, I estimated a 5pm arrival in Marathon today which would get us to the dock before dark.  The only problem was we had told the marina we would be in around January 25th - this was only the 21st.  Would we have a place to stay?

We've spent 14 winters in the Florida Keys so know everything around.  If the marina didn't have an open slip for us, we'd find some place safe to hang out.  We (I?) decided to keep going down the Hawk Channel and not stay in Biscayne Bay.

Now, you might say I've been making decisions to travel in a hurry.  We were not on a tight schedule and had plenty of time to stop in places to "smell the roses."  But, as I always say, "We live and die by the weather."  If we anchored near Key Largo to get protection from the big west and north winds the next few days, there was nowhere there to get off the boat.  The local marinas are very private and hadn't let us even tie up the dinghy for a walk in the past.  I was pretty sure the weather would be good today.  Not too sure of the weather 4 - 6 days from now.

Laura and Jon took over the helm around 6am as we were approaching Key Largo from the ocean-side.  Here was a beautiful ocean sunrise that Laura took a little while later

Around 9am, Laura called Burdines marina in Marathon to see if our slip was available today.  It was!  That was great!

The winds gradually increased and we rolled out the jib then the mainsail.  The boat was running nicely 5-6 knots without the engine so we shut it off and gave Gertrude a rest after 25 hours straight.  Jon's first sail on Second Wind!  I decided to pull up the mizzen (which we don't use often) and showed Jon how to actually hoist a sail.  It was fun on a moving boat and only took us about twice as long as normal.  Laura took this video a short time later.

The winds died 3 hours later and we had to run the engine again to keep our ETA before dark.  Just after 5pm I brought the boat into Burdines, slip 2 and we tied up the boat. It felt great to be here!

We spent the next hour or so getting the docklines configured to my liking, cleaning up the cockpit and putting the boat to bed after 32 hours underway from Jensen Beach mooring field.

Jon took us out to dinner at the marina restaurant and we were a little giddy being ashore and enjoying good food, drinks and company.  I think we all crashed around 9pm and we all slept well.  I slept over 12 hours and felt great the next day.

Trip stats from Savannah -

511 nautical miles in 11 days ("sat" for 5 days, traveled for 6 days)

6 nights anchored

3 nights on mooring

2 overnight trips on the ocean

Marathon

Sunday Jon and I took a long walk to loosen up.  Later in the afternoon, Jon volunteered to be hoisted up the mast to fix our steaming light that was not working.  Rob (in Savannah) had gone up and found a burned out light bulb.  I didn't have a spare but did purchase one before heading back down to Savannah a couple weeks ago.  Jon make quick work of the small but important project.

We invited Sal and Ina (our longtime friends and neighbors) for cocktail hour and music at the tiki-hut.  We also introduced ourselves to the neighbors on the other side and they joined us at the tiki-hut too.  Jon had taken another walk and I wasn't sure where he was.  Thinking about myself at 30, I figured he had stopped at one of the local pubs.  Turns out he was at the nearest bait shop talking to the owner about fishing around here (he's much more of a fisherman than I was...).  He joined us for the end of our get-together.

Monday Jon and I acid-washed the 1,600 miles of scum off the hull and scrubbed with soft-scub and a brush to get off most of the other marks and stains.  The boat was looking good again! 

Jon borrowed the dinghy to fish in Sister's Creek (the other side of Boot Key Harbor) and was a happy man tooling down the waterway with a fishing pole and bucket of shrimp  

Tuesday we decided to meet our friends Lee and Linda in Key West for lunch.  Jon had rented a car to drive to Tampa (his next stop for this trip) and walked the 4 miles to pick it up this morning.  It was a fun time with Lee and Linda who we meet whenever we are in the same part of the country.  They had just purchased a power boat and are planning on bring it back up the coast to Catskill Creek this summer.  Then we'll see them more!

Sorry I didn't get a picture of the whole group but did manage to take this one before Jon inhaled the special at the Hog Fish Grill - the Hog Fish Sandwich.

After lunch Jon drove us back to Marathon and we stopped at Publix to take advantage of a car for groceries.  We'll have tomorrow together then he's planning on leaving Thursday (unless he buys a boat and stays ....)

Thanks so much for following us and some of the great comments on Facebook.  If you would like to read more about our 17 years cruising on Second Wind, we have 4 (less than $5) books available on Kindle starting from the beginning.  You can check them out by clicking HERE.

We plan on heading back to Catskill again for the summer and will leave here sometime in April (unless we decide to do something else....).  

p.s.  I've finally had it with internet connectivity on the boat so ordered a Starlink yesterday.  I'll let you know how it works out for us.

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!

Heading South Again!

