Offshore Passage to Marathon in the Florida Keys

 After getting back to Vero Beach from our very rushed time in Missouri for Thanksgiving, we settled in and started getting ready for our move down to Marathon. We had arrived back in Vero on November 24th. I started watching the weather and saw a great opportunity on December 3-6.

The plan was to motor south on the ICW on Sunday, December 3rd to the Fort Pierce Inlet and anchor there for the night. I was a bit shaken by the problem with the truck that I wrote about in my previous entry, but I really had no choice, but to head south when the weather allowed. This time of year the windows are few and far between. As I am writing this, we were right. There was not another window until after Christmas that would be at all comfortable. 

We were eager to go on Sunday morning. We dropped the mooring lines and said goodbye to Kurt and Libee. We went to the marina and filled our freshwater tank and then made the easy trip down to Fort Pierce.  We then had a pleasant afternoon watching the boats coming in and out of the inlet and the families playing on the beach. After dark the boat traffic stopped and so did the wind. We had a quiet night. 

A nice sunset at the Fort Pierce Inlet

Many other boats around waiting for their time to go. Little did we know that another boat was near us that we would later meet in Marathon. 

My calculations showed that we could make it to Marathon before dark on Tuesday if we could leave by around 5 am and then maintain 6 knots. So, we were up before 5 and got the boat ready to go. I raised the mainsail at anchor, so that I would not have to do that in the ocean swell offshore. The wind was light, so that was no big deal except it was very dark with no moon. We had current behind us as we headed out the inlet and quickly were moving more than 7 knots over ground. This is when I almost made a big mistake. When going out to sea, you should keep the red bouys to port and the green to starboard. There were two bright green lights that confused me. I was standing at the helm and not watching my chart plotter closely enough because it was too bright and was hurting my night vision. Those green lights were actually on range finders and they were on the north side of the inlet. Luckily I check my chart plotter and saw my mistake and did not run aground on the rocks. Those lights should be red, I have no idea why they are green. 

Fort Pierce inlet is notorious for rough conditions on the ebbing tide, but with the light swell and no wind it was a fairly smooth. Before long we made the turn south and we were on our way. We put up full sails, but only had about 6 knots of breeze, so we motor sailed at a little over 6 knots. 

Sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean

This is my favorite time of day to be at sea. 

A bit later we could start to see the nice sea state that we were just feeling up to that point. 

As we headed south the wind just kept getting lighter and lighter. By midafternoon, we passed the West Palm Beach Inlet. This meant that we needed to make a turn due south. This also meant that we needed to stay closer to shore. The Gulf Stream runs very close to shore from West Palm to Maimi. We did slow down to around 5.5 knots because of the opposing current. I found that staying about a mile offshore in 80 to 100 feet of water was the best we could do without getting uncomfortably close to land. We just set the auto pilot and motor sailed all day. At times the water was glassy. 

Sunrise over the Atlantic

We saw a number of Super Yachts during the day. Most were coming or going at the West Palm Beach inlet. This one is well over 100 feet long.

This was sunset along the Florida Coast. I think we were about Boca Raton.

We passed by Ft. Lauderdale in the dark. I have never seen the Atlantic Ocean that calm.

Here is Miami at night about 2 miles offshore.

After we passed Miami it got pretty dark on this moonless night. We had Biscayne Bay to our starboard, but there were very few lights to give us perspective. We could have gone into Biscayne Bay, but we were concerned about crab traps. We did not want to get caught up in one in the dark, so we stayed offshore. 

This is what a cruise ship looks like at night. We saw a number of large ships around Miami, but had no issue getting by them with plenty of space.

As we cruised south the wind started to pick up. I also now knew that we had not maintained the average we needed to make Marathon by dark the next day. We decided to make a stop at Rodriguez Key about 40 miles east of Marathon. I chose a place that I thought we could make it through the reef and into Hawk Channel that runs along the Keys. The problem is that we were going to arrive there before daylight. I decided to shut the engine off and just sail along at about 4 knots and wait for daylight. 

