Richter Dock, Turkey Creek

We made another early start (0710 hours) just as the sun was coming up to get us across Lake Okeechobee before the wind kicked up.  By the time we crossed to Cleweston at 0930, the SE wind had picked up to a steady 12 knots with gusts to 15.

Lake Okeechobee looks like any other body of water when you can’t see the other side.

Coming in off the lake you enter a fairly narrow channel flanked by grass. With the lake being high at the moment the channel appears quite a bit wider than it really is.

The lock at Moore Haven is only a short drop of four and one half feet so that is a non event.  Arrival at Turkey Creek was at 1330 hours.  You can’t sneak up the narrow canals here without all the neighbors seeing and waving to you.  After tying the boat up at Mark’s dock and getting a tour of the shore facilities (our own head with a shower) Mark invited us to go into town with him and Beth as they needed to run some errands.  Actually, the nearest town is Port LaBelle, a 20 minute car ride away.  We took him up on his offer and had him take us to the only car rental buisiness in town.  It was a collision shop that also had a Hertz sign outside.  It was our lucky day as we hadn’t reserved a car but it being Monday, the weekend rentals come back early morning.  By Tuesday you need to wait a few days to get a car as they have to bring them in from Fort Myers.  We rented a compact car for three weeks as we will be heading north later in the week before returning on January 3rd.  While we have vehicles in Erie we could use, the one way rental cost for a single week is more than a three week rental when you return the car to the same location.

The boat’s home for the next few weeks.

This canal is between locks in the fresh water portion of the Caloosahatchee Canal. The water never depth never varies more than a few inches and the boat couldn’t be any safer.

The canal is actually pretty narrow; they need more boats coming in and out to keep the marine growth down a bit.

We are at the location circled in red. Real estate isn’t that expensive here and everybody has water access. The biggest downside is having to drive 20 minutes into the nearest town, or one hour into Fort Myers.

As we are done moving the boat for the next few weeks, this is the last blog entry until we get back here and start heading for St. Pete.  We have a number of Liberty boat projects that we will be working on while we are north but those updates will have to wait until we return and start moving again.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Today:  46 miles in 7.3 engine hours.  Total:  2364 miles.

Dave

Backtracking to the Pahokee City Marina

The dock lines came aboard at 0720 hours this morning so we could get going before we got run out of town on a rail.  There was a live-aboard sailboat person tied up about 10 feet in front of us.  He was out in his cockpit when we left and didn’t even give us a glance as we shoved of and passed him by.  Maybe he was annoyed by the sound of our thrusters.

We did check out the dolphins at the lock and some are at perfect distance for us to moor bow and stern.  I am sure we will use those for an overnight tie before we go back to Indiantown.

 

The dolphins at the Port Mayaca lock.

The lake level was at the same level as the St. Lucie Canal, so the lock tender simply opened one of the lock doors and allowed us to proceed into the lake.

Port Mayaca Lock, both doors open to the lake.

Today the forecast was for East winds at 10-15 knots.  Actually we were seeing East at 15 to 20 with higher gusts.   We had already decided to take the “rim” route which would keep us in the lee of the land.  Going out into the lake would take us six miles offshore on a lake that is about 15′ deep with the wind on our beam part of the way.  We know what kind of waves 20 plus knots usually bring and not being familiar with these waters decided that getting tossed around on a shallow lake probably wouldn’t be the greatest idea, hence the rim route.

