Thunderbolt, GA to Throughfare Creek, SC

Monday, April 17th (Day 16)

Clear and sunny.  NW winds 10-15 gusts to 20.  Air temp 56.  Water temp 66

82.5nm today (618 trip total)

Our off-shore forecast for today showed winds out of the NW (from shore) at 10-15 knots and seas 1.6 foot - 7 second period.  That should be pretty nice.  My plan was to head down the ICW for a few miles then take the Savannah River out to sea and maybe come in later this afternoon around St. Pierre Creek to anchor for the night.  Once again, the tidal currents would be helping us out in the morning then back in this afternoon.

We were off the dock at Thunderbolt Marina at 7:15am.  We had to wait a few minutes because a 100' sailboat was maneuvering into the lift at the boatyard and took up the entire basin.  It was quite a sight.

 Laura took this picture of the pretty sunrise as we were leaving the marina basin.

About 1/2 hour later we approached the Causton Bluff Bridge.  This is a Bascule (lift) bridge that has been (almost) replaced by a high-rise bridge.  The old bridge is still there in the mostly up position.  Oh boy.  They sure made it interesting navigating a 61' mast through those bridges.  Here's Laura's video of our passage through the bridge.  Are we gonna make it?

 

It was a quiet ride through the rest of the ICW to the Savannah River.  The ebb (outgoing) current was really moving and it helped us average over 9 knots from the ICW out to sea.  We had reefed main and jib helping us zoom down the river.  At one point we hit over 10 knots SOG.  Our speed is the second display from the left. 

As we turned north (actually NE) once the currents brought us to deeper water, winds were about 70 degrees off our bow (close reach) and the boat was heeling about 15 degrees but the seas were just a 1-2 foot wind-chop on the port side.  It took us a little while to get used to the ride and relax under sail - it has been a while.  At this point we were running with single reefed jib and double reefed main (we had some of our sails pulled in because the high wind gusts were making the ride uncomfortable).  Later in the day we took out the reefs when the wind died a little.

We had our engine off for 5 1/2 hours and it was pleasant except for the hour or so for us to sail around the Port Royal Sound channel.  There must have been lots of current there kicking up the waves and we bounced around a lot.  But, after that, we were able to work our way closer to shore and the ride was much better.  Laura took a nice video of our sailing today.

We actually made better time than I had planned so we kept going past St. Pierre Creek and came in the North Santee River - about 10 miles farther.  There was an anchorage there not too far from the ocean so we could pop back out in the morning.

Later in the day, I saw the forecast for tomorrow had changed a bit to north winds 10-15 in the morning before clocking SE in the afternoon.  North winds would not be great for us off-shore tomorrow,  We changed plans a little and continued up the North Santee River to a great anchorage we've stayed at before - Church Creek.  

It was a long day and, with the helping flood currents, we made it to Church Creek just before sunset.  Holy cow!  There were 4 boats already anchored there.  Where did they come from?  

I did my typical "Dog going around in circles looking for a spot to lay down" before anchoring.  I don't like anchoring between two other boats because it bugs me when others to that.  I anchor far enough away from the boat in front of me to feel comfortable.  Many times I've had another boat come and anchor between us.  But, this time there was no choice and there seemed to be plenty of room.  We anchored at 7:45 pm, watched a little TV and hit the sack early.

It was a long day for us and lots of work managing the boat in the changing winds plus, most importantly, keeping us safe.  But, we both understood that this off-shore run would get us around ALL the shallow spots in the ICW between Savannah and Charleston.  Plus this was during a time period when the low tide was in the afternoon so we probably would have had to stop early each day when we got to a shallow spot near the low tide.

Planning ahead, I saw that the low tide tomorrow was around 1pm.  In the past, we've needed at least 2 feet of tide to get through the shallows north of the Ben Sawyer Bridge plus a notorious ICW shallow area was around McClennanville a few hours later.  But the area around McClennanville had been dredged a couple years ago and should / might be OK.  That meant we'd need to get through the Ben Sawyer by around 11am and that was 25 miles from our anchorage.  Oh boy.  We needed an early start again so I set the alarm for 6am.  I was starting to hate that alarm....

Tuesday, April 18th (Day 17)

Partly cloudy and cooler.  Winds N at 10-15 in the morning - clocking to SE in the afternoon.  Air temp 45.  Sea temp 66

78nm today (697 total trip miles)

Neither of us wanted to get out of a warm bed into the cold morning.  Weather.com said it was 45 degrees outside but our boat thermometer said 54.  Still chilly.  It was our first day of sweatshirts....

We were underway at 6:45am.  No movement on the other 4 boats anchored near us.  Maybe they were the smart ones...   Our colorful sunrise a little later.

We had helping currents for the first couple hours so I thought we could make the Ben Sawyer Bridge by 11am.  First we had to navigate the sometimes tricky Elliott Cut then, just down the waterway, the Wappoo Creek Bridge.

I checked the current prediction through the cut and it showed we'd have helping currents.  We've seen the currents in this cut over 5 knots which seems crazy on a 6 knot boat.  Once the houses along the cut were passing us until I went to full throttle on the engine.  That won't be needed today.

Hmmm...  The Wappoo Creek Bridge schedule had changed.  They now had a 7am to 9:30am lockout for rush-hour traffic (they wouldn't open during this time except for commercial traffic) and only opened once an hour on the 1/2 hour after that.  So...  we needed to get there for the 9:30am opening.

We made great time and approached the Elliott Cut just after 9am.  It was just about the calmest I've seen it.

Just 1 mile later we approached the Wappoo Creek Bridge.  I call the operator on the radio and we motored slowly around for 10 minutes until the bridge opened at 9:30am.  