What we've been up to -

The past few months have been quite different and a little crazy for us.  We left Second Wind in "Wet Storage" at Atlantic Yacht Basin (Chesapeake, VA) and rented a car to drive back to the Albany area the second week in October  My sister and brother-in-law (Denise and Tom) graciously offered us their house while they were in Florida so we moved right in. Laura had scheduled achilles tendon surgery on October 14th with a 6-week, no weight-bearing stint to follow.

After talking with her doctors, we realized we wouldn't be back to Second Wind until mid-January.  Atlantic Yacht Basin highly suggested we winterize the boat before their holiday break when nobody would be around the marina from Christmas to New Years.  I REALLY did not want to do this.  I've winterized boats in the past and it's a real chore.  Plus it seems to take forever to get the antifreeze smell out of the water tank.  Lastly, Second Wind has never been winterized (at least in the past 17 years) so it would be a real challenge to identify and get to everything on the boat.

Instead, I sent out texts to several of my friends to see if someone would want to join me for a couple weeks sail south from Norfolk.  Our long-time sailing buddy Rob accepted the challenge. Tom and Denise came back from Florida the week of Thanksgiving so Laura would have someone around to assist with her daily living.  I drove our car to Chesapeake, VA on November 28th, Rob flew in on the 29th, we stocked the boat and headed south on December 1st.

Atlantic Yacht Basin was great.  I had them haul the boat for bottom-paint and change a thru-hull that had been giving me problems.  All the work was done on time and close to the estimates.  They did run a little over the estimate on the thru-hull because the backing-block was rotted and had to be replaced.  All-in-all, a very good stay there.

Great Bridge to Savannah

We had some cold weather (down in the 30s) the first few nights but, overall, the weather was excellent for us. 

Here we are on our first day jib-sailing down Currituck Sound.

 

Now...  How many people would have left on a boat without knowing where they are going to stop?  I figured we would see how far we could get in our allotted time and find a marina nearby.  I didn't figure most of the east coast marinas would be full - mostly because of the major storms and damage from hurricanes in Florida.  After hearing from a boater friend of ours that had problems finding a marina in central and northern Florida, I asked Laura to start working on finding us a place to stop where we could keep the boat for a month (or two?) until she was ready to continue sailing.  She readily agreed to the challenge and got to work.

I texted her names of marinas and she started a spreadsheet with the contact information and results then spent lots of time on the phone.  It was a difficult job with many marinas being full or out of our price-range.  Some places wanted as much as $4,000 a month.  That's crazy!

The closest place we could have stayed was Myrtle Beach Yacht Club but we were there in less than a week.  The farthest place she found was Savannah Bend Marina just over the GA / SC border.  Rob and I had such nice weather and the boat was running great so we decided on Savannah Bend.  Note that we looked as far south as Titusville and all the places from Savannah to there were full or super expensive.

We arrived at Savannah Bend Marina on December 10th.  Rob and I put the boat to bed again (nap not sleep) with the hopes Laura and I would be back in a month or so.  Here is Rob and Second Wind (and her waterway smile) tied up at Savannah Bend Marina.

This time we even kept a freezer running that was full of leftover food from our trip - we were a little optimistic when grocery shopping in Great Bridge.  Rob and I both rented cars in Savannah and left the next couple days.  He drove back to the Orlando area to their Florida home.  I drove back to Chesapeake, VA, stayed at a hotel overnight, dropped off the rental, Uber'd back to my car at Atlantic Yacht Basin and drove 10 hours back to Albany.  

570 miles in 10 days is great for a sailboat down the ICW.  You never know when you will get held-up for a day or more because of nasty weather but we never had good winds or seas to travel off-shore and make more miles  I was so happy it all worked out for us and Second Wind.

We spent the holidays with Tom and Denise and our families.  We had a white Christmas!

Laura was progressing well and was now in a walking boot with Physical Therapy twice a week.  On December 28th we had her last doctor's appointment where they said it was OK to quit the boot and start walking again.  The doctor also gave us the best news that she could move back on the boat in "a couple weeks" and gave her a brace to wear when the boat was moving around.  

Back to Second Wind!

On Thursday, January 5th we picked up a rental car, Laura had her last Physical Therapy, we packed up the car and said sad good-byes to Tom and Denise.  After spending 3 months in their home (the last 6 weeks together) we had become good friends.

Late Friday afternoon we pulled into Savannah Bend Marina and Laura stepped onto the boat after almost exactly 3 months away.  We were back!!

I can't say enough about Savannah Bend and the manager Nicole.  She was awesome to us and I would definitely go back.  Here was a Christmas Tree in front of the marina office that cracked me up.

We spent the weekend hardware and grocery shopping plus working on the boat.  Besides packing away almost $500 worth of groceries, Laura was cleaning up a storm.  In my spare time I was getting the boat ready for cruising again including engine and transmission oil changes plus a full afternoon of scrubbing the decks from all the bird poop.  We did take Sunday afternoon off for a little sightseeing in Savannah and a nice dinner at Tubby's Seafood right on the waterfront.