All was going well until we got to the Torry Island swing bridge at the southern point on the lake.  We were going to overnight in a tiny cove a few miles past the bridge as the wind is supposed to shift to the south and drop to 5 to 10 knots tomorrow.  You call the bridge tender (one of the last remaining hand operated bridges in Florida) to request passage.  He had to take care of a few customers where ever he was working and then came down to assess the situation.  There was a large “tussock” (floating mass of grass/plants) that was pretty much blocking the channel under the bridge.  While a decent size outboard passed through with out an issue the tender decided that he wasn’t going to chance opening the bridge because if we got stuck and he couldn’t close the bridge he would strand the people on the island.  We asked when it might be cleared and he said that maybe the wind might shift and blow it out of the channel (not today) or that they might have to call the Corp of Engineers to do something about it (maybe in the next week).  I suggested to the bridge operator that he call the lock operators at each end so they can inform boats of the situation.   There was nothing left for us to do but go back where we came from so we turned around and headed back to a marina we saw earlier at Pahokee.  The place appeared deserted when we went by earlier.  As we made our approach we tried to hail them on channel 16 (no answer), then tried the phone number listed on Active Captain (wrong number).  We went in, found a suitable dock (in a short squall of course), tied up and went hunting for the office.  The actual office for the marina has never been used since it was built.  We found the dock master after a fashion who checked us in ($1/ft + $5 for power).  You had to feel a bit sorry for him as he has worked here for over ten years and seen the ownership keep changing.  Now it is owned by the city that is dirt poor and can’t afford to spend any money on it which is a shame.  There are only eight other boats here beside us at the moment but we are told that the adjoining campground will fill up for the winter season (100 reservations already) with snow birds who will be parking their boats in here essentially populating this place.

Mostly empty docks here at the moment.

Watch your step, birds like it here.

Today:  43 miles in 5.9 engine hours.  Total:  2318 miles.  (14 miles extra due to the detour)

Dave

Indiantown Marina

Early morning on the St. Lucie Canal

Today we set off at 0800 for the dolphins at the Port Mayaca lock.  We did have to follow some rowing sculls for a few miles early on as they decided to take the entire canal, two sculls abreast with their chase boat also abeam of them.  When we got to American Custom Yachts (yacht repair yard) we were surprised to see a Pilgrim 40 docked there.

Approaching American Custom Yachts.  The Pilgrim looks a little out of place being so small.

We are not sure why Papillon is here as her home port is in Texas.

Arriving at the St. Lucie lock (14′ lift) we had to wait for them to cycle the lock twice as we arrived just as they were lifting a boat, then waited while an eastbound boat entered and they lowed it to our level for us to finally enter.  Here they have lines at the top of the lock that they drop down to you to hold on to, a bit different than what we are used to in the Erie Canal where the lines are always in place (and full of grunge).

The water enters and leaves the lock through the lock door. They simply crack the door open to fill or empty the lock rather than using a series of pipes and valves. The net result is that water fills the lock at an excruciating slow rate.

We noticed that Indiantown Marina was only eight miles short of the second lock where we were going to overnight.  Since the following day is fairly short, only about 20 miles to the anchorage at the southern most part of the lake, making it a 28 mile day would’t be a real inconvenience.  Indiantown only charges $1/ft, and we figured that not having the hassle of mooring between dolphins (having never really seen them before) might be worth it.  They have a boat yard here that would be interesting to see and well worth the price of admission as who knows when we might ever get back here.

Docked on the face dock at Indiantown.  The Pilgrim 40 Grand Ole Gal had been stored here for a few years, recently purchased she is on her way to Kentucky.

We don’t know what kind of boat this is but found it fascinating non the less.  It is difficult to see but she draws more water forward and aft than in the middle of the hull.

This LNVT was in the work yard. evidently getting ready for a complete paint job. It costs $600/month or $25/day to be here so you can’t exactly take your time on these projects.

How about the Nordhaven 40 getting a bottom job. 15 year old ones still sell for $400k. We probably won’t be seen on one of these any time soon.

The boat has this interesting bulge in the bottom (both sides). It must be to make room for the engine.

We saw a fair number of boats that looked similar to this guy. At first we thought the boat was in a fire but later realized that this is mold. Florida weather is obviously very hard on boats.  There were about 50 boats in the work yard and another 200 stored (we counted 7 Gemini catamarans).