Currents pushed us out the creek and down the Charleston Harbor.  Nice!

While motor-sailing through the harbor, I could see that the predicted north winds were very light - maybe 5-6 knots.  How about another off-shore run today for the 3rd day in a row (with a day in the marina between them).

With the ebb tide pushing us out the harbor, we would turn NE toward Winyah Bay around 10:30am  Then we had 45nm to travel between the two inlets.  At 6 knots that was 7 (and a little more) hours.  We should be in Winyah Bay around 6pm then anchored by 7:30pm in a nice spot where we've been before.  Laura approved the plan and we headed out to sea again.

I wouldn't normally estimate our off-shore speed at 6 knots because we could have currents against us or slow down from motoring into waves.  But, with the SE winds this afternoon, we should get help from the sails at least for a couple hours.

We motored out onto a very calm Atlantic (MUCH calmer than yesterday) and turned northeast around the shallows toward Winyah Bay entrance.  It was beautiful.

Around from 11am to 1pm the winds gradually clocked from north to southeast.  When the apparent wind was 40 degrees off the bow we rolled out the mainsail which added about 1/2 knot to our speed.  As the winds clocked passed 50 degrees we were able to roll out the jib and our speed picked up into the 7s.  I lowered the engine RPM to keep our speed around 7 knots.  The winds were only in the 6-8 knot range so not enough to get us there before dark without help from the engine.  

Later in the afternoon the winds picked up to 10-15 and the seas increased accordingly.  As we turned into the Winyah Bay channel at 6pm we were doing over 7 knots with just the mainsail and motor at low RPM.  We zoomed into the bay with the boat bouncing around a little on the 2-3 foot wind-driven waves.

The ride was much calmer and quieter as we motor-sailed up the bay and turned west toward the ICW.  We anchored about 1 mile before the ICW on a lovely tree-lined spot in the Waccamaw River at 6:45pm.  

Laura heated up leftover chicken enchiladas and we ate dinner in the cockpit watching a pretty sunset.

One problem we had today was our inverter quit.  This device supplies 110v house current to the boat from our batteries when we are not plugged into shore-power or don't have the generator running.  It just quit working.

I did a little troubleshooting after we anchored.  It was getting power from the batteries and didn't have a blown fuse.  But, it was totally dead and wouldn't turn on from the front panel or the remote we have installed at the nav desk.  Bummer.  This was purchased a little over 2 years ago to help charge the Lithium batteries.  It should not have died this quick.

One contributing factor might be our starlink.  Because starlink requires 110v, we've kept the inverter on almost constantly since leaving Marathon.  But still....  This inverter should be able to run 24 / 7 without issues.  That is what it's made for.

Laura wanted to run her mixer and I figured we'd run the Honda generator for starlink and TV tonight.  After dinner I started up the generator.  Bing!  The inverter came to life and started charging the batteries.  I tried turning off the generator - the inverter kept running and supplying 110v to the boat like it's supposed to. We watched TV off the inverter and it's still running fine the next day.

I opened a case on the inverter with the manufacturer - Xantrex.  We'll see what they say about it.  I'm worried that it might be 2 months over the 2 year warranty and we'll have to spend another $1,300 to replace it.  If that's the case, we won't be buying another Xantrex.

Wednesday, April 19th (Day 18)

Clear skies and light SW winds.  58 degrees this morning.  Water temp 67

20nm today (716 total trip miles)

We decided it was time to relax and have some fun after all the hard work we did to get around GA and southern SC.  Plan was to motor only about 20 miles to Throughfare Creek and anchor early in the afternoon for some dinghy exploring.

Just after 11am we dropped our anchor in Throughfare Creek.  FLIES!  Even before shutting down the engine I was being bombarded.  Little triangle-wing flies that didn't seem to bite but left scratchy welts.  Maybe we should have stayed in Florida a few more days?  That wouldn't have made any difference.

We closed up the boat and relaxed down below a while.  After a nice lunch, we went back out on the deck, lowered the dinghy and put the outboard back on.  We're getting pretty good at this after maybe 200 times and, even with the high currents trying to pull the dinghy away, we had the motor on and running in about 15 minutes.

There is a nice beach just 1/4 mile in front of the boat where we ran the dinghy ashore and went for a short walk.  I wasn't comfortable leaving the dinghy there for a long walk so we just hiked around for a short while then launched the dinghy again and went for a ride up the creek.  

This creek runs into the Great Pee Dee River after several miles.  We had a nice ride up there on a beautiful day.  After looking at the charts, I realized that our Throughfare Creek is one of the few places to get between the Great Pee Dee and Waccamaw Rivers.  That's why there is a lot of boat traffic around our anchored boat - even on a Wednesday.

The bass-boats go flying by and don't rock us at all.  But the larger (17-25') boats seem to slow down to the speed where they create the most wake and we go flying.  I've watched them go by and I'm pretty sure they are trying to be nice by slowing down.  They just don't look behind them and see us jumping up and down with their wake.  

Here are a few pictures we took on our dinghy ride.

An hour or so later we were back at the boat.  I decided to take the outboard off the dinghy in case we go offshore from Little River Inlet to Cape Fear in a couple days.  The dinghy would be fine with the motor on cruising up the ICW but I don't like the extra 95 pounds swinging around back there when we are in the ocean.

Plans, plans, plans...  We have reservations for Myrtle Beach Yacht Club for tomorrow night.  It's only about 40 miles from here so we should be able to make it there early and spend some time with our friend Sandy who lives nearby.  Saturday is supposed to be rain and storms so we have reservations for Friday and Saturday on a mooring in Carolina Beach.  That should give us some time to go into town for the Celtic Creamery homemade ice cream between the raindrops.  Yumm.

