This is our last day at Disney World. We wanted to spend a little time in Downtown Disney. Mary, Diana and Beverley decided to join us. The others were either sleeping or at the pool. I was hoping to buy a few souvenirs, which we did. Lunch was at Planet Hollywood and afterward we noticed that Harry Potter was playing in one of the theatres. I have wanted to see it, so Kelly, Rick and I said our good-byes to the others who were heading off to play miniature golf and we went to see Harry Potter.
We left Disney World and headed back toward the boat just in time for rush hour again.
While we were in Disney World it was quite chilly. Now it is outright cold and has started raining. We spent the day curled up with a book until happy hour. Rick has come down with a cold (he thanks Diana for sharing), and could use a rest day.
It’s still very cold. Frost warnings are out for tonight so we curled up inside again. During the afternoon we headed out to the library and picked up a few email attachments. Then we were off to Walmart to buy a few groceries. We ended the day with dinner at the Cracker Barrel.
Today was colder than yesterday. In fact, there was a little ice on the dock. Rick cleaned the water maker, while Kelly and I updated the journal and web site entries. We all worked on indoor jobs.
Everyone was up early today. We left at 6am to drive Kelly to the Orlando Airport.
It was sad to see her go. Beverley and family left on January 3rd. We spoke to them last night and they had arrived home safely. Kelly called us late this afternoon to let us know that she had arrived home safely. The Suvies are somewhere south of us. So for now it’s just the two of us again. This is not bad, just different.
Rick is feeling a little rough. Diana, our youngest niece shared her head cold with him. This provided a good excuse to laze around for the afternoon. A cold front is coming through tomorrow so we’ll use the time to get things ship shape and be ready to move once it passes.
It’s too cold to move on so I rounded up a little more laundry. Killed a bit of time cleaning and of course, went to Happy Hour. We really had no incentive to leave until we checked our email and received a message from Blue Angel. I’m not sure if I mentioned them before, Jim and Sharon Angel. They sail a Bayfield 36 named Blue Angel. We have been corresponding by email for over two years. They sold their house and started cruising two years ago and have sent us copies of their log all that time. Well their email today asks where we are and states that they are in Vero Beach (about 150 miles from us), and will probably be there all week waiting for a new inverter.
I sent them a message and told them we would be there ASAP.
Well we were off to a great start at about 9 am. We left Palm Coast on an ebb tide and had a great ride as far as Daytona Beach (less than 30 miles). The Memorial Bascule Bridge was not working and an electrician was on his way. That was at 11:45am. We anchored by the Main St. Bascule Bridge, and had lunch while waiting. At 1pm we made the decision that if the bridge was not fixed by 2pm, we would drop another anchor and stay the night. 2pm came along and it was still not fixed, so down went the second anchor. No sooner was it down, and the bridge tender announced that she could open one side of the bridge so all boats coming through were to “move it on down”. We stayed.
Frost on the deck! The fireplace was lit before we even thought of coffee. The Memorial St. Bridge has restricted hours. It is closed 7:45am to 8:45am except 8:15. We didn’t feel like rushing so decided to leave at 9am when hopefully the frost should have melted. Good thing, two other sailboats left the anchorage before 8am and waited for the first bridge to open. By the time they reached Memorial St Bridge, the Bridge tender told them they were too late and would have to wait until 8:45. So they were stuck between bridges for half an hour. Well, just before 9am we raised the first anchor. When we attempted to raise the second anchor, we found that our float had broken, yards of trip line had unraveled, and it was caught somewhere under the boat. Rick quickly dropped the first anchor again since we couldn’t put the boat in gear and no longer had anything stopping us from drifting onto a nearby sandbar or into the bridge. It took him until 10:30 going back and forth around the boat, in the dinghy with the boat hook, trying to free the line without having to get into the water. He did it without the loss of a boat hook this time! We were off, the bridge tender warned us to be careful. A couple of sailboats had encountered difficulties at Ponce Inlet. We arrived there shortly and saw at least one boat laying on its side. We were taking the inside route around the inlet so felt a bit of relief until we rounded the corner. The depth went from 12 feet to 7 feet and stayed there for a couple of markers. We made it to Coronado Bridge, on the other side of the inlet, traveling quite a distance with even less than 7 feet of water. Rounding the corner to New Smyrna Beach, (thinking the tough part of the day was over), we ran aground right in the centre of the channel. The good news was it was a rising tide again. So I poured the coffee, we waited less than 10 minutes and we were afloat again.
