One quickly wearies of fighting the tides when motoring in and out of inlets, so we had a late start to our day leaving St. Augustine. We followed the tide out at 9 AM, then tried to make progress down the Florida coast. That progress was impeded somewhat by a stiff wind out of the South, however, and we found ourselves only 20 miles away from St. Augustine when the sun set. Cody decided he'd like to sail through the night (sort of a foregone conclusion at that point) and I went to bed telling him to wake me when we reached our intended inlet. He didn't, but the change in heading woke me anyway and for the first time we navigated an unknown inlet in the dark. It was midnight by now and I went back to bed while Cody motored South on the ICW. Again, in the dark. I actually slept pretty well, although I did awaken when Cody ran aground on a sand bar. He motored us off of it quickly and I fell back asleep.
At 5 AM we were almost out of gas and near the only fuel within 20 miles of us, so we dropped anchor and I insisted that Cody sleep a couple hours before we made the 2 mile walk the gas station. After an all too brief 3 hour nap we rowed to shore and tied the dinghy to the dock we were near. Our guide book said there was a marina and campground, but all that was in evidence was a trailer park and boat ramp. We walked to the gas station, filled up, and armed ourselves with cold drinks for the hot walk back, which was sure to feel longer with full jerry cans. After a quarter mile or so a truck pulled over and the man behind the wheel offered us a ride. We told him we were on a sail boat and had almost run out of fuel. He said that he was working on a sail boat, trying to get it in the water, and he was happy to help sailboat people out. He pulled into the trailer park and drove us down to the dock. He knew the man who lived in the trailer at the end of the drive, and he called out, and I kid you not, "Morning Cleetus!" Yes. We met a southern man in a trailer park named Cleetus. Immediately a man on a quad came down the road to see who was down by the dock, as did a woman in a golf cart who managed the park. They were both set to hassle us, but our friend with the truck intercepted them and vouched for us. We really couldn't have gotten luckier with our ride. He gave us advice on the Bahamas, which he'd travelled extensively, and sent us on our way.
There was no wind to speak of that day, and we were limited to motoring the ICW. We made decent progress but called it a day fairly early, dropping anchor just south of Cocoa. The next day we found ourselves in a large sound, formally known as the Indian River, with the wind coming from the North. Anytime we have an opportunity to go on a run on flat water our eyes light up and we start thinking about hauling up the spinnaker. We had debated whether or not to bring it along on this trip, and that day we were rewarded for hauling it down the eastern seaboard with a gorgeous run that took us into the early afternoon. Without that big beautiful sail we were moving along at 3 knots with the main and jib, but when we raised the spinnaker we were cruising along at 6. The other cruisers motoring up and down the ICW looked on with envy and gave us friendly waves and thumbs up as we sailed smoothly by. Eventually our wind died and we were once again motoring. It was a lovely day, though, and the shores along the Indian River are lined with sprawling parks and Mediterannean-esque homes. Way above our tax bracket. We had a long day and eventually dropped outside of Vero Beach.
One consequence of our somewhat limited storage is that we, or rather, I, was forced to be rather judicious in choosing my wardrobe for the next 3 months. We started out each with a crate of 2'x1'x1'. I sorted my clothes, packed them in gallon zip-lock bags and squeezed all the air out. Cody had a hearty laugh at this heretofore unknown organizational side of me and wondered outloud how long this system would last. This made me predictably angry, and then rueful when, 2 weeks into the trip I abandoned the bags. Organizing my clothing is not a thing I do. As I've grown older I've improved at some of my efforts at being a fully functional adult - it took me until this spring and my umpteenth semester of education to finally get straight A's - but organizing my clothing is a complete anathama to me. Cody knows this fact better than myself, apparently. Anyway, I now occupy both of the larger crates while Cody moved his clothing into one crate half the size of one of mine. And it's not even full, and he's adopted my clothing-bagging method. Whatever. Anyway, my point in all this is that we don't have many clothing options and we find ourselves needing to do laundry with some regularity. Anything longer than a week and the boat starts getting pretty ripe. It's hot, we're sweaty, salty, and we eat in bed. Don't judge.
The day we woke up outside of Vero Beach we were approaching laundry day and were considering leaving from our next stop, West Palm Beach, bound for the Bahamas in a couple days. Not knowing the availability of coin-op laundry in the islands, we decided we should go with the maximum articles of clean clothing, towels and sheets. With this in mind we stopped just before the St Lucie Inlet (our last chance to leave the ICW before it became an intolerable concrete channel with strong currents that regularly crossed bascule bridges with set opening schedules.) We motored upriver to the town of Stuart and anchored just past a pretty fancy marina. There was a dinghy dock, so we loaded up our laundry, paddled over, and walked into the laundry room like we belonged there. If I've learned nothing else on this trip it's that if you look like you belong no one will give you a hard time. Laundry room usage was of course supposed to be limited to guests at the marina and resort, not rifraff like us, but no one seemed to object to our presence. We had a couple cocktails while we waited, saw a couple get married (inexplicably right next to the very crowded resort pool), collected our laundry, and split before anyone figured out that we didn't belong. We motored back downriver and anchored outside of the channel, baked bread and pizza, and had a pleasant evening.
