Down the coast of Florida

 St Augustine to Miami — 3 Dec 2017 (Day 48) through 31 Jan 2018 (Day 107)

 

We spent a week and a day at St Augustine.  We arrived on a Saturday and had to wait until Monday to find a sailmaker for the repair of the mainsail and a rigger to climb the mast to fetch the halyard down from the top of the mast.  Elena has offered to climb the mast in an emergency but this is not an emergency, so we are going to just pay for someone.

On Sunday we got a visit from Frank and Carol from “Hakuna Matata”   We had crossed paths with “Hakuna Matata”  in Nassau, Bahamas last year and then again at Vero Beach on our way north.  They were staying at a marina in Daytona Beach while taking care of family responsibilities.  We had a good brunch at OC White’s, a classic stop on the St Augustine waterfront.  They were kind enough to run Elena to the hardware store for a few much-needed supplies.  They were heading for Key West in a couple of days in preparation for a sponsored trip to Cuba.  (Elena and I are still considering our options)

On Monday morning, December 4^th, the sailmaker, “The Irish Sail Lady”, said she would take the sail and get it turned around quickly.  The rigger, Rick, said he would try to come by in the afternoon, but got hung up on a job.  He was able to get to us Tuesday afternoon.  When we were confirming Rick’s availability around Tuesday afternoon,  during the course of that discussion, I discovered that Rick would not come out to the mooring field, but said the marina was accommodating for coming in for a quick repair stop.  Since Rick would be on his way shortly, we called the marina for an immediate assignment and they responded with a slip assignment that supposedly would be an easy in and out.

However, the current was running at about 2 knots, pushing us into the slip.  I normally avoid any close maneuvering in a strong current, but Elena was doing the talking with the marina and had already agreed, so I thought I would at least give this a try.  We cast off the mooring buoy and started our approach.  As we got close to the slip, we were going toward the dock at 4 knots. As I threw the engine into reverse, the boat began to move to port as expected. The phenomenon, called prop walk, is caused by the sideways force the water from the prop has on the movement of the boat.  As soon as the boat began to turn sideways to the current, the current took a hold on the full keel and began to spin the boat around.

 

In addition, the current was pushing us right to left and toward the next dock.  If I got turned around perpendicular to the current, I would be pushed against the end of dock (otherwise known as T boning). Fortunately, I backed far enough to get past the head of the dock and the current pushed me into the next slip.  Also fortunate was that set of slips on that dock had been damaged by Hurricane Irma and all the slips were empty.  Had that not been true, I would have crashed into whatever boat happened to be moored there.

Once I got the bow into the current, we gunned the engine to get out of there.  I thought I had figured out the exact play on the current and I was willing to make another try, but the dockmaster sent me to the fuel dock, where there was lots of maneuvering room and where I had wanted to go in the first place.  After making a u turn into the current, we made an uneventful docking.

Later in the day, a large motor yacht, with two engines and both bow and stern thrusters tried to make the same dock.  It took him three times to get in.  After watching that, I did not feel so bad about failing with my single engine and full keel and no bow thruster.

Elena and I agreed that in the future we would push back if a marina tried to have us go into tight spaces with a lot of current.

Rick the rigger assisted by his wife Sarah showed up about an hour later. We needed the genoa halyard for the mast climbing, so we took the genoa down.  Then Rick, with Sarah’s assistance, climbed the mast quickly and brought down the halyard.  We took the mainsail off the mast and then got the genoa back up.  Rick was good enough to take the sail to the sailmaker just before closing at 5pm.

Download the video:  Rick the rigger comes down from the mast

I got a call from Linda, the Irish Sail Lady.  She found a couple of other items to repair, but could be finished by 1100.  We asked her if she could deliver, and she was nice enough to bring the sail to the marina.  We dinghied on, met Linda, loaded the sail on the shuttle boat for the noon run (instead of trying to overload the dinghy).  I went back on the dinghy and met the shuttle with Elena and the sail.  With the help of a couple of passengers on the shuttle, we got the sail onboard.  By midafternoon, the sail was back on the boom and mast and I was able to enjoy St. Augustine a little better.

