1/4/16
Harbour Cay Club – Marathon, Florida Keys
Posted by Bill

First…happy new year everyone! I haven’t posted since Christmas so I thought I would write an update. Generally, we have been enjoying a period of fantastic weather for the last 3 weeks! Today another front is moving through and the temps have fallen to the high 60s…brrrrrrr, and as usual, we are rocking and rolling in the waves of the north winds. Most of the last week we have been working on the boat. Seems like we are finding one project after another, but most of the time has been spent trying to get the air conditioner condensation draining properly. We finally broke down and figured a way to run a drain tube to our shower sump, so we could bypass using the venturi condensator that has been problematic. After some adjustments to the tube, we were able to get a solution and have been enjoying cooler temps in the cabin. Tricia built some shade curtains out of a shade material we bought at Home Depot. It works great to shade the cockpit and it was much more cost effective than buying the usual material (Phifertex) that is used in the marine industry. Next we tackled installing a new stern light on the dinghy davit cross bar. When the dinghy is hanging in the davits, the standard stern light is obscured, which is not good! We bought a mounting bracket, a new stern light, and the wire to add a light higher on the davits. Problem was…the clamp they sent me is too large for the cross bar….oh well…we will finish that one later. I’ll try to get a few pics of the last 2 projects mentioned for other cruisers looking for similar solutions, and will post in a future post.

A couple of days after Christmas we went to the Marathon Craft Beer and Bubbly festival at the city park. We rode our bikes with friends Hayden and Radeen on Island Spirit, and Maris and Linda on Amekaya. They had craft beer, wine, champagne, good food trucks, and live music. It was great fun! Here is the gang:

A couple of days before new years, friends here at the marina, Lanny and Jim, fired up their smoker and we smoked a pork tenderloin. Tricia marinated ours with the rib rub she makes, and the result was outstanding!!! Here is half of the tenderloin:

Tricia cut it up into portions and used our Food Saver to vacuum pack it, then put most of it in the freezer. We have been enjoying, and will be enjoying delicious pork for a while.

New Years Eve, we joined several other couples here at the marina and had hor d’oeuvres and drinks to usher in the new year. Lanny made a southern traditional “good luck” meal that was really good, so we should be real lucky! All of the food was good. We were in the club house, which has a nice wide screen TV with a surround sound system. We watched football and then the ball drop in Times Square. Hayden, Radeen, Maris and Linda, coaxed me in to getting my guitar and everyone joined in singing while I played. The party finally broke up around 2:40 AM. It was really fun, and I think that is the latest we have stayed up for new years eve in decades.

We pretty much stayed here at Harbour Cay Club over the holidays, as there were hordes of tourists here for the holidays. We are glad to have things get back to normal…as normal as it gets in the keys! Tomorrow some friends are coming in from St. Pete, Florida, and I am sure the happy hours at all of the local haunts will become a larger part of our activity once again.

12/25/15
Harbour Cay Club, Marathon FL
Posted by Bill

Merry Christmas everyone!! I hope you all had a good one. We have been enjoying a week of wonderful weather and the last couple of days have been no exception. We have been enjoying time with friends, both old and new. The other day, our friends that have a house on Big Pine Key, Jim and Jackie, came up and took us to the grocery store and Home Depot. Then we went and had lunch together and caught up. They dock in our old marina on Lake Erie and have been friends for several years. Nice to have a car to load up heavy stuff at the grocery. Even better to see good friends! Then the next day, our friends from Lake Erie, Jen and John, picked us up and we went out for happy hour at Sunset Grill. They are the friends we had a dual wedding with and their parents have a house here in Marathon where they are staying for Christmas. We have been close friends since the early 1990s. Great seeing them too.

Last night we had a really nice dinner here at Harbour Cay Club. Everybody pitched in and we had a great Italian seafood dinner. Here are some pictures:

Then today we connected with friends and family outside of Marathon, mostly via Face Time (which is awesome), did some fishing (caught nothing), and had a great surf and turf dinner. It was very different from our traditional Christmas celebration before we started cruising, but was enjoyable. And how can you complain about this view:

Tomorrow…back to boat projects, and then plan a trip to Key West!!