We found the actual marina facilities nice but the people a bit “odd”.  When we called to see about dockage they told us to dock on their face dock, which we did.  The lady in the office was nice enough when we checked in and she mentioned that tonight was BBQ night where the marina provides the meat and everybody else brings a dish and their own place setting.  Feel free to join in she said.  The mate talked to some lady beforehand about the general procedure and after that conversation decided that we would be intruding so we simply cooked our salmon aboard the boat.  Thinking about it a bit we realized that even though we were only about 100′ from the the skippers lounge and their outdoor seating that not one person even approached us to say hi.  Our experience has been (until today) that when ever a new boat arrives that people usually stop by to welcome the new people, or just say hi.  Maybe it is because that this place is comprised almost entirely of sailors and we are not.  There is not one hint of the southern hospitality that we have experienced down the coast.  It is like there is a force field around the boat and people are afraid to approach it; or maybe our reputation preceded us 🙂

Today:  23 miles in 4.3 hours.  Total: 2275 miles.

Dave

Loggerhead Stewart

The skipper promised the mate that we would put in someplace that had a pool, and the Loggerhead Marina in Stewart was along the way.  We had to come up the St. Lucie river anyway, so this was the perfect place to stop for the day.  We were here last year and it was an hour out of the way at that time, not so this year.

The mate in the pool.

The skipper in the pool, a rarity as swimming is really not his thing. There is a hot tub a few feet away that was nice.

It is too bad we got to Fort Pierce yesterday, instead of a day or two before.  A barge lost a reported 25 containers that were bound for Puerto Rico between Cape Canaveral and Palm Beach earlier in the week.  Contents of the containers have been slowly appearing on the beaches in the area.

Beachcombers were finding tins of coffee.

The latest thing to wash up was bags of wine, the cardboard boxes they were in having fallen off in the water or surf.  Cabernet or Merlot?

Dinner was our left over Italian from last night, and it was just as good this evening as it was yesterday.  The cooks favorite ingredient is garlic and we don’t mean the powdered stuff.  Our dinner last night came with fresh rolls covered in chunks of garlic.

Today:  29 miles in 3.8 engine hours.  Total for the trip:  2252 miles.

Tomorrow we should reach Lake Okeechobee where we plan on tying up to the dolphins outside of the second lock at Port Mayaca before the lake to overnight.

Dave

Fort Pierce City Marina

As we only had to travel twenty miles today we elected to make a late start after eating the mates French toast breakfast.  Approaching Fort Pierce we knew we really were in Florida as the uniform of the day was short pants and short sleeve shorts as well as getting waked by numerous go-fast power boats.  We did get a few slow passes today but they were the exception and not the rule.

About an hour out of Fort Pierce we heard a bunch of radio chatter among some boats where the kingpin of the group was orchestrating some movement of the boats.  He announced their arrival into the marina basin at Fort Pierce and we assumed he had some boats in tow as he was asking for assistance at the docks. We slowed down to give them some time to sort things out and when we went in and called the marina they asked us to call back in fifteen minutes as they needed more time to deal with the recent arrivals.   We left and went outside the basin for a while rather than milling around inside with the current.   Actually, all this activity was simply four boats that wanted to tie up to the docks so they could eat lunch at the restaurant.  The boats were 28′, 24′ and two 20 footers.  You would think they were docking the QE II.   The guy in charge of the docks is new and is in a little over his head.  It took us almost a full hour from the time we initially contacted the marina until we got in at the fuel dock where we took on 50 gallons of diesel at $2.17/gallon and pumped out our holding tank before going to our assigned dock.

At the dock in Fort Pierce. Looking at this picture, I really need to make some green covers for those orange fenders. That will be one of the projects when we drive up for the holidays.

While the mate walked around town checking out the stores (and getting her hair trimmed), the skipper spent part of the afternoon planning our next few days.  We will be heading to Stuart before heading west across the Okeechobee.  Actually, this is the first real “planning” we have done on this trip because we have been this way twice before.  The Okeechobee and the connecting waters are something new for us.

Our Canadian buddies, Sylvia and Dale’s Gozzard 36.

We had dinner with Sylvia and Dale at a downtown Italian restaurant this evening.  Of course we have enough left over for tomorrow nights dinner.  It was nice to see them again and get the “real” story about their crossing back from the Bahamas, something they don’t want to repeat (the crossing, not telling the story).

Today:   20 miles in 3.2 engine hours.  Total for the trip:  2223 miles.

