Saint Mary's to Vero Beach 2018-2019

Saint Mary’s to Vero Beach

On November 12, we flew to Jacksonville, took an Uber to the hotel in Saint Mary’s Georgia, where we will stay until Rhiannon is ready to go south. The next day we rented an Enterprise Car and went to see how much has to be done to get the boat in the water. We spent the next week working on Rhiannon, provisioning, and visiting with friends on Noodin (Ron and Phoebe) and Nightingale (Grant and Libby), who were working to get ready also.

November 17, we checked out of the hotel, returned the rental car and launched Rhiannon at 3:30pm.  There are almost no docks at Saint Mary’s, so when you launch, you have to leave the immediate area.  Some systems have to be in the water to be able to test them, so if there is a problem with one (for example the air conditioning, or the generator, or the plumbing intakes, etc.), you don’t know it until you are underway.

Noodin came to say good-bye.  Hopefully, we will see them again somewhere along the way.  Nightingale launched yesterday and are making their way south.  As we leave the dock, Carrie Mae (Bob and Maria) comes in, and we get to say hello/goodbye as we pass by.

5:00pm We pass Fernandina Beach. Clear 60 degrees, wind East @ 5-10.  High tida was at 4:00pm, so we should make it through some of the skinny water south of here ok.  Fernandina told us that they are closing on the 23^rd of November for repairs.  The extensive dock system sustained a lot of damage for Hurricane Michael last year.  They will be closed for 6 months (probably longer).  They have been 90% closed since the hurricane.

6:00pm Anchor down in the cutoff of the Amelia River.  The forward toilet won’t pump water into it, and the rear toilet seeps water back into it after flushing (joker valve?).

Dinner on board, store roasted chicken from Wal-Mart, mashed potatoes, green beans.

MM720  15SM  30°38.44’N  081°29.45’W

Sunday, November 18, 2018. 6:30am Sunrise, partly cloudy,60 degrees, wind East @ 5-10.  Checked through-hull for the forward toilet that will not pump water.  This through-hull is also used as the inlet for the wash down in the anchor locker. Can’t tell if water is making it past the through hull.

7:00am Anchor up.  No water to the wash down pump.

8:30am Nassau Sound and then Sawmill Creek. We ran aground in both these spots last spring on the trip north at a new moon low tide.  It is half-tide now and no issues!

Noon – Partly cloudy, 73 degrees, wind East @ 5-10.

3:00pm On mooring #17 at St. Augustine just north of The Bridge of Lions.

The waterfront is all lit up for Christmas, very pretty.

Nightingale is here, but we didn’t actually see them.  They are at the south end of the mooring field.

MM780  60SM  29°59.63’N  081°18.57’W

Monday, November 19, 2018.  6:45am Very foggy.  We talked to Nightingale and decide to wait a bit to depart.

9:00am Dropped the mooring and made the 9:00am opening of The Bridge of Lions. Still very foggy, but starting to lift.  We are following a boat named Treasure.  Nightingale has fallen in behind us along with 2 other boats.

10:30am The fog finally clears completely.

11:00am Crescent Beach Bridge – on request.

11:30am Matanzas Inlet, low tide, but no issues, never saw less than 11 feet. Cloudy 73°.

12 Noon The sun is out, 75 degrees, wind ENE @ 5-10, lovely.

4:30pm Anchor down on the north side of the Sea Breeze Bridges in Daytona Beach. Nightingale anchors here also.

MM830 50SM today. 29°13.98’N  081°01.36’W

Lovely sunset, rain overnight.

Tuesday, November 20, 2018.  7:30am.  Cloudy and murky.  We again tried to use the wash down and this time it worked!  The toilet is also pumping water.  They have an issue at Saint Mary’s with dirt dobbers (mud wasps).  They build nests everywhere.  We found two in the cover for the outboard.  One of their favorite places is to build a nest is in the openings of the hull (where the through hulls are).  We checked the filter for the wash down pump and it was full of mud! The pump was strong enough to suck the nest out of the opening.  The toilet pump is now working too. The yard taped over all the hull openings to prevent this issue, but they must have missed this one!