The weather forecast for sailing down the coast was excellent so we pushed ourselves to get everything ready to leave Tuesday (Jan 10th) morning.  I returned the rental car Monday evening.  It took me 3 hours to travel 20 miles and back - accidents, trains and rush-hour traffic.  Then we were ready to go!

Savannah Bend Marina to Daytona

Tuesday, Jan 10th and Wednesday, Jan 11th - Cloudy, calm winds, temp mid 50s, sea temp 56

185nm (2 days and 1 night)

We departed the marina at 7:45am after a high pucker-factor undocking.  We were sandwiched into a slip that was very tight.  After I backed up the boat into the fairway, we only had about 3 feet between us and the boat on the next dock when I was able to turn the boat around in the fairway.  Laura was excellent (as usual) giving me distances off the bow and we made it out without damage to ourselves or other boats.  Success!

This is only a couple minutes later.  The marina is just on the other side of the bridge.  I love this picture because of the big smile on Laura's face.

A few minutes later we enjoyed our first colorful water sunrise through the clouds.  Look how calm it is.

We discussed traveling off-shore and doing an overnight cruse to St. Augustine.  Laura was agreeable - mostly because we had a great forecast with calm winds and seas.  We left the ICW a few miles later and continued east down the Wilmington River, through Wassaw Sound and out to sea.  Along the way, we had some playful dolphins at the bow for several minutes.  Laura was able to get this cute video of them.  It was an awesome way to start our cruise.

The ocean was fairly calm (as predicted) with only a slight swell off the port quarter which rolled us a little.  Both of us were a little disappointed it wasn't a better ride but things calmed down after we pulled out the mainsail and sheeted it in tight for roll-control.  

The Sun came out later in the morning and the skies cleared for a beautiful motor-sail down the coast of GA. 

During the day Laura called Burdines Marina in Marathon and confirmed our reservation for February and March.  YEA!  Another (partial) winter in the Florida Keys!

It was a subdued ocean sunset over the Georgia coast which is typical for clear skies.

We passed Brunswick, GA around 7pm and St Mary's Inlet / Florida border around 10:30pm.  Laura tried to sleep from 8 to midnight and I let her go until 1am.  Unfortunately, she didn't sleep much but recovered after a couple cups of coffee.  I hit the sack at 1am and slept for an hour or two until the boat started moving around a lot and woke me up.  Laura said the winds picked up to 13-15 knots which started building up a little sea for us to punch through.  It either calmed down or I was just too tired and went back to sleep for an hour or so.

I woke up at 5:30am and took over the helm.  We were only about an hour from St. Augustine inlet - even though we had lowered engine RPM to slow down the past few hours.  Laura was able to sack out for a couple hours as I ran the calm inlet just after first light and was waiting for the Bridge of Lions Bridge just before their 7:30am opening.

We spent the rest of the day on a quiet ICW motoring to Daytona where we anchored around 3pm next to the Main Street Bridge (one of our favorite anchorages).  Two sailboats came in a little while later but gave us plenty of room.

After 32+ hours of listening to the engine, it was great to have silence around the boat.  It's always a little of an ordeal for us to do an overnight off-shore like this but we wanted to get south to warmer weather as quickly as possible and it was tough to turn down the great weather. Plus, we saved 3-4 days of the Georgia ICW by bypassing it all off-shore.  If we had stayed in the ICW from Savannah to Daytona, it would have taken us 5-6 days instead of 2.

This cracks me up....  Laura and I both crashed on the sofa after putting the boat to bed for the evening.  I finally told her we couldn't sleep now because we wouldn't be able to sleep all night if we started at 4pm.  Instead we both got up, mixed a cocktail and sat in the cockpit watching the sunset.  Then I grilled a large pork-chop for dinner while Laura made the fixin's. We had our first boat-party! After dinner we watched a couple shows on TV then finally hit the sack around 8pm.  Both of us crashed and slept over 10 hours.  We needed that!

Daytona to Titusville

Thursday, January 12th - Sunny, calm winds, air temp 55

49nm (234nm total from Savannah)

There was a cold front scheduled to come though on Friday morning so we wanted to get a little farther south in a protect anchorage or mooring.  The moorings in Titusville would have been good but there were none available.  Instead I decided to go 6 miles farther and anchor on the north-west side of the Addison Point Bridge.  The bridge causeway would protected us from the south winds Thursday night and western shore should give us protection from the west winds on Friday.  

Also, I had made reservations for the new Jensen Beach mooring field next week on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  Laura's nephew Jon is flying in and will join us for "a while" including the trip down to Marathon.  Titusville is about 3 travel days from Jensen Beach so that would work out good if we left on Saturday after the Friday storms.

It all worked out well with a busier ICW along this route with boats traveling in both directions. We anchored at a nice spot in the wide open anchorage.  We were the only boat here.  Nice!