My plan worked perfectly. We arrived just after the sun gave us full light and I could see the channel markers and the crab pots. The only issue was the wind was now blowing at about 20 knots. It took us about an hour to weave our way through the reef and into Hawk Channel. We then turned and headed parallel to the keys. The wind lasted for about another hour and then died completely. We motored the rest of the way to Rodriguez Key. We got anchored and then I took a much needed nap. I did sleep for a couple of hours during the night, which is better than most overnights we have done, but the nap came easy. 

I did wake from my nap in time to catch this sunset over Rodriguez Key. It felt good to be in the Florida Keys again. 

I checked the weather and saw that we were expecting some wind from 15 to 20 knots the following day. The good news is it would be on our aft starboard quarter giving us a broad reach all the way to Marathon. 

We were up at first light and the wind had come as expected. I set the first reef in the mainsail and raised it at anchor. As I looked across the anchorage I saw another sailboat getting underway. They did not know it, but we were now racing to Marathon. The sailing was awesome. We unfurled our genoa to the first reef point and the boat felt very balanced and comfortable in the strong wind. The seas were a bit choppy, but because they were behind us, it was a comfortable ride. The autopilot handled the conditions well and we cruised along at over 7 knots average. We did have a few waves hit the side of  the boat and gave us a good splash in the cockpit. I got wet and Kim thought it was funny. The biggest issue we had was dodging the many crab pots. We were very glad that we didn't try to do this in the dark. 

We were about 10 miles to Marathon when I heard a radio call from the boat that was behind us. They had lost all steering due to being entangled in a crab pot. I asked if he needed us to turn around and render aid, but another boat was closer and stood by in case he needed help. We listened on the radio as he reported that he got his steering cleared and was then able to make the sail on down to Marathon and get the anchor down. He then got in the water and cleared his prop. Nasty things, those crab pots.  

We had great wind as we cruised down Hawk Channel. This shows us doing 7.6 knots SOG.

Here we are doing 8.0 knots. The heel is more than it was due to a passing wave. Look how clear our new dodger glass is. We love our new canvas. 

We pulled into Marathon and went in the inlet. We knew it was going to be crowded and it was. We were not able to find anywhere to anchor, so we went back out to the anchorage on the west end of the Key. It is not smooth out there, but we do have protection from a northeast and east wind. We do get some swell off of the ocean, but it is not too bad in fairly calm weather. The crazy thing as we were getting anchored, we saw another boat getting their anchor set. That was none other than Richard and Theresa on "It'll Be Allright". They had just made the trip from Mobile, Alabama and we arrived within minutes of each other. We then found that our friends, Geoff and Marsha on "Interlude" were also anchored a short distance away. It felt like we were home with friends. 

We got the dinghy down and headed to the marina to get on the list for a mooring ball. We were number 27. That means we had to wait for a while. We also knew that a major storm would hit the Keys in about 4 days. That set off a chain of events that was very unexpected. I will write all about that in my next entry.  

Our Very Crazy Time in Vero Beach

 We arrived in Vero Beach on November 10th. We love to spend time in Vero. This time around we had some things we wanted to accomplish. The first order of business was to go to Brunswick, GA to pick up the truck. We had come up with a crazy plan on our way down the ICW. My parents had decided to make the trip from Colorado to the Dallas area for Thanksgiving. This would mean that both of our parents would be in the area at the same time. That was just too good of an opportunity to pass up, so we planned to rent a car and drive it to Texas and then stop by Brunswick on the return trip to get the truck and then drive back down to Vero. Unfortunately, that did not work out. My parents were dealing with some illness and did not feel up to making the trip. We understood but were disappointed that we would not be able to see them. 

