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.

5/2/15
Cocoa FL, ICW
Position: 28 20.957N, 080 43.161W
Posted by Bill

Yesterday we took the bus and got groceries and liquor, and as usual, it took most of the day. Then we jumped in the dinghy and hit happy hours at Mr Manatees and Riverview Cafe. It is good to get fresh shrimp again. We were surprised that they didn’t have that in the Bahamas. Here we all are rafted in Vero (photo courtesy of Sofia Jeanne):

We left at 7:15 this morning and stopped at Cocoa…long day! We traversed the Indian River and this part of it is wide, leaving us exposed to the NE winds that were not forecasted to be this strong…go figure! It was also a weekend on the Florida ICW, which you all know is a lovely experience…not! it wasn’t as bad as south Florida, but there were several Ass Captain awards being handed out as large power boats came by us at full speed. Everyone was tired and we have all been here before, so we didn’t even go to shore. Tomorrow we head up to Ponce Inlet and will make our way to Saint Augustine from there. Most of the next couple of weeks will be long day trips to re-trace our steps back north. If we experience something new I will elaborate and post more pictures, otherwise you can check out the blog entries from last year as we made our way south.

Here is the anchorage at Cocoa:

4/30/15
Vero Beach FL
Position: 27 39.554N, 080 22.278W
Posted by Bill

We waited out another day of weather at Fort Pierce City Marina as the weather the last 4 days has been very unsettled. Good thing we left Lake Worth because we heard that there were 60-70 MPH winds in the storms that went through a couple of days ago. We were 50 some miles north and had a decent amount of rain and some thunder and lightning, but nothing even close to that. The next week is looking really nice weather wise.

Today we pushed off the dock in Fort Pierce and motored up to Vero Beach. We stayed here for several days and spent Christmas here on the way down last year, and were looking forward to coming back. It was a short 10 mile hop up the ICW and the boat traffic was very light, thank goodness. We took a mooring ball, and Byrd Ketcher and Sofia Jeanne rafted off on either side of us. We dinghied over to Riverview Cafe and took advantage of their excellent happy hour, the best value we have seen in 5 months. There is a free bus that will take you to a shopping area with Fresh Market, Publix, TJ Max, West Marine, liquor store and a great dive shop. Tomorrow we will go get some groceries and liquor and maybe hit the beach. It is really chilly here and I actually wore a sweatshirt and long pants! The lows at night are getting down in to the 60s…amazing how my blood has thinned.

4/29/15
Fort Pierce, FL
Posted by Bill

It rained and stormed all day yesterday. I am glad we decided to stay in the marina here until the weather improves. I got the blog caught up in the morning and we were looking to go out for lunch somewhere. The friends we are traveling with texted us and we headed out in the rain.

So what do you do when it rains all day…a pub crawl, of course! There are 2 tiki bars at the marina, and several other bars/restaurants within a few blocks, so we hit all of the ones that were open. We finished up at 2nd Street Bistro for Taco Tuesday and headed back to the boat. A good time was had by all!

4/27/15
Fort Pierce FL, ICW
Position: 27 27.087N, 080 19.249W
Posted by Bill

Today we got the anchor up without incident (and received applause from our friends) and motored to Fort Pierce City Marina.

Our friends have been here but we have not, so we wanted to check it out. It has been recently renovated with floating docks (a real treat), solid shore power, and great WIFI (also a real treat). It is supposed to rain all day tomorrow so we wanted to have the ability to get off the boat without having to use the dinghy. I think we will stay another day! We walked into town and had all you can eat fish and chips at 2nd Street Bistro, and received the best service we have had in a long, long, time. Food was good too, and so was the price…another contrast from the Bahamas (expensive)!

It was hot and humid so I turned on the air conditioners…we have 2 on the boat…only one worked. Bummer. After working on it for some time, I came to the end of my ability to trouble shoot it, so rigged some fans to try to use just the smaller working one. After a few hours, it finally cooled off in the boat. I’ll have to get some help when we get to Southport.

