Tuesday,
February 3, 2015. We departed Rivers Edge Marina, St. Augustine at 8am.
John and Nora (Saber Tooth) and Bob and Judy (Greenstone) are leaving today
also. Both boats have committed to meet
friends in Nassau on February 14. It is
sunny and cold (46 degrees). Wind North
at 5-15. It is the end of the incoming
tide and we manage to ride the tide until 1pm.
Nice. We were making well over 7
knots all morning and covered 42 miles.
At 2:20pm, we pass through the bridges at Daytona with no problem. The tidal push is back and we are making 7.5
knots over ground. At 4pm we have the
anchor down in Rockhouse Creek, New Smyrna Beach. Partly cloudy and 60 degrees. There is one other boat here. Another boat shows up at 4:30 along with
Saber Tooth and Greenstone. 62SM 49.6NM
today. MM842.2
29°03.62’N
080°55.91W
Wednesday,
February 4, 2015. Anchor up at 7:30am.
Cloudy, 65 degrees, no wind. No
issues at “the corner (Red 18)”. They
dredges this area last year and we never saw less than 12 feet of water. We made the Coronado Beach Bridge opening at
8am. The tide from the Ponce de Leon
inlet is running with us and we are making 7.9 knots. We turned into the Indian
River, passing through the Hallover Bridge at Cape Canaveral at 11:15 and lost
our tidal “push”. We saw a few of the
Rose (pink) Spoonbills, but not like you would see later in the spring. Their roosting grounds are a couple of island
at the very top of the Indian River. It
is cloudy, 73 degrees and looks like rain.
Greenstone and Saber Tooth stop at Titusville to meet friend for
lunch. We pull into Cocoa Village Marina
at 3pm. We hope to see Lisa’s Uncle
Franny (and Virginia) and her “Uncle George” (Her Dad’s best friend) and
Bev. However, Lisa is still fighting a
cold or something that has her coughing, se we may have to forgo seeing them to
avoid passing whatever this is around. We
walked around Cocoa Village and had dinner at Ossorio. They’re speciality is fire roasted pizzas and
sandwiches. The food was teffific. 56SM
44.8NM MM898
28°21.48’N 080°43.56’W
Thursday,
February 5, 2015. Wind is howling
25-30 knots, which makes it impossible to get out of this slip/marina as we
have to go toward the north to do so.
There are three foot white caps at the marina entrance! Lisa uncles opted to bypass seeing us as they
don’t want whatever malady Lisa has. We
did boat chores and thyen went to dinner at Murphy’s Grill in the village. Very “bar-like” and a bit run down (maybe
intentionally that way for “the look”), but the food was terrific!
Friday,
February 6, 2015. Wind still
howling, but down a bit to 20-25. We
will sit for another day. Saber Tooth
and Greenstone continue towards Lake Worth today and make it all the way to
Fort Pierce. We cleaned the boat, the
laundry and ourselves and then had dinner on board. I walked over to Ossorio and bought some of
their pastries for dinner tonight and to take with us (bread pudding, cinnamon
rolls and apple tarts).
Saturday,
February 7, 2015. Wind finally
abated. We met Floyd Tapp on the dock
this morning. He gaves us a copy of his
book “The Saga of the Sailing Hillbillies”. He and his wife Elaine (originally
from Kentucky) sailed (Jaibolfro) for years and now they have bought a
trawler. The book is a “How To” of what
NOT TO DO – funny too! As we have said before, a large part of the enjoyment of
doing what we are doing is the people you meet.
We are off the dock at Cocoa Village Marina at
7;50am, sunny 60 degrees, no wind (feast or famine with the wind). Noon, the tide is against us and we can make
only 6 knots. Sunny, 70 degrees, wind SE
@ 5-10. 3:30pm we are at the fuel dock
at Vero Beach City Marina. Load up with
fuel and water.
As we are entering the marina, we see River House
leaving (Deb and Bob’s boat). They told
us they had sold it and moved on-shore. The new owners are taking to Fort
Pierce.
Our new TV is here and we pick that up at the marina
office when we check in. Hopefully, it
will last longer than the last one.
4pm, we are on our mooring (which is the one River
House was on). We called our friends
Stan and Judy and Wayne and Colleen (Cool Change) to let them know we are here.