12/22/15
Harbour Cay Club, Marathon FL
Posted by Bill

The rock and roll stopped and the last 2 days have been delightful as the weather goes. Unfortunately, we have not been able to enjoy it with all of the boat work. It took the better part of a day, but I successfully flushed the air conditioning raw water system and got the condensators working again, sucking out the condensation as designed. As earlier in the year, the hoses get lined with silt and dead sea stuff, reducing the flow of water which in turn stalls the venturi effect that the condensators need to do their thing. A quick flush of diluted muratic acid did the trick again. As boat projects always go, it takes several hours to just get all of the tools out of storage and several more putting it all away. This one also involves removing hoses, which always takes herculean efforts, too much time, and much cursing.

Also, as boat projects go, another unforeseen project emerged. The project that we knew about was changing the filter cover for the refrigerator drain pump. When you defrost the refrigerator, some water ends up in the bottom and we have a handy, built in electric pump to purge it out. The filter for this system is in the back of the engine compartment just under an access hatch. We learned the hard way that if you are not careful removing the hatch, you can cause a stress crack in the filter cover, hindering the pump process. It takes about 40 minutes to remove all of the stuff that is stored above the hatch, and about 5 minutes to replace the filter cover. When I lifted the hatch, I noticed that it was wet…it shouldn’t be. So, I thought we had a leaking hose in the engine compartment. I run the engine at various speeds and watched for leaks…none found. After further inspection of the engine compartment, I could see small traces of water droplets in the area above the end of the hatch that was wet, and it leads to the vented tube for engine exhaust water. As usual, it doesn’t leak when I run the engine. I take to the internet and do some research, some saying that a little bit of leaking is normal, but this doesn’t sound right to me. I consult the “cone of knowledge”, a.k.a. happy hour at the Harbour Cay tiki hut, and learn that it should not leak, and that a friend of Eric’s has the same model boat that we have and has had to replace the same part. This whole process fills another day. The next day, Eric’s friend sends me an email with the part number and a place to get it…yay!! A fine example of the way boat projects go, and proof that drinking and happy hour solves problems!

It seems like boat projects have been consuming us this last week or so, but in my last post I forgot to mention our first manatee visit this season. We love it when they come up to our boat and this one was really friendly.

All of the unexpected projects have put a damper on getting Christmas finalized. We didn’t have much to do in that respect, but we are not going to make it. We decided to stay at the marina over Christmas and will try and see all of our friends that live nearby over the next week. I hope you all are ready for the holiday and that you have a good one!

12/19/15
Harbour Cay Club Marina, Marathon FL
Posted by Bill

One of the only bad things about staying at Harbour Cay Club is the northern exposure. When winds have a northern component, especially northwest or due north, and the winter fronts move in, we get hammered by the wind and waves in the marina. Today we are getting winds to 36 knots (so far) from the north-northeast and we have been rocking and rolling like a bucking bronco. Not much sleep last night and we will have to endure this weather for another day. Thankfully, it looks like the winds will move further east, which should calm it down a bit. We decided to hang out in the club house for a bit to keep from getting sea sick! To put in my usual terms…we are getting our asses kicked…at the dock!

Up until today, this week has been absolutely gorgeous!! Here are a couple pics from one of our walks that typifies the weather we have been having:

The other day we took our dinghy around the west end of the key, under the Seven Mile Bridge and into Boot Key Harbor. Hundreds of boats in there. On the way back we stopped and enjoyed a couple of happy hours. It was a fun day getting out on the water.

We started one day this week with breakfast and mimosas:

And then we put up our Christmas decorations:

Our friends Hayden and Radeen finally made it here and we have been making more friends at the infamous “Cone of Knowledge”, the tiki hut where everyone socializes for sun down and happy hour drinks. One night I even pulled out my guitar and played with one of the other boaters here that has an acoustic, and can sing very well. It has been great fun.