Dave

Loggerhead, Vero Beach

Arising before dawn (well, 0630 hours) got us going by 0700 after the normal stumbling around, powering up systems and retrieving the anchor.  The day was mostly overcast with misty showers and some minor downpours.  After arriving at Vero Beach and requesting the loaner bikes so we could go to Publix for some groceries we were informed that the back gate to this complex was closed due to construction.  If you went out the front gate it is about a five mile ride to Publix as opposed to the one mile route out the “back”.  One of the dock hands here indicated there was a way around the construction site which was not difficult at all so off to Publix we rode.

Showers for the crew were next on the list and after that the mate took a dip in the not terribly heated pool.  It turns out only one of the the three heaters for the pool had been turned on, but that didn’t deter her.  The skipper needs ideal conditions to go into a pool and we didn’t have them today.

She came a long way to swim in December and a cool pool wasn’t going to deter her.

Scott and Deb came to Liberty for dinner, it was nice to touch base with them again.  It was too bad we didn’t have much time together tonight but they promised they would visit us in St. Pete while we are there.   Tampa Bay is one of Scott’s old stomping grounds so he will show us around a bit.

Tomorrow we are off to Ft. Pierce (short 19 mile day) where we will spend some time with our Canadian traveling buddies Dale and Sylvia before heading off to do the Okeechobee.

Distance today:  51 miles in 6.6 engine hours.  Total:  2203 miles.

Dave

 

 

 

Cocoa NE Anchorage

We left our free dock in New Smyrna at 0715 hours this morning, just ahead of a large sailing catamaran and a Beneteau 42 sailboat.  I guess we all had the same idea, get going early.  There was some initial radio chatter with the Beneteau wanting to know if the sailing cat was traveling with us as evidently we were leading the pack a little too slowly for the Bene.  As they were third in line they passed the cat and then we slowed and pulled over to the side of the channel to let them pass us, which they appreciated.  According to their AIS signal they were motoring about 1/2 knot faster than us which means they were pushing their engine a bit as most 42′ sailboats don’t have large engines.

After a few hours they had worked their way out to almost a three quarter mile lead on us when they caught up to another sailboat and trawler.  The lady on the Bene was a chatty one and she radioed the trawler that they wished to pass as they were doing 8.5 knots (helped by some current).  The trawler asked if they knew they were in a five mile stretch of the ICW that is a slow speed area due to manatees, which is why they lead sailboat and trawler was going so slow.  There was a pause, and the reply came back they didn’t (there are big signs stating slow speed from buoy X to buoy Y).  The trawler said he was a local and this was heavily enforced here, and if stopped you are guilty until proven innocent.  Needless to say the Bene slowed way down and contritely followed the other two boats.  We had slowed ourselves earlier (we can read), slowing by over a knot, but still faster than the leaders.  Six knots down current with almost no wake won’t get you into trouble.

We saw more manatees today than we did all of last year.  As a matter of fact we had to dodge some of them coming straight down the channel, although most were smart enough to stay off to the side.

Eventually we reached the end of the manatee zone and could resume our travels at our normal cruising RPM.  We passed the trawler ahead of us, a nice looking Eagle 37 and ended up on the tail of the Bene when they slowed for a few bridges we needed to have raised.  What we found interesting was that for the majority of the day they seemed to be content to motor at about .05 knots faster than us rather than the .5 knots they started the day at.

We keep going by these sunken derelicts. I am sure they are never going to remove these.  At least they are off the channel.

After days, the sun is finally out and the temperature is in the 70’s.

The blue track is from March 13, 2014. We were scoping out this anchorage, which is the reason for the curved path. The green boat shows our position today. It is real easy to find a good spot if you have been there before.

The main attraction in Cocoa for us is Ms. Apples Crab Shack.  We got the take out from here last spring and it was great.  This anchorage leaves a bit to be desired though.  Conditions are almost exactly the same as last spring, NE winds about 15 knots.  We should be in the lee of the land (we are) but the waves on the Indian “River” (it is 1.2 miles wide) seem to bend around here and reflect off the causeway resulting in us rolling around.  As a matter of fact, after we got in the afternoon we deemed it to rough to board the dinghy to fetch our dinner and waited for an hour or so for things to settle down just a touch.  It still was more of a chore than we wanted it to be.  How come it never blows 5 knots when we are anchored out?  There is a channel into a bait store next to the Crab Shack that they tell us should handle our draft.  Next time we will try to time it so the tide is up and there is no wind (sure, that will happen) and take the boat in to grab our meal.