We decide to head for New Smyrna.  We called the City Marina, and they have two slips available, which they will hold for us for tonight. We were also told that the George Musson Bridge (aka Coronado Beach Bridge) is under construction and only opens every 3 hours at 7:00am, 10:00am 1:00pm, 4:00pm, 7:00pm. Also, the intersection of the ICW and the Ponce de Leon inlet (south) has been dredged – yeah!  This place has always been an issue.

8:30am Anchor up.

8:45am Main Street Bridge – on request. The sunken sailboat in the channel south of the bridge is still there.  I am surprised the Coast Guard has not removed this as a hazard to navigation.

10:30am the northern cut to the Ponce de Leon inlet.  It is almost low tide, but we never saw less than 8 feet. No issues, but they are dredging here.

10:45am Intersection (south) of ICW and the Ponce de Leon Inlet. Low tide and never saw less than less than 11 feet.  The dredge work from Red 6 MM840 to Red 18 MM843.  There are pipes and pumps this whole distance.  They cross the channel just north of the bridge and go overland (probably to the beach).

11:00am George Musson Bridge (on the hour and ½ hour) except during this construction.  However, apparently the workers have taken off early for Thanksgiving because the bridge is back on its regular schedule this week.

11:30am New Smyrna Beach Marina – rain.

MM847 17SM 29°01.65’N  080°55.22’W

Nightingale here also.  Neverland is also here (Cindy and Jim).  Another Catalina 42 comes in Half-Baked (Dan and Michelle) They were going to open a bakery when they retired, but bought the boat instead.

We went for a walk around town and then went to dinner at The River Terrace with Nightingale and Half-Baked.  Pam (dockmaster) gave us some free drink coupons. The food and service was excellent!

We put 11 gallons of fuel from the jerry cans (2 cans).  We thought we had 4 full cans, but only three have fuel.

Wednesday, November 21, 2018.  Beautiful morning.  70 degrees, clear, little wind.  We are off the dock at 8:30am.  The tide is with us.  Nightingale following.  We are making 7.4 knots over ground @ 2500 rpm! 

11:30am Haulover Canal Bridge (on request).

12:00Noon Passing the rookery island, which are the home of the Rosette Spoonbills.  We did not see any in flight, but there are a lot of them roosting in the trees. Fore sail out, making 6.6 knots.

13:40pm Addison Point Bridge (NASA Causeway) (on request).

4:11pm Anchor down @ Georgiana anchorage, east bank of the ICW close to the shore.  Partly Cloudy, wind NE@5-10, 65 degrees.

MM903  56SM today  28°17.20’W  080°40.84’W

Borrowed 2 jerry cans of fuel from Nightingale.  They finally got their dinghy motor running and were kind enough to bring us over the fuel.  They stayed for dinner.  Lisa made chicken soup.

Thursday, November 22, 2018.  Thanksgiving.  We lifted anchor at 7:00am.Very cool this morning, north wind.  Anchor came up with some mud, but not much.  We are following Nightingale south on the ICW.  Partly Cloudy, wind N@5-10, 60 degrees, high thin clouds.

11:00am Partly Cloudy, wind N@5-10, 70 degrees, becoming a nice day.  Supposed to rain later.

1:30pm  on mooring #22 at Vero Beach City Marina (River Horse’s mooring when they were live-aboards here. We are rafted to Lady Ella.  They were leaving to go to the Thanksgiving feast put on by some of the local former cruiser’s.  Lady Ella has been here since June with various mechanical issues (one after another).
We put the dinghy in the water for the first time and it would not start. When it sits over the summer, the carburetor almost always gets gummed up, even tho' we try to run all the gas out of it when we store it.  So, we took the carburetor apart, cleaned everything (ports, jets, fuel lines, filter) and put it all back together and voila! it works.  We should just do this every season as one item in our regular "getting everything ready to go cruising" list. This activity took the rest of the afternoon.
We stayed aboard and had a quiet dinner and an early to bed.