I think it's time for muchies and a cocktail.  Later.....

St. Augustine, FL to Thunderbolt, GA

Friday, April 14th (Day 13)

Partly cloudy.  Light winds building from the south later in the day.  72 degrees

54nm today (433 total trip miles)

Off the mooring at 7:45am.  Current was zooming so as soon as I released the mooring lines the boat started heading for the mooring (and boat) directly behind us.  Whoa!  Get on the helm!

Waves off-shore were still high from the storms yesterday so we ran the ICW north from St. Augustine.  An outgoing tidal current helped us the 1/2 mile to the inlet then it was against us for the next several hours.  I think we averaged only 4.5 knots all morning (our normal speed is 6).  My goal was to make it near Fernandina Beach which would set us up for an easy off-shore run tomorrow.

This part of the ICW was still busy with day-cruisers until the St. Johns River.  Then it was just us and a few powerboats that passed us.  It was a nice day to be cruising the ICW and we enjoyed it.

Just before Fernandina there is a high-rise bridge over the ICW (to Amelia Island) and, just after that, a railroad swing bridge.  We've seen this closed before and had to wait for a train to the paper mill.  This time it was wide open so we continued through.  

Laura and I were talking as we slowly motored through the bridge against the currents and we both heard a machinery noise starting near the boat.  Laura was looking around and I saw the railroad swing bridge was closing on us.  "Holy Sh...!"  I pushed the throttle forward (maybe another 1/2 knot on a sailboat) and we made it through the bridge just in time.  I couldn't believe it!  No notice on the marine radio.  No horns or sirens at the bridge.  Just close it and assume nobody is around?  That was crazy.  Here was the Kingsley Creek Railroad bridge closed behind us.  Boaters beware!

Tidal currents were more helpful the rest of the day and we motored into Fernandina just after 5pm.  I had tried to call the marina earlier in the day to reserve a mooring.  It used to be a City Marina but I guess they sold (or leased) to a company called Oasis.  I wasn't impressed.

There was probably plenty of room to anchor but the wind was picking up and, with the high tidal currents here, the mooring would give me more piece-of-mind.  

I called the marina earlier in the day to try and reserve a mooring.  "Press 3 for reservations...".  After waiting over 10 minutes on hold, I hung up.  "Press 1 for Dockmaster...".  Nobody answered there either but I left a voicemail saying I wanted to reserve a mooring.

There were several moorings open so we tied up to one.  Even as experience as Laura and I are after 17 years, it took us 2 tries because the winds were now honkin' and the currents were pushing us away from the ball.  After getting our two mooring lines attached, the boat settled down.  Nobody ever called me back.

Just after dinner we were relaxing watching TV.  I was thinking about the off-shore run tomorrow and realized we hadn't taken the outboard off the dinghy.  Just before dark we dropped the dinghy in the water and pulled up the motor with our block and tackle.  I flushed it out with a little fresh water, pulled up the dinghy and cleaned up everything on the deck for an ocean run.  Nice!

Unfortunately, we were directly downwind from the paper mill.  The smell was terrible but I eventually was able to put up with it.  Laura ended up sleeping in the salon with closed windows.

Saturday, April 15th (Day 14)

Sunny and warm with light SE winds.  Air temp 74.  Water temp 73.

81.5nm today (514 total trip miles)

Neither of us slept well last night.  The boat was pretty warm and stunk from the paper mill.  I had the alarm set for 6:10am and by 1/2 hour later we were off the mooring and heading out to sea.  Laura took this picture of the sleepy Fernandina as we motored passed.  Pretty sky....

We had the currents with us (that was the plan) so within 45 minutes we were out the inlet and had turned north up the coast.  

It sometimes works out that the high tide is in the early morning and the falling tide afterwards can help us out the inlets a little later.  Then, by early evening, the flood currents will help us come in so we can anchor for the evening.  The coast of Georgia is very shallow and sometimes you have to go out 5-10 miles before turning up (or down) the coast.  If we don't have the tides helping us, it's just not worth the effort to spend a little time off the ICW.  The currents helping bring us to 7-8 knots - the currents against us bring us down to 4.  Big difference, right?.  This trip up the coast the tides worked in our favor we we headed out onto a pretty calm ocean at 8 knots.

By 7:30am we had our big sails up and were motor-sailing north at over 7 knots.  The winds were only 6-8 knots so we would have been going only about 3-4 knots with the motor off.  If we wanted to make miles (and we did!), we'd need to keep the engine running.  But, it would have been running all day up the ICW anyway, right?

Winds were from the west (from shore) so never built up any waves.  There was a small swell from the SE (like always!) but we had both the jib and mainsail full out which kept the boat pretty calm.  As we sometimes say, it was a rock-a-bye-baby ride.  And, we actually were both able to take naps in the afternoon.  Here was the ocean 5 miles off the Georgia coast at 10am.

A short while later I took this zoomed-in picture of the Brunswick Bridge from 5 miles off-shore.

One interesting thing that happened in the afternoon was both our cell phones went off with an alert of a chemical fire in Brunswick, GA.  We could see the smoke plume behind us with the winds pushing it almost to the horizon.  No worries though.  We were many miles north of Brunswick by then.

In the afternoon, Laura and I discussed where we were heading today.  We had originally hoped for St. Catherine's Inlet but maybe we could take advantage of the really nice ocean and make it farther.  Current speed would put at at St. Catherine's with helping currents but only for a short time.  If we went passed St. Catherine's, we'd have to go for another 6 hours for the tide to change and the currents not be against us.  We could go all the way to Port Royal Sound (Beaufort, SC) and would arrive there around 11pm - just before the tide changed to help us up the river.  We'd probably to up to Beaufort and anchor in the dark around 1am.  Doable but not our favorite choice.  Especially after neither of us slept well last night.

