St. Augustine to Vero Beach

 I am still trying to play catch up on the blog. We have been enjoying the Bahamas and it has been hard to take time to write while being surrounded by such beauty. Today, February 4th, (my Brother, Brian's birthday) is a windy grey day, so I have some time to write. 

We left St. Augustine on December 27th after spending a week in mostly cold weather. We were very excited to make some miles south. We had a 4 day trip that we would do in 4 consecutive days, just because we wanted to get there. Vero has been the place that we had been thinking about since the beginning of this trip. That would be the place that we would finally stop and rest. Then we would wait for our weather window to cross for the Bahamas. 

The departure required some planning. The currents are very strong in St. Augustine and we were North of the Bridge of Lions, that we would have to open. Sunrise was around 7:30. The bridge will not open at 8:00 to allow rush hour traffic to move through. We were moving before sunrise and called the bridge. We were happy to hear they would open right up for us. By the time we were at the Bridge, 4 other sailboats were waiting to go through. All but one waited their turn, and we made a smooth pass through the narrow bridge in the swift current. 

We were then on our way with current behind us. For the first two hours we were moving at over 7 knots over ground. That was perfect because we wanted to make it 47 nm to Daytona that first day. We had one shallow spot, near Matanzas pass, but we followed our tracks and made it through without seeing less that 6 feet of water. The day warmed some, but we were still in long pants and coats as we moved south. We made it to Daytona, with plenty of light to spare and dropped the hook in the downtown anchorage. 

Nice calm sunrise on the 28th as we left Daytona

Our anchorage in Daytona. Lots of boats that serve as liveaboard homes, but don't look like they move much.

We saw lots of damage from Hurricane Ian and Nicole along the ICW. If you look closely you can see two sailboats in this picture up on the rocky shore. I expect they were anchored boats that broke loose during one of the hurricanes. 

On the 28th we were up and moving, but not nearly as early. We had made it 47nm that previous day, but were only planning about 40 on this day. It was an easy cruise until we made it to New Smyrna Beach and the Ponce Inlet. There was strong current there, and we had to wait a while with the current behind us to open a bridge. We and one other boat made circles for about a half hour until it was time to go through. From there on, it was a nice cruise up Mosquito Lagoon. We even had the Genoa up for much of it to give us a little extra push. We made it to our next stop, Titusville, at about 3pm. We decided to anchor south of the main bridge. It was very calm with almost no wind. 

This was our sunrise view as we left Daytona

Just after our trip through the Haulover Canal, which requires a bridge opening, we saw this island that was populated with White Pelicans and many other birds. The smell was significantly bad. 

Sunset in our anchorage in Titusville.

You can see a few other boats in the very large anchorage, just south of the bridge.

We could look out and see Cape Canaveral. That large building is the 53 story Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at the cape. That is where they assemble the stages of the rockets before they are taken to one of the launch pads. 

We were very motivated to continue our trip south. The weather was noticeably warmer as we left Titusville and headed south on the ICW. We now had two easy days and we were in Vero. The first was a 30 nm day to Melbourne. It was a very chill day and we were able to sail almost half of it. We arrived in Melbourne at around 3 pm.

Oh look! There are palm trees. They were not the first we had seen, but I took that as a sign that we were getting to warmer weather. This was our anchorage in Melbourne. 

This is a very large open body of water, but we had very little wind and had a nice night. 

On December 30th, we made our final run into Vero Beach. The trip was easy down the ICW until we got to the more narrow parts of the Indian River. The boat traffic picked up significantly and we were dealing with lots of wakes and even water skiers. It was a nice day, but just before we got to Vero we had a small squall come over us and we were putting warm clothes back on as we got hit with wind and strong rain. It cleared just as we entered the Harbor at Vero. We were so happy to get a wave from our friends Bob and Sheila on Sails Call as we entered. Bob did not have a shirt on and Kim and I had coats on. Clearly something was about to change. We went to the Fuel dock and got filled up for the adventures ahead. We then got assigned ball #37, where we would raft up with Stuart on Tentagel. 

This is our pile of warm clothes that we have not needed since December 30th. Yeah!! Kim was able to wash them at Vero and put them in storage.

This is how you do it in the Vero Beach City Marina Mooring Field. Two boats per ball. It is a great way to make new friends. 

This is us rafted up with Tentagel, a nice Cape Dory 36. Stuart is an awesome guy that has crossed the Atlantic 5 times on a sailboat. 

The Vero Beach City Marina has great on-shore facilities and is a very popular place for cruisers to take a break for a while. 

The feeling that came over us after we arrived with one of accomplishment and exhaustion. We had been working our way south from the Chesapeake Bay for over 2 months and this had been my goal that entire time. I love Vero and could not wait to catch up with some old friends and make some new ones. I will write about our time in Vero including a potential huge change of plans, in my next entry. We slept very well that first night.