The temps have started to get into the mid 80’s during the day and only going down into the mid to high 70’s at night, with a decent amount of humidity; so we decided to switch on the air conditioning. We only run it when we have to, to save money on electricity, but it was getting to be 87/88 inside the boat in the afternoons, and lately the winds have been very light, so we broke down. Much to my dislike…the condensators, the small plumbing fixtures that suck the condensation water out, were not working. So…I manually pumped the water out (every 40 minutes for several hours), launched the dinghy, used the dinghy and a water hose at the dock to spray into the water exhaust ports, and viola…it started working! Yay! Not so fast though…it only worked for about 3 hours and then started failing again. Those of you who follow the blog may remember this happening in Southport this summer. I will need to run acid through the raw water system of the air conditioners to get the flow back to the point that the condensators will work. I set about doing that today. Step one…prep a bucket to feed the raw water pump…done. Next, dig a section of spare hose out of the cockpit locker (big enough for a small family to live in, and completely full of stuff…aka not fun to have to dig out spare hose) to run from the bucket to the pump…failed. Rain was threatening and we are getting blown away. It is cool enough to not need the air conditioning for a few days and I am going to delay this project, hoping for better weather tomorrow! You may also remember that I absolutely hate dealing with hoses, so that may have been a factor as well…lol!

It just doesn’t feel like Christmas here…mostly sunny, warm and green…and I can’t believe the big day is next week. We have several options for how we are going to spend Christmas Eve and Day, and we need to figure out what we are going to do……..decisions, decisions.

We will post before and/or around Christmas to wish everyone well. I hope your shopping is almost done and your cookies are baked. Not so much of that here on a boat…

12/13/15
Florida Keys, Marathon, FL
Posted by Bill

Well it has been a full week since we landed in Marathon at the Harbour Cay Club. It is nice to be sitting still for a while. Since we left Southport on the 4th of November, we have had 20 traveling days. Except for the week we stayed in Vero Beach, the only stops we took were for weather, 2 days in Charleston, 1 day in Fernandina Beach and 2 days in St Augustine. We traveled 1,006 statute miles. The trip this year was very different. Last year, everything was new to us and it seemed more adventurous compared to this year. We now have the spots we like, and spots we avoid (if possible), and we know the general “lay of the land” along the way. It was still challenging, especially dealing with weather and other boaters. It was easy to see how much our anchoring, docking and navigation skills have improved, especially when dealing with tides and currents.

The first couple of days here were windy and rainy, but now the weather is settling. Highs in the low 80s and lows in the low 70s, and finally some sunny skys.

Our good friends Kurt and Sharon, on Byrd Ketcher, left on Friday for Key West; and since we only had a few days to hang out with them, we hit a daily happy hour…sometimes more than one. We also met up with Mark and Jan on Island Bound (yes another Island Bound…great choice of boat name if I don’t say so myself), who were moored in Boot Key Harbor here in Marathon. They traveled with us from Miami to Bimini and the Berry Islands in the Bahamas in March, and then went south to the Exumas when we went north to the Abacos. It has been good seeing them again and hanging out. They are also headed for Key West tomorrow. We also met Denny and Wanda, good friends of the Byrd Ketchers and Island Bounds. They also moved on to Key West.

When not happy houring, we have been working on boat projects. First up, dealing with our solar panels. Last February we purchased 3 135 watt solar panels from a very reputable company here in Marathon. In return for a substantial discount, we accepted 2 of them on back order. Unfortunately, the company we bought them from has had a major problem getting them due to new import restrictions and tariffs (thank you mr president…not). I maintained my cool talking with the sales rep, and we were able to work out a solution that includes giving back the one panel we have, and getting 4 new 100 watt panels. They should be here in a few days and we can work on installing them.

