Last night I decided NOT to set the alarm clock. Vic and I are both a bit tired. We are both in agreement that while this is a real adventure, it is definitely NOT a vacation!
Sailing inside is tedious, trying to stay in a 100' channel, worrying about local shoaling, local tides, bridge heights, and bridge opening schedules..it is just not as easy as setting the boat on a tack and letting the autopilot keep you pointed in the right direction. We might go outside tomorrow if the seas die down a bit, but for today, it will be inside.
We finally crawled out about 8AM, had a nice breakfast with Nancy and John, and just spent some easy time together. John cut us some bananas (really!). Here is what we now have hanging inside of the boat.
These will start to ripen about the time that we get to Longboat Key.
I got a great picture of a heron that was in the mangrove right off of John's deck..
Here are a few pics of John and Nancy's home...
We headed out to the grocery store to stock up, and then over to the boat, arriving around 11AM. We were fortunate to have eight hands as we had a bunch of stuff to get to the boat (including a bunch of bananas!).
We got things loaded on the boat, pumped out our holding tanks, filled up our fuel and water tanks, and were ready to get underway around noon time. I took this picture of John, Nancy, and Vic standing in front of "Twice Blessed" just before we finally got underway.
We were departing at MM 918 and planning to do about 45 miles today, with an expected arrival just south of Fort Pierce, FL before 6PM...but before we were underway more than a couple of miles, we were intercepted by a speeding motorboat! John and Nancy had headed back to the house and jumped into their "Whaler" to give us a final sendoff...pretty cool!
About 5 miles after the intercept, I took this shot of a seaplane coming into Melbourne...need to get this endorsement on my pilot's license one of these days!
Most of the day was spent out in some pretty sparesly populated areas, but things got narrow and interesting around Vero Beach and Indian River Shores. This is one of many beautiful homes that sit on the ICW in this area.
Although it was warm when we left Melbourne (finally), with temps around 80, the skies quickly clouded over and the winds picked up out of the northeast. A rather vigorous chop developed on the Indian River, and I found myself needing a jacket one more time. I had really hoped that yesterday was the last of the cool weather.
We also got caught in a couple of scattered showers, but nothing lasting more than 10-15 minutes at a time.
We finally turned off to the east at red day marker "188", located at MM 966 and entered "Faber Cove". We dropped anchor about 5:50PM in a great anchorage. There is a bit of wind this evening, but the anchor is holding well and the air has warmed again. Here are a few shots of our anchorage this evening.
We had some leftover beef stew that Nancy had packed for us, eating for the first time up on the cockpit table. It is nice to finally be able to enjoy "warm".
Tomorrow will likely be a long day with a bunch of restricted bridge openings. I am considering going outside for at least 20 miles, but they are forecasting 6-7' seas and winds out of the east tomorrow. Onshore winds just have plenty of time to build up the wave heights, so I am reluctant to take Vic outside tomorrow. We will have no choice after tomorrow as we are fast approaching Miami and will need to go outside and down the Atlantic Ocean side of the Keys to Marathon FL before we turn north and up the west coast of Florida.
Now all we need to do is to keep that developing low pressure system in the Gulf of Mexico out of our way...1136 miles down..about 400 to go..
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