We decided to cancel the trip to Texas and just rent a car to drive up to get the truck. On Novermber 17th we took the dinghy to shore and met the city bus. We made one transfer to get to the Vero Airport to rent the car. When I tried to rent the car, everything changed. As it turned out my driver's license was expired! We quickly changed plans and Kim rented the car, but that would mean that she had to drive the car to Georgia and back. That turned out to be about 10 hours of driving. Other than driving in rain much of the day, the trip went off well. I was concerned about driving on an expired license, but I kept the speed down and had no problems. We were pretty tired when we made it back to the boat that night. 

During the trip in the car, I was working on how to get my driver's license renewed. It came down to the only good solution was to go back to Missouri. Thanksgiving was the following week, so we decided to see if we could get flights during that holiday week. Allegiant Airlines has direct flights from Orlando/Sanford to Springfield, MO. We were lucky and got two tickets departing on Monday, November 20 and returning on Friday November 24. We called the kids and let them know we were coming.

Our time in Missouri was a blur, but we did get the license renewed and were able to spend time with all of our kids and grandkids. My favorite part was playing football with three of my grandsons. I am sure I threw over 1000 passes in 2 days, but I loved it. 

When we got back to the boat on the 24th, all was well except we needed a ride out to the boat. The marina did not want us to leave the dinghy at the dock while we were gone, so they gave us a ride to shore in the pump out boat. The marina was closed when we got back, but Kim asked another boater and we now have some new friends. 

We rested after the whirlwind trip and started looking for a weather window to make the trip down to the Marathon in the Florida Keys. 

This is one of the mooring balls in Vero Beach.

Very calm night in Vero.

You can see the two catamarans that are rafted up on one ball.

I love it when it is calm like this. You just have to be aware of the bugs.

 After we were back for a few days, we also got a rafting partner. Kurt and Libbe on SV Epiphany were heading to the Bahamas. They were having some issues with their dinghy. I was able to give them a hand and in return they invited us over for an amazing dinner. Meeting interesting people is the best part of this lifestyle. 

I had been watching the weather for a while for an opportunity to sail south. We could do the ICW through Miami, but we knew there were over 40 bridges we would have to open. It would be slow and tedious. The weather looked great for a departure on December 4th and sail overnight and make it to Marathon on the 5th. We had some things to get done to be ready to go.

We went to Walmart to provision and got the boat ready. The day before we left, we decided to take one last walk on the beach. When we got to the truck, it would not start. The truck has run perfectly since we had it fixed back in June. We have put more that 5000 miles on it without any issues. I was frustrated and decided it would be best to take a walk and develop a plan. I walked by normal 3 miles and as I returned to the marina, I saw a guy working on a Ford Diesel Pickup. I stopped to talk to him and he offered to help. We tried lots of things, but without a good explanation it finally started. It ran perfectly and I moved it to where we were going to leave it. I tried starting it again and it started right up.  We took Omar and his wife Heather to lunch to thank him for the help. It was a crazy day. 

Our plan was to motor on December 3rd from Vero the 13 miles down to the Fort Pierce Inlet and anchor there for the night. I was very nervous about leaving the truck, but I had no good option. I also had a 2 day offshore passage to think about. It was one of those times when I had to focus on the present and pray that all would work out. In my next entry, I will tell you all about what happened next. The good news is that as I write this, we are safe and sound in Marathon, Florida.  

On to Vero Beach - Not Without Problems

 In my last entry, I wrote about our trip from St. Mary's, Georgia to St. Augustine, Florida. We left St. Augustine the morning after we arrived. We had good weather and we wanted to take advantage of it. We left at first light and headed south. The first part was very calm and we cruised along at about 5 knots up against a bit of current. We had to open one bridge, but that went very smoothly. 

