Monday, April 28, 2014. Hot today – 90 degrees, little wind until evening. We
spent the morning washing the boat, working on cleaning up our email contacts
and even watched some TV as the marina has cable at each slip. We were not able to see Lisa’s “uncle George
and his wife Bev as they are moving into a new house today. We did have an early dinner with her uncle
Franny and his wife Virginia at Mollys (Seafood). Good food.
We watched a pod of porpoises play at the marina entrance for a while
and then an early bed time.
Tuesday, April 29, 2014. We are off the dock at Cocoa Village Marina at
7:45am. It is partly cloudy, wind
SE@5. By 11am, the wind is SE@10-15 and
we have the foresail out. We are making
6+ knots motor sailing – maybe we will make it to Daytona tonight. 2:30pm, make the Coronado Bridge at New
Smyrna and we are making 7 knots over the ground. 5:15pm, Memorial Bridge at Daytona. Clouds are thickening and we hear thunder in
the distance. 5:45pm anchor down just
north of the Seabreeze Bridge in Daytona.
The wind is still SE and is supposed to stay that way. There are 5 other boats here already. Two of them we recognize from Vero (Pearl and
Rachel). Dinner on board and we get
everything ready for a blow as a line of severe thunderstorms is on the
radar. 7:30pm the thunderstorm is
here. Winds to 35 knots and it is
raining so hard you can barely see the bow of our boat! Just before this started, another sailboat
(Release) came in an anchored. They
seemed to be very close to us, and sure enough, the wind swings into the west
during this storm and they are 20feet from our bow. Luckily, someone on board stayed in their cockpit
with their motor running the whole time so they did not bang into us. 11pm, the storm passes and the wind dies to
nothing, so we are swinging with the current.
Still too close to Release, but not 20 feet!
68SM,
55NM today. Two scheduled bridges, One on
request bridge today.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014. I am surprised that Release did not move away from
us after the storm, but I guess they figured the worst was over. I will never understand why people feel the
need to anchor close to another boat, especially with weather coming in. I was awake at 6am and noticed that Release
had pulled anchor and was gone. Still
dark. Our anchor held great in the soft
mud here, but was a bit difficult to get up.
Plus, the mud is caked on everything, chain, anchor, uck!. 7:30 am, we are underway. It is very humid, 75 degrees, murky, low
clouds, visibility 2 miles at most. The
tide is running against us, so it is slow going this morning. Noon 85 degrees, still murky and humid, 20
miles to go. Lots of white butterflies –
migrating?
We
saw 5 manatees splashing around in the channel.
Lisa thought one might have been caught in a line for a crab pot. A small powerboat stops to help. Hopefully they get the animal freed. We looked on Google, and I guess it is common
for them to play with the floats and then get tangled up sometimes.
2pm,
clouds threatening, thunder in the distance, spitting rain. This weather pattern is getting tiring. Radar shows a line of thundershowers just
west of St. Augustine. 3:15pm, we are tied up at the dock at Rivers Edge Marina
on the San Sebastian River in St. Augustine.
Nice safe marina where the boat spent two months when we went home over
the Christmas holidays. Release is tied up to the T-dock! 3:20pm, rain and thunder
are here. Another day of making it in
just under the wire. The weather is not
as severe as last night, and lets up about 5:30pm. At 6, we go to the marina pot luck
dinner. Nice to meet some new folks and
see some we met previously. We walked
over to Release to say hello, but no one on board. They are gone in the morning.
2
on request bridges today.
53SM, 42.3NM today. MM 780. 29° 53.15’N 081°19.35’W
Thursday, May 1, 2014. May Day. Rain.
Around noon it takes a break and Lisa and I walk over to the farmers’
market (1 block) and get a few things.
Nice fruit and vegies and this place seems to be here all the time. Next door is Le Café, a breakfast and lunch
spot. Food is OK and reasonable. We had dinner on board, pork chops and
grilled fresh vegies. We walked next
door to Hurricane Patty’s for dessert (Key Lime Pie).
Friday, May 2, 2014. I received a
replacement printer (had it sent here) for the one on the boat. I am pretty sure I replace an HP printer
every six months (either at home or on the boat). This one is still under warranty. Got the new one working and packed up the old
one, called fedex and told them the return would be in the marina office. I also walked into town to mail off our “marriage
savers” – Eartec 2 way radios that we use when anchoring or docking – because one
of them keeps cutting out. I think it is
the connection for the headphone/microphone.
I called Eartec and they said send everything back and they would fix it
a return it within 24 hours. The weather
is murky again, with the threat of thunder and rain, and sure enough, as soon
as I get back to the boat it starts.
Tonight is Lisa’s last night here for a while, so we go to Harry’s in
Old Town for dinner – New Orleans cuisine and very good – not completely authentic,
but close. We took a cab both ways
because it is still raining.
Saturday, May 3, 2014. We are up at
5:45am. There is a cab coming to take
Lisa to the Jacksonville Airport at 6:15am.
Her flight to Boston is at 8:05am.
She is going home to move Jeff home from college on Monday and spend
some time with her mother for Mothers’ Day.
It is still raining when ahe gets in the cab, and continues all day,
steady, but not hard. I worked on boat
chores and had dinner aboard. Lisa called and made it safely to Boston and then to her parents' house. Some of
the other sailboaters are having cocktails at the pavilion, and stop by to ask
us (me) to join them. Met some nice
people (John and Nora Mayo on Saber Tooth from Toronto, Nick and Gail Miller on
Gail Warning from St. Pete and Karl and Jan Stein on White Pepper from Corpus
Christi). Gail says we met her
previously in Vero. Rain starts up again – back to the boat.
Sunday, May 4, 2014. Seems weird
to be on the boat without Lisa. She has
been on the boat whenever I have since we left Canada in August 2012. She is at her mom’s safe and sound. The sun finally made an appearance, and the
wind has swung into the north and it is cool and dry. Nice.
I will get this posted and then try to do something outside!
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