A good portion of our travel here was in rainy and very humid weather, and since we have not had air conditioning we have developed a mold and mildew issue inside the boat. Tricia wiped every surface down with Clorox Cleanup and it is looking great. I set out to clean the bottom of the boat (since the water is so clear here, I don’t mind doing it versus hiring a diver), pulled the dinghy out of the water and give it a thorough cleaning, cleaned the stainless steel on the outside of the boat, and got caught up on the many financial and administrative things that have been neglected for over a month. We also got the bikes out of storage and made a run to the grocery store. We have a list of things to do to the boat before we head offshore to the Bahamas, and it will definitely keep us busy.

We are planning a couple of trips to Key West in the next couple of weeks to hang with everyone while they are down there. We also have a good friend Shelley that lives there that we want to visit. The cost for slips there is outrageous…beyond our budget, so we will base ourselves here in Marathon and take the bus to Key West. A friend of Kurt and Sharon, who lives near Key West, invited us to stay them them at his house for Christmas Eve and Day, and we are contemplating that. Also, we have good friends that live on Big Pine Key, which is the next key over from Marathon. Hopefully we can see them several times while we are here. Lastly, our good friends (considered family), Jen and John from Catawba (where our lake house is), are going to be here over Christmas staying with their parents who have a house in Key Colony Beach here in Marathon. We had a dual wedding with them back when we got hitched. We hope to spend some time with them while they are here. So…you can see…busy social schedule for the next few weeks.

We got our fishing licenses and plan to do some fishing soon. There are about 5 lobsters lurking in the rocks at the marina boat ramp. Their days are numbered! I have also seen some mangrove snappers swimming in the vicinity that need to end up on the grill, and I got a tip on what bait to use from a guy at the grocery store yesterday. We shall see.

Here are some pictures around the marina including our Island Bound at her slip:

12/5/15
Harbour Cay Club, Marathon, FL
Position: 24 42.631N, 81 06.590W
Posted by Bill

I know…it has been awhile since I posted. Since leaving Vero Beach we have been in bust ass mode and I haven’t had time to post. Also, there hasn’t been anything significant for the most part in our passages…except what you will find below.

The last couple of days at Vero, our really good friends, Kurt and Sharon on Byrd Ketcher, finally caught up to us. They had some mechanical problems that delayed their arrival in Vero, but they made it on the day after Thanksgiving. They also had some friends in town who were visiting relatives for the Thanksgiving holiday…Cheryl and Bill, one of Sharon’s best friends in high school whom she has kept up with. They stayed on the boat for a few days and we did some epic partying with all 4 of them around town. On the last full day in Vero, Kurt and I made a provisioning run in Cheryl and Bill’s car and we prepped to leave.

We were happy to be reunited with the Byrd Ketchers and we decided to travel with them to the Florida Keys. We left on November 30 and made our first stop in Hobe Sound, Jupiter, FL…right across from Tiger Wood’s house, where we anchored on the way north in the spring. Position: 27 00.242N. 080 5.712W. Poor Kurt had some anchoring issues during the night as the wind kicked up, but otherwise it was a good stop.

From there we transited the Lake Worth/Palm Beach/North Palm Beach area. If you remember from last year’s posts, this is an area of extreme wealth and mega-yachts. Here are some pics:

We ended the day in Lantana, FL. Position: 26 34.953N, 080 02.889W. We had never been there before because it is on the “inside” route going south, meaning it is on the ICW south of Lake Worth. We usually go “outside” in the Atlantic Ocean from Lake Worth to Fort Lauderdale, but we decided to try the “inside” since we never did it before. Lantana was a good stop. There is a cool Tiki bar right where we anchored at the Lantana bridge and it is a short walk to the beach if you are so inclined. At the end of the day, we had traveled through 10 draw bridges…a major pain in the ass. Pics:
The Tiki bar:

The Lantana Bridge:

From there we traveled to Fort Lauderdale on the “inside”. 14 bridges and a path through the land of opulence. Dozens of miles of expensive homes lining the ICW with yachts to boot. Where do they get all of the money??? Many were decorated for Christmas already, which is strange here because it is 85 degrees and green, with palm trees and swimming pools! Pics:









Iguanas (Caribbean squirrel) on the bridge (for our grand kids…lol):

This display of flags cracked me up:

One of the bridges started to close on us as we were going through…a mistake by the bridge tender. Thank goodness Kurt was listening to the radio and cautioned the bridge tender that we were still in the bridge…major ass puckering!!!

