Ft. Pierce and a Change of Plans

Saturday, November 26, 2016

We heard from our friends Bruce and Gayleen aboard Pearl, and it turns out that they were anchored at Ft Pierce FL, which was our next stop.  It was only about 36 NM away, so we got in fairly early in the afternoon, and anchored just behind Pearl.  Our anchorage was right on the river, out in front of Harbortown Marina.

Then we went through a drill that we had been putting off for the whole trip so far:  Launching the dinghy.  We had been keeping it inflated but stored on deck to cut down on drag which would have put a dent in our already low miles per day, but had yet to actually need it.  Actually, launching it wasn't so bad.  It was lowering the outboard onto it that was such a production.  You see, we have no actual crane or hoist for the outboard, so I have to jury-rig something using the main halyard.  This was further complicated by the new solar panel mounting, which got in the way of where we used to lead the halyard.  It didn't help either that the wind was up and this anchorage was pretty bumpy!  But eventually, after far too long a time, I managed to rig the dinghy in place at the stern of the boat and lower the outboard onto the dink without puncturing it or dropping the motor overboard!  Joanie, who had been waiting patiently aboard the dink, expertly guided the motor onto the dink's transom and got it secured.

Not to be defeated that easily, the outboard was incredibly hard to start, despite my having started it on the rail before lowering it into the dink!

We then ran in to town with Bruce and Gayleen along in their dinghy, and made a short walking trip to the Publix market to get a few items we were each short of.  On the way back, we stopped at the marina restaurant for a quick drink and to watch the sunset before heading back to our respective boats.  Since we were going to spend another day here, we left the dinghy in the water behind the boat.

Sunset From the Dock in Ft Pierce

Sunday, November 27, 2016

Sunday, I spent the day combing the Internet and making phone calls, trying to locate a place to dock Dolce Vita for a few weeks to give us a chance to fly home for Christmas.  Our original plan was to do this somewhere in or around Miami,  but I had previously determined that prices around Miami were astronomical.  So, on others recommendation,  the plan had been modified to find something in Ft. Lauderdale where the prices were somewhat lower.

But I was ultimately unsuccessful.  We were wait-listed at one place, and I almost had success at another, but they had one or two days in the middle of the month where they were all booked up.

When I talked to Bruce, he suggested that I check here at Harbortown Marina, as its only 3 or 4 days travel from Miami, and is walking-distance close to the grocery for provisioning.  So, when we dinghy'd in for a garbage run, I went by the dockmaster's office, and by great luck, they had just had a slip open up!  It was a bigger slip, and they would have to charge me for a minimum of 40 ft, but even at that it was still half the price a slip would have been in Lauderdale!  We took this info back to the boat, and tried a few more marina calls, but it quickly became apparent that this was the best deal we were going to find.  So, we called them back, reserved the slip, and arranged to bring the boat in the next morning.   We then had to reverse the drill of unmounting and hoisting the outboard back onto the rail, and hoisting the dinghy back onto the deck.  Joan had to be in the dinghy for most of this process, and the wind and waves had really kicked up, so she was pretty wet and uncomfortable before it was done.  But, as always, she hung in there and got the job done.

That night, the wind really picked up.  The wind generator was putting out 10 to 15 Amps at times, and by morning we had almost the same amount of power in the batteries as we had started out with in the evening.  The windgen had kept up with the refrigeration!

Monday, November 28, 2016

After a leisurely breakfast, we prepared to hoist anchor and head in.  The wind and tidal current were together this morning, and putting a lot of force on the anchor chain, more than I could deal with by hand.  So I had Joan take the helm and "walk" us forward at idle, just enough to take the load off, and was able to pull the chain in with no problem. A quick cleat near the end, and the engine easily broke the anchor out.  Sand bottoms are nice. The chain and anchor came up clean! :)

At the dockmaster's suggestion, we went in to the fuel dock first, tied up, and walked over to check out the slip and plan our approach.    The very short finger dock meant that we would have to back in in order to be able to conveniently get on and off the boat.  And in order to be able to back in to port (our boat doesn't back to starboard), we would have to come down the fairway and execute a U-turn in order to be in the right position.  All this was made harder by the fact that the wind was still up, and was blowing diagonally across and into the slip.  Getting a line onto the outer upwind piling would be imperative,  and snagging the outer downwind one would be difficult.  It looked like we would need more hands than we had, so I called Bruce, who was happy to come in and give us a hand.