The anchorage in Mosquito lagoon where we had planned to stay was missing at least a foot of water. The most water we could find anywhere outside the channel was 6 feet. I couldn’t verify the height of the tide so did not feel comfortable (at high tide), with only ½ foot to spare. It was getting dark and we sure weren’t going to travel this area at night. So, we dropped an anchor right in the channel. We also put out a stern anchor just outside the channel to keep the boat from swinging across the channel. We tried reaching the Suvies and found that they were anchored only a couple of miles ahead of us, in an area we would not be able to get into. We arranged to meet them in the morning, then went to bed hoping that a barge would not travel this route tonight. We later learned that there is almost no tidal effect in the lagoon. It was a wonderful area for wildlife. We had dolphins all around the boat. Diving under and coming up the other side. We saw the regular pelicans as well as some white ones, pink flamingos and storks. Evidently there are usually a lot of manatees there but they went south for warmer weather.
We were up with the alarm at 5:30am. Had a hot breakfast and raised the
anchors at sunrise, before any boats would attempt traveling through the lagoon.
Met up with the Suvies in Haulover Canal and headed for Titusville Municipal Marina. They were staying a few days but we wanted to catch up with Blue Angel, and so we stayed the one night. We had arrived early so had lots of time to roam through town. We saw an egret and stork in a grassy area. While walking towards them, we also saw a little alligator in some water by the side of the road. The alligator didn’t hang around long and either did Tisha. The last time we were together was the day Joan and John arrived from Canada. We talked about the cooler of snow they brought with them and the snowball fight we had in the parking lot. We can laugh about it now because it’s warm again but a couple of days ago we wouldn’t have needed the cooler to keep it from melting. We went out for our first New Years dinner together, steak and seafood.
We had a nice uneventful day and anchored for the night by the Melbourne Bridge.
We raised the anchor at 7am and headed off to Vero Beach bright and early. On our way we met up with Rayga (Jean and Shirley from Quebec), who we hadn’t seen since Coinjock, they were headed for Vero Beach as well. Just before arriving at Vero Beach a trawler in front of us ran aground. He waved us off stating that there was only 4 feet of water but we crawled by him in 9 feet. We tried to explain to him that he was outside of the channel but I don’t think he understood.
As we entered Vero Beach a boat named Patience called to tell us they had a
card for us, from Blue Angel who left that morning. I couldn’t believe we
were so close and didn’t get to meet them but I’m sure we’ll catch up with them
later. We met Carla and Dave from Patience, who told us there was going to
be a free concert by the beach at 5:30pm. So after going to visit a few
boats we recognized, we quickly returned to our own. Had a little cheese
and pate, dug out the folding chairs, jumped back into the dinghy and headed for
dock to join the others heading for the concert. It was great with well
over a thousand people there. While there, we again learned from the other
boaters, there was a pot luck happy hour planned for tomorrow at 4pm. We
assured them we would be there.
We awoke to the sound of rain in the morning but it quickly cleared and we had bright blue skies. The Suvies arrived just in time for happy hour. Most of the anchorage participated and of course there was way too much food. Everyone introduced themselves to the crowd with a little description as to where they were from, where they had been and where they were going. The fun part was that everyone was going somewhere but the majority had no idea where.
We are still in Vero Beach and we love it here. In fact it is going to be very difficult to leave. They say it is a boater’s paradise and we certainly agree. The temperatures are now about 80 during the day and 60 at night. There is free bus service into and around town on weekdays with a stop right in the marina.
The marina is in a very nice residential neighbourhood and it’s only a few
blocks to the ocean. We walked to the beach, had breakfast and took a bus
to the library. As we walked past the houses we were drooling over all of
the fruit hanging from the trees. There are so many oranges, tangerines
and grapefruits most of them never get picked. There is a fruit market at
the corner of one of the streets (Hales), which gives out free orange and
grapefruit juice as well as a free orange to everyone. We stop in there
regularly. Happy Hour at Waldo’s that night was not one of the best and we
were back at the boat pretty early.
It was a rainy day so we rented a car and drove to the West Marine Store in Fort Pierce. We also did some major provisioning at a super WalMart. That evening, we, and the Suvies, used the car to return to town to Vincents, an Italian Restaurant that was recommended by some other boaters in the marina.
