June 4-13, 2016 Stuart to Vero Beach, then to Fernandina Beach

I was up at 5:45AM.  Unprecedented but true.  I singled up all the lines, switched systems over to shipboard (water and electrical) after making coffee.  It was dead clam with a slight current running as we backed off from the slip and turned to head out exchanging few words with Tom and Mirja.

Going out the St. Lucie Inlet we were like a flower near a bee hive.  Boats zipping around and zooming on either side of us as we, big old tub that we are, just plowed along at 6 mph fitting the incoming tide.  Boats of all kinds, little runabouts to sport fisherman were out there today.  Quite a show.

Once we were out in the ocean, the wakes died down and we had quartering seas, very easy with long periods so it was a gentle rocking as we made out way up to Ft. Pierce.

Between Stuart and Ft. Pierce making water

We took the ocean because, well we love it.  But also to make water.  Seems though we may have picked up something over in the Bahamas because the water maker detects some dissolved solids in excess to what I have it set (700 ppm).  It takes about 15 minutes to clear the membranes out.  This is the same behavior we noticed last year and means I  should try an acid wash on the membranes and if that doesn’t help, we’ll have to replace them.  In the meantime though we’ll endure .

We completed making water and after another hour or so we started into the Ft. Pierce Inlet.  The tide was running out as we were going in making our forward progress painfully slow.  3 mph.  And of course we were bouncing around quite a bit from all weekend boater wakes.

Rough water in the Ft. Pierce Inlet

Every one was out on the water.   5 minutes later we were boarded.

It was just like the St. Lucie inlet when we were leaving.  Except this time thee was a coast guard boat.  Naturally of the 30 some boats around us, they chose us to board.

Yes, we were boarded.  The called on the radio and just told us to keep on going.  Their boat pulled along side and two guys hopped aboard and decided we needed a safety check after asking where we had been and where we were going on the radio earlier.

I had to drive the boat so didn’t have too much interaction.  Mary handled all the questions with aplomb!  And I have to say it was as a surprisingly pleasant experience.  Great guys, not over bearing, efficient and very professional.  Quite a departure from interacting with the local FWC or marine harbor patrols which usually aren’t very nice or informative.

We had no violations either.

It was blazing hot in the ICW.  At least on the ocean (another reason we like going out there) the sea breeze acted like an air conditioner of sorts.   I resorted to using a fan on the fly bridge to keep us semi cool.

Entering Loggerhead 

We finally arrived at Loggerhead and the long narrow channel to get into the basin.  Loggerhead here is really a resort of condos and boat slips.  They have a fuel dock too with rather cheap prices.  And we can use our loggerhead discount.  So we fueled up.

We only used about 300 gallons going from Marathon in the Keys, up the Bahamas and back across to Florida.  The old boat gets pretty good mileage I’d say, even if she’s over weight.

Ben helping us into the slip.

We pulled into a 60 foot slip, bow in so that the hot afternoon sun heats up the forward part of the oat, not the stateroom where we sleep.  Ben, one of the dock hands is a retired guy who's wife made the suggestion he go out and find something to occupy his time away from the house.  So he's a dock hand now!

All secure just waiting for the storms

Loggerhead marina is really a gated community of homes,golf courses and condos.  Loggerhead is the marina and operates under the auspices of the gated community association.  I was told about 75% of the slips are for vessels owned by property owners here.  The rest are transient for people like  to use.   Its a well run operation from what I can tell.

I'd even entertain the notion of buying a condo here.  A nice cozy one with a golf course view, $500,000.   HOA fees are a $1,000.  That should be a clue of how soon we'll be settling down here. ;-)

There are no bars, or restaurants here.  A Publix grocery store is a mile away.   And a McDonalds so at least we can get ice cream.  Other than that we’re just going to stay here and let the bad weather pass us by before we head out again.  And basically we are staying here for free.  The monthly slip rental we had at Stuart is transferable to this Loggerhead, here  in Vero Beach so its costing us nothing except $10 day for utilities.  And we are using them!  I have all three AC units blasting away.  It’s 10PM and still 85 outside.  Ugh …

We both slept well, and got up late.  I fiddled with some computer stuff, and researched the damn blue ray player from Samsung.  I bought one, and had to return 3 times, finally getting one that worked.  Well, it doesn’t any more.

The advice I took was to, beat on it.  So I banged it a few times and sure enough it powered up.  The I immediately went to settings and turned off this odd Samsung device network sharing thing they use so one Samsung remote can control any Samsung device.