Saber Tooth and Greenstone are leaving tomorrow
morning for the Bahamas from Lake Worth.
We won’t catch up with them and Lisa is still fighting her cold/cough.
54SM 43.2NM
today. No bridges. MM 952.
27°39.56’N 080°22.27’W
Sunday,
February 8, 2015. There is a reason they call this place “Velcro Beach”. Once here it is hard to leave. The price is reasonable, the facilities are
nice, there is transportation to the beach and town, the restaurants are good,
and you can get stuff fixed. We talked
to Pete Brocker, who works on boats about getting some canvas repairs done (he
can do it), about our outboard that needs attention (he showed me how to fix it
(dismantle and clean the carburetor), and how to get our new solar panel
working (referred me to Mike Giannotti).
Dinner on board this evening).
Monday,
February 9, 2015. Sunny and 60 degrees.
Lisa and I walked into town and had lunch at Casey’s Place. Lisa had a Reuben and I had a burger. Great food at very reasonable prices,
especially in Vero! We actually went to
town to mail a package, but the post office is closed for lunch from 1 to
2. First time we’ve run into that. Bought some candy at Kilwins and then headed
back to the boat. Very nice afternoon.
Tuesday,
February 10, 2015. Rain came down in
buckets and the wind is back howling out of the north. We did get the new TV hooked up and made a
call to Mike about the solar panel issue. He was able to come by this
afternoon, once the rain stopped. I had
everything hooked up correctly, but wired the ground from the controller
incorrectly, so our battery monitor could not see it. Now working as it should. We would love to put another panel on, but
then Rhiannon would look more like an aircraft carrier (maybe we would be able
to land the helicopter on it!).
Afterward, I dismantled the carburetor on the outboard, cleaned
everything, and got it all back together with no extra parts left over – and it
now runs!
We met Stan and Judy at Riverside for dinner. Great to see them. They are off on a cruise (cruise ship cruise)
through the Panama Canal to Los Angeles, then a train to Chicago and New
Orleans (where they will spend 5 days), then by car back to Vero. Sounds like a trip of a lifetime!
Wednesday,
February 11, 2015. Lisa did laundry and I worked on bills, updating Jeff’s
FAFSA application for next school year. Wayne
Thrailkill (Cool Change) came by and gave Benny a ride to Walmart for some
essentials. Wayne and Colleen’s boat is
at Loggerhead Marina here in Vero and they have their car here as well. We met them 2 years ago when we were at
Loggerhead at the same time they were.
Their blog is http://www.coolchangetravels.blogspot.com/
While doing laundry, Lisa met (again) the folks on
Flying Pig (Skip Grundlach, Linda Fells, and Linda’s Mom (who is 90)). We met them last spring here in Vero. Lisa also met a woman who is from
Penetanguishene (where we bought this Rhiannon) and bought her boat in New
Bern, NC, and a guy who is from New Bern.
Small world .
Thursday,
February 12, 2015. Another sunny day, 70 degrees, nice! Lisa and I took the “free” bus to the Fresh
Market (wonderful grocery). While the
bus service is free, there is a donation box which we always drop a dollar each
in. When we got back to the boat, Benny
prepared a cheese roll for tonight’s cocktail hour and pot luck at 4pm. It’s a great recipe and easy.
Cheese Roll
1 8 ounce jar
of dried beef chopped fine
1 package of
regular cream cheese
½ cup chopped
green onions
2 Tablespoons
Worcestershire sauce
Combine all the
ingredients and form into a ball.
Refrigerate (best if at least 4 hours).
Serve with
party rye – yum!
We met Barbara and Harry Oehler (Our Dream)
again. Their dog Merlot had passed on,
but they had a new puppy with them Kira (German Shephard). Nice puppy and it was good to Barbara and
Harry again.
Although we had put up notices asking if people were
headed to the Bahamas that they contact us, we had no queries. I guess everyone really is “velcroed” there.
Lisa heard from Kathy MacNeil, our neighbor in
Beverly for many years. They also have a
condo up at Burke Mountain, where we also had one for many years. It was great to catch up as their kids sort
of grew up with ours.