We did some maintenance jobs on the boat until Carla called to say she would be going ashore to cut hair within a half an hour. I had planned to cut Rick’s hair and thought it would be nice to have Carla, who is a hairdresser, cut mine. She did a great job and according to Rick I did a great job.
That evening we went to Happy Hour at the Riverside Café. There were at least 16 of us from the anchorage so we sat together and had a great time. One of the ladies from our table was asked to be the bell ringer. At sundown everyday, someone rings a bell and everything stops while the whole restaurant, including the waiters watch the sun set. It was ladies night, so all drinks for the ladies were $1 from 4pm until close.
The Suvies joined us for a walk along the beach. There are not many shells on this beach but we searched for them anyway. We stopped for an ice cream and then headed back for dinner on board.
We were up early and took the bus into town to visit the library and another marine store. It is important that we do not leave any marine stores unvisited. We always seem to find something to buy that we were not even aware we needed.
Rick spent the afternoon polishing some of the stainless steel on deck.
I did some finishing touches on the courtesy flags. Late in the afternoon,
the Suvies came over for a visit and we watched Paul and Sheryl Shard’s video on
“Cruising the Bahamas”. We’re still trying to talk Tisha into going to the
Bahamas. Carla and Dave stopped by to tell us that Happy Hour tomorrow
would be aboard Patience.
Today was forecasted to be very warm, in the mid 80’s, so we packed a picnic
lunch and headed for the beach. It was a perfect day. As we waded
through the water and accidentally got soaked by a few waves, we wished that we
had brought our bathing suits. It was late afternoon by the time we headed
back to the boat to get ready for happy hour aboard Patience. There were 5
dinghies already tied to their boat when we arrived and we could see others
coming from all directions in the anchorage.
Patience is a great party
boat, I’m sure there was room for many more people.
Another hot day was forecasted, so we headed for the beach again, this time with our bathing suits. It was wonderful. This was the first time that the weather and water was warm and clean enough to actually swim. Now I have to clarify this. Al and I swam. Tisha came in the water and got soaked. Rick wimped out and went in as far as his ankles. We had to hurry back in time for Happy Hour at the Riverside Café again. The Land Sharks were playing tonight and a gang from the anchorage had agreed to meet there. The band was very good. We had dinner with the Suvies in the dining room and then returned to the bar. It was there that a stranger asked me to dance. I hesitated a bit but was urged on by the gang so I went for it. The band played a lot of 50’s and 60’s music, which I really enjoy so I was glad I had a chance to dance. Rick is like most other guys, allergic to dance floors.
This was a getting ready to go day. First thing in the morning I did some laundry. We took the boat to dock for a pump out and fuel, then headed for the bus to town to pick up a few odds and ends. That evening, the Suvies and us, barbecued dinner on shore. Tisha did a bit of laundry while the potatoes were cooking. After dinner we joined the anchorage gang in the clubhouse, where they taught us to play Farkle. Farkle is a great game of dice, which requires no thought at all.
Well we finally left Vero Beach. We will have a lot of good memories of the place, the people especially. Paul, the bus driver who always asked for a password before he would open the doors of the bus. Carla and Dave from Patience who seemed to be there for everyone, Jackie from New Bern, North Carolina who loved to play with Canadian accents as much as we liked to poke fun at hers. The radio station “Ocean” 97.1”, which plays all of the best songs from the last fifty years and I can sing along to all of them much to the chagrin of Rick. The streets we walked along with bougainvillea trees so full of flowers that the ground around them looked like it had snowed red snow. The hibiscus bushes mixed amongst the coconut palms and of course, all of the citrus trees with their branches so heavy with fruit that they were reaching for the ground. Last but not least we will remember Happy Hour at the Riverside Café which was the best since Middletons Tavern in Annapolis. All that said, we headed out at 8:30am and eventually anchored south of the bridge in Jensen Beach just after 1:30pm.
The wind had increased to 20 kts and remained strong all night. The boat rolled quite a bit in the chop but we both slept reasonable well. After a quick breakfast, we headed off to Lake Worth. We planned our routes carefully, as there are very few anchorages, many bascule bridges and the marinas are very expensive between Jenson Beach and Miami. We had 8 bridges on this day. The trip took us through Peck Lake, which was one of the prettier lakes we’ve seen. There appeared to be a nice anchorage and supposedly there are a lot of Gators there. The Suvies will make it a point to stay there a while on their trip home. Just before we reached Jupiter Inlet, the water changed to the beautiful clear turquoise colour that one normally associates with the Bahamas. Rick and I watched as Tisha leaned overboard looking beneath the water as they traveled through it.