Except....  about an hour later I saw a smaller sailboat coming into the anchorage.  It turned out to be what we call a "derelict" boat that someone lived on as a water-condo.  The owner(?) was pushing the sailboat into the anchorage with his dinghy - probably to get protection from the south winds tonight.  It didn't even have a working engine.  Oh boy.

I didn't pay much attention until a little while later I see him getting ready to anchor about 200 feet away in a direction that would put him directly up-wind of us for the storm tomorrow.  No way!  This anchorage was about a mile long and 1/4 mile wide.  Why did he have to anchor there?   I went out on the deck and yelled over to him.  I said he would be directly up-wind of us for the storm and asked him to move.  He yelled something to me like, "If you didn't want a sailboat, why did you buy one?" (what does that mean?) and dropped his anchor right there yelling back, "I'm not moving.  You can move if you want."  Holy crap.  I don't think I've ever seen another boater act like this.  I guess the key is "another boater"....

So...  we picked up our anchor and moved to a different section of the anchorage where I wouldn't be worried about him running into us if his anchor dragged.  Laura wasn't too happy with me when we had to re-anchor twice because the first time we would have been too close to the shallow water when the winds changed tomorrow.  But, just after sundown I was happy with where we were and we had a cocktail and nice dinner.

Friday, January 13th - Day 4.  Storms and high winds, temp 70 but dropping into the 30s tonight.

Didn't move today.

Storms came through around 8am with 30+ knot winds and lots of rain.  The rain didn't last for too long and by the afternoon it was partly cloudy and the solar panels were doing their job.

"Karma is a bitch"

I went upstairs after the rain and saw our neighbor's boat was sideways to the wind.  That's not good...  Apparently, when the winds clocked this morning and turned his boat around on the anchor, he hit a shallow spot and was aground.  As I looked at my RADAR and chartplotter, I could see he anchored in a shallow spot outside the anchorage area.  That wasn't too smart.

Now, I'm usually the first person to help another boater in need.  There have been several times in the past when I've seen someone in trouble and dropped my dinghy to go over and help without being asked.  Guess what I did this time?  I had a great breakfast and watched him try to move the boat with his dinghy.  He didn't get very far.  A little while later a small crane barge with two outboards came by and stopped to help him.  Nope.  Still couldn't move.   Here's a picture of them trying.  Click on the picture and you can blow it up to see the barge and small sailboat.

Around sunset, he's still there.

We decided to change our plans and stay here until Sunday.  There is a SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch scheduled for late Saturday afternoon and we are in the best anchorage for the best view.  The launch pad is only about 10 miles from us.  Woo Hoo!  This should be awesome!

I called the Jensen Beach mooring field and moved our reservation back a day to Tuesday.  Now we have plenty of time to get there if we leave Sunday morning.  I'll let you know how it all works out....

 

Leave Second Wind

Epilog .....

Just a few notes about Siren Marine, closing up the boat and driving back to NY.

A few weeks ago when we talked about renting a car and driving back to NY, I was concerned after reading about all the problems in the last year with rentals.  Most of the rental companies had sold most of their cars to take advantage of the huge increase in used car prices and rental costs increased X 5 in a lot of cases - if you could find one.

I used Kayak to reserve a small SUV from Budget in Chesapeake, VA for a 1-way, 1-day trip to Albany, NY for $107.  I was happy with the cost.  Well...  I asked for Chesapeake, VA and there was a Budget only 3 miles from the marina.  But, when I got my email confirmation, it said a different Budget office that was 25 miles away.  Dang!  

On Tuesday morning I used Uber to get to the Budget office on my confirmation.  It cost me $30 to Uber to a $107 rental car.  That's just not right.  Plus, it took me over 1/2 hour at the rental office to actually get a car - and I was the only customer there.  The first car she brought out ended up needing an oil change (wouldn't you know that when the car was brought back from the last rental?).  The second one happened to be sold yesterday - I guess you can buy these cars on-line.  I head the gal talking to someone on the phone and they agreed to pick-up the car in Albany instead of Norfolk.  I could have the car.  Yea!

We were going to keep one freezer running on the boat but I didn't get a good feeling from the marina workers that the boat would have continuous shore-power.  They were going to move the boat out back "somewhere" in the next couple days and said we would have "at least" 110v power.  This seemed to be a disconnect with the office staff who told me the boat would have power and charged me $100 / month.  Unlike most boat owners, I would be able to remotely monitor the shore-power connection with my Siren Marine app but both Laura and I were concerned about getting back to the boat and finding exploded meat leaking from the warm freezer.  Instead, Laura talked me into buying a cooler at Wally after I picked up the rental.  We emptied the freezer into the cooler with lots of ice and loaded it into the rental.  Once again, the piece of mind was worth the price of the cooler and a little work.