West Palm Beach had been our goal for a number of weeks - our intended jumping off point for paradise. We sailed down and reached the Lake Worth Inlet that brings one into West Palm Beach just as a large thunderstorm blew over. Fortunately it was a quick one and our visibility wasn't diminished sufficiently to make navigation in the inlet dicey. This was a Sunday, and the boat traffic coming in and out of the Lake Worth area was insane. We made it past the worst of it when two men on a small motor boat hollared at us. They had run out of gas at a most inopportune time and and requested a tow to the boat ramp. Another important lesson, true in life but most especially in the boating community: what goes around comes around. We've been so lucky with the people who have helped us when we've needed it and we always jump at an opportunity to pay it forward. I grabbed one of our two gallon cans of mixed fuel and handed it to the guy. We motored around while he emptied it into his gas tank then tried to get it started, but something went wrong (my guess is he flooded it) and he couldn't get the engine started. We tossed him a line and towed them in to the boat ramp, which wasn't far out of our way. That completed we went back to our intended anchorage. It was a nice one, with good holding and protection, and a little beach where we could leave the dinghy.
We weren't too sure what our plan of departure was but we definitely needed groceries, so we went to shore, got ice cream (natch), and visited the conveniently located supermarket, Publix. This was our first encounter with Publix, but not our last. It's a pretty nice store. We picked up lots of groceries with a Bahamas trip in mind, as well as a bottle of rum. We also stumbled across a mango tree in the front yard of an abandoned hotel, and we procured a mango. In retrospect I wish we'd grabbed a couple.
We got back to the boat, and checked the weather. It was then that we first read about the low pressure system that would develop into Tropical Storm Arthur. At this point it was to the north of us, but it was predicted to move south, meanwhile picking up strength, before heading north again. We weighed our options and decided to stay put for a couple days and wait until we could have a relaxed passage across the gulf stream. We ran some errands and made plans. On the day that we were supposed to see the strongest weather we set a second anchor (our 17 lb danforth has been unmoveable, but when they're predicting 60 mph winds it's good to be safe). And the storm was . . . sorta weak. It was hardly windy that day, a little rainy when we went for a run, but generally a pretty mellow day. We even went snorkeling. Go figure. Certainly it did pick up strength, but our first tropical storm encounter was sort of a bust. Which is a good thing, where such storms are concerned, I suppose.
With all that time sitting around the boat we reconsidered our Bahamas plan. We were both pretty worn out from always being on the move, and a jump over to Grand Bahama followed by a rushed tour of the Abacos just sounded exhausting. We opted instead to sail south to Miami and spend our two offshore weeks in Bimini, Bahama. One place, no need to rush around. It was somewhat less adventurous, but some day we'll be back to the Abacos. With that in mind, we headed south yet again.
It took us two short days to reach Miami, with a stop in Pompano Beach along the way. Pompano Beach has this silly looking little harbor (on first glance one wonders how it can offer any protection at all) that is actually very still and offers good holding and a free town dock for day use.
We got caught out in our strongest storm yet just before we reached the inlet. Our approach is to drop sail and motor through, to avoid having to drop sail in 40 mph winds and the associated stress of such a task. We were less than a quarter mile offshore and could hardly see 30 feet when we were in the thick of it, with stronger winds than we'd seen before and rain so big it felt like hail (I'd hate to experience hail). A week before we'd been on a starboard tack with the dinghy right-side-up on the port trampoline. The sea got choppy and we found ourselves with a dinghy over half full with water. To avoid such situations in the future we flipped it upside down. Unfortunately, this allows it to catch significantly more wind than right-side-up. In the storm outside Pompano the dinghy was bungy'ed to our starboard trampline and the wind was coming from the east. The wind gusted up enough to lift the dinghy up and almost send it hurtling into our mast. Ruh-roh. As Cody continued to steer us through the driving rain, I climbed out onto the pontoon and flipped the dinghy back over. I found myself unable to secure it without potentially ending up in the drink, so I did the next best thing and sat on it. 140 pounds of ballast keping it down, hopefully. Cody told me to be careful so I grabbed the loose end of the main halyard and tied it around my wrist. There. Safety first.
Like all thunderstorms it came to an end before too long. We were almost to Pompano Beach by then, and when we saw the free dock we thanked our lucky stars. Then we saw the bagel shop next door and assumed divine intervention. After tying up to the deserted dock we scuttled over for a hot chocolate and a toasted bagel with cream cheese. Man, I have not been getting my bagel quota on this trip! I need to work harder.
After a rainy but quiet night in Pompano Beach we struck out for Miami. The wind sucked in the morning, so we motored most of the way. When the wind did pick up, a scant 5 miles from Miami, it was out of the South. We'd been pacing a larger catamaran all day and they had their sails up, and Cody said he felt inadequate motoring when other people were sailing, so we raised sailes and slowly tacked our way south. We finally made it inside Miami Harbor, and after a fair amount of hunting around for fuel in the blazing sun, we found a place to anchor. We were both overheated, dehydrated, and exhausted, so we dinghied to shore and went out to dinner. Then Cody picked up an extra 5 gallon can of fuel while I grabbed a couple groceries to make our sail to Bimini the next day easier. After some waffling we'd decided we wanted to leave early the next morning, July 4th, because the wind looked most favorable and because the very last thing I wanted to do was spend the 4th in Miami. Cheers to independence, but no thanks.
Ah yes. That looks about right.
So glad to hear from you guys again. I am sure hoping you found a good weather window for a hop to Bimini?
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