Nightingale on another mooring.

MM952 49SM  27°39.56’N  080°22.23’W

Friday, November 23, 2018.  Rain and windy today.  Spent the day making list of what we need to purchase while we are here. Saw Pete and Yolo (Molly and Steve).  At Last is here, but John and Jackie are back in Annapolis until after the holidays.

Saturday, November 24, 2018. Clear and cold this morning. 48 degrees.  We picked up the rental car and then drove to Stan and Judy’s house to pick up all the stuff we shipped down here because we opted not to drive. George and Sue were also there.  They are very dear friends for a long time.  They crewed Rhiannon with Benny when we brought her across the Erie Canal in 2012.After loading up the car, we all headed over to the local Olive Garden for lunch.  Afterward, we drove back to the boat, loaded all the boxes (11 of them) into the dinghy and then spent the rest of the afternoon finding places for everything.

We had dinner on board, then went with Nightingale to Citrus for their great orange ice cream, then to Cravings for some of their banana bread to take back to the boat.

We stopped at Wine and Grind to listen to the music and had a drink. There was a really good female singer there that we enjoyed.

Nice evening.

Sunday, November 25, 2018.  Saw Jim and Bentley on Salty Paws.  Jim is a photographer and this year has done a calendar, the proceeds of which are going to a young woman from Cat Island to pay for her college.  Jim and Bentley do a lot of work with the schools on the island.

Lisa and I had the luxury of long hot showers at the marina and then spent most of the rest of the day inventorying everything on the boat (no, we did not remember what was there from last season, well, maybe some of it).  We saw Dave and Mary on Mon Amie.  They are also friends of Stan and Judy, so we gave them their contact information.

Monday, November 26, 2018.  Libby (Nightingale) and Benny made a trip to the local Wal-Mart to begin provisioning, mostly dry goods. Grant is adding foam board insulation to Nightingale’s refrigerator, and Lisa is doing the same on Rhiannon.

Skip on Flying Pig is now doing a cruiser’s net in Vero.  Tonight there is a Seven Seas Cruising Association get together at Mr. Manatees.  Monday night is $5 hamburger night and usually draws a big crowd anyway.  40 people showed up at 4:30 for the SSCA “meeting” and totally overwhelmed the staff at the restaurant.  Drinks showed up on time, but many people had to wait a long time for their food (us included) and then our burgers were raw and the fries were cold. This was a great idea, but didn’t work out too well. 

Tuesday, November 27, 2018. We drove with Nightingale down to Fort Pierce to Marine Liquidators.  We were looking for some sunbrella to use for repairs (when needed) as well as some material for additional shelving in the refrigerators.  We were able to find the sunbrella in the $2 a pound box (all misc. pieces and already made covers) and found some great polycarbonate for $5 a pound.

We had lunch at Linzies’ Dinner (which is now on D Street).  One of our favorites.  The food and prices are great.

Libby and Benny made a provisioning run to Publix.  Lisa cleaned Rhiannon’s bilges.  One of the fruit juices left on board from last year exploded, a sticky mess.

Wednesday, November 28, 2018.  More shopping and storing, shopping and storing…..

Thursday, November 29, 2018. More shopping and storing.

4:00pm There was a sun-downer at the marina.  Stan and Judy were there and got to visit with former cruising friends.  Lots of people for this event also.

Friday, November 30, 2018.  More shopping and storing.

Saturday, December 1, 2018. More shopping and storing.  Rhiannon’s waterline is disappearing.