Car was packed, boat was put to bed (nap, not sleep) and we drove out of the marina at 1pm.  An hour later we were crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel - the water was calm and beautiful.  We even saw dolphins in the water and missed cruising already!  It was a nice trip and we arrived in Albany around 10pm, unpacked the car and slept well.

I can't say enough about the Siren Marine boat monitoring system.  I installed the entire system in a couple days last winter when we left the boat in Oriental for a few weeks.  It was about $2,000 for the hardware and well worth the piece of mind it gives me.  Here's a good example -

Wednesday morning while I having coffee in NY, my phone dings and I get a notification from the Siren Marine app that the boat lost shore-power.  Hmmm.  Are they moving her now? I opened up the app and watched the boat move on the satellite-view (where the boat is comes from a GPS built into the Siren Marine controller).  A short time later I see the boat stop - I assume they have tied her up there.  But, the shore-power doesn't come back on.  

Here is a screen-shot of the Siren Marine app showing the boat movements over the past few days.  This screen is a satellite view of Atlantic Yacht Basin in Great Bridge.

Check out how detailed this is!  The red line coming in at the upper left is us approaching the marina a few days ago from the Great Bridge Bridge.  The next little dip in the red line is where we stopped at the fuel dock then motored more to the right where we turned around and docked for a couple days.  Then, the marina moved the boat (more to the right, down and to the left) and around to the back of the marina where she not sits.  If you don't think this is really cool, something's wrong....

We had a full day of running around the Albany area (bring back rental, groceries, etc....) and a nice lunch with friends.  All this time I'm watching the Siren Marine screen to see if the shore-power gets hooked back up.  It doesn't...  I finally call the marina office around 3pm and ask why the boat isn't plugged in.  The gal says maybe they have the boat on a temporary slip to reposition some other boats and will move her again.  Well...  It's been like 6 hours.  She transfers me to the dock manager and I have to leave a voicemail.

15 minutes later I get a call back from Marty.  He says that he was planning on hooking up shore-power this afternoon and is heading down to the boat now.  Another 15 minutes and my Siren Marine app dings me again - the power is back on.  I can also see the battery voltage increase.  Nice!

We've had this system for over a year and I don't think I've had one problem once I got the main controller to see all the remote sensors.  I mentioned the hardware was $2,000 but there is also an annual fee of $180.  This is $15 / month for the cellular connection - the controller on the boat sends all the sensor information (via it's own cellular connection) to the main computer at Siren.  My phone app gets our boat information from the Siren computer and sends notifications when things change.  It will also display historical data.  For example, check out this screen-shot below showing our house battery voltage for the past week.  The dip on Saturday night was when we were anchored by the York River and using the batteries.  On the top left, you can also see the current temperature (69.5 degrees in the engine room where the sensor is) and, on the right, what I have the min and max voltages set at for notifications.

If you want more information on Siren Marine, HERE is a link to their website.  I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Now my only question is what I'm going to do the next 5-6 weeks without a boat to work on.  I'll take good care of Laura after her surgery this week but I'm used to having lots of boat projects to keep me busy.  Maybe I'll start designing something new for Second Wind.  Any suggestions?

Blog will start up again in 4-5 weeks when I go back down to move her to warmer waters.  Thanks for following The Travels of Bill and Laura!

Reedville to Norfolk

Saturday, October 8th - Day 13

Air temp 52, winds N-NW@20-25 - sea temp 64

It was a very windy night and morning in Reedville.  We were in a quiet cove protected all around by houses and trees but we still were rockin' a little at the dock.

We spent a quiet morning puttering around the boat and, around 11am, we walked up to the house to say goodbye to Walter and Mary.  It's always sad to leave them.  They've become such close friends after spending a month here last Spring.  Here's a nice pic I took of all of us before leaving.

 

 

We were off the dock at noon.  The winds seemed to have calmed a bit and I was hoping the Bay would have calmed also.  In order for us to make Great Bridge by tomorrow afternoon, we needed to make at least Deltaville today.  Or, we would have to anchor somewhere closer and leave before sunrise (O-dark-30) tomorrow.

It was a great sail out the Great Wicomico.  With just the jib we were making over 6 knots with 15 knots of wind on a close reach.  The Chesapeake didn't look too bad....

About 1/2 hour later I pulled in the jib as we made our turn south.  I thought the winds would be on the starboard side but not sure of the final wind angle or sail plan.  The boat started rolling a lot as the 3 foot, close swell was just off the port quarter.  We prepared to roll out the mainsail as it looked like the wind would be right behind us.

I turned the boat up into the wind and we rolled out 3/4 of the main.  After turning back downwind, the boat calmed a lot and we were able to sail close to our desired course.

We turned to the east a bit to round Windmill point and the roll came back.  A short time later we were able to turn back south and the seas calmed a bit with the reduced wind.

