We left Vero Beach about 10 days after arriving, despite the temptation to stay longer.  The latest cold front finally brought the north winds that would allow us to (mostly) sail down the coast.  This update finds us on a mooring at Dinner Key Marina, located in Coconut Grove.  The weather has been considerably milder and warmer than the weeks preceding.

Traveling South

When we left Vero, we weren’t sure where we’d end up, since we wanted to sail as much as possible.  But, as we were passing the Ft. Lauderdale sea buoy when it was still dark, we aimed instead for Key Biscayne.  We would arrive in time to set anchor in early afternoon.  Our only motoring was over the distance traveled inside on the ICW from Vero to Fort Pierce and from Miami’s Government Cut inlet to the anchorage in Key Biscayne, plus a few hours in the evening when the wind died.  We made the trip in 32 hours with an average speed of 4.5 knots, putting only 8 hours on the engine.

The only excitement for the trip was being boarded by the Coast Guard off Lake Worth in the early evening.  Once on board, we showed them our Coast Guard Auxillary inspection from January, which minimized their time on board.  However, in the course of our encounter, we ended up heading north for a while and our hourly SPOT transmission showed this on our website.  Not long after we were back on course south, we got a phone call.  It was Dave’s dad asking what was going on.  He had been monitoring our progress and noticed the bizarre pattern.  You can run, but you can’t hide.

Boat Stuff

 With our arrival in Key Biscayne, we were finally in weather that would be consistently warm for the foreseeable future.  That meant there were a few boat maintenance tasks we had been putting off that we could now address.

Cathy’s task was inside the cabin.  The cold temperatures of the trip down create terrible condensation all along the interior surfaces along the hull, which is impossible to keep up with.  This leads to mildew.  With the cold gone, the condensation is no longer an issue, but all the walls and ceilings had to be cleaned to remove and kill the mildew.  Using a rag, a scrubber sponge and some vinegar water, she got to work scrubbing the main saloon and galley, going inside the portlights, hatches, lockers, anywhere that mildew could accumulate.  It looks a lot better as a result.  (But there’s still more to do.  You can only clean so much at a time.)

Dave’s project was (unfortunately) in the water that was now clear and warm enough (sort of) for him to go under the boat to change the zinc on the prop.  In the process of his dive, he noticed that, while the zinc was in good shape (he changed it anyway), there was a fair amount of fishing line wrapped around the shaft.  He managed to get a lot of it off.  While in the water, he also cleaned the water line and cleaned a few barnacles off the prop. 

Vero Beach - Parting Shots

More music and social time followed on the following Thursday with the weekly Cruisers meet and greet on shore at the marina.  And, of course, lots of good food.

We also discovered the nearby Veterans Memorial Island Sanctuary, which was a beautifully landscaped island with tributes to each of the armed services.

On the way back to the boat, there was another moving memorial to firefighters, which included a piece of steel from the World Trade Centers.

Dinner Key

 

We moved from Key Biscayne to Dinner Key on Sunday, January 30th, and are still deciding how long to stay.  There is a lot to do here in Miami, but it’s hard to decide whether to take it in now or wait till we come back through headed north.  We’ll let you know.

With different cruising destinations in mind for Marianna and Orion, we knew it was not going to be long after returning to the boat after Christmas that we would be saying goodbye to Pat and Fred.  They would be crossing to the Bahamas at their first opportunity, and we planned to head to the Keys and then the Dry Tortugas.  So, just a few days after New Year’s, we waved goodbye and saw them on their way.  George and Gail had decided to keep Quicksilver at Palm Coast for the winter, which meant we were on our own for making travel plans. 

So, we went to Disney World.

Doing Disney

It was the trifecta of family celebrations for Dave’s family in January.  Christmas was followed just a week later by his sister’s 50th birthday and then one week more and it would be his parent’s 60th anniversary.  However, the plans began to come together in September to bring the 3 celebrations together and gather in Disney World on January 5th.  We arrived a day early and enjoyed some time together just riding the monorail, looking for “hidden Mickeys” and then later exchanging gifts.  The next morning we were off early to the Magic Kingdom, arriving just as they were about to open.  Due to their winning personalities (not to mention some strategy and a little luck), Dave’s parents were selected to be Grand Marshals of that day’s parade.  We rode lots of rides, ate lunch with Pooh and his friends, and then shot off to the parade to get the guests of honor in their places.  They did a great job, but alas, it’s only for one day. 

All good things must come to an end, and we began to make our way out of the park not long after dark.  We almost managed to get all the way to the cars before it rained, which was the only hitch in an otherwise perfect day.

The Passage that Wasn’t

We finally made it out of Daytona on a cold morning with temperatures in the high 30’s and winds gusting to 20 from the North.  Maybe it was the cold or maybe it was the fact that it was later in January (the 13th), but we were virtually alone on the waterway.  We saw only a couple of other boats traveling south the whole day.