We had been hearing for most of the day about a dredge that was working at Matansas River Inlet. He was sitting right in the middle of the channel and he was talking to each boat on the radio giving instructions. When we arrived at about 10:00 am, I tried to call him on the radio. He did not reply. I decided to follow the instructions that he had given to some boats in front of us. There was a green can buoy on the far right side of the channel that you had to go beyond and then turn 90 degrees to port and pass right in front of the dredge and then continue on from there. I made the turn after the green, but as it turned out...too soon. Before I knew it we hit a shoal. The boat lurched to a stop. I tried to move forward, but I was hard aground. We sat there for a bit and checked the tide tables. It looked like we were right at low tide. We decided to wait a bit to see if we could get more water under us. A couple of other boats came by and made it through. A motor vessel came through and when his wakes hit us we moved a bit. I decided to try to back out with the next wakes. I did not have to wait long. When the wakes hit us, I had the boat in reverse and hit the throttle hard. The boat slowly started to move. We got into deeper water and moved south of the shoal and right up against the dredge. We made it around and were a bit shaken, but on our way.

That little incident made a long day even longer. The rest of the trip was long, but uneventful. We arrived in Daytona Beach at about 4:30 pm after making 47.6 nm, our longest day of the trip so far. We had a nice sunset, then rested up for the next day.

Sundown in Dayton Beach

I took a picture of this boat because we just keep seeing them. This is Bright Ayes. She is a beautiful Caliber. This boat was anchored right next to us in St. Mary's. We saw them in St. Augustine, they passed us while we were aground. And now they are in the mooring field in Vero beach. We have still not met the couple on the boat. That is just the way it goes some times. 

We were up early the next day and were greeted by this amazing sunrise. 

The next day was November 7th. That is Kim's Birthday. I promised to take her out to dinner when we got off the boat in Titusville. We had a 40 mile day planned and it all went well. We pulled into The Titusville mooring field at about 3:00pm. Kim had been on the phone with both her children and siblings much of the day, but I knew the long call was yet to come. Just as we got ashore, her phone rang and it was her sister. They don't talk often, but when they do, it can last hours. I took care of our mooring fees and then took a shower. She was still on the phone. I waited patiently. When the call ended it was closing in on dark. We did not have our lights on the dinghy. We decided to go get a pizza and take it to the park next to the marina and celebrate her birthday. I also promised we would go out when we got to Vero Beach. The good news is that she was happy with that.

Her birthday did not end there. There was a SpaceX launch about 15 miles from our mooring field. It was scheduled for just after midnight, but we made it part of the day. 

That is not the sun, that is a Falcon 9 taking to the sky.

It was a clear, windless night. Kim and I love to see these launches.

One last shot as the booster separates from the rest of the rocket. 

We did not get up early the next morning. We went to shore and then got the dinghy ready to travel. We only went 30 miles on November 8th and stopped in Melbourne. The weather was great for now, but we only had one more good day before the weather got bad. 

On the 10th we made the final 36nm to Vero Beach. We had traveled 6 straight days and I was really looking forward to sitting still for a few days. We love Vero Beach City Marina. We had lots to do here and the weather was looking bad. We were also thinking of a really crazy plan. That plan didn't happen, but an even crazier plan did happen. I will tell you all about it in my next entry.  

Moving South

 I have had trouble getting inspired to write in this blog. I normally have that problem when nothing out of the ordinary is happening in our lives. It is kind of strange that moving down the east coast of the US via sailboat has become "ordinary".  Well,  I guess I should catch up our story. 

In my last entry, we had just left Brunswick, Georgia and motored down the ICW to St. Mary's Georgia. We had a blow coming in out of the north and St. Mary's is a good place to wait out a northern blow. We hung out on anchor for 4 nights. We never saw more than 25 knots of wind. We went to shore each day and enjoyed our walks around the very historic town. We especially enjoyed our visit to the very historic cemetery. There are 7 graves of Revolutionary War soldiers in that cemetery. 

An angel statue on one of the many ornate grave stones in this very old cemetery. 

After 4 days in St. Mary's, the weather eased and we were ready to get moving south. The first day was an easy 27 nm motor down to Jacksonville, Florida. We had no problems on the trip until we arrived at the free dock in Sisters Creek. There is very strong current there and the wind picked up to around 15 knots just as we were ready to make the move to the dock. The good news is that we nailed it and got tied up. 

This is the Jacksonville free dock. It even has free water. There was just us and two other boats. 