We arrived at Lake Worth in the early afternoon. Al had his anchor set and was diving into the water while we were still putting out our second anchor.
He was so pleased to finally see such clear water he felt it was a good time to check for barnacles on his propeller. His prop. proved to be reasonably clean. We tried to talk him into checking ours but as we were having the discussion, we spotted a few small sharks swimming around our boats. End of discussion.
We planned to leave a little later than our normal 7:30am departure because the first few bridges had restricted openings in the early morning and if we missed one of them by a few minutes we could have ended up stuck between bridges for almost an hour. There were 11 bridges to go through this day.
Anchors were raised and we were on our way just after 9am. Just before reaching the first bridge we heard the Coast Guard on the radio, announce that there were problems with the next bridge and it was stuck in the closed position until further notice. Quick thinking Al called the bridge to see if they had any idea when it might be repaired. Evidently the electrician was on his way and they thought it would be fixed within the hour. We continued to charge ahead. When we arrived, the electrician was conducting some test openings and let us through. There had been a barge on our tail for a while so we decided to hold back and let it pass. We figured if we stuck close behind, it would give us an automatic opening through the rest of the bridges. It did give us the openings but it was the slowest barge we had seen and it only went through a couple more bridges before reaching it’s destination. I think we would have been further ahead without it.
We arrived in Boca Raton about an hour before dark. There are multimillion-dollar mega yachts docked in front of multimillion-dollar mega houses everywhere here. We thought the houses in the Carolina’s were decadent, these are unreal. The main houses must start at about 15,000 square feet, in fact there are some so large they look like institutions. Most have guesthouses larger than our house. We decided that a couple could live in one of these houses and never get to see each other if they didn’t make arrangements to do so. By the way, today was my birthday and Rick forgot totally until Al and Tish called to wish me a happy birthday. His excuse: he associates my birthday with cold weather and snow, not 85 degrees and sun. I think he has cruiseheimer’s disease.
This was a Friday and we hoped to reach Fort Lauderdale early enough to pick
up a mooring ball and stay the weekend. There are only 10 mooring balls at
the Las Olas Municipal Marina and they are available on a first come basis.
We only had about 15 miles to travel but we had 7 bridges to pass through.
The houses still appeared large but it seemed to be an older area. Every
so often we would see a house that reminded us of what the neighborhood probably
looked like 50 years ago. We had become so aware of the crab traps that
when we saw a lot of balls floating in the water ahead we assumed crab traps
until we got closer and realized they were coconuts and oranges that had fallen
from trees, floating on the water. We arrived in Fort Lauderdale before
noon and there were 2 empty balls. It was meant to be. The mooring
balls cost $20 a night. The municipal marina (least expensive) is $1:75 a
foot with a 40-foot minimum ($70 per night), if we had taken a dock.
Once tied up, we headed to shore, showered and walked to the beach. It was again the beautiful turquoise water. Considering that it was a weekday, the beach was very crowded with many people swimming as well as sunbathing.
After strolling along the beach we headed for dinner. Al and Tisha surprised us by treating for my birthday dinner.
The Suvies headed out early this morning. They wanted to spend a few days in the Florida Keys. We agreed to meet in Crandon Park, Key Biscayne on Monday or Tuesday.
Rick and I headed into town by bus. We were in search of one of the two West Marine stores. We found one and many other marine stores. Rick ordered some new anchor chain and rode. Steve from West Marine agreed to splice it and deliver it to the boat first thing Monday morning. You may wonder why we’re buying more rode and why I’m not splicing it. Well, it’s like this. We have been using our third rode for our secondary anchor because when we use two anchors, and the boat swings, the anchor lines twist around each other. When chain twists around chain it’s very difficult to get things straightened around. When line twists around chain, it’s much easier. So our first and secondary anchor rodes have too much chain for restricted anchorages and our third one doesn’t really have enough. Our new rode will have 50 feet of 3/8 BBB chain and 150 feet of 5/8 twisted rope. Now the next issue is the splicing. Even though Val, the Rigger’s Wife and the Rigging Shop in Toronto, were able to splice 5/8 braided rope onto 3/8 chain I tried and couldn’t do it. In fact, all of the riggers in Fort Lauderdale said they couldn’t do it either. They can splice the twisted rope, which we’ve never had before and I’ve never spliced before. So that’s the story.