Ms. Apples shrimp, clams, stuffed crab and red potatoes. You have to like garlic and butter. Absolutely delicious but we can’t make a habit of it.

Tomorrow morning the mate wants to be on our way extra early as Loggerhead Marina at Vero Beach awaits.  The forecast is for 78 degrees, winds ENE at 10 with a slight chance of thunderstorms.   The plan is to hit Publix (grocery), the showers and the pool before hosting our friends Scott and Deb, owners of the Pilgrim 40 Firefly for dinner on Liberty.  It is interesting to note that last year we arrived at Vero Beach on 12/10, this year we are showing up on 12/9.  Evidently all of our weather delays in different locations average out.

Dave

 

New Smyrna, Free Dock

This morning we gathered up our laundry that was drying in the salon and in the veranda then left Marineland at 0745 hours.  Our boat speed only dropped to less than seven knots  for a few minutes today, meaning we must have lucked out with the tidal currents.  When we arrived at New Smyrna we found the free floating dock taken, but there was room for us on the non-floating dock.  The only issue with this dock is having to deal with the pilings that are outboard of the dock and the fact that the dock curved.  The forecast was for NE winds in the 15 knot range increasing to 20 this afternoon and that is just what we had.  The breeze has dropped off a bit this evening as forecast and is that is appreciated.  We still haven’t really seen the sun in a few days but that is supposed to change soon.

At the dock in New Smyrna.

The boat directly behind us appears to be a local live-aboard, the boat behind that one on the floating dock is a Tanzer 28 owned by a couple of kids (23 years old) from British Columbia.  They sold everything, bought this boat in Toronto, fixed it up the best they could and headed south.  They lost their rig overboard somewhere and limped into Annapolis, thinking their great adventure was over.  Getting lucky they found a pretty much complete rig that would almost fit at Bacon’s for $600, re-rigged the boat and continued south.  Evidently they have been kept busy fixing almost everything aboard (welcome to the club, boys) and are here fixing stuff.  When they need money, they do odd jobs for people; tomorrow they are doing some landscaping.  Their plan is: there is no plan.  Head south and see what develops.  You have to give them credit as neither of them has sailed before.  We offloaded some beer, fruit, crackers and cookies to them.

Fender boards are a necessity here as the tidal range is about three feet. We also did a bit of maintenance on their pilings, cutting off a 3/4″ bolt that was protruding from the piling before it could damage our fender board.

The main street in downtown New Smyrna. The mate visited the stores that were open, not bringing much back to the boat.

Today:  51 miles in 6.6 hours.  Total mileage 2100.

Dave

Marineland Marina

We left Fish Island at 0710 this morning as we needed to be gone before the tide dropped.  At that time of the morning we should have been at half tide and dropping.  As it was, with all the wind that has been blowing lately the water was still pretty high allowing us to leave with no issues.

Leaving Fish Island. We never saw less than four feet of water under our keel on our way out.

The above two pictures were taken by Mike. Our selfie stick isn’t that long.

Two sailboats were following in our wake and things were pretty uneventful until we got to the Matanzas Inlet.  This region has a number of day markers that get moved as the channel shifts.  We have been through here twice before with out incident.  While the chart shows 81A, B, C and D, these are only relative positions and you pay attention to what is on the water and not exactly what is shown on your chart plotter.

The highlighted blue line in the image below shows our path through here in the spring.  Not knowing if the buoys had been moved we don’t blindly follow our bread crumb trail but pay attention to what is out the pilot house windows.  After rounding 81B we headed for the next buoy that we could see.  You also learn to keep one eye on the depth sounder.  A trimaran sailboat appeared to be anchored just to the right in the channel so we slowed down and decided to pass him on his left.  The