After we were all set, I went below and heard a strange noise that took me a minute to figure out what it was. It was our bilge pump running. I checked the bilge and it was empty, but the shaft seal was dripping. It normally does not drip at all when the shaft is not turning. I shut the pump off and then turned it back on and it stayed off. That was strange. I then tightened up the shaft seal to stop the leak. That would require me to make many adjustments over the next few days to find the perfect place where it does not leak, but is loose enough to not get too hot. It took me most of the next day to get it right. The bilge pump issue will be fully diagnosed and repaired in a later entry. The good news is that it was pumping fine, it just would not shut off when the bilge was empty. Not a major problem as long as we are on the boat to monitor it. We do still have a second pump that is working fine and a manual pump as a final fail-safe. 

The following day, which was now November 5th, we motored further south. We first had to go through the St. John's river, which is the inlet to the port of Jacksonville and a major Naval Base. 

Jacksonville Naval Base

A US Navy ship in dry dock at Jacksonville.

 After making it through the shipping channel, we had a nice cruise down the ICW. The first issue was a bridge at Pablo Creek. It is a very narrow channel under the bridge and the current can really rip through there. I had checked the tides and my timing was good. We hit it with minimal current and it was a non issue. 

Just after the bridge we had a motor vessel pass us. The crazy thing is that he was going faster than us, but he was weaving all over the waterway. I don't know if he was under the influence of something or not, but it was pretty crazy to watch. We followed him all the way to St. Augustine. 

If you look closely you can see the weaving pattern of the boat in front of us. There were a number of oncoming boats that had to turn quickly to avoid him. The radio traffic was strong worded. 

This is a narrow part of the ICW with nice homes with docks on the left bank heading south. 

We traveled 35.5 nm and made it to St. Augustine. We called the City Marina and were assigned a mooring ball. The good news is that it was on the south side of the Bridge of Lions. We waited with a number of other boats for the next half hour opening and then proceeded to our home for the night. 

We had to go ashore to check in, so we got the dinghy down and went to the dinghy dock. After checking in, we took showers and took a walk up onto the bridge. We have been to St. Augustine many times, but this is the first time we took a walk over the bridge. 

The main square in St. Augustine

The view looking north off of the Bridge of Lions.

The view of the south Mooring Field. SHIFT is in the middle of all of that. 

We made it back to the boat just before dark. We raised the dinghy into travel position and were ready to move again the following morning. We had good weather to travel, so we decided to keep moving. In my next entry I will write about the next few stops as we make the slow trip south at about 6 knots.
 

   

Back on the Boat, Departing Brunswick, Georgia

 I am writing this on November 1, 2023. This was supposed to be the day we left Brunswick Landing Marina, but you know the saying: The plans of a sailor are written in the sand at low tide. Weather always dictates our plans. We had a strong cold front coming in today, so we left yesterday, and moved the Boat 37 nm to Saint Mary's, Georgia. Saint Mary's has a good anchorage with excellent protection from the north. So, we will sit here and enjoy some cooler weather for a few days until it is comfortable to move further south. The low last night was in the 50's and the high today was only in the 60's. It may actually get down to the high 40's tonight. No worries though, it will be back to the 80's by the middle of next week. 

I did want to take some time to write about our wonderful time during the months of September and October. In my last entry, we were in Brunswick after the hurricane passed by, and we were getting some new canvas on the boat. It was certainly hot and humid in Georgia during early September, but we really enjoyed our time at Brunswick Landing. 

This manatee was hanging out at the dock enjoying the fresh water provided by another boater.

Here is the new canvas fully installed. We took it down the next day to wait for our return.

The sunset views over the estuary are beautiful in Brunswick.

They opened the new North Bath house while we were there. It is very nice and for us on dock 15, the walk to the shower was much shorter.

Our neighbor left, which gave me the opportunity to take a picture from the starboard side of the boat. Shortly after this shot was taken, a 58 foot Beneteau Sailboat took its place. Our 40 foot boat looked so small compared to those much larger boats.