Dolce Vita's New Home, on Left

And it all came off pretty much as planned!  It wasn't exactly elegant, requiring jockying forward and backward several times, but our tight slip at home had given us a lot of practice at this kind of docking, and we were able to stay in control and get lines onto both outer pilings and back the boat  into the slip without mishap.

Once secure and checked-in for the month, we purchased our airline tickets home, and rental cars to get to the airport now, and back from it when we return after Christmas.

We've learned so much on this trip, and had such fun doing it! Meeting new people and seeing new places. It's truly been a great experience.  We're really looking forward to the the next parts of the journey!

I'll leave you with some random snapshots from the last few days:

Hundreds of Pelicans Congregating on a Small Island

Manatee Warning Signs Everywhere

Cool Dolphin Statue on the Waterfront

Large Flock of Vultures

So, this ends the first phase of our trip. The numbers so far:

Days Enroute:         44
Distance Traveled:  1123 NM
ICW Mile Marker:  965 (Statute Miles from Norfolk)
Engine Hours:         179.3
Gasoline:                 199.5 Gallons
Oil Changes:           3
Memories:               Priceless :)

In late December we will return, reprovision the boat, and head for Miami/Key Biscane and on to the Bahamas!

Oil, Oil Everywhere

Friday November 25, 2016

The day before thanksgiving, I had done an oil change on our trusty Atomic-4 engine.  It was a dozen hours past it's scheduled 50 hour change, and I wanted to get that out of the way.  Well, I guess I was a little distracted and a little rushed to get back to visiting, and I put off doing a start-up test afterwards.  I should know better.

Friday morning, up bright and early to try and get in at least 50 miles in before dark, I started the engine.   Hmmmm... that oil pressure looks a little low.  Still well within specs, but lower than normal at a cold startup.  As I watched, and the engine warmed up, the pressure slowly started creeping lower.  At this point, I knew something wasn't right, and I ran below to pull off the engine cover.

I was greeted by the glistening sheen of oil everywhere!  It seems, in my haste to finish, I had committed the cardinal sin of forgetting to close the valve used vacuum extract the oil out of the engine!  It was now under full oil pressure, and squirting oil out mightily!   I quickly shut down, and no permanant damage was done, but what a mess!  I had managed to pump two whole quarts of oil all over the engine and into the bilge!!!

The next four hours were like one of those cleanup scenes you see on the beach after the Exxon Valdez.  After bailing over a gallon of oil-contaminated water out of the bilge and into containers, we went through half of our precious stock of paper towels and a bottle of detergent cleaning everything up.  The bilge is finally clean, but trace amounts of oil continue to weep out of hard-to-reach places on the engine, requiring constant touching-up.

And so, we finally set out, and only got in about 25 miles for the day.  We anchored behind one of the islands that form a regular chain to one side of the ICW in the wide shallow Indian River.  It turns out that this regularity isn't an accident. These islands were created from the dredge spoils when the ICW was originally dug.  This particular island was bigger than most, and had deep enough water behind it to form a good anchorage.  It's a popular spot for day trips and picnics, and there were several dinghys beached there when we arrived. There was also an intact shoal-draft sailboat washed completely up on the beach, with a bow line tying it to one of the trees. 

Another Victim of Matthew

 Another gorgeous sunset ended the day.

Sunset at Mile Marker 925

Amazingly, late at night when I had let my eyes get dark-adjusted, I could not only see the dim outline of the beached boat and its mast, but up at the top of the mast, the anchor light was still feebly glowing with a ghostly light!  This is more than a month after Matthew!

Daytona, Titusville, and Thanksgiving on Merritt Island

Sunday, November 20, 2016

We left St. Augustine early, with overcast skies, and a cold northerly wind at our backs.  I was back in layers of warm clothes under a foul weather jacket.  Other than a couple of shoal spots just south of St. Augustine, the trip was pretty uneventful.  By early in the afternoon, the sun finally came out, and things got much more pleasant.  We  anchored just south of Daytona, just west of the narrow ICW channel in the wide river.  Total travel for the day was 47 NM.

Monday, November 21, 2016

We continued on to our next anchorage, just outside of Titusville.  Along the way, several dolphins came and played around the stern of the boat, often going back and forth from one side to the other.

Dolphin Playing Alongside

Along the way, we had to stop at New Symrna Beach Marina for a pumpout.  While we were tied up at the dock, the dockhand casually announced " There's a good-sized Manatee off your stern."  We looked, and sure enough, there was a large Manatee surfacing!  And out from under her came a pup!  Of course, neither of us had our cameras handy.  Joan tried to rush down into the cabin to get hers, but slipped on a step and fell to the cabin floor.  Fortunately, it was a pretty "slow motion" fall, and she didn't injure herself beyond a few bruises.  And of course, by that time, the Manatees had submerged again, so no photos. :(  The dockhand said they're difficult to photograph.