After studying the weather for over a week after our family commitments were done, we finally saw a weather window to jump outside to Miami and decided to travel south on the inside to position ourselves for it.  While traveling that first day, our plans came together.  We would anchor somewhere on the ICW near the Cape Canaveral canal and then head out the next morning through the canal to the ocean and down the coast.  It would be a good sailing window, so we made preparations for a 2 night passage, giving us the time to go slower and just sail.  Cathy scrambled below to get meals ready for the next 2 days.  By 3pm, we had made it through the last opening bridge before the canal (Addison Point) just before it went on restrictions.  We pulled over just south of the fixed City Point bridge that is the landmark for the canal’s ICW entrance, and anchored all by ourselves except for a huge hulk of a ship that looked like it had long ago seen its best days.

The Cape Canaveral Canal is a cut that connects the inlet with the ICW on the Indian River, crossing the Banana River and Merritt Island on the way.  At its eastern entrance is a lock that manages the 3 to 4 ft tidal difference between the ocean and the Banana and Indian Rivers.  There are also 2 opening bridges on either end.  Our guidebooks were inconsistent in the information about the bridge restrictions on the westernmost of these, the Christa McAuliffe bridge, that would be the first we would encounter the next morning.  After topping off the fuel tanks for the first time since Oriental, we discovered we had used quite a bit more than our records led us to believe.  This meant we needed to stop for fuel.  As Cathy continued to slave away over galley preparations, Dave called the bridge to clarify its schedule and got good news.  Its first opening would be at 8:30am, an hour earlier than the books said.  That would give us time to stop on the other side of the canal to get fuel at Cape Marina.  By 7:45am, we were hauling anchor and made our way north to the canal entrance.  We slowed down to time our arrival at the bridge and passed smoothly through at 8:30.  Our only company after that was a half-dozen crew boats and their trainers, whom we passed just before crossing the Banana River.  At this point, we started to hail the canal lock, but got no response to our hails.  Then Dave gave them a call on the phone.  His expression of surprise didn’t bode well. 

It turned out that the lock had closed for repairs in October and wasn’t going to re-open until April.  We had no choice but to turn around.

We headed back through the opening bridge, luckily making the 9:30 opening, but our calculations kept coming to the same conclusion.  There was no chance of reaching Vero Beach before dark.  Any anchorage north of there would require a half-day or more travel on the ICW to get to the Fort Pierce inlet, the next chance to jump outside.  We can’t get into a good sleep pattern on the ICW, so this meant we would have to let the weather window pass.  With that realization, the pressure was off to make any distance this day.  We pulled off at Melbourne and anchored in early afternoon.  We would have a short trip to Vero the next day, arriving just before noon. 

The good news was that the weather was getting warmer with each day’s travel.  We were finally back in shorts again.

Socializing isn’t Over

We almost caught back up with Pat and Fred, who were cooling their heels waiting for weather along with Bill and Bettye (on Inspiration) in Dinner Key at Coconut Grove, when we were headed to Miami.  However, just because we lost our window didn’t mean they lost theirs, and we had a goodbye phone call the night before they crossed.  The upside of missing that window was that we got to spend some more time with Tom and Dau (Cathy’s newly-found distant cousin) who have settled into a marina at Fort Pierce.  Shortly after our arriving in Vero Beach, they came by car with George and Gail who were visiting for the day.  We traveled with them to see the Barrier Island Sanctuary, a 20-mile stretch of beach and marine hammock north of Sebastian Inlet, which is precious sea turtle nesting grounds.

We also caught up with Rick and Carla on Euphoria, who pulled in just a couple days after us, having gotten a late start south.  Our delay also gave us our first opportunity to try out the CLOD (Cruisers Living On Dirt) Breakfast in Vero, which takes place every Wednesday all year.  

Boat Stuff

When our Mercury outboard was serviced in 2009, a fitting was added to enable us to connect an external fuel tank.  Dave had been weighing the options for over a year, when Cathy finally prodded him to “just do it”.  While we were in Daytona, he bought a 3-gal tank, some fuel hose with a primer ball, and a filter to insert in the line, and the fitting to connect to the engine.  But it wasn’t until we reached Vero that we were able to launch the dinghy and hook everything up.  It worked without a hitch, and will make it easier to re-fuel.  Plus the filter’s clear housing allows us to see the fuel and ensure it looks good before going into the engine.

Speaking of fuel, we were getting a little concerned about some elevated fuel vacuum pressure on Orion on the trip south from Charleston to Daytona.  It wasn’t so much that the pressure itself was creating a crisis, but the trend was worrying.  While at the dock in Daytona, Dave removed the fuel line from the tank to the Racor filters, which seemed dirtier than one would like.  So, he replaced it with new hose.  Since then, the pressure is back to 0 or -1, which is where it had been running for most of the last 4 years, since we installed the gauge.

Vero or Velcro?

We plan to stay in Vero a few more days, but are not planning on wintering here as sometimes happens with cruisers.   You can get awfully cozy here.   Hopefully, once we see the right weather to head further south, we’ll be able to pry ourselves loose.   Who knows?