Moving further North

 After stopping in West Palm Beach, we needed a couple of nights to get rested up for the next legs of our trip. I was a little disappointed in our decision to stop early, but the more I thought about it, I came to the reality that it was the right decision for many reasons. We do believe that if we listen, our path is there for us. The key is, we need to listen. I rested and checked the weather. It still was looking good to head back off shore and sail north. We could get back in the Gulfstream, but there was a big storm coming in from the north that looked dangerous in about 5 days. The storm was predicted to be very strong up in the Carolinas, but much less down in Florida. We decided that we needed a place to hide. I studied the charts and found the perfect place only about 65 miles away. We were heading to Vero Beach, Florida. 

After getting two good nights of sleep in Lake Worth, we needed to get up early to try to beat the worst of the incoming current in the inlet. We were up at first light. I got things ready and raised the mainsail with one reef in it before we raised the anchor, just to be conservative. (See I am learning)Then it was time to get the anchor up and we were moving. When we hit the inlet, we had some strong current and some big waves. My guess is a few of them were about 6 feet tall. We just motored right into the swell and kept making progress. SHIFT handled it like she always does and we were fine.

This is a shot as we were coming out the inlet. The left gauge shows Speed over Ground (SOG) we are only going 3.0 knots. That is from us pushing into the wind and waves. The needle on the middle gauge shows the wind direction and speed. You can see the wind is right on the nose. The far right gauge shows depth. The inlet is deep to allow big ships to come into the harbor at West Palm Beach. 

Kim also shot some video while we were going out the inlet. She also decided it was time to interview me. Click here to watch the video: Video Shot at Lake Worth Inlet

It wasn't long before we were able to bear off the wind that was right on the nose coming out the inlet and begin sailing. About 15 minutes later we had the motor off and we were making 6 knots in a northern direction. The swell was now on our aft starboard quarter. It was a comfortable ride. 

In this shot you can see the shore in the distance. We only sailed about 3 miles offshore. 

After a short time we had another sailboat just behind us. They stayed there for the entire sail, but never passed us. We had a very nice time for the entire 7 hour trip. We were headed to the Fort Pierce inlet. This inlet is notorious for having strong currents. I had checked the tide tables and was hoping to have a fast sail and miss the worst of it, but that was not to be. We arrived about an hour before low tide with a 2.5 knot outgoing current. We saw some large waves to either side of us, but we were able to miss most of it. We were making about 3 knots over ground, so it was a slow ride, but we made it in. Then we turned north on the ICW and headed for Vero Beach. We had a 13 mile trip after the 45 mile sail off shore. The cool part is that this section of the ICW is fairly wide. We had the same wind we had off shore and were able to put up the Genoa and motor sail most of it. The sail was giving us about 1 knot of additional speed. We arrived at Vero Beach at 6 PM. We had called the marina and knew they would be closed, so we anchored out about a half mile away. We had a very calm night.

Our view of the sunset from our anchorage in Vero Beach. 

That boat in the center of the picture above did cause a moment of concern. It is an unattended vessel and it has a very deep draft. It would swing like the other boats until it got to low tide and then it went aground and quit moving. The problem is we did not go aground and kept moving and swung right over by them. The good news is a neighboring boat warned us of the issue and we stayed clear of it. There are always challenges in this lifestyle. 

The next morning we moved into the marina and took on fuel, water and pumped out. We had traveled about 239 nautical miles and burned 15.5 gallons of diesel. That is only 15.4 nmpg. That is not very good. We had the motor on much more than we would like. 

The crazy thing about the mooring field at the Vero Beach City Marina is that when they are full, they require the boats to raft up. You see most of the mooring balls have two boats tied to them. I was a little uncomfortable with this arrangement, but I got some advice from the dockmaster and we went out and hooked up to mooring ball #8 along with a DuFour 382. The boat was recently sold and there is no one on board. We tied off to the DuFour and then to the ball. All went well and we didn't crash into them. 

This was our very close neighbor for our stay in Vero Beach. A DuFour 382 named "Painted Kite". We never met the owners.

So, now we are in a nice place to ride out the coming storm and to plan our next moves. In my next entry, I will let you know our plan and see what Vero Beach, Florida has to offer a passing boater.