Did we need to be in a hurry?  Our goal is to be back in Catskill, NY around May 20th so Laura can make a flight out to her grandson's high school graduation a couple days later.  That gave us about 7 weeks from Marathon.  Should be no problem, right?  But, we've already used 2 weeks just to get to Georgia.  We were thinking we should be in Norfolk around May 1st to give us time up Chesapeake Bay then find a good window for the NJ coast.  That's just over 2 weeks away.  Do we need to do things like an 18 hour day to make that comfortably?

We sailed up the coast of Georgia discussing this and actually counted the days we would need.  After 34 trips on the Atlantic ICW, we know it pretty much by heart.

April 16 & 17 - Savannah (extra day to sit out weather)

April 18 - Beaufort

April 19 - Charleston

April 20 - Georgetown

April 22 - Myrtle Beach (leave extra day for Waccamaw currents)

April 24 - Carolina Beach (leave extra day for Cape Fear currents)

April 25 - Swansboro

April 26 - Oriental

April 28 - Norfolk (2 days early)

This doesn't include any extra days to sit out weather in a marina or anchorage but it also doesn't count days saved by off-shore runs like today.  We shaved 1 or 2 days off the trip just today by taking the ocean instead of the twisty-turny Georgia ICW.

OK.  We don't need to panic and run 18 hour days.  Plus, the winds picked up from the south later in the day (as predicted) which helped us get to St. Catherine's in plenty of time for the currents to help us to our anchorage.

We anchored at 7pm near Buckhead Creek.  Peaceful and quiet.  Nice dinner and we both slept great!

Sunday, April 16th (Day 15)

Cloudy with rain and storms in the forecast.  Air temp 67.  Water temp 72

22nm today (536 total trip miles)

This afternoon, tonight and tomorrow morning are supposed to be rain and thunderstorms.  We decided we'd leave the anchorage early and treat ourselves to a marina around Savannah to sit for a couple days.  Oh boy!  Our first marina of the trip!

We pulled the anchor at 6:15am under a dark and dreary day.  As we turned out of the anchorage back into the ICW, I took this picture of the sunrise.

Pretty right?  See how calm the water is for the refection.  But wait...  That wasn't the sunrise in the east.  This was looking west.  East was totally dark but there was a little cloud break in the west that was lighting things up.  Very weird.

We looked at marinas on AquaMaps using ActiveCaptain and Waterway Guide write-ups.  Our first choice was Thunderbolt Marine because it was within walking distance of a few restaurants and had good reviews.  We had never stopped here before.  I called at 8am and left a message.  Hmmm.  How long would should I wait before calling somewhere else?

15 minutes later Greg called me from Thunderbolt.  They had a nice slip for us on a floating dock.  He asked me to make the reservation and pay on DockWa which I did.  Easy piezy!

Just before 11am we approached the marina and I called them on the radio.  Greg was a great help and a short time later we were tied up in the basin along the marina wall.  This place was cool.  They worked on huge boats and we saw several sailboats in the 100 foot range being worked on.  

We had signed up and paid for 2 nights but, by time we checked in, tomorrow didn't look too bad.  Greg said we could take until tomorrow morning to make up our minds and he could easily have DockWa refund us for the day if we decided not to stay.  Nice!

Our engine was ready for an oil change so I set it to drain into a container then Laura and I took two loads of laundry to the office.  I checked in while Laura started two washers. We walked around the marina yard a bit then I headed back to the boat for a little hull cleaning.  I had noticed a few days ago that we had some rust stains on the starboard side - probably from the stainless over the rub-rail. It really needed to be taken off and polished but that would be a job for this summer.  The boat really looked bad so I grabbed the water hose, my spray bottle and the jug of Muriatic Acid I had stashed.  Turns out we were docked on the port side so I dropped the dinghy so I could work on the starboard side.  It wasn't hard work and about an hour later I was done cleaning both sides then put away the dinghy.  She looked much better!  No more rust-bucket....

After relaxing for a bit, I then replaced the oil filter, drained and filled the transmission oil, then refilled the engine with fresh oil.  An hour later I was cleaning everything up and Gertrude would be happy now until probably somewhere in Chesapeake Bay.

We relaxed a bit then decided to head to the recommended restaurant for a late lunch / early dinner.  After cleaning myself up a bit, we walked about 1/4 mile to Tubby's Tank House.  The place was pretty hopping for 3 on a Sunday afternoon.  Our waitress was very nice and the food excellent.  We both ordered the Grouper Sandwich (recommended by Greg).  I had mine blacked - Laura had grilled.  They came with Sparky's Spuds - potatoes dipped in beer-batter and deep fried.  Yumm! 

I posed for the picture this time.

Right now, I think we will leave tomorrow morning and motor the ICW to the Savannah River then tidal currents should help us out to sea again.  Sea forecast looks great for the next 3-4 days with seas less than 2 feet swells and helping winds.  We will probably bypass Beaufort (and the shallow ICW spots north of there) and run off-shore to maybe South Edisto River to anchor for the night. Then back out in the morning Tuesday for a long run to Winyah Bay.  Whoa!  That would put us 2 days ahead of the schedule above!  We'll see.  We won't count our chickens yet.....

Titusville to St. Augustine

Saturday, April 8th (Day 7 - continued) to Monday, April 10th (Day 9)

These three days were quite "bouncy" on Second Wind.  We spent the whole time on the boat because the waves were too big to launch and travel in the dinghy.  This typically isn't a problem for us as we are used to the solitude.  Laura enjoys baking and crafts while I work a few boat jobs (there are ALWAYS boat jobs...) and play / sing music. 