Friday,
February 13, 2015. We are off the
mooring at 7:30am. Clear, 48 degrees, no
wind. Today is a long day and there are
8 bridges to negotiate. The tide and
wind are with us and we have the anchor down in North Lake Worth (North Palm
Beach) at 4:15pm. It is sunny and 70
degrees, wind West at 10. Three on-request bridges and 5 scheduled ones today
(we made all the scheduled ones on time – nice). 63.5SM
50.8NM, 8 bridges. MM1014.5
26°50.29’N 080°03.15’W
Saturday, February
14, 2015. Valentine’s Day. Lisa and I exchanged cards, candy and kisses
before our morning coffee. Cold this morning, 45 degrees. Enough already, it’s Florida! Today will be a long tedious slog down to
Fort Lauderdale. 19 bridges! And only two on request (turns out it was
three because of construction). All the
others are scheduled openings and trying to time the distance between the
bridges, the tide and other factors like how many boats are queued up at each
bridge, is difficult. On the trip north
last year we went outside to miss all these.
However, today is a high surf and high wind warning. No fun outside.
Anchor up at 8:20am.
Sunny, cold north wind (again), 50 degrees. We actually had a good day
with the bridges. The only issues were the first bridge (Flagler Memorial)
where they were doing construction and only opening once an hour; and the last
bridge (Sunrise) where we were sitting there waiting for the opening and a 100
foot motor yacht headed in the opposite direction decided he could make it
under without the bridge having to open.
Well, he made it by the skin of his teeth, but by the time he did, the
opening time had passed and the bridge tender informed everyone that they had “missed
the opening” and would have to wait for the next one! ???????
Lots of boats this year. The marinas in Fort
Lauderdale are all full, the mooring field is full, the anchorages in Lake
Sylvia and Middle River are full. Even
the little anchorage north of the Las Olas Bridge was full (4 big boats). Who
are all these folks? Lots of Canadian
flags. We finally anchored at the corner
of Middle River and the ICW at 7:11pm. It
took 3 times to get the anchor to catch – unusual for us, but once caught held
fast – and came up clean – must be a hard bottom. The charts show there is 9 – 12 feet in
middle river, but it must have been dredged, because the majority of it (all
the way up) was 15-25 feet deep! The area right at the south side of the corner
with the ICW was only 10-12. Good anchorage, but a lot of traffic – big yachts
up and down the Middle River.
48.5SM
38.8NM MM 1063. 19 bridges today,
only 3 on-request. 26°07.66’N 080°06.61’W
Sunday,
February 15, 2015. Anchor up at
8:25am. Sunny, beautiful, 60 degrees,
wind WNW at 5. We made the Las Olas
Bridge at the scheduled 8:45 opening and the 17th Street Bridge at
9am. We headed out the Port Everglades
inlet to the ocean and the 20 miles outside to Miami. The seas are flat and there is little
wind. Here the ocean has turned that Caribbean
Blue that everyone loves. The water temperature is 74 degrees!
At noon, we enter the channel for Government Cut in
Miami and have to dodge a tow boat and barge, and two large yachts. The Fisherman’s Channel was being dredged
when we came through last year, and now there is even more work going on. At
one point, the channel was almost completely blocked. There are signs everywhere say to go slow,
but only the sail boats were going slow.
What a zoo!
At 1:30pm, we stop at Crandon Park Marina and fill up
with water and fuel. At 2:45pm, we are
have the anchor down in Nixon Bight in Key Biscayne. This is the site of the former Florida White
House of Richard Nixon. If you ever
though Richard Nixon was an honest man, check out these two websites for a
history of this real estate deal.
37SM 30NM
today. 2 scheduled bridges. MM1100 25°41.80’N
080°10.40’W
Monday, February
16, 2015. Today we are just hanging
out. Sunny and 70 degrees. Lisa is working on crocheting blankets for our
friends 3 little girls and I am working on this blog. There was a small window in the weather today
to go to Bimini, but they are predicting 3 foot choppy seas upon arrival. We decide to wait for the next window, which
will also give Lisa a chance to finally shake off this cold. We have heard from Seeker and Ilene, both in
Marathon. Autumn Borne is in Key
West. Saber Tooth and Greenstone did
make it to Nassau and have met up with their friends there. Hopefully, we will be there soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment