Southerly Progress

We got comfortable in St. Augustine. First, it was warm! We had high temperatures of 75-80 degrees between Christmas and New Years – such a welcome change!  It was so pleasant to ride the bikes, walk the neighborhoods, and even wash the boat.  Second, we easily found our way around to the services we needed.  It may sound silly, but this can be a challenge when every stop is new and one is constantly consulting maps and Google for stores, distances, hours, locations, Uber costs (or is there a bus?), etc.  Yes, we have discovered Instacart, but the substitutions can be frustrating, and actually, the shopping is an outing for us. It allows us to explore a bit and happen across “local” things we would otherwise miss.  Third, it was nice to be somewhere festive over the holidays. The Nights of Lights had the entire old town illuminated, and people seemed genuinely happy to be out and about. We masked indoors, but enjoyed drinks and meals and music on beautiful outdoor patios!  We connected with previously met cruisers, and met new ones.  But with chores and deliveries done, the tug to move on finally set in, and we began heading south once again.

No leg of this journey seems complete without something to fix, and this time it was our head (toilet for you non-boaters). We had a little leak where the bowl meets the base, and it was getting worse. Lisa changed out the rubber seals, but noticed a lot a crazing at the ceramic base.  The leak was better for a day or two, and then got much worse. When we pulled the bowl off to inspect again, the ceramic base was in pieces!  We checked with three supply companies but the bowl is no longer made (like SO many other things on our boat), and a new head costs more than ten boat units (b.o.a.t. – break out another thousand). We finally found a bowl on ebay, and it is being shipped to a location further south for us to pick up. In the meantime, we pieced it back together with JB Weld. It is holding for now, and we are sitting gently!

The ICW along this coast is fairly straight, and since the offshore weather would have had us motoring anyway, we opted to stay “inside”.  South of St. Augustine are several parks and nature preserves, and the shores were wild with many osprey and dolphins.  We spent our first night at Palm Coast Marina since there are few anchorages along this stretch, and we like to keep the trip legs to 30-40 miles. Our second night was near New Smyrna Beach, where we anchored just off the ICW channel near the yacht club (no reciprocity). We lingered over coffee in the morning, watching the dolphins feed.  We also began watching for manatees, for which many caution signs are posted. Apparently we missed them in the Haulover Canal because we were watching all the little fishing boats and kayakers passing right in front of us! It has been a tough year for the manatees, with over 1100 starving to death in 2021. Climate change and pollution have killed the grasses they feed on. There are several efforts underway to feed them, and try to save the emaciated ones they can catch.

 We spent the next couple days at the Titusville marina, riding out some strong winds. As we pulled into the slip, the man on the neighboring boat says “Hi – I’m from where your boat is from”.  Lisa (much too literally) says “Oh – Taiwan!?”.  Duh – no, he was raised on the Old Mission Peninsula in Traverse City!  We also visited with the crew of Toloa, whom we had met in North Carolina. They are from Colorado, as was the crew of Carina, so we talked skiing as much as sailing! We don’t usually think of folks from the mountainous west as sailors, but they have struck a nice balance between sea and mountains.

Titusville is adjacent to the Cape Canaveral Peninsula and the Kennedy Space Center.  We were bummed that we had just missed a Space-Ex launch, but elated to find out there would be another while we were transiting south.  We were anchored about 30 miles south of there in Melbourne, with a gloriously clear sky and full moon, and got to see the rocket launch at 9 pm! It started as a huge red glow at the skyline, and then the projectile rose into the sky and flew right over the moon!  The rocket carried 49 satellites for the Starlink broadband internet network. Sure hope we will be able to tap into that soon!

Our next stop was Vero Beach. We had planned to only spend a night here at anchor, but the weather forecast (and SV Toloa) encouraged us to take a mooring ball and stick around for a few days. They call this place “Velcro Beach” for a reason. Talk about a comfortable place for cruisers!  There are docks, but most boats are on moorings in the south or north mooring fields in a very protected lagoon. And most of the 57 moorings have 2 boats rafted up. We haven’t seen this done anywhere else. Moorings are 20 bucks a night vs $80-100 for a slip, so it’s kind of a no brainer.  It is so fun to see all the different hailing ports and hear the stories of folks who are coming, going and staying. One couple dinghied over to say they were from Harbor Springs, MI.  We met two other couples at the grocery store who have Michigan roots and are just a few boats over from us.  And we see one boat from Marquette, Mi but have not met them yet. There is a free bus that goes to the Atlantic Beach one mile east of here, and also west across the bridge to the main town and services. We walked to the beach through a tunnel of live oaks lining the older neighborhood streets, and rode the bus to the grocery store and Irish Pub. We marveled at all the shrubs and flowers in bloom (hibiscus hedges, bougainvillea, azaleas…). Today is windy and rainy, but we are looking forward to a Michigander happy hour tomorrow. There is a weekly Cruisers gathering on Thursday afternoons and a lunch on Mondays, and a radio net every morning. We can see why people stick around here.

We will be here until the wind/rain passes through early this week, then head to Stuart, where we will pick up the new bowl for the head, and hopefully Lisa’s brother, who wants to make the passage to the Bahamas with us. We also hope to have a visit from some TC friends staying in Sarasota. We have a lot of provisioning to do, and need to time a covid test for within 3 days of our arrival in the Bahamas. Tests are hard to find here at the moment, and it will have to be timed with a good weather window for crossing, so we will see how that goes!

Fair winds, Fred and Lisa