As the winds were going to stay out of the north all day and tonight, I looked for a protected anchorage farther south then Deltaville.  From experience, if you go into the outer Deltaville harbor and anchor along the north shore in north winds, the swell will come around the corner and rock the boat all night.  You have to go all the way into Fishing Bay to get good coverage for north winds.  That's over an hour into the anchorage, then over an hour back out in the morning.

Instead I found what looked to be a decent anchorage just a little way up the York River that was only a couple hours farther south.  We motor-sailed south passed Wolf Trap Light and turned west into the York River.  Once in the anchorage, it was calm and beautiful.  Here's a picture of the charts for this area.  Deltaville is in the upper left.  Our anchorage is at the sailboat icon near the center bottom.

 

It was an excellent anchorage for these winds with only a few powerboat wakes in the evening.  Plus, it would save us 2-3 hours tomorrow for our trip through Norfolk to Great Bridge.

Clear skies made for a subdued sunset tonight but I caught this picture of the full moon rising along with a pretty glow on the water.

It was a quiet evening as we started getting the boat ready to leave her in Great Bridge for a couple months.

Sunday, October 9th - Day 14

Air temp 52, clear with N winds 15 and diminishing

We were up early and pulled the anchor at 6:40am to start our final day for a while.  Winds were still out of the north but much less than yesterday morning.  I was hoping the Chesapeake Bay had also calmed during the night.

As we motor-sailed back to the bay, the seas again started the boat rolling.  No.  It wasn't as bad as yesterday and I was able to calm the boat a bit by rolling out 3/4 of the mailsail and sheeting it in tight.  This is my "roll control" configuration.

A few times the apparent wind went to the side enough for me to let the sheet out and get a little help but it never held.  The sail would be banging 10 minutes later and I'd have to tighten the sheet again.

For the first time, we had the currents against us all day.  Plus the apparent wind was never over 6-7 knots and most times less so no help from the sails.  But we had worked to get close to Norfolk and the trip was not a long one. 

By 10:15am we were rounding Old Point Comfort and entering the harbor along with an 800 foot container ship and 700 foot Navy supply ship. The supply ship got close but we stayed out of his way.

A short time later we motored past the Norfolk Navy Shipyard.  I love this part of our trip and, as we pass the huge warships, I'm constantly looking them up on the internet to see how many crew, armament, etc.  Here's a look at just a few.

Right at noon we pass Hospital Point (ICW mile 0).  Yea!  Back on the ICW!

Now we only had a few railroad bridges and the Gilmerton Bridge that could stop us.  We motored past the first two railroad bridges and they were up.  As we approached the Gilmerton Bridge, I called the bridge operator on the marine radio and requested a lift so we could get through.  She said the railroad bridge next to Gilmerton was down and when they went up she would open for us.

Ahh.  I had been here before.  I knew that the ActiveCaptain write-up for the bridges had a phone number to call.  I called it and got an answer almost immediately.  I asked about Bridge #7 and he said it would take about 20 minutes.  The bridge was down for a train.

We drifted around the bridge watching dockworkers load scrap-iron into a huge freighter.  15 minutes later a train came through.  A few minutes after that the railroad bridge started going up.  Holy cow.  This is the slowest lift bridge I've every seen.  It was almost agonizing.

Anyway, another 10-15 minutes for that bridge to go up then the Gilmerton Bridge went up for us.  If I was continuing down the ICW, I would think this was a bad omen.  First ICW bridge - that is supposed to be "on request" for weekends - holds us up 45 minutes.  Oh well...

Next part of the plan is to fuel up at Top Rack Marina - one of the least expensive ICW fuel docks.  I call them on the radio and get an answer right away, "Do you want diesel? (yes)  Sorry, we are out of diesel."  Crap.

We continued on to the Great Bridge Lock and arrived right on time to be the 7th boat (out of 9) to enter the lock.

As we were lifted about 1 1/2 feet, I called Atlantic Yacht Basin on the phone.  The dockmaster answered and said, "Yes.  We have fuel.  Just pull to the fuel dock when you get here."

About 1/2 hour later we were fueling and the place was a zoo.  The one dockmaster was fueling two boats, docking a couple others and running the office.  I wasn't concerned.  We were here and staying.  It took about an hour for us to fuel, pump out our holding tank and move to our assigned slip.  

Laura and I have been working 2 lists.  One is the things we need to do on Second Wind to leave her for 2 months.  The other list is what we need to take with us for two months off the boat.  Don't forget.  This has been our home for 16 years.  Everything is here.

After our long day, we decided to leave the lists for tomorrow.  We relaxed, had a glass of wine and a quiet dinner on the boat of homemade spaghetti and meatballs. But, Laura did starting packing stuff and I cleaned up a few jobs too.  Can't just sit there with all this stuff to do.

Monday, October 10th - Day 15

Air temp 45, sunny and light winds.  Water temp 64.

Today was list day!  

