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| Along the AICW |
Negotiating the ICW in this part of Florida entails a lot of
“hand flying” – you can’t just punch the auto-heading or nav function on the
autopilot and hope to keep it between the beacons for very long….so it isn’t as
relaxing as running on the outside.
Still, we got some good fly bridge time, and the few inlets that we got a
look at as we passed them made it obvious that the inside route was the right
move – the winds were cranking out the ENE @ 20K+ and the Atlantic was boiling
at 7 to 9 feet. While the boat can punch
into those head seas with no problem, it isn’t comfortable for its
occupants. Likewise, running any of
those inlets (in either direction) would have been dicey at best.
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| Fort Pierce City Marina |
The boat ran well the entire leg, with just one burp from the port side stabilizer fin (cleared up on its own). Entry to the Fort Pierce City Marina was uneventful in spite of the winds and a frisky current. The marina is very nice, and the adjacent downtown area looks very appealing….we’ll need to spend more time here at some point in the future, perhaps on the return trip. The new floating concrete docks that were added are superb, and although there had been reports of the new GCFI system causing breaker trips, we had no issues, even at the dock’s relatively low 110/220V output. And their Wi-Fi signal was excellent.
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| Merritt Island Anchorage |
We departed Fort
Pierce on Tuesday 21-Jun but not until around 1000. Since our plan was to spend the next night at
anchor, we weren’t in any rush. The
breeze was still fairly stiff out of the northeast at around 13K, but certainly
better than yesterday. Seas were forecast
at 4 to 6 feet, but we stuck with our plan for going up the inside. It was a pleasant day with highs in the low
to mid 80’s and relatively low humidity (58%) for Florida, so we spend the
entire day on the fly bridge.
With a following current much of the way we made good time
running between 7 and 8 knots, and dropped the anchor around 1730 just east of
the ICW a few miles south of Cape Canaveral near Merritt Island. It was well protected from the easterly wind
and we had a relaxing night hanging on the hook. Apart from still finicky air handlers (that
eventually start working) from what we can tell, nothing else on the boat broke
today. Hoorah.
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| Canaveral in the Distance |
On Wednesday 22-Jun
we picked up the hook shortly after 0930 and continued motoring north towards
our next planned anchorage In the Ponce Inlet area. The ICW has a lot of twists and turns in this
general area, but not too many bridges, and we managed to keep it between the
beacons. The water quality, though, was
turbid, especially so in Mosquito Lagoon – the winds were kicking up a lot of
bottom silt and it looked more like chocolate milk than sea water.
Once we got to the Ponce Inlet area we were challenged to find a usable anchorage….all options were either already full-up or not nearly deep or wide enough for our comfort zone. We ended up continuing north for another two hours into the Daytona area only to find the same situation. It was nearing 2000 hours and sunset, and we weren’t crazy about the idea of continuing towards St. Augustine in the dark in such narrow and skinny waterways. So we launched a “Hail Mary” phone call to the after-hours number for Halifax Harbor Marina – and sure enough, they answered, gave us a great slip on the end of a floating concrete t-dock, and we got tucked in for the night just as the sun set.
The next morning
(Thu, 23-Jun) we continued the trek north to St. Augustine. Winds were calm, the ICW was absolutely glass
smooth, and we were wishing for an inlet to get us back outside in the big
water where Ghost Rider belongs. Alas, there is no such option in this area,
so we stayed with the inside route plan.
We negotiated openings with a few bridges along the way with no
significant delays, but we were bucking currents occasionally – I think we got
passed by a manatee and a sea turtle at one point.
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| View of Conch House Marina from Our Fly Bridge |
However, as we neared the St. Augustine vicinity the current
reversed sharply, and we had over a couple of knots on the tail. Even with that helping push we just missed
the Bridge of Lions opening at 1630 by 5 minutes and had to wait nearly another
hour for the next one. A cigar and some
Brad Paisley music helped pass the loitering time. Nonetheless, we arrived
without incident at Conch House Marina in St. Augustine and were docked up around
1800 hours. It was low tide with a
decent remnant current, and it was a bit of a squeeze in a tight fairway, but
we pulled it off without bouncing off of anything.
We finished the day with an enjoyable visit from Kathy
Clark, who along with hubby Bradley Rosenberg are here aboard their Nordhavn 72,
Shear Madness. Although Bradley was back home in Naples
taking care of some family business, it was still good to meet up with more of
the Nordy community and learn from them.
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| Shear Madness, a Gorgeous Nordhavn 72, Also Moored at Conch House Marina |
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| Kathy & Chelle, with Shear Madness in the Background |
Tomorrow we plan to depart St. Augustine and make an
overnight run up to Hilton Head Island in South Carolina to hang out there for
a couple of days before continuing on to Edisto Island to meet up with some
friends. The enroute weather forecast is
reasonably good, with only a fairly weak cold front and some scattered showers to
deal with along the way.