Later, while going through the Haulover Canal, I saw another one submerge, kicking up its distinctive round tail fin.

As the sun got low in the sky, we anchored just south of a railroad causway, in towards shore. Two other boats joind us just before sunset.  It was nicely sheltered from the light NW breeze, and was still as a millpond at night. 

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Today, we were headed for a marina in Cocoa, FL. Joan has a cousin who lives near there, and we planned on stopping for a visit.
This area is known as the Space Coast, and is quite close to Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space center.  Soon, I spied a famaliar outline on the horizon: The massive bulk of the NASA Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB).  This is where they used to assemble the shuttles upright, on top of a huge tracked transporter, and then move them several miles to the lanuch pad.  The Apollo Saturn V moon rockets were also assembled and launched here.

NASA Vehicle Assembly Building

Launch Complex 39B

For an old space geek like me, this was like a pilgrimage to Mecca! ;)

Once we arrived in Cocoa and contacted Joan's cousin, he invited us to stay over an extra day for Thanksgiving, so that's what we did.  Wednesday, we got a quick driving tour of the area, and Thursday we ate turkey!

Thanksgiving Turkey with All the Trimmings

St. Augustine

Friday, November 18, 2016

Friday morning, the tide was low at 7am, so we were in no hurry to get out early because we wanted to avoid any chance of getting hung up on the shoal across the entrance to Beach Marine.  So we waited a bit.  Bill said his goodbys and called an Uber rideshare to the Jacksonville airport to await his flight back to Maryland.

Once out of the marina, the trip to St. Augustine was pretty easy.  Much of it was wide, and depths were usually pretty good, except for that one time where I let my attention wander and we drifted out of the channel...the depth sounder alarm brought me back to my senses in a hurry! 

As we neared St Augustine, signs of big money started appearing in the forms of large, immaculately landscaped estates along the shores.

Palatial Estates

Our original plan had been to take a mooring ball for a single night at the St. Augustine Municipal Marina, and we had reserved one.  But in talking to the crew of s/v Needful Things, we had learned that Saturday was to be the "light off" ceremony kicking off the city's month-long  festival of lights, where the entire historic downtown, and numerous private businesses throughout the whole city, would light up the white Christmas lights that adorned everything.  We decided we'd like to see that, so when we arrived, we were able to change our arrangements to 2 nights in a slip instead.

We spent the rest of the afternoon playing tourist and walking around the shopping district. In the evening, we listened to a free concert by a local band in the area known as the Colonial Quarter. Temperatures remained mild. All in all, a most excellent evening.

The Bridge of Lions

Cathedral of St. Augustine

Altar

Stained Glass

A fairy Garden of Glassware and  Windchimes

Free Concert

Saturday, November 19, 2016

After showers and laundry, we resumed being tourists and walked the town again, touring the fort, eating a turkey leg, and finally ending up in the park for a '40s swing band concert, and the lighting ceremony.  Another thoroughly wonderful day.

Original Gate Through the Town's Fortifications

Castillo de San Marcos

Cannon Firing Demonstration

Lights,

Lights,

and More Lights!

Tomorrow, we head for an anchorage just south of Daytona Beach, a distance of 55 miles.  A cold front is going through tonight, and it's supposed to get cold and windy.  Time to get moving south again!



qwqwqwqww

Florida at Last!

 Thursday, November 17

We once again got up very early in order to leave at first light in order to take maximum advantage of the tide.  It was initially against us on the St Mary's River, but once we passed the inlet, the incoming tide was behind us and gave us a boost to 8.1 kts speed over ground!  At this kind of current, there are all kinds of swirls, eddys, and side currents, and constant manual steering is required.  A few moments of inattention is all that's required to have the boat going in a completely different direction than you intended!

We passed by the closed Fernandina Beach Marina, and saw large plastic tapes strung across the face dock's pilings, with messages printed on them: "MARINA CLOSED", "FUEL DOCK CLOSED", "MOORINGS CLOSED".  There were also about a half dozen sailboats beached on the shores, and a pair of wooden masts from a sunken ketch sticking up in the middle of the mooring field.  Very sad.