But first, I had to do something about a bilge pump that stopped working yesterday.  We have a wet bilge and I use a Rule Lo-Pro bilge pump to keep the bilge to less than 2".  These pumps work great for about a year.  Then the lose their mind and revert to turning on every 5 minutes.  That happened to this pump yesterday.  I had complained to Rule when the last pump did this and they sent me a different pump.  I didn't have a spare Lo-Pro but would have liked to put the same pump back in.  I couldn't get one by Tuesday and the marine store here didn't have one.  OK. Put the new pump in.

It was a fairly quick job to replace the pump and we used a few buckets of water in the bilge to test it.  It worked twice so I was pretty confident.  I also have a big, 2,500 gallon per hour bilge pump as backup but it will let the bilge come up about 6-8" before turning on.

The marina staff came by and we talked about where they wanted the boat.  Marty was still working on final configuration of their docks so said they would move us over the next few days.  I was hoping today or tomorrow so I could do it and make sure we had power after the move.  We'll see how it goes....

Laura and I worked on the lists all morning and, by noontime, we had everything done except for stuff that had to wait until we are ready to leave (like turn off water heater, water pump, etc..)  

Staying here for a while.....

Our plan is to leave the boat here until the first of December.  Then I hope to find some help bring her farther south to where we don't need to winterize - probably Charleston or beyond.  Then we will come back in early January to continue our cruse to Florida.  We have reservations again at Burdines in Marathon for February and March.  Can't wait!

If you like the blog, our first 10 years of cruising are detailed in 4 books on Amazon kindle.  They are all under $5 so I'm not gonna get rich off them.  We just like to share the journey.  If you would like to browse our Amazon books, click HERE.  That link will bring you to my "Author page" with all the books.

Thanks for being there with us!

Georgetown, MD to Reedville, VA

Tuesday, October 4th - Day 9

Cold (low 50s), rain and thunderstorms all day

This is the 4th day of cold and storms from the remnants of hurricane Ian.  We hunkered-down in the boat with the heat on all day and frequently checked the weather radar to see what was heading our way.  

Late yesterday afternoon the rain let up a bit so I went for a walk across the bridge to check out the closed-down Yacht Basin.  It was sad to see the offices closed and (almost) nobody around.  There were sill 20-30 boats at the docks who (we were told) were seasonal boaters that had paid for the summer then their marina closed.  The water and power were still on.  I had to wonder how long that would last.

I walked up the hill to the ice cream shop (it was closed.  Dang!) and took this picture of the Georgetown Harbor.  I put a little red arrow on the screen just to the right of center.  That's where we've been docked for 4 days.  Note that you can click on any of these pictures and they will go full-screen.

The rest of the day Laura did some baking and worked a few jobs to get the boat ready to leave tomorrow.  The forecast is for 20+ knot winds in the morning and settling down in the afternoon.  Yea!  

Wednesday, October 5th - Day 10

Air temp 56, cloudy, winds NW at 20.  Water temp 62

I didn't set the alarm today because I didn't plan on leaving early with the high winds and seas.  We were up around 8:30am and underway at 9:30am  Winds at the marina were light - less than 10 - out of the NW.  I love when it works out you can just release the lines and let the wind gently blow the boat away from the dock.

Our 5 days at Sailing Associates were excellent.  Too bad the weather wasn't nicer and we could have hung out with some of the other boaters.  On Sunday afternoon during a slight drizzle, I went up in the cockpit and played my flute for a while.  I didn't think there was anyone around.  But over the next couple days I had 5-6 boaters ask me if that was me playing and saying they liked it.  Guess they were around, just hidden....

On our way out the Sassafras River, I saw a couple boats anchored that had been there on our way in.  I thought to myself they had to be cold without full-time heat on the hook.  The temps had been low 50s during the day and mid-40s at night.  I was happy to be at the marina with full-time heat.

We motored the 10 miles back to the Chesapeake Bay and the winds picked up as we came to the more open areas.  As we turned SW near the end of the river, the winds moved off the bow and became excellent for sailing.  We rolled out a reefed mainsail and full jib.  This picture is a short time later with the engine off (Yea!).  8.5 knots.  When we hit over 8 knots under sail, we usually say, "Slow down or we're going to break something!"  In this case we had about a knot of helping current so it was pretty nice.  The wind instrument is the last one of the right.  15.3 knots of wind on the beam.  Excellent!

We had a nice sail for over 3 hours until the winds died to single digits.  Then we motor-sailed the rest of the day.

I had no plans for where we were heading because I didn't know how rough the bay would be with the high winds overnight.  If they were bad we would have anchored someplace close and waited them out.  If the bay was friendly, I wanted to make at least Annapolis.  Annapolis is one of our favorite stops and we would usually pick up a city mooring - maybe in Back Creek.  But, because we are a little earlier then normal, the boat show starts tomorrow and the place will be crazy.  My plans were to bypass Annapolis this year.  Dang.  No burger and milk shake at Chick 'n Ruths....