After that I got the bike down and rode to the Publix  mile or so down the road.  This place is a gated community with smaller little neighborhoods within its borders.  There were plenty of “For residents of such-and-such neighborhood” signs.  Nice golf course though.  I was tempted by the driving range but wondered f I was allowed to use it being a marina person.  Maybe tomorrow if it doesn’t rain too much.

Another Publix

The Publix, was like every other Publix.  The MacDonalds and CVS/Walgreen's (there’s always a CVS where there is a Walgreen's) were the only other stores I found.  I may just set a goal to visit every Publix grocery store in the nation since I'm well on the way now anyway.

When I returned I stashed the few groceries, gave Mary her short bread cookies and then, before the approaching rain, buffed out some bad scuff marks we seemed to have picked up in the Bahamas.

For dinner, the chef was expressing, with a disturbing lack of conviction I might add, a bountiful feast with a variety of goodies.  As it turns out we, like the majority of seniors who miss dinner at 3pm, turned to chili dip and Tostitos (multi grain) for sustenance.  That went well with our latest viewing obsession, Frazier.

And yes, I had to beat the blur ray machine again to get it to power on.  It finally did and we were able to watch several Fraizer episodes through the welcome reliable internet connection here.

It did rain a bit, late this afternoon, but the more severe weather is forecast to blow through tomorrow and Tuesday, which is why we are here.   So far, my track record listening to forecasters has been a dismal failure.  We seek shelter when storms are forecast and enjoy sunny days tied to a dock.  Ignoring the forecaster and anchoring somewhere almost guarantees strong squalls and a sleepless night. 

Less a statement of quality than a memory aid for me so I remember what I like.

Luckily we have stocked up on good wine… some of which I graded lest I forget the winery.  Happens all to often.

Well, now isn’t this nice.  So I just read today TS, Colin has veered more northeasterly and we wont be seeing much of the bad weather the folks up around Jacksonville are enduring.  Still windy though and we are supposed to see a few strong showers. 

Meanwhile we bask in air conditioned comfort doing only a few things to ready ourselves for the next few weeks at anchor. 

My biggest anchoring lament now is, NO AC!  Ugh … it’s hot and humid out there!  Have we become soft, addicted to air conditioning and leaving behind our crusty salt laden cruiser persona for that of stately old folks, with pale skin huddled in a small space cooled by a laboring air conditioner?
Well, its really not that bad.  We do venture outside for a few moments every day to assess the heat before ducking back inside to complain about it :-)  

Most of the day we were inside, Mary reading, doing yoga and glass work.  Me, cleaning up our navigation files and trying to plan out how we are going to make it to Norfolk in three weeks.

Later in the afternoon, after loosing an hours worth of tedious chart work, I rode to Publix under threatening skies.  Made it back just fine with no rain.  Just dark gray clouds and increasing winds.

The condo's of one of the mini neighborhoods

And the required condo golf course

Mary and I took a walk around the place.  Typical Florida gated community.  The humidity was so high we were drenched after 5 minutes.

We grilled steaks tonight, opened the last of the recommended wines (a mediocre  C- in my mind) and then opened and drank most of a French Pinot Noir which was half the cost of the crappy wine but 100 times better.

And of course watched several episodes of Fraizer from Netflix.  I left the Blue Ray player on and probably wont turn it off until I have a new one to replace it.

On a sad note I’m pretty sure the reason we aren’t getting some of the offered Direct TV channels is because those channels are only broadcast in HD.  Our antenna, a KVH Trac 4 (no RF7 board) can only receive standard broadcasts.   What will we (she) do?

Well, as I pointed out, we do have a digital TV antenna with a signal booster which offers besides the perplexing array of weird religious TV and home shopping channels broadcast in English and Spanish, 3 normal broadcast stations. 

The antiquated non-HD stations are fine, but they don’t offer the broad range of murder and mayhem certain viewers require.  We’ll have to see how this all plays out. 

A new antenna that can receive HD broadcasts will cost us close to $10,000.  Soon, we are assuming responsibility for Greg and Laura's dog, Bubbie (yes I caved under wifely pressure and lost the dog battle).  Therefore I've deduced we wont have enough money to replace the antenna nor will I have time to install it.   My logic seems sound.   The question is will the prospect of Murderand Mayhem TV win out over the desire for a dog?  Nah ... 

We were up by 9 this morning.  Well Mary was.  I had to get up at 3AM to deal with some strong winds by adding another fender and tightening some lines.  So I slept in until 10.  When I came up to the salon my early rising wife was taking an early nap.

The main Gate.  Lots of infrastructure improvements going on

Mary.  And MacDonalds.