An interesting thing happened about now, but we weren't made aware of it until later.  It turns out that one of my college buddies has been tracking us using the Marine Traffic web site that we send our position reports to, and he managed to use them to find out when we passed within range of a webcam on the Fernandina Hampton Inn, and got two pictures of us passing by!  Although grainy and low resoultion, you can resolve our distinctive black mast, the solar panels and wind generator above the stern, and even the dinghy stored on deck next to the mast!

Dolce Vita Caught on Webcam

Once again, as the sun climbed in the sky, things warmed up and we began to peel layers off until down to shortsleeves.  It's nice to be warm! :)

Along the way we encountered more dolphins, including one group of three the appeared to be a a family group, and a huge flock of white pelicans.

A Pod of Three Dolphins

Large Flock of White Pelicans

A short day's travel of 35 miles brought us to a marina called Beach Marine, just outside of Jacksonville.  They were hit pretty hard by Matthew, but were still operating.  Several of their finger docks were destroyed, as well as a large section of seawall.  Unfortunately, this meant that our slip ended up being directly in front of where they were using a vibrating pile driver to drive in new sections of corrugated seawall!  The noise was horrific, but they quit working within a half an hour of our arrival, so we had peace at last.  We re-encountered a canadian couple aboard s/v Needful Things, and shared a cab ride into town to get some supplies and groceries.  Later, we had them over for sundowners.

Tomorrow, we leave for St. Augustine.

St.Mary's, GA

Wednesday, November 16

The town of St. Mary's was somewhat of a pleasant surprise.  Given the run-down condition of the marina, we were expecting something similar from the town.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

When we checked it out briefly the night before, we found the town is clean and well maintained, with numerous good resturants and a very nice public park.    The Riverside Cafe was a particularly nice Greek-themed resturant.  They've been in business for 18 years, so they're obviously doing something right!

Town Park

Shortly after dawn, a small horde of retirees on golf carts went scurrying around town, spearing and collecting any trash lying about.  And although the storm waters from Matthew had been up to two feet high in the buildings, we saw very little evidence of it, as almost all the businesses were repaired and back up and running.

The end result is a very picturesque town.  Spanish moss literally drips from the giant, old-growth trees, and unspoiled marshlands abound.

Spanish Moss

Marshland Panorama

We also found out that St. Mary's is the site where Cruisers converge for Thanksgiving for a big blow-out.  Unfortunately for us, Thanksgiving was still a week away, so we were going to miss it.

We spent the day browsing through antique shops, and going through the local submarine museum, which has two floors of exhibits, one dedicated to WWI era subs, and the other to nuclear subs.

Watched another spectacular sunset, and then finished off the day with a meal of locally caught shrimp and oysters.

Tomorrow, we head to Jacksonville, FL, where our friend Bill will leave us and catch a plane home.

Outside!

Monday morning, we were up at 5am in order to get going at first light. Weather was overcast/scattered fog and cold (46). It was supposed to stay like this for part of the day, and then clear.

We departed on an extra high tide.  Clearance under the bridge was down to 54 feet, but we still cleared it easily.  Out into the harbor and out through the big ship channel we went, propelled along with an extra push by the falling tide.

The entrance channel at Charleston is quite long, having to get out far enough to clear the two massive ( and partially submerged) stone jetties, as well as clear some mining drillfields.  As a result, we went out at least 10 miles before turning south.

Once we turned SW towards the St. Mary's River inlet, we put up the sails and shut off the engine.  Woo Hoo! we were a sailboat again, instead of a really slow powerboat!  This was the first good full sail we have gotten in on the whole trip so far!

And the conditions were (more or less) as forecast.  10 kts wind out of the NW let us do almost a beam reach, and the 2-4 ft waves with a 7 sec period were an easy ride.  We set our course, doing 5-6 kts, and had a single long leg for 143 nm without a single tack!

The cold dreary weather lasted about half a day, with the sun finally making a much-welcomed appearance in the afternoon.  The winds started to come around to WNW and piped up a bit and got gusty.  Since they were forcast to be 10-20 kts, we decided to put in a single reef on the main now so no one would potentially have to go forward in the dark if the wind increased.  It didn't seem to hurt us.  We continued on at 5-6 kts, just without heeling so much.

And so we sailed through the night.  Our speed held. We stood double overlapping watches, with one person coming on and one person going off every 3 hours.  This meant each person had 6 hrs on watch and 3 hours off to sleep, and no one was ever at the helm alone.  

Shortly after sunset, the full moon (a "super" moon!) arose and bathed the sea with light.  It was like a big spotlight, actually casting shadows!  The only thing it didn't do was warm us!  Even with many layers and full foul weather gear on, we got cold!  The last hour of each 6 hour watch seemed to drag on forever.