The winds and seas calmed as the afternoon went on so I was looking for a new-to-us anchorage a little farther south of Annapolis.  Because we were averaging almost 7 knots, I thought we could make a nice little bay off the Choptank River before dark.  Here we are motor-sailing in the early afternoon.  Now the winds are off the starboard quarter (broad reach) so the sails are way out.  The winds helped us all day.

The rest of our day was quite nice.  Checking the weather forecasts, I now thought we could be in Reedville tomorrow and Norfolk Sunday.  I called Atlantic Yacht Basin in Chesapeake, VA (just south of Norfolk) and was able to make a reservation for 2 months of "wet storage."  This was great news for us since this is a full service marina that we has worked on our boat before - and we liked the management and work they did.

My estimates were a little off and we anchored just after dark.  I would not recommend this for a new anchorage - especially on Chesapeake Bay where there are lots of fish traps in the shallow waters.  But, it worked out for us and we spend a quiet night just off Tilghman Island just a few miles up the Choptank river.  The light green line is the course we followed down the bay.  Annapolis is upper left and I marked where we anchored with a red X.  The red dotted line was our track leaving the next morning.

Thursday, October 6th - Day 11

Air temp 64, CLEAR AND SUNNY, winds NW@5--10 - Sea temp 63

I had the alarm set for 5:45am and we were up a short time later.  The eastern sky was just starting to brighten as we prepared the boat for another day on the water.  This anchorage was lovely with the NW to W winds overnight but it would be deadly with anything south or east.

Blue skies and a bright Sun brought the temps into the low 70s.  We probably looked like "The Clampetts" as we had all of our boat towels hanging from the life-lines.  Our first "drying day" in almost a week!  

We had NW winds around 10-15 knots that helped us down the bay for the first few hours.  By 10 am we had the sails pulled in and were motoring down a pretty calm Chesapeake Bay.

The day continue calm and warm as we motored across the Potomac River and turned SW to the Great Wicomico River.  We tied up at our friends Walter and Mary's dock just after 4pm.  Two 60+ nautical miles days got us here from Georgetown.  A few years we were not here until early November when the days are much shorter.  Then it's (3) 40 mile days.

Now we could relax for a couple days and we were just in time for cocktail hour!

Mary had prepared a beef stew for dinner.  Laura used up the last of our apples for a tasty apple pie dessert.  Doesn't it look great!

We had cocktails with Walter on the porch.  Mary was at a meeting and didn't get home until a little later.  It was a nice dinner with good friends (and wine of course...)
  

Friday, October 7th - Day 12

Air temp 59 (going into 70s), clear, calm and sunny.  Water temp 67

I forgot to mention that yesterday was our first day in shorts since we left Catskill almost 2 weeks ago.  Today was another "shorts" day. 

I did get a walk in this morning between helping with the laundry and a few jobs on the boat.  Here is Main St in Reedville looking down toward the waterfront.  Very pretty day...

We slept in a bit this morning and Laura was in "get the boat ready to leave her" mode.  We had 3 days before we would leave Second Wind in Norfolk and lots to do  Today was laundry and freezer(s) day.  I might leave 1 freezer on with the boat in storage but we needed to clean out the refrigerator and other freezer.  7 years ago we ripped out the original refrigeration and installed (2) new Vitrifrigo freezers and a new Vitrigrigo refrigerator.  This work is all detailed in our forth book "Sail On" available on Amazon kindle.  Click HERE for a preview of the book.

Last Winter, when we had to leave the boat in Oriental, NC for a few weeks, I purchased and installed a Siren Marine "Siren 3 Pro" boat monitoring system.  I love it!  You can check out their website HERE.  It has a main control box that is connected wirelessly to sensors throughout the boat to monitor things like battery voltage, freezer or refrigerator temp, air temp in the cabin, high water in the bilge, dockside power, etc.  It constantly sends the status of these sensors to the main computer at Siren Marine over cellular data (costs me $15 / month).  I have an app on my phone that connects to my data on the Siren Marine computer to get real-time alerts and historical analysis.  Here is the main screen on the app.

Notice it shows where the boat is and several status buttons below.  "Main Entry" is currently highlighted because our companionway is open.  

As long as I have telephone or internet access, I can monitor what's happening on the boat anywhere in the world and respond if needed.  For example, if the shore power goes off, I can call the marina where the boat is and ask them to see why we lost shore power.  Also, I can configure a phone notification for any of these.  If the shore power goes off, I can an instant alert.  Great piece of mind when you are away from the boat.  Ok.  'nuff said....

Tonight and tomorrow there is a front coming through here with high winds and seas.  Depending on when everything calms down tomorrow, I would like to move south to at least Deltaville, VA which would give us a chance of sailing to Norfolk and Great Bridge on Sunday.  It's possible we won't make Great Bridge until Monday but that still gives us time to close up the boat before picking up our rental car Tuesday morning.  Wish us luck!