I spent the mornings walking in the historic neighborhoods. My goal was to walk 3 miles each day. We also took a trip to nearby Jekyll Island to check out the beach.

This is the old City Hall in Brunswick

I really liked this one.

These buildings just have so much character

I have to do another "Kim on a beach" picture.

It was low tide so there was plenty of sand to walk on. We found lots of shells including about 20 full sand dollars. We cruised right by this beach yesterday on our way south.

We left Georgia on the 10th of September and headed to Arkansas to see our grandson, Connor play football. This is his first year playing, and by the end of the year he was showing signs of understanding what he was trying to accomplish from his linebacker position. I have been into athletics my entire life and I can't tell you how much I love to watch my grandchildren taking their shot. I was very excited to hear that Cameron had joined the wrestling club. I was able to relive some of my younger years when I was able to watch one of his first practices. Wrestling was my sport in High School. We did have to get down on the floor of the living room after practice to show him a few things. I sure hope he sticks with it. 

We then went back to Missouri to watch Will play soccer. He was not starting on the JV, but did get some playing time. The highlight was when we got to see Will score his first High School goal. I don't know who was more excited, him or me. We started watching the Ozark High Varsity Soccer team matches that were played after the JV games. The Varsity is one of the top teams in the state. We became big fans and did not miss a game until we left. They are the top seeded team in their district and we are hoping they make a run at a state title. The cool thing is that Will got to work out with those boys each day and by the end of the season, was gaining skills and confidence.  

The video above is of Will's goal that was scored on a penalty kick. 

We spent our weeks in Arkansas on Mondays, Tuesday and Thursday at Will's games in Missouri and every other Friday night at the Ozark High Football game to watch our Senior, Isabella perform with the Band. 

Isabella is the flute player standing at the 40 yard line. 

We also went to two of her band competitions. One of which they were the overall winner. 

We were asked to look after the kids for three weeks, while our daughter Shannon and her husband, Brian went on a cruise to the South Pacific. It turned out to be one of the best times of my life. The kids were awesome and all we did was spend some quality time with some of our favorite people on the planet. The only problem is that I now miss them terribly.  

We were planning to leave Missouri around October 15th, but we delayed that by a week to see as many of the kids activities as possible. Did I mention we had become big fans! We had to hurry to get the trailer winterized and everything ready for our departure. On September 23rd, which was our youngest grandchild, Amelia's birthday, we left Ozark and made one more trip to see Connor's last football game. He recorded his first solo tackle of the season and played very well. On the 24th, we made the 14 hour drive to Brunswick. 

We put in a few long days getting the boat ready for sea. Unfortunately, I came down with a bad cold on Saturday and I had to slow down to get well. I had been watching the weather and I really knew we should leave early, but I felt so bad that I thought getting well was more important. We were still undecided Monday night. I awoke Tuesday morning feeling much better and decided that today was the day. We got the boat ready and departed at around 9:30am. 

Another beautiful sunset in Brunswick, the night before we left. 

This was our neighbor the entire time we were there. Jack purchased the boat the first week we were there and was yet to take the 65 foot Steel Schooner to sea. 

SHIFT ready to go. All sails on, full of food, water and fuel. Wood treated, stainless polished, Decks washed. Engines serviced and all checks completed. Wish us luck!

It was a 37 nm motor trip, but we went under the 185 foot bridge at Brunswick.

It was a beautiful day with a high temperature of about 80F.

We cruised by Kings Bay Submarine base. There is a Ohio Class sub to the left in this picture. That boat is almost 600 feet long. 

Our anchorage in Saint Mary's, Georgia.

Beautiful evening, but the front arrived at about 2 in the morning, but we didn't see much more than 20 knots of wind and about a 20 degree drop in temperatures. 

To our stern is the town of Saint Mary's. It is a cool place with lots of interesting history.

Well, that is how we spent the last two months. In my next entry, I will write about our plans this cruising season and what is next for us. Thanks for reading.