Mary and Lance – cruising the ICW & Bahamas

Florida is well known for it’s rude and inconsiderate boaters who think they own the waterways! We’d been warned of this and experienced it a few times with fast moving boats not slowing down while passing. The wakes that they cause make for a real “rock ‘n roll” experience and everything that’s not held down goes flying all over the place.

So there we were, slowly ambling down the waterway when I see a large sportfisher approaching at speed from behind. I tell Mary to fasten her seat belt but, no, she’s had enough of this rudeness!!

She grabs the radio microphone and blasts out “WILL THAT SPORTFISHER APPROACHING SO FAST IN VERO BEACH HARBOUR PLEASE SLOW DOWN TO PASS US!!!!”

Don’t worry about identifying ourselves or our position!! That sportfisher knows who he is and THE ADMIRAL HAS SPOKEN!!!!

I look back and, sure enough, he has backed down and passes us a very sedate pace and gives us a friendly wave with a sheepish grin as he passes

Now some more on anchoring!

We have deployed my new Manson Supreme anchor for the past 5 nights and it has set first time every time and held like a dream – even in changing currents I am well pleased!!

And what about my new water maker? Well, we’ve been using water very liberally with nice showers including hair washing etc. We’ve not been conserving water at all. So, I have run the water maker for a total of 2 1/2 hours since our last fill at a marina. Well guess what? I accidentally noticed – I didn’t actually look as I wasn’t expecting it – that the water was flowing out of the tank’s overflow pipe!!! I had produced more in 2 1/2 hours than we had used in 5 days!!! I love it Who knows when the tank had reached full???

Dinghy saga. This continues as the repair in Fernandina Beach has not been successful so we have to take the dinghy to another dealer for an assessment and hopefully a replacement!

So what else? Well everything has been running pretty smoothly So no dramas to write about!

Well we’ve made it to Miami at last – North Miami counts too, right?

Our trip down over the last few days became more interesting as the days went past.

We considered heading out of the ICW at West Palm Beach and heading down the coast to Fort Lauderdale (53 miles), but in the end decided to tackle the inside passage with it’s myriad of low bridges, its plethora of boaters and the concrete walls of this part of the ICW. In addition there are a lot of slow speed areas in many of the areas where manatees like to laze.

All in all we had a great trip and are glad we did it. We were lucky too though because even though today is Saturday, the morning started off pretty wet and only really improved by lunchtime. So I guess a lot of local boaters stayed at home. For the most part we were in a group of one other launch and 4, sometimes 5 sailboats heading south.

And we did have one experience of the bouncing effect when a big launch went past north bound and his wake bounced from one side of the channel to the other. It was pretty much like a washing machine!

All the nights at anchor have been very peaceful – but it’s amazing how different an anchorage can sound in the book. Think of Manatee Pocket and look at the chart and I’m envisioning a quiet secluded anchorage in the middle of nowhere. Well how wrong could I be – it was surrounded by houses, marinas and other boats!

Last night we anchored alone in quite a big bay and before long there were three other boats pretty much ‘hugging’ us. In addition to that we realized that on the shoreline there was a restaurant with live music – and a railway line with some noisy trains.

Tonight we’re out of the hustle and bustle and anchored in a large anchorage bordering the university.

Tomorrow we move into a marina again – yay – hopefully some wi-fi – what am I going to do in the Bahamas? My wi-fi booster is just not doing it’s job.

Then more on the dinghy saga -it’s still leaking, so on Monday we plan to hire a pick up truck for a couple of hours and take the dinghy to an inflatable repairer recommended by Mercury. At this stage we are just holding out for a fix as of course it’s now Christmas and there’ll be more delays on getting a replacement at this time.

But that done, we’ll provision up, check out through immigration and wait for our weather window to cross to the Bahamas.

Oh yes, for those who are as ignorant as we were – manatees are quite large aquatic mammals that like to laze around in the shallows. We’ve had a couple of glimpses of movements in the water but we’ve still not really seen them.

We left St Augustine early Tuesday under a dark sky with the promise of more rain – and did it rain!!! Cleared up later in the afternoon but just as we were heading into our chosen anchorage, the heavens opened!

Talking about rain, my friend, Tom, tells me that December is a rather dry month in St Augustine but while we were there, they recorded the highest rainfall in one day in December ever and the highest Sat/Sun/Mon rainfall ever!!!!

Anyway, we motored around a little until it eased up slightly, entered Rockhouse Creek and set my anchor. What a delight to set my new Manson Supreme It set the first time and held for 2 tide/current changes. We were alone in the creek initially but later a larger trawler also anchored nearby.

No photos today as we have no decent internet access – just some 3G on the iPad.

Up at sparrows this morning for a long boring day apart from Haulover Canal where we hoped to spot manatees, alligators and other wildlife but just saw fishers lining the banks as well as in their small boats. The canal, though very short, was very pretty.

Tonight we’re anchored a short way off the ICW near Dragon Point. Once again, the Manson set perfectly first time! This expanse where we are anchored is quite a few miles long but another boat had to follow us and anchor about 200m away. Why so close I ask myself. Herd mentality!

Had a great BBQ and then a lovely hot shower while the generator was going with my new water maker producing 20gal of water per hour :):) Mary, of course also had a hot shower, washed her hair and then blow dried it! She’s happy:)

We’re about 185 miles (already done 914 on the ICW and about 140 on the Chesapeake!!) from Miami now but will take it fairly slowly and hope to be there on Sunday

Bit of an oxymoron that bad weather is good weather – or is it? Just like many things in life, it just depends on your perspective.

For instance, travelling down from Fernandina Beach to St Augustine it was cold, cloudy and windy. Quite miserable really! But, it was Saturday which is a bad day for travelling as every other weekend boater and his dog would be out on the water. As it was, the bad weather kept everyone at home and we had a pleasant, non-congested, non-bumpy journey

Also, we have been “stuck” on St Augustine since Saturday due to big winds and drenching rain.

If you look at the next photo, you can see how rough the water is on the far side of the dock and how calm it is on our side – just from the wind!!

This one after some drenching rain overnight and a high tide this morning:
See the water level at that white car!!

Why do you think those palms need supporting??

So, has it been a bad thing? Well no. It gave us time to get an extra support for the davits manufactured at short notice It also gave us the opportunity to spend more time with Tom whom I’ve “met” on the Bayliner Owners Club Forum and he has given us some great chart books for the Bahamas and the East Coast of Florida!!

Tom also was kind enough to provide us with transport for some more provisioning as well as a sightseeing tiki tour of St Augustine. We then enjoyed a fabulous lunch with him and his wife at a local restaurant.

Great lobster bisque as a starter and Mahi Mahi as a main. This was my first introduction to Mahi and I am even more determined to catch the odd one or two or more on our trip to and around the Bahamas. It was yummy.

So, now everything has been stowed and it’ll be an early start in the morning for the next section – probably to Daytona Beach but possibly to New Smyrna. We’ll see. We’ll be anchoring out so probably won’t have internet access for a while!