Our course took us in a straight line across the curved coastline from Charleston to St. Mary's, so at one point we were about 30 nm offshore.

We saw an occasional tug or sailboat or powerboat in the distance, but none ever came close.

Finally, the dawn broke, clear and sunny.  Soon, we were peeling off ayer after layer as we started to overheat.  This was much more like it!

Early in the afternoon on tue, the wind began to die.  We shook out the reef, but the failing wind forced us to start the engine and motor-sail the last 30 miles to the entrance channel.

The entrance channel at St Mary's also goes out about 10 miles, and is marked like a superhighway, with pairs of channel markers lined up in a row into the distance.  On one side, huge shrimp boats drag their nets, attended by hoards of hopeful hungry seagulls.

And it was warm!  72! People were on the beaches!  This is MUCH more like it! :)

FInally, coming into the inlet we had a decision to make.  Our preferred marina, Fernandina Beach Marina, was put out of comission for the rest of the year by hurricane Matthew.  A quick phone call to the only other marina nearby revealed that they had a slip available, but with the tide at it's low point, the shoaling at their entrance from Matthew meant that we couldn't get in until after dark (they have almost 8 feet of tide here!!)

And so, we decided to head north, into Georgia, and go to a marina on the Georgia side of the St Mary's River.  It's a bit run down, but friendly and cheap.  And the nearby town of St. Mary's looks interesting.  We may stay here an extra day to explore before heading south again.

Sunset at Lang's Marina

Waiting in Charleston

Friday, November  11

7:30am Friday morning, we tuned in to Chris Parker's weather net, and found that our Sunday window had deteriorated, and was no longer recommended for going south offshore.  But Monday and Tuesday still looked good. We called our friend Bill and updated him of the situation.  He rearranged his plans to come down a day later, and his wife Lisa was able to come along as well for a sort of mini-vacation weekend.

With a few days now on our hands we took a day to play tourist. Using the marina's free shuttle service,  we got a ride downtown and got in a visit to the Aquarium.

Pelican Feeding Time

Alligators!

We then spent the rest of the afternoon perusing the booths on the 5 block long Market Street.  Joanie got her first tast of boiled peanuts, a southern thing.  She liked them, but I found them not to my tastes.  Horse drawn carriages were everywhere.

Horse Drawn Carriages

Note the Emissions Control Device!

Saturday, November 12

The morning's weather net confirmed the continuing suitability of Mon and Tue for an easy trip south "outside". We got some chores done, and Bill and Lisa arrived in time for dinner and bar-hopping around town.  Charleston has quite a lot of nightlife.  After a fantastic dinner at the Husk's bar,  we ended up in a raw bar eating oysters and steamed shrimp.

Bill and Lisa in Charleston

Sunday, November 13

Sunday dawned cold and rainy. Bill and Lisa went off to play tourist and took a boat trip out to tour Fort Sumter at the mouth of Charleston Harbor.  Joan did laundry while I did some minor repair on the dinghy.  Later, when the rain stopped, Bill helped me deploy the offshore jacklines, and do some minor retuning of the mast rigging to prevent it from "pumping" in the wind.  Weather forecast still looked good, all ready to go.

Next stop, Florida!

To Charleston

Dawn broke crisp and cold on Five Fathom Creek.  Durring the night, we had reversed our direction twice with the tide, but the anchor remained in place.  As we were preparing to pull it, a dolphin surfaced repeatedly, holding position alongside, possibly feeding on whatever was being swept to him by the current.  Hopefully another good omen.

Dolphin at Five Fathom Creek

Back on the way again, only this time it was at low tide. There was a lot of "skinny" water for the first few hours.  Twice our depth alarm went off, indicating depths of less than 6 feet.

In the middle of these hundreds of acres of marshlands, there was a single house with a large dock.  I wonder what it's story is?

One Lone House

Who Built It? Why?

Lots of pelicans everywhere.

As we passed through the upscale Isle of Palms area, developments and boats were packed shoulder to shoulder.

While across the canal, Goat Island was a little more sparse, with stand-alone houses instead of condos.

Charleston harbor was like a smaller version of the Chesapeake Bay, with large commercial tugs and barges moving  continuously, and a very unique looking suspension bridge.

On arrival at the only marina where we could get a slip, we had to pass under a 55 ft high fixed bridge.  Since our mast is 45 ft, and the VHF antenna another 5 ft, and we passed the bridge at high tide, it was really close!

With Dolce Vita safely tied up, we watched the sun set over the marina.