Island Bound resting at the dock:

4/26/15
Hobe Sound, Jupiter FL
Position: 27 00.312N, 080 05.741W
Posted by Bill

Our plan is to work our way north, arriving at Southport, NC the 3rd week in May. We are renting a house with the kids and grandkids at Kure Beach, NC, the first week in June so we need to be there with a week to spare. Other than that, we don’t have an agenda. As always, our life is determined by the weather, and we are expecting storms the next several days and big winds (over 30 knots) Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We want to stop at Fort Pierce and Vero Beach on the way up, but that is over 50 miles, and we are too worn out to do that in one day at this point. We decided to move about 15 miles up to the Sand Bar Anchorage in Hobe Sound at Jupiter Florida. It is a cool anchorage and very crowded today, but most of the people went home as the weekend wound down.

First things first…we started to pull the anchor up this morning and had some issues. We have an anchor windlass – an electric winch that deploys or retrieves anchor chain or rope. It makes anchoring much easier! I start bringing in the chain and hosing it down with the wash down pump (which pumps sea water through a hose to clean the chain and anchor). In some anchorages, mud and crud sticks to the chain and anchor, and you have to clean it off so that it doesn’t get into the anchor locker. I get the to point where the anchor should be coming off of the sea bed and it won’t budge. It was really windy, so I figured we had a deeply buried anchor, so we go to plan B. Plan B is cleating the chain off with a chain hook and snubber, and using the boats engine to pull the anchor out. We go all the way to half throttle and no budging! I was almost ready to dive into the murky water, but keep trying with both windlass and engine, and after about an hour we can see the anchor just below the water. We had hooked some sort of antenna that was attached to a cable and rope, that was attached to something under water.

I raised and lowered the anchor while Tricia used the boat hook to free the damned thing, and after an hour we finally were free!

Along the way we saw the floating version of the “taco stand”:

Love that!

Then we passed Tiger Wood’s’ house, which you couldn’t really see, but one of his other boats was there:

We anchored, made some drinks and swam off the boat…it was hot again today!

Then we had fresh Mahi Mahi tacos, and feasted like kings!! We drank a lot too…lol!

3/10/15
Marathon FL
Posted by Bill

We have been here around 7 weeks and we have gotten very comfortable. The Keys are very laid back and we can ride our bikes or walk to anything we really need, avoiding any interaction with “the Real World”. Let me tell you…it is very hard to motivate ourselves to get moving. We have tried several times to leave to get to the Bahamas, but the weather has closed the window to make the move each time. The latest weather forecast shows this up coming weekend as a possible weather window to move back up to Miami, and several days later a window is open to cross to the Bahamas. We have figured that as long as we can make the Bahamas by the first of April, it is worth the effort to cross over. The plan includes a jump from just south of Miami (Biscayne Bay) to Bimini in the Bahamas, a little over 40 nautical miles, and easily doable in daylight. We need to get to landfall in Bimini by afternoon to navigate the reefs and channel entrance. We need a 2 day window to get to Key Biscayne, so we will jump there at first opportunity and wait for a window to cross to Bimini. The later in the season, the better the weather for making passage. This year has been a strange year by all accounts, with high winds and north winds for extended periods of time. To cross to Bimini we want winds under 15 knots, and no northern component of wind direction. Winds with any northern component will oppose the Gulf Stream and the 2-3 knot current that moves north, and will create a very nasty sea state that we don’t want to deal with. So we wait…..

In the mean time we work on the boat, and enjoy the paradise that Marathon and the Keys have to offer. After provisioning (buying everything we need to sustain life aboard for several months in the Bahamas), the boat was loaded with all kinds of crap and very disorganized. Thanks to Tricia, she figured out where to put everything in an organized fashion, and the boat is looking like a home again.

We also had another manatee visit today. This one was a small one and had a large chunk of its tail missing. It is so sad to see these animals damaged. They are very tame and love to come and get a drink of fresh water (even though it is illegal to give it to them. This one was pretty persistent about getting a drink and hung around for around 20 minutes. This is the 2nd visit in a week from a manatee.

While waiting, we have been working on stowing all provisions, getting the teak ready to paint, putting in the solar system (part of which we paid for and part of which we did ourselves), and generally getting ready to make passage again. This afternoon, we took a little break and went to The Sunset Grill for some happy hour food and rum. It was a great break and a beautiful view as always….

I have also been spending a few hours each morning to work on our taxes…not a fun task at all, however, I have never had this view as I have done the taxes, so I won’t complain!