We finally had coffee and I finished up cleaning up our navigation files before we embarked on a mile trek to the Walgreens for a prescription.  Then a MacDonald’s lunch followed  frozen yogurt at a yogurt shop near the Publix.

We raced back to the back beating the down pour by several minutes.  The weather, even though TS Colin is out to sea, is pretty bad.  Winds, and squalls which are forecast to continue through tomorrow.

We didn’t do much the rest of the afternoon.  I’ve been trying to get our routes north all created in the navigation computer so we wont be burdened with figuring out that every night.

I took a walk tonight down one of the streets we haven’t explored yet.  My.  Quite the fancy neighborhood.  There appears to be at least four separate golf courses here.  I can only imagine the green fees.  Yikes!

And there are no bugs to speak of.  There are, however land crabs.  Frisky little beasts skittering around near the road.

One I spotted on the road walking back was right in my path.  It was not petite.   So I served to the side to avoid it.  It swerved right along with me waving a menacing claw.  I stopped and we shared a momentary stare down, eye ball to eye stalk.  It was then that I heard a scrapping sound from behind me.  Another crab had walked out on to the street.

It took only seconds.  My original crab stalker immediately lost interest in me and blazed by, making straight for the other crab who seemed to be scampering away, but rather slowly.

They met and began tussling.  A crab fight?  Should I attempt to break it up?  What would I do if one was maimed?  Would the victors, crazed blood lust spur it to come after me?

It took a few more seconds before the dawn of realization hit.  It was a live demonstration on how to make little crabs!   Chagrined, I slowly backed away and headed to the boat, noting the danger of fornicating crabs here in Vero Beach.

Later we watched some more hilarious Frazier episodes tonight and then retired early.  Laundry, engine room and the store tomorrow.

Rain.  And warm humid air.  And more rain.  On and off.   All day.  It was decidedly a  day to sit inside.  So we did.

The main pool.  Each mini neighborhood has its own pool too.

We never had a chance yet to indulge in the nice pool.  There is no Tiki bar but the afternoon we arrived plenty of people had drinks in the pool and extra alcohol bottles on the tables.  Guess its a BYO place.

I did some blog work, Mary read a book.  Then I rode to the store during a rain lull, and Mary did some sort of exercise thing she found on YouTube.

Then we started to plan out some future destinations until cocktail time when I grilled steaks again.  We ate, watching two more Frazier episodes  and then I took the garbage and recycling to the dumpster while Mary fired up a movie.

A took a short stroll to look at the other boats here and stumbled on Fire Fly, a Pilgrim 40 Tug. Its the same boat that our friends Dave and Joann are arranging to buy.

Pilgrim 40 Tug

But the most exciting thing today, happened right there at the dumpster.  An older couple, were talking hunched over on their canes when the lady looked up and shouted, “ young man!  Oh young man!   We have a question”. 

I didn’t pay much attention because lets face it, I’m not a young man.  But they were persistent so I began looking around for the young guy who wasn’t answering.  How surprising it was to learn they were talking to me. Young man! 

They had a question about Uber and if they could get inside the main gate.  I had little to tell them other than an Uber driver found a way inside the compound yesterday so I assume it could be done today.

After all that excitement I abandoned any thought of walking for in the escalating rain and just went back to the boat. 

Even though I am a young man, I’m still going to bed at 9PM so I can spring out of bed tomorrow at 6 to ready the boat for departure at 7AM.    We are leaving for Titusville on the tails of Tropical Storm Colin.   And in the face of a cold front sinking down from the north.

Jeff’s boat is there and he has almost a hundred of our movies that I want to get back.  So we’ll grab a mooring or maybe even go into the marina and spend the night.  But with our luck, that cold front will bring severe weather and we’ll be stuck in Titusville for a few days.  But, there is a rocket launch scheduled for the 9^th.

Left at 7:15 this morning.  But we almost didn’t wake up.  Go figure...

Making our way north up the ICW, we ran into heavy thunderstorms near New Sebastian but they dwindled into light rain as we approached Titusville.   This was a nasty, moisture rich storm.  Brief high winds and then the drenching down pour.  We were about 2 miles from a bridge and I couldn’t see the bridge until we were less than a half mile away.  But I did have radar on so we new where we were, but its disconcerting not to be able to visually verify what all the instruments are telling you.

Rather pretty except for its heavy rain and high winds 

Winds were high.  The rain was pouring at us horizontally for 20 minutes and our much vaunted new front windows weren’t doing too well.  They added a big flap of Sunbrella that normally covers the zipper where most of the leaks occur.  In our case, the winds were so strong it turned the flap up and exposed the zipper which meant we had water leaking in on the dashboard and running in little rivulets down to the deck.