Yesterday, we tried to reserve a slip for the night in Fort Lauderdale to no avail. The only open slips were over $3/foot or were up the New River. We took a slip up the New River last year and I swore I would never go up there again. It borders the main road in Fort Lauderdale, Las Olas Blvd and has lots of stuff to do, but the river is very narrow, has a major current running through it, and has mega yacht traffic…all of which add up to a not-so-fun experience. Many boats crash or get messed up dealing with this river. All of the usual anchorages were full and this ended up being the only option for a slip…did I tell you how much I hate this place?? We get 2 slips right in front of the first bridge that we encounter (so at least we didn’t have to negotiate the 3-4 bridges with all of the other crap. We ended up getting into our slips without any incident and we made it in time for happy hour…thank god because I really needed a few drinks after a day like this one.

All night I worried about how we were going to get off this slip. There is less than one boat length to turn around, and we are bordered by a bridge on one side, with large yachts on the river banks. I need 2 boat lengths to turn the boat, and we had a 2 knot current to boot. After much contemplation and after consulting some boats that have been there for some time, we decided to wait for slack tide at 9:15 AM. We were able to get the boats off of the wall, turned around and on our way out into the ocean to Miami/Key Biscayne. I hate Fort Lauderdale!!!!

Thankfully we had a really calm day on the ocean and we pushed past Miami to Key Biscayne and anchored in No Name Harbour, position: 25 40.579N, 080 09.741W. This was a really nice and protected anchorage in a state park. It has a nice beach on the ocean side and a Cuban restaurant. The weather started to turn and we opted to stay in the boat, not able to enjoy the area because of pouring rain. Pics:
Byrd Ketcher with Miami Beach in the background:

The lighthouse at No Name Harbor:

Another view of Miami Beach and South Beach:

The next day, we contemplated waiting out a day of pouring rain that was in the forecast, but decided to push on into the Florida Keys. There are two routes, one inside the Keys that is very shallow…less than 4.5 feet at low tide in some spots…and one that is outside, on the ocean side called the Hawk Channel. We took the Hawk last year, worried about the depths of the inside route, as we need just over 5 feet of water for our boat. After much research and consultation, we thought we could do the inside route and we went for it. The first night we made it to an anchorage at Cowpens Cut, off of Key Largo; position: 25 00.049N, 080 33.990W. We had the tide working for us giving us depth and we went until dark. Many times we had less than 6 inches of water under us, adding a little bit of stress!! It rained for a good part of the trip, but we have full foul weather gear that kept us dry, and there was little to no wind. Looking back, it was a good decision to leave No Name Harbor.

Today we left early again and used the tide to get through the last of the really shallow areas, and thankfully got in to deeper water as we passed the Channel Five bridge. The winds were increasing and it got a little rough on parts of the passage, but we also got to sail…a good trade off. We pulled into our slip at Harbour Cay Club in Marathon around 2:30 PM. It is good to be back here. We made our goal of getting to Marathon in the first week of December. We will be here for six to eight weeks and then start looking for a weather window to cross to the Bahamas. In the mean time, there is a long list of boat projects that need to be tended to.

The trip from Key Biscayne to Marathon via the inside route is do-able for our boat, but I think I would only use it again if it was too rough to transit the ocean side. Most of the time we had 1.5 to 2 feet of water under us, and if we didn’t use the tide we would not have been able to go through a large portion of the route. Pics:

It looked like these birds were trying to figure out how to get their boat off of the shoal:

5/10/15
Fernandina Beach FL, ICW
Position: 30 40.343N, 081 28.132W
Posted by Bill

Yesterday we got up at the butt crack of dawn again and left St Augustine. We had a good 3 days there waiting out weather and working on boat problems. It was nice to be tied up to a dock with shore power for a few days, especially because I found the problem with the larger air conditioner…yay!!! It was pretty muggy while we were there and with the air on we were able to close the boat up to the bugs, which are getting really bad. The culprit on the air conditioner turned out to be a wire connection that had melted (I think when we were running the heat non-stop in Beaufort last November for the cold spell) and corroded:

It was not easy to see, but after a call to Mermaid Air (the maker of the air conditioner), they led me to more intensive poking around, which resulted in finding the fault. I spliced in new connections and viola…both air conditioners now work!

While in St Augustine we hit some good happy hours at Pizzally (the best in the city), had dinner at a few places, visited the winery and distillery for tours and free drinks, got some groceries and some spare parts for the boat. It was a good time as always, and nobody got hurt…yay again.

Leaving at the butt crack of dawn we made our way past downtown St Augustine. Pics:
Butt crack of dawn:

Flamingos (say it Maddox):

A pirate ship:

Downtown:

It was a long day of driving the ICW…just under 65 statute miles, and a good 11 hour day. Along the way we saw some dolphins:


We have been seeing them every day. It is funny because we never saw a dolphin in the Bahamas, and on the way south last fall, we saw them frequently, but not as many as we see now. We also saw a turtle swim by the boat as we were moored in Fernandina:

This may be the first turtle we saw in the ICW, but we saw tons of them in the Bahamas.

We didn’t sleep well in Fernandina. When the tide changed, the boat shifted and the mooring ball was pinned to the boat by the wind, and banged half the night against the hull. At the same time, the smoke from the neighboring factories was blowing into the boat with the stench of fresh dog shit all night. Not good folks!!! We did get to go to some of our favorite establishments there, including Tastys…great burger and fries, and The Salty Pelican…shrimp, tuna and fried cheese curds. It is hard to believe that this is our last night in Florida until the return next fall.

5/6/15
St Augustine FL, ICW
Position: 29 53.136N, 081 19.345W
Posted by Bill

(Map courtesy of The Weather Channel)

You may have heard that there is a tropical system brewing in the Atlantic off the coast of Florida. It has been bringing stronger winds and some rain showers, but not much rain. Yesterday we pulled in to River’s Edge Marina in St Augustine and took a slip to wait out the high winds that are forecasted for a few days. Some models have been showing winds over 30 knots and others have just been showing mid teens to mid twenties. It is now mid afternoon and we are seing 15-20 knots. Most of the activity from the system is off shore and it looks like it will be headed for the Carolinas this weekend before moving ashore. We don’t want to get ahead of it, and will stay here in St Augustine in our protected river anchorage for a few more days until we see where it is heading. We have some friends that are still in the Bahamas waiting for a weather window to cross over, and we are glad we crossed when we did. It was looking like we would be stuck in the Bahamas for up to 2 weeks if we didn’t cross, and I think we were pretty close in that prediction.

This marina is in a good spot in St Augustine. There is a West Marine, Publix, ABC Liquor Store, Sailors consignment shop, and auto parts store all within a 15 minute walk. Downtown is also about a 20 minute walk. To get here, we needed to time the tide to have enough water depth to get out of Marineland and then arrive at the marina during slack high tide to avoid the strong current while docking. We got out of Marineland without a hitch, and made it to the marina just before high tide. The current was only about 1/2 knot at the slip which was good because the slips are very narrow. It was tricky getting the boat in there, but we made it with the help of our friends and the marina staff. We did a mini pub crawl downtown, hitting Mi Casa with a great solo guitar player, Pizza Alley for great pizza and 2 for 1 happy hour, and Hurricane Patty’s at our marina. Today we went to the sailors consignment shop and the ABC Liquor store and started working on boat maintenance.