Sunday, December 2, 2018.  We went to Stan and Judy’s to watch the Patriot’s game.  They did beat the Vikings 24-10!  Judy got subs from Publix and we brought apple pie and ice cream. Nice afternoon.

Monday, December 3, 2018.  We drove to Melbourne to the Honey Baked Ham store.  We bought ¼ ham for the trip, as well as a ham bone for red beans and rice.  These ham bones still have a couple of pounds of ham on them!  They were buy one get one free, so we did and will give one to Nightingale.

We then drove over to Lisa’s Uncle George and his wife Bev’s house.  We had a dinner of pork loin, potatoes and green beans.  Very nice.

It was late when we returned to Rhiannon.

Tuesday, December 4, 2018. Tom (Dalmatian) came over to help Benny do some splicing.  We have a bunch of 5/8” double braid that we want to make into new docking lines.  We spent all day trying to get a loop into the end of the rope, but were unsuccessful.  We took the almost finished loop ashore to try that last tug needed to “bury” the splice, but could not make ti happen.  We had several folks try to help, to no avail.

Wednesday, December 5, 2018.  Did some Christmas shopping on-line.  Walked to the post office.  Lisa made some ornaments out of corks.

 At five, we went to the Blue Star for dinner.  It used to be where the Wine and Grind is now, but moved to 14^th Ave 3 years ago.  It has bow transformed into an upscale restaurant.  The food was very good, the prices high, the service just so-so.  Even so a good time was had by all.  Nightingale, Dalmatian, Yolo and their friends Frank and Lisa attended as well.

Thursday, December 6, 2018.  We spent the day working on Rhiannon’s to do list.  In the evening we drove to Melbourne with Grant and Libby (Nightingale) and Libby’s sister Amy (who lives in Sebastian) to see the Three Irish Tenors Christmas Concert at the King Center.  The tenors are Finbar Wright, Anthony Kearns and Ronan Tynan. It was a great concert and our Christmas treat this year.  Again, a very late night getting back to the boat.

Friday, December 7, 2018. More getting ready to depart chores.  Pete came by and cleaned Rhiannon’s waterline and prop in preparation for our departure.

We had appetizers and drinks on board Yolo, with Nightingale, Dalmatian, Sympatico (Chris and Chris) and another couple that was their guest.  A bit after dark, Five and Dime (Kurt and Kathy) comes in.  They run aground twice trying to get to mooring #4.  Nice evening.

Saturday, December 8, 2018.  Grant and Benny were out early running last minute errands before returning the rental car.  We then walked to the Farmer’s Market on the ocean with Nightingale and Dalmatian for produce.

At 3:00pm, we met Nightingale and Noodin (Ron and Phoebe) for Bocce Ball. Fun afternoon.

On the way back to the boat, we see Vic and Marilyn (Whisper), so we stop to say hello.  It has been a couple of years since we have seen them. We met them in Bimini each of our first three years going to the Bahamas.  They are from Newfoundland, Canada. Whisper is a C&C 32.  We really enjoy their company and hope they are going to cross to the Bahamas this winter.

Vic and Marilyn (Whisper)

A 5:30pm, Nightingale and Noodin came for dinner (Benny had made Jim Bade’s Red Beans and Rice (using that ham bone)).  Afterwards, we learned a new game called 5 Crowns. 

We presented both Noodin and Nightingale with a heart sea bean, as they did not have any on board, and one is required to keep the boat afloat!

Sunday, December 9, 2018.  We spent the day getting ready to depart.

Monday, December 10, 2018.  Beautiful day.  The wind turned north during the afternoon. Lisa visited with Yolo to try to convince Molly to come to the Exumas. I worked on getting some typing done on this blog.

5;00 Whisper (Marilyn and Vic) come to dinner.  They brought some nice filets with them, and in addition, we had fresh green beans and baked potatoes.  Pumpkin pie for dessert. We presented them with a heart sea bean and a conch horn.  While they have been to the Bahamas many times, they had neither on board.

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