I've been working on learning a new song lately - "Wind it up" from The Boat Drunks.  I love the lyrics but am having problems playing the guitar to the island beat.  Check it out on iTunes for a little fun.

The ketch on the mooring behind us is very colorful - and not in a nice way.  Check this out -

What are you thinking when you have a Cyan stripe, Burgundy sail covers and Tan canvas.  Plus, we saw the owner (?) come out on the deck in a green shirt.  "MY EYES!!"

Laura loves trying new dishes so she made Shrimp Wonton soup one night.  We had walked to the grocery store on Saturday morning and one of the items on our list was wonton wrappers.  They didn't have any (it was only a small store) but I said, "Why don't you just make your own?"  She got out her phone and found a couple good recipes. Plus she could use her manual pasta-maker to flatten out the dough.  A few hours later, she dug right in and had our whole galley under construction...

The end result was awesome and I ate two helpings.

She also likes making gnomes and played around with a new one.

I mentioned that gnomes don't wear flowers in their hair and maybe this one was a female?  With a beard?  Too funny....

We had planned on leaving Monday but the front with high winds decided to stick around another day.  One of our neighbors on a power-catamaran decided to leave on Monday and I thought he was nuts.  The winds were steady in the mid-20s and gusting into the 30s.  Laura watched him motor forward over the mooring ball while the wife (?) pulled the mooring line up to the bow and removed the (3) mooring lines they had attached.  From here things went downhill.  For some reason, he continued to motor forward over the ball maybe thinking the ball would pass harmlessly between the two hulls of the catamaran.  No....  that didn't work as planned and he ended up catching the mooring ball / line / chain in his starboard rudder or prop.  

They dropped their anchor (maybe because one engine was out of service) and he eventually put on a bathing suit and snorkel gear.  About an hour later they motored away picking up their anchor.  I was thinking, "Where's the mooring ball?"  As the boat turned and motored toward the marina, we saw the ball pop up and float away.  He must have broken it off the chain attaching it to the bottom.  That was quite a job.  These moorings are supposed to be hurricane rated. We later saw them anchored up by the bridge.

About an hour later the marina office calls me.  The pleasant gal on the phone asks if we are OK because they found a mooring ball on-shore next to the marina.  I said we were fine and told her the story.  I didn't want to be a tattle-tale but the folks on the catamaran should have taken responsibility for destroying a mooring and called the marina.  Funny that the gal on the phone didn't seem too upset.  Maybe this was a frequent occurrence?

A few showers came through during the evening and we buttoned up the boat while streaming videos off the Starlink.  Hopefully, outta here tomorrow.

Tuesday, April 11th (Day 10)

Partly sunny with high winds (mid 20s) and occasional showers.  Air temp 70.  Water temp 75

42nm today (331 total trip miles)

Even though the winds were high and occasional showers were predicted, we decided to leave and continue our trip north.  I think both of us were ready to leave this rolly / bouncy mooring field.  I felt safe on the mooring but this bay is too wide open for high winds from the north or east.  We had lots of both for the past 3 days and nights and they built up waves big enough to bounce around our 21 ton sailboat.

I completed my morning engine room checks then fired up the Perkins and our electronics.  Just after 8am we released the mooring lines.  Winds were steady in the low 20s with higher gusts.  This part of the trip to Daytona has a couple sections a little open to the east (where the winds were coming from all day) and about an hour after leaving the mooring we turned east up up the ICW toward the Haul-Over canal and bridge.  This was the most open section of today with 4 miles to shore for the winds to build up a little higher seas.  Motoring into the 25 knot winds and 3 foot seas the boat slowed to about 4 1/2 knots (from our normal 6) which made this section even longer.  It wasn't a bad ride for us but every once in a while the bow would bounce down on wave and send up spray that eventually covered all of our windows in the cockpit.  

Once through the canal we turned north up the Mosquito Lagoon which put the winds on our beam.  Hmmm..  Maybe our first sail of the trip?  If we wanted to sail this narrow ICW channel safely, we would have to be careful and let out only enough sail to keep the boat moving nicely without overpowering because of the high winds.  Plus, unless we have the right percentage of mainsail and jib working, the boat becomes "unbalanced".  This means wind gusts blowing on the jib will try to turn the boat into the wind and we would quickly be outside of the deeper channel we need to stay in.  Unlike most sailboats, we had roller furling on our mainsail which would make it easy to let out just the right amount.  Why not give it a try?  What could go wrong....

After a steep learning curve of how much sail to put out, we eventually settled on about 1/2 jib and just a few feet of mainsail.  Check it out -

The winds were high enough for the boat to be pretty well balanced with just that little bit of mainsail.  We were re-learning medium to high-wind sailing!

I turned off the engine for our first non-engine sailing the trip.  It lasted for 1 1/2 hours until we got into the islands before New Smyrna Beach when the winds died a lot and kept changing direction.  At one point we were sailing over 7 knots.  Laura took this picture of our instruments.  7.2 knots boat speed with 24.1 knots of wind.  Yoo Hoo!

 

We pulled in the sails to motor through twisty New Smyrna area and the George Munson Bridge.  Once we were around Ponce Inlet and associated islands, our course was mostly north so we rolled out the jib for help and lowered engine RPM. 

By 3:45pm we were anchored near the new Memorial Bridge in one of our favorite spots.  This anchorage was excellent for protection from east winds and, even though the winds continued into the night, the boat stayed pretty quiet.  

I love this mansion in front of our anchorage.  We were finally in calm waters.