We rigged up a sort of catch basin for some old Sunbrella fabric we had lying around which diverted most of the water away from the instrument panel but it secured high up on the front facing glass that I was looking out through only about a ¼ of the window area.  It was like wearing a mask.  But it sure was drier.

Way to the right that little stick like thing is the rocket

After we passed through this little thunderstorm (about an hour) we went by the big Delta IV Heavy rocket slated to launch tomorrow.  Pretty cool even though it was several miles away.

Had a bit of a problem getting into the marina dock.  It took far more power backing off a bow spring than I thought.  It was the wind, which I had judged correctly but it was gustier than I imagined.  We made it in ok, but I was backing at 1100 rpm which tightened up the bow line and then began swinging the boat towards the dock like its supposed to.  Lesson learned.

Just Fakin It  (and our movies)

Found Jeff's boat and talked with Jon, his neighbor who knew all about us.  I went in the boat but couldn’t find the movies.  Jon, his neighbor is a great guy. 

For some reason we’re both exhausted.  Too much sea air maybe?  So we went to bed early.

We were intending on leaving here around noon for Rockhouse Creek, an anchorage about 35 miles from here.  We first needed to do some laundry and go back to Jeff’s boat on our quest for our movies.

Jon, has the key to Jeff’s boat, but was off fishing this morning so we just did laundry and I took care of some engine room maintenance.  Around noon I called Jon, and a few minutes later Jeff called while I was digging around in the front cabin and then did a quick fix a window leak in the rear stateroom. 

Jeff, talking to Mary, told her where to look, so we went back to Jeff’s boat for a third time.  Jon had left the key on Jeff’s boat so we let our selves in and found the movies in 2 minutes.  Yeah?

Once we returned to the boat I started ripping the DVD’s so I could get them up to our video server.  Meanwhile I cleaned out the dinghy and got the cover ready to put on.  We wont be using it until several months later since we are going straight to Norfolk.

Us tied up across from the park

We took a short walk to the park, and then I got the dinghy cover on securely.  Grilled pork chops and we watched a bunch of Fraizer episodes for a bit.  We took a break, Mary to do dishes and me to clean out the water maker filters.

I’m going to use a 5 micron filter as the second stage of the pre-filtering process to see if I can lengthen the time the membranes can go without an acid flush.

Then it was back to more Fraizer on Netflix.

We also noted that the heavy lift Delta rocket launch is scheduled for tomorrow at 1:59PM so we’re going to leave here in mid morning and run back down the ICW for a few miles and anchor to watch the launch.  Then we’ll turn around and head up high-tail it back up river and on to Rock House creek where I hope we can squeeze into the anchorage.  Otherwise are only alternative is to go another 10 miles into Daytona beach and this little area to anchor we found on our first trip up this way back in 2013.  But it should be fine since it doesn’t really get dark very early now.

We dallied around the marina until about 11 this morning.  The rocket launch is still a go, and our plan is to anchor on the other side of the bridge and watch it from there.  It possible to get much closer, within 5 miles, but we have to consider the travel time.  Our destination tonight is Rockhouse creek in New Smyrna, about 36 miles from Titusville. 

Recalling that we normally travel at sublight speeds, (7.5 mph) our travel time is measured in hours.  And we’ve learned to avoid anchoring in the dark or even dusk since it’s hard to see anything clearly. 

In any event we left around 11:30 and were anchored by noon.    I figured the latest we could leave was 2:30.

Not 5 minutes after we had anchored, a boat comes ghosting very near us loaded with  big orange balls.  My first impression was they were marking the exclusion zone for the launch.  How wrong we were.

Our own little regatta 

The boat was deploying sailboat race buoys.  Right in front of us.  And in our line of site for the small orange stick standing up there in the distance, the rocket.   We sure know how to pick them.

For the next few hours we were treated to sailboats whizzing by us accompanied by the shouts of “let it out”, “Jib”, and other sailor type jargon sometimes punctuated with a curse or two.

I don’t have a clue who won.  But they were finishing up as we neared launch time.

We went out to the bow, binoculars and beer in hand.  I had a website up on my phone which was live blogging the event.

The countdown reached zero and we strained to see.  There was suddenly a plume of smoke hanging under the slight overcast.  Then we heard a throaty roar, and a more defined smoke cloud.

That’s what we saw.  Never caught a glimpse of a rocket going up, or a smoke trail leading upward.  Just that cloud of billowing smoke.

That smokey smudge way in the distance to the right of the far sailboat is the launch exhaust trail

I checked the blog wondering if it had been scrubbed at the last minute.  Nope.  What happened was… well, we didn’t see it.  It went up just fine, no problems.  Except we somehow missed it.

We left shortly after and made our way back under the bridge and through the railroad bridge and finally through Haulover Canal into Mosquito Lagoon.

In the Lagoon, which is basically a large flat body for water with mangrove swamps on either side. I encountered the biting, green eyed flies that had slipped my memory.

They bite.  But I vanquished dozens of them

Mary, was taking a nap in the stateroom which was a tepid 85 degrees, while I steered and killed several dozen flies all trying to extract their pound of flesh from me.  It took me awhile to get into the killing rhythm.  Little beasts are fast.  But I prevailed and as we pulled into New Smyrna.  The floor was littered with little crumbled bodies much to Mary’s delight when she came up to the fly bridge.

92.3.  That's not the air temperature

We pulled into Rockhouse Creek and actually anchored in the same spot we usually anchor.  There were a number of other boats there, but most left after sunset.

After we had the anchor set I went for a dip in the 88 degree water.  It was actually rather refreshing. 

Happy cruisers.  It was 95 degrees.  And cocktail hour.

It was a quiet night but the sky is looking rather stormy out to the southwest so who knows.

Last night was very peaceful and calm.  Of the two other boats in the anchorage we, of course, were the last to stir.  The only bad moment was when I woke up sweating in the 82 degree air of the our stateroom.  I can’t sleep in that kind of heat as opposed to Mary who’s quite comfortable.  So I went into the forward stateroom where it was, at least to me, noticeably cooler.

We had 60 some miles to go today so we rushed around and left within a half an hour.

It was another hot, steamy day on the ICW.  And it being a weekend, every boat owner in the universe was out toddling around.

As we went through Palm Coast I noted the water temperature at 92 degrees!  And as a note to self, we made it under the two, well one bridge in Daytona that is 22 feet in vertical clearance.  The Memorial bridge seems to be closed and waiting for removal or something.

Actually we had to have the Knox Bridge open for us (15 feet vertical clearance) and the bridge tender forgot where he was and had to think about it for a few seconds. Quite funny on the radio.  It turns out he was the bridge tender for the Memorial Street Bridge for many years which is now closed.

We passed through typical sumptuous Florida neighborhoods, every house with a pool and some not so sumptuous communities. 

We finally made it to Matanzas and made the wide turn into the Matanzas Inlet after going north a bit to get into the deeper channel.  Only day boaters in there.  We were the only boat anchoring.  Odd, since it’s a great little anchorage albeit one with swift current. 

Fort Matanzas

We put out 75 feet of chain and the anchor is buried deep from the pull of the current.  At first though the current and the wind fought each other keeping us sort of sitting still with a slack anchor chain.

Thunderstorms were off to our south a good ways so it should be an uneventful night … Boy I sure hope!

Tomorrow we make it to Jacksonville and Blount island, one of my favorite anchorages because its well protected and I can watch all the ships run down the St. Johns river.

For some reason we both woke up at 6AM.  The temps had moderated to the point of almost being comfortable.  We had spun around with the current and then spun back to our original orientation.  We did drag a bit too.

Skies were basically clear.  No rain.  A good night.

I thought about going back to sleep.  Mary did, but figuring we had 55 mils to cruise today so my inclination was to leave early, avoid most of the high heat, and then relax in the evening.

Calm ocean.  Like being on an inland lake

Well … the ocean was dead clam.   And as we made out way towards the St. Augustine inlet after leaving Matanzas an hour earlier, the ocean was too tempting.  So I switched routes and we headed off shore about 5 miles in glass like seas.

I spotted a loggerhead turtle a few miles off shore and it appeared to be in some sort of distress.  Nurse Mary immediately called a turtle rescue operation (remember the Turtle Hospital in Marathon?) and reported a sick Loggerhead turtle at the coordinates I gave her.  Don't know whether or not it was rescued though.

The much hoped for cooler sea breeze never materialized.  The ocean water temps were in the mid 80’s.  I’m beginning to long for Wisconsin winters … (did I really say that?)

We were pretty much alone except when we neared Jacksonville which is a busy port.  Several container ships were loitering out near the channel as we approached.

But .. another plan was emerging.  Why not take advantage of these glassy seas and go all the way to Fernandina Beach today?  It would save us 20+ miles on the way to Duplin River in Georgia. 

And yet another variation.  Let’s stay in Fernandina Beach Marina where we can have AC all night long.  And replenish our depleted beer supply (we always, when we have it, drink a pre-anchoring/docking beer even though is usually Mich Ultra).  And of course, I’ll get to pedal to the store before we go out to dinner.