That evening we went to the weekly “Cruisers Happy Hour”  at Ann O’Malley’s Irish Bar, a St. Augustine tradition.  We had agreed to meet John and Karen from “Logistics” there.  John and Karen were on the same dock as us at Herrington Harbour North (our home marina) and had left a week after us.  Somehow they had gotten ahead of us.  We nearly crossed paths with them in Beaufort SC when they were about 20 miles away at a marina near Savannah GA.  We watched them on AIS and heard them on the radio as they made their way down through Georgia on the ICW and we were offshore.  They ended up a few miles from us at the national seashore while we were in Fernandina Beach.  They had gotten to St Augustine a few days before us and were on the next mooring ball.  We have travelled so far to be so close.

Ann Malley’s is a small bar and the regular weekly Cruisers Happy Hour was crowded with fellow travelers.  We chatted with a few folks, including John and Karen, and then ended up talking for an hour or so with an Aussie by the name of Neil off of “Crystal Blues”. While most of the folks at the bar were first time cruisers, Neil and his wife Ley had sailed all over Asia and had rounded Africa to end up in a small bar in St. Augustine.  Neil had spent 6 years teaching in Borneo while living on his boat and had all sorts of observations about the world and America in specific.  (He never locked his boat in Borneo, the Philippines, or Thailand, but did as soon as he was in the Caribbean.)

St, Augustine was all decked out for Christmas.

 

Download video of:  St Augustine Lights

On the 8^th, Logistics departed for Cape Canaveral where they were going to stay through Christmas.  On Sunday, the 10^th, we departed St. Augustine for the inside ICW route down to Florida.  This is the section of ICW where we ran aground last year.  Elena had done here normal impeccable homework and we crossed the shallow portion near Matanzo Inlet at high tide with no problems (other than observing 18 inches of water under the keel).  We made our way to Palm Coast, spent the night, and then on to the Halifax River Marina in Daytona, Florida.

At Daytona, we again met with Frank and Carol of “Hakuna Matata”. Elena taught Frank how to properly drink vodka (Russian Standard, and very cold).  We kept the partying under control as they were on their way south the next morning.

We did a bit of shopping and changed the engine oil.  On the morning of the 14^th, Elena again wanted to catch high tide at a particular point and so we delayed our departure till noon, filling up the fuel tanks just before departure.  We were over the “hump” near the Ponce De Leon Inlet with 12 inches under the keel left, the Halifax River and entered the Indian River. The next day we heard over the radio a grounded sailboat trying to get off  the “hump” .  Kudos to Elena for doing a great job.  At 4:30, we tied up at New Smyrna Beach City Marina having covered about 20 miles.

The next day (Dec 15^th, Day 60) we were underway at noon, motored through my favorite place in Florida, the Mosquito Lagoon Aquaitc Preserve with its wide waters and lack of development, passed through Haulover Canal and through the NASA Bridge, and into the main Indian River, anchoring just south of Titusville just after the sun went down and it was getting dark.  Good timing, Elena!

I noticed a single boat anchored not far away.  Looking on AIS, I discovered it was “Crystal Blues”, Neil and Ley, the Aussies from the Irish Bar.  They were gone before we got up.  I did see that they were in Palm Beach a day later, evidently going outside for a quick run south.

On the 16^th, after a short run, we anchored in mid-afternoon off of Melbourne.  Having a few hours available, I gave the head a thorough and much-needed cleaning.  Completing one more short run, we arrived at Vero Beach at 2pm and were directed to nest up with “Compass Rose” who was on mooring ball,  but had no crew onboard.  Elena jumped off of Sophia to tie us off and we carefully tied up without damaging the other boat.

I remember Compass Rose from last year, not so much from the boat or the crew, but they have an aluminum dinghy that has a built in tank for hauling water.  I guess they stay in on place a long time and run 50 gallons of water at time from the marina.

In addition to Compass Rose, John from “Spirit” is here as is “Autumn Borne” who we last saw at Oriental, NC.

More impressively we ran to someone very unexpectedly.  I had dinghied Elena to sign in at the marina office.  Standing on the dinghy dock was someone I recognized but could not quite place.  I guessed at “Autumn Borne” , but she said no.  Elena said “I know you, you are Ann, we met at Butch’s house.  And so it was Ann as in “Ann and Neville”, the 80-something  couple who we met at Butch and Vickie’s back in Oriental, NC.

They were on their way to the Bahamas on their sailboat “Peace at Last” and moored a couple of mooring balls away from us.  We chatted for a while and then wished them well on their journeys.  Eighty years old and still doing this.  Now that is impressive.