We finished in the Marine stores, headed for the grocery store then back to the boat. I’m glad we didn’t plan to spend time on the beach, it’s packed.
When I checked my email back at the boat, I had a message from John Wordley, who sent us a message from Peter Watkins, the previous owner of Wind-Borne III. He and Carolyn are in Bradenton Florida and headed for the Keys in their RV. We talked and hopefully will meet up next week.
It was a lovely hot sunny day and we decided to stay at the boat and work on little projects rather than visit the beach on a weekend. Rick was polishing the stainless on deck when a dinghy approached. It was Peter Martin, his sister Val and two of their friends. Sandy and her girlfriends had gone to Cuba for a vacation so was not with him. Peter and Sandy are from our marina in Toronto and he had just flown down for the weekend. They have a condo in Fort Lauderdale and now keep the boat there. We knew he had a place somewhere down here but had no idea where. It is such a small world.
West Marine delivered the new anchor rode before 9am as promised. I phoned a Boat Owners Warehouse (BOW), a store we had visited on Saturday to order some Sunbrella fabric to take with us. I’m sure it’s easier to get the fabric in the States than it is in the islands. I’d like to make a cover for the dinghy as well as a few other things. They were to deliver the fabric to the marina office before 5pm. After breakfast ashore, we then set off in search of a USB serial adapter for the computer. We have one and it is used to connect the HAM radio modem to the computer, as well, we use it to interface the GPS to the computer for the electronic charts. If it were to fail, we would be out of commission.
Everything accomplished and we were back at the boat by 2 pm. We then
jumped into the dinghy and headed over to Peter’s boat and condo for a swim.
We had a great visit. Peter and Rick gabbed nonstop, while Val and I did
the same.
We left before dark so we would have time to dinghy up New River. We had our charts with us so took a short cut that Peter had recommended. It was low tide and we still had to duck to get under about five bridges before reaching the main channel. We went quite a way up the river but turned around and headed back to the boat just as the sun was setting.
BOW had not delivered the fabric but when I called they were very apologetic and had it to us within a half an hour. It was after 9:30 am by the time we left our mooring and headed out. We weren’t sure if we would be able to make it all the way to Crandon Park Marina with the number of restricted opening bridges we had to get through so we picked out a couple of places we could anchor if necessary. There were two fixed bridges we had to pass that have only 56-foot clearance. Many boats have to leave the ICW and travel the outside route because of these bridges. I know that we can pass under them but even if the bridge has a 65-foot clearance, if you look up, it appears that there isn’t enough room. We were travelling at over 7 knots as we approached one, and of course Rick as usual asks the dreaded question “Do you think we will clear it?” I very confident now, said “ probably but I’m not going to look” and just buried my head until we were actually under it and still moving. It brought back memories of the bridge in Cape May. It was after 3:30 but we made it to Crandon Park. There were no moorings balls left but the Suvies who arrived a few days ago had one. The marina suggested that we raft with them.
The mooring balls are in a bay with beautifully clear turquoise water. It was cheaper to sit on a mooring ball in the marina, than it was to anchor a couple of miles away in No Name Harbor. There are Anchor Police in Florida and they enforce a charge for anchoring. This will be our spot to sit and wait for the right winds to cross over to the Bahamas.
We went for a walk to the beach with the Suvies and as usual I didn’t take
the camera. The beach is huge, clean, covered with palm trees and void of
people. It was a hot day, the water was clear and warm but we didn’t swim.
There were many Man-o-war Jellyfish washed up on the beach. The
lifeguards had a yellow flag up which is a “stinging warning”. We sat in
the shade of some palm trees for a while and then walked towards the town of Key
Biscayne. The bicycle path we walked along was home to thousands of
iguanas and lizards. The iguanas were huge and they seemed to be
everywhere, on the ground, in the trees and even on the top of fences.
We arrived in town and took the bus back to the marina. Al had arranged for a rental car, which arrived at 5pm. We all jumped in and went looking for a restaurant. We passed on an Italian one that offered valet parking and instead went to a Cuban restaurant.
The Suvies drove to Fort Lauderdale to pick up Joan and John who were flying in for their official visit. We were working on small projects when Deb and John from Sea Witch stopped by and invited us over for cocktails. They have an Endeavor 43, which is a lovely boat. In fact, she even has a washer/dryer on board. We discussed crossing to the Bahamas together.