Laura and I talked about taking the dinghy to Caribbean Jacks which is one of our favorite restaurants with dinghy access.  We both decided to relax and leave them for next time.

Around 9pm we heard fireworks outside and, from our cockpit, we had a ring-side seat.  They didn't last long but they were very nice.  This picture is just using my iPhone.

 

I have one of my boat instruments monitoring maximum wind speed.  This only includes sustained winds - not gusts.  Today it read 29 knots.  

Wednesday, April 12th (Day 11)

Partly cloudy, not as windy and no showers.  Air temp 71.  Sea temp 73.

48nm today (379 total trip miles)

Just after leaving Titusville yesterday, I called the St. Augustine City Marina and was able to snag a reservation for 3 nights on a mooring starting tonight.  I felt like we had won the lottery!  These moorings have been harder to find over the past few years.  I think it's because many boaters use them for in-water storage.  It's a cheap way to store your boat (<>$400 / month) but it takes the moorings away from transients who would actually spend money in town.  OK.  Enough of my rant...

Anchor up at 8:15am and we motored back to the ICW.  Winds were down a bit today but we did use our Jib to help us along.  We ran 90% of the day with reduced engine RPM on mostly quiet waters. 

No problems today as we navigated to St. Augustine.  I called the marina on the marine radio and they told me we were assigned a mooring on the north side of the Bridge of Lions Bridge.  We only waited about 10 minutes for the 4pm bridge opening and were tied to our mooring about 15 minutes later.  

Now.  We needed to check in, pay for the mooring and get groceries.  Should we wait until tomorrow for the grocery run (it's about a 2 mile walk) or get it over this afternoon / evening.  Tomorrow was supposed to rain most of the day (it didn't...) so we decided to suck-it-up and do our groceries now.  

After I checked-in and paid for 2 nights, we walked through town and down US 1 to Winn Dixie.  It was beautiful weather for a walk - not too hot or humid.  Laura's foot was doing excellent and I was having problems keeping up with her.  Geez.  Just 2 weeks ago I had been walking 3-4 miles several times a week.  What happened?

After almost $200 worth of groceries later, we got an Uber for the ride back to the marina.  I chatted a little with the driver, Mohamed, who seemed nice.  Back at the marina there were no carts near the drop-off spot so I hoofed across the marina for a dock-cart while Laura unloaded the groceries into the parking lot.  We carted the groceries to our dinghy, loaded the dinghy, motored back to our boat, put the groceries up on the side deck, tied up the dinghy, then we transferred the groceries to the galley.  Lots of work but we are stocked with fresh groceries now for a couple more weeks.

I pulled the dinghy up on the davits and went downstairs to help put some stuff away.  On the way, I checked my pocket - no cell phone.  Hmmm.  Did I give it to Laura to put in the pack?  Nope.  Was it in the dinghy?  Nope.  Oh crap.

I picked up Laura's phone and called my number hoping maybe I had dropped it in the dinghy or in the boat and I would hear it ring.  After about 8 rings, Mohamed answered it.  It must have fallen out of my shorts pocked when I climbed out of the car.  Actually, this was pretty lucky, right?  I knew where it was.

Mohamed said he was on his way to Jacksonville with a paying passenger and would be back in town between 9 and 10pm (it was currently 7pm).  He would meet me at the marina where he dropped me off.  I gave him Laura's phone number which he called on his cell phone so I would have his number.  He was great!  

I put the dinghy back in the water and we watched a few shows on the TV.  At 9:15pm I get a call from him saying he is about 45 minutes from the marina.  A while later, I dinghy back to the marina and we arrive at the parking lot together just before 10pm.  He gets out of the car and hands me my phone.

OK.  Now, here is my problem....  How much money should I give him as a reward.  He just returned to me a $1,300 iPhone with a huge part of my life on it and I'm VERY grateful.  But, he didn't manufacture the phone, he's just returning something I left in his Uber. I wish I knew how far out of his way he went to return the phone.  Was he coming back to St. Augustine tonight anyway.  Really no way for me to know.  How much would you give him?

I didn't think $20 was enough so decided on $40.  When he handed me the phone we talked a bit and I explained I wanted to give him a reward but wasn't sure how much.  He said it didn't matter - he didn't expect anything.  I asked if $40 would be fair and he said, "Oh yes.  Sure.  Whatever you want...."  Geez.  He could have given me a sob story and I'd have peeled off a couple $100s.

Back to the boat a short time later and I again haul up the dinghy on the davits, climb down into the salon and relax for a little bit with the TV.  A little while later we hit the sack.

Thursday, April 13th (Day 12)

Sunny becoming cloudy with storms later in the afternoon.

This morning, we were thinking, "It's such a beautiful day.  Why are we sitting here?  Why did we hustle to do our groceries yesterday instead of this morning?  Should we go in for lunch and take the chance of getting soaked?"  The weather forecast kept changing and it was a sunny, nice day.  Forecast was rain at 11am, then 1pm, then 2pm...  

Don't forget that we forged ahead with groceries last evening and paid for 2 nights on this mooring because it was supposed to rain almost all day today. Finally, at 4pm, I looked out over St. Augustine and saw this ominous sky.  It was like a something out of a science fiction movie.  I took this panorama with my iPhone.  I think if you click on it, you will see the whole thing.

The black clouds came over with lightning and thunder.  We were looking at lots of what we call "Red Shit" on our phones.

We're always posting videos of great sailing, dolphins, etc.  Here's one of the storm.

An hour later, the Sun came out and we were treated to a little rainbow over the Bridge of Lions Bridge.