We spent Christmas and then New Year at Vero Beach. On Christmas Eve, Elena and I celebrated the eighth anniversary of our first date.  We would normally go to the site of that date (McCormick and Schmidt’s) but we settled on the Riverside Café, a dinghy ride away from our mooring.

We were visited by Masha, Elena’s friend Yelena’s daughter.  (Yelena is also known as Deuce to avoid confusion when she is onboard and spent time with us in Vero last year). Elena took a few days to visit Deuce in Tampa between Christmas and New Year’s Day, leaving me unhappily solo.  We spent time with John Barbera from “Spirit” and his two cats, having Christmas dinner and New Year’s Eve with him as well as sharing in my birthday cake.  I got a new “Tilley” hat for Christmas, and Elena got a pretty purse.

John and Karen from “Logistics” showed up around New Year.  We celebrated the last “holiday” for the season, “Old Russian New Year (from the Orthodox calendar) on January 13^th with John and Karen and John B.  What started as an hour long social call on board “Sophia” ended up being a four-hour fun fest, killing 3 bottles of wine and a bottle of vodka.

Our stay in Vero Beach had often been cold with nighttime temperatures in the 40’s.  This was the same weather that set records in the Washington area.  Since we were on the mooring ball, we had no overnight heat and experienced a couple of unpleasant nights.  At such times, I turned “whiney”, complaining bitterly that we should not be delaying our voyage south, which Elena took with her normal good humor or just ignored me.

We also did something we hardly ever do, we went to the movies–three times for Elena, seeing “Darkest Hour” and “The Post”, and Elena going to see “Murder on the Orient Express” alone.  We went in the early afternoon so we would not have to come back to the boat in the dark.  It was strange to be at the movies at such an early hour and in company with all these retired folks who have all this free time.  Not quite ready to be associated with that group yet.

After a couple of cold spells, the weather got warmer and Elena decided I needed to be shorn of my beard.

We finally got a good weather window on  January 16^th and proceeded down the coast on the ICW, passing Fort Pierce, and continuing on the ICW, anchoring for the night at Jenson Beach.  We pulled into a nice marina, Loggerhead Marina at Palm Beach Gardens, just north of Palm Beach and stayed for three nights waiting for a weather window.  Loggerhead is home to “Honey Fitz”, the presidential yacht for Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, sailing under a variety of names.  “Honey Fitz” was the name under Kennedy (after his maternal grandfather).  We saw “Sequoia”, the more famous of presidential yacht, wasting away at a shipyard next door to our marina in Deltaville, VA.

On January 20^th, we got a bit of a weather window with projected winds of 10-15 knots and seas 3 feet.  We went outside at Palm Beach and headed south for in a pleasant beam wind for an overnight run to Miami. As we proceeded south, the wind increased as did our speed.  We did not have far to go for an overnight sail, some 80 miles, and did not need speed, wanting to end up coming into Miami after sunrise.  As the wind increased, we took in more and more sail.  By midnight we were sailing with the main only, untrimmed, dumping as much wind as we could, to slow the boat.  As the wind increased, so did the seas, and through the early morning hours we were in for a rough, tiring ride.  Elena was a real trooper, giving me several two-hour breaks.  We both suffered from a bit of seasickness, Elena more than I.

We anchored at 9am off of Virginia Key, across Biscayne Bay from downtown Miami.  Elena saw that the forecast called for 25 knot winds in the next few days and we moved to a more protected site, a marina on Key Biscayne that had mooring balls.  It is very quiet here, with only one other “cruising” boat; the other boats in the mooring field are permanent residents and generally unoccupied.

Deuce’s daughter Masha goes to college in Miami  She took Elena out to see the sights around Miami (something I would prefer to pass on, so I was so grateful).

Notes on Miami:  The wind has been blowing 20-30 knots for days at a time, keeping out batteries charged nicely with our wind generator and confirming Elena’s wise decision to eek a protected harbor instead of a more open anchorage closer to restaurants and shopping.   I have spent most of the time aboard while Elena went out shopping or looking around town.  The mooring field that we are at is very quiet with a view of the Miami skyline on one side and Mangrove islands on the other.   All in all,  a nice spot.

On Thursday, February 2, we will depart for a three day sail to Key West.