We have been having some weird intermittent problems over the last week. One day the AIS system is working, and the next day it isn’t. Same with the radar. The auto pilot stopped holding a course and is showing the boat going different directions than it is. In addition, the larger air conditioning unit is not working, and the rivets on several of the cabin hatches have failed (leaving us to prop open the hatches with sticks or bungee chords). Such is life on a boat. Today we are trouble shooting some of these problems and defrosting the freezer.

If the weather doesn’t change for the worse, we’ll make a 2 day run to Fernandina Beach, stay there a couple of days and then day hop across Georgia to Charleston, SC.

5/4/15
Marineland FL, ICW
Position: 29 40.142N, 081 12.895W
Posted by Bill

We left at the butt crack of dawn again, and nobody got any sleep last night. First, the no-see-ums slipped through our screens and tortured us all night. We had the sheets pulled over our heads to escape them. Second, the boat next to us (yes, the one concerned about our anchor scope) ran a generator all night right next to our bed. Third, the boat next to Sofia Jeanne and Byrd Ketcher woke them at 2 AM to tell them they were dragging anchor on top of them. They were not. Some words were exchanged. Kurt and Matt ended up hauling the anchor and moving. After you re-anchor, you need to watch to see if you are well set, which takes at least 30 minutes. You get the picture.

We headed for Marineland Marina, a full day of motor sailing, and since we draw the deepest draft we needed to get there by 3 PM to make the tide so we could get our boat into the marina. We pulled ahead of the our buddy boats and used our speed to make the entrance with time to spare.

Along the way we had several bridges to deal with. Here is Byrd Ketcher and Sofia Jeanne coming under one of the tall ones at Fort Lauderdale:

We saw more derelict and sunken boats:

This marina is small but really nice and clean:

Across the street is a place called Marine Land that is an attraction with dolphin tanks and other marine life displays. We didn’t go. The beach is right across the street too, and we checked that out for sure. Pretty rough today. Beautiful beach:

I am always at awe looking out at the ocean. It is the perfect example of beauty and power that is as close to a view of God that we can get here on earth. So much respect for Him and the perfection of the creation.

Tomorrow it is up at the butt crack again, working the tides to get in to St Augustine to ride out some weather that is coming over the next few days.

5/3/15
Ponce Inlet, Rock House Creek Anchorage, FL
Position: 29 03.671N, 080 55.861W
Posted by Bill

Today we had another long day. Leaving at the butt crack of dawn and motor sailing to Ponce de Leon Inlet just north of New Smyrna Beach. Last year we grabbed a dock on the north side of the inlet, but this time Sofia Jeanne and Byrd Ketcher turned us on to an anchorage called Rock House Creek on the west side of the inlet. It has some sandy beaches and a great view of the inlet and light house. There is only room for about 8 boats in the anchorage proper, and it was pretty crowded mainly due to it being a weekend. We found some room and did our usual thing, Sofia Jeanne and Byrd Ketcher rafting off of one another and us anchoring solo. This is a great anchorage…good holding, a place to go ashore, good protection from the winds.

On the way we passed the islands that had the flamingos in the trees:

We also got some sailing in!:

Saw a few sunken boats:

And while watching our anchor for dragging, we saw a pod of dolphins come by right off the boat:

We all got together for dinner tonight, eating the rest of the mahi mahi that Kurt caught (yum!), and everyone bringing sides. It was really fun and also delicious! I also got a call on the marine radio from the boat next to me. They were concerned that we did not have enough scope on our anchor for the impending tidal shift. The guy was really professional about it and after I told him we had 60′ of chain out, his fears were calmed. Actually, I think his wife nagged him into calling us.

Before dinner we went ashore and took some pics of the inlet:

Long day…good dinner…nice anchorage!

Cruiser addendum:
If you are interested in anchoring here, I sounded most of the anchorage in the dinghy. To enter the anchorage, when you exit the ICW, stay on the north side going in. There is plenty of water to the right after you get in for about 150 yards, where a shoal develops to the right. If you go straight in hugging the north shore, you have 10 to 15 feet of water all the way to the beach in front of you for a width of about 50 yards to the right. Strong currents! Make sure you have swing room for the tides.