Our friends Kevin, Victoria and their 3 sons (s/v Tsunami) have been on a boat in Jacksonville for almost a year.  They were newbies to sailing and cruising a couple years ago and I helped them get down the coast safely from Albany, NY to Oriental, SC.  Victoria texted me yesterday to see if we wanted to get together - maybe dinner tonight?  We texted during and after the storm to try and organize dinner.  Laura and I discussed going in to meet them and she mentioned that everything on the boat was soaked - including the dinghy.  We decided to put off the get-together.  Good thing.  More storms came through over the next couple hours.

Somewhere during the storm our Honda generator sputtered and quit.  It sounded like a fuel problem because it sputtered for a while.  If there was water in the electronics, it probably would have just stopped.  After the rain stopped, I drained the carburetor and it had rusty water in it.  Oh boy.  Last night I had emptied one of our gasoline jugs into the generator.  I try to be careful doing this because the bottom of the jug sometimes has water or other sediment.  After draining the float bowl (very easy on this generator), it ran for another 1/2 hour and stopped.  I can either keep doing this or, if it keeps happening, I'll probably have to completely drain all the gas out of the tank on the generator and refresh with new stuff. 

Our current plan is to leave here early tomorrow morning and try to make somewhere around Fernandina tomorrow night.  Winds are finally supposed to calm down tomorrow, Saturday and most of Sunday until another front Sunday night.  We'll have to see how far we get and how bad the storm Sunday night is supposed to be before deciding on our travel past Saturday.

Generator just died again.  Off to work I go.....

Vero to Titusville

Thursday, April 6th (Day 5)

Mostly sunny and warm.  Moderate SE winds.  Sea temp 80.  Air temp 74 (am)

Since we had stopped around noon yesterday, the boat cooled off nicely before bedtime. Both Laura and I slept well and I even pulled a sheet over me in the early morning.  

Today was a down-day for the boat but we had a few "shore" plans.  We wanted to get to the beach (Laura needed her beach-time) then happy-hour at the marina later in the afternoon.

After a quiet morning, we closed up the boat (was a little cloudy so didn't want to take a chance of rain) and dropped the dinghy for the ride to shore.  Two years ago we were here for a couple weeks and, after much exploring, found a nice little sandy spot off the canals to park the dink and walk across US 1 to the beach.  I was hoping the spot was still there and I could find it.

It was a pretty ride through this part of Vero and we easily found the little beach tucked between the mangrove trees.  We were able to pull the dinghy up on shore and secure her to a tree with our safety cable and lock.

It's a cute little spot to tie up the dinghy, right?

The ocean beach was less than 1/4 mile away - just across US 1 and a small park.  Laura immediately headed for the water.  Sorry this picture is a little washed out from the bright sky but that is Laura standing in the water.

Laura hung out at the beach for a while and I took a brisk walk down the boardwalk.  It was great to stretch my legs for a mile or so.  

About 1/2 hour later we met back at the beach.  I looked on my phone for maybe a place to buy lunch but nothing was within short walking distance.  Bummer.

We walked back to the dinghy, put away the safety cable and shoved off back to the boat.  I took a little longer ride to the ICW and around the big island.  Along the way we saw this very colorful cloud.  Looks like something from a Si-Fi movie.  I thought it looked like a spaceship going away from us and the colorful part was the engine exhaust.  What do you think?

Back at the boat for a little lunch and maybe nap-time before happy-hour later in the afternoon.

Around 3, I decided to jump in the water and check out our propeller and running gear.  I felt like the boat had been behaving a little sluggish the past day or two and I wanted to make sure everything was OK for our continuing trip north.  I brought all my gear to the back deck (snorkel, mask, weight belt, fins) but only put on the mask to see what was happening.  The water was definitely not as clear as Marathon but I had about 3-4 feet of vision underwater so it was fine for this job.

Boy.  Was I glad I did this.....  As I approached the prop, I could see a black rope / line wound around the blades several times.  No wonder the boat was sluggish!  I went to the back of the boat and put on the rest of my gear.  Laura handed me a sharp, serrated knife that I might need to cut it off.  Turns out I was able to pull the rope around the propeller blades and get it off without cutting.  This was great.  Sometimes a line like this will weld itself to the shaft - I'm not sure I would have been able to cut that off free-diving.  A few minutes later I had the 20 (?) feet of black 3/8" poly line up on the swim deck.  This is typically the type of rope used for crab or lobster pots. A boat must have run over the crab or lobster buoy and cut the line.

Sorry.... I forgot to take a picture.  

Just before 4pm we packed the dinghy with guitar, music (iPad and stand), Laura's harmonica case, munchies and cocktails then headed into the marina.  I did not bring my flute or Ukulele as we had enough junk to lug around.

Dean and Sue had just arrived and we helped each other bring everything to the picnic tables.  We met a few other boaters and played music for a couple hours.  Here is a picture of Dean playing with Sue singing along.

Dean also took this picture of Laura and I playing.  It was a fun evening.

Another boater - Tony - brought his guitar and played along a bit.  He's to the right in the picture.

Back to the boat around 7pm.  I pulled the dinghy up on the davits while Laura re-heated chicken enchiladas for dinner which were quick as we were eating late (for us).  I think we hit the sack early.  It was a fun and busy day for old cruisers like us...

Friday, April 7th (Day 6)

Sunny and warm (low 80s), winds ESE @ 10-15, water temp 78

65nm today - 289 total trip miles

We slept in a bit and were off the mooring at 7:50am.  Our plans were to make somewhere around Melbourne today then Titusville tomorrow.  

It was a beautiful day on the water and we were third in the line of sailboats heading north from Vero Beach. I rolled out the jib shortly after entering the ICW and we actually passed the two sailboats in front of us.  I think that was a first for us - we don't pass too many other boats.  Several powerboats passed us during the day but, by early afternoon, we were by ourselves motor-sailing north up the Indian River.

Importance of weather forecasts and planning

My biggest job when cruising is managing our travels based on weather.  When you are driving on a trip in your car, rain and thunderstorms are not fun but you can keep going through them.  On a boat it's a different story - winds can blow you around quite a bit - plus we have the added challenge of being safe while anchored overnight.  It looked like the next week to 10 days were going to take all my skills to keep us safe and moving whenever possible.

If possible, I plan ahead to be on a mooring during the worst winds and storms.  The boat doesn't move around as much as when we are anchored in storms and, in this part of the world, the moorings are inspected periodically so are very safe  Also, most of the moorings (St. Augustine is the exception) don't take reservations so you can stay on them until you are ready to leave.  Since this storm system would last several days, it would be good to have the option of staying or leaving.  Several cities have moorings spaced out along the ICW with the next in-line for us being Titusville and St. Augustine.

A front was coming through on Sunday which would clock the winds to the north and increase to 20 during the day and 30 at night.  From experience, our sailboat doesn't do well with a 60 horsepower (40 years ago) diesel pushing a 42,000 pound boat into 20 knot winds.  We slow down to 2-3 knots sometimes. Plus the next week or so was over 50% chance of rain every day and some thunderstorms. Yuck!

We could not make St. Augustine by Sunday but might make Daytona if we ran two long days today and tomorrow.  No moorings in Daytona but the anchorage there was nice, had good holding (experience from many times anchored there) and it would offer some protection from the winds.  This would be my second choice.

First choice would be a mooring in Titusville.  The Titusville City Marina does not take reservations for the moorings so we had to hope there would be moorings available when we got there tomorrow.  One problem was the anchorage there was not very protected if we couldn't get a mooring - it was OK but not great.  The best protection was behind a bridge about 12 miles south of TItusville.  Should we take the chance?

I called the Titusville marina. They told me there were moorings available (right then).  I tried to make a reservation for a marina slip for the weekend (as a backup solution) but they were full.  

We had helping winds all day.  With the our full jib sail out, our speed increased from the normal 6 knots to 7 with the light SE winds.  Now we could make it all the way to Titusville by around 6pm.

It was nice day on the water and we were making great time.  The Addison Point Lift Bridge (NASA Causeway Bridge) was closed from 3:30pm to 5pm for rush-hour traffic but we should get there just before 5 and be in Titusville by 6.

Turns out we were at the bridge by 4:45pm so I called them to say I'd be standing by for the 5pm opening.  I was informed that the schedule had changed and the rush-hour lockout now extended to 6pm.  Well...  That was a bummer.  Now we wouldn't be to Titusville until around 7pm. 

We pulled in the sail and motored away from the channel for about 1/4 mile before dropping the anchor for an hour.  No problems getting through at 6pm but there were now 2 other sailboats waiting.  I motored in front of them (I was there first, right?) and we all went through the bridge close together.  Laura helped me roll out the jib and we zoomed away at 7 knots leaving them in our dust.  Oops.  The catamaran didn't get that memo.  He was going just barely faster than us and slooooooooly passed us over the next 2 miles.  When we motored up to the mooring field in Titusville, I could only hope there were two moorings open because the catamaran was looking for one too.

Turns out there were many open moorings and Laura did her normal great job of getting two mooring lines through the one I picked.  Yea! 

I felt like there was a huge weight off my shoulders now.  We were safe for the storms coming Sunday and could stay longer if the front moved slower than the forecast.

We had a nice dinner of leftovers and turned on the TV to watch a few shows.  A short while later, the TV stopped - our Starlink showed "outage" on my app.  What the .....?  Was there a problem in this area or something going on with my setup?  

I played with it for a while and it wasn't coming back.  We switch the TV over to our phone hotspot and continued watching as I monitored the Starlink outage.

It turns out the Starlink problem was world-wide and lasted for almost 1/2 hour.  Wow.  That sucked for a lot of people!  Elon apologized (on Twitter of-course) and said it was some problem with a ground station.  Don't ask me how that could take down the whole world on Starlink - I'm not a Starlink expert.  But I do know when I worked in Technology for 35+ years, I always stressed not having a single-point-of-failure in any systems.  Somebody screwed that up royally.  Anyway, it's all good now and I slept well not having to be worried about being anchored in the storms coming up.

Saturday, April 8th (Day 7)

Partly cloudy and warm.  Cooler last night - down in the high-60s.  Air temp 75.  Water temp 77

Didn't move the boat today (or for the next few days...)

Laura and I both slept well and had a relaxing morning.  Around 10:30am we closed up the boat, I dropped the dinghy into the water, Laura got our laundry together, and we motored into the marina.  We paid our mooring fee for 3 days ($57) but the (3) marina laundry washers were full.  No problem, we'll take a little walk to the grocery store for a few things.

It was a nice walk through this part of Titusville and we got a little exercise on the 1/2 mile walk to the Save A Lot.  When we got back to the marina, one washer was almost ready so I asked the office guys if they had a place to keep our eggs and milk cold (they did) and Laura started the wash.

We ended up sitting in the laundry room talking to two gents also from a boat in the marina.  I had a good time talking to the boat owner because he was also a space and Elon Musk fan.  About 1 1/2 hours later we got back our milk and eggs then trucked everything back to the boat.

Storms are supposed to start later this afternoon / evening so we might be on the boat for a couple / several days.  No worries for us.  We have plenty of food, drink and power for a few relaxing days (as long as the Starlink doesn't go out again)...

Right now it looks like the main thunderstorms will extend into Monday so we might be here until Tuesday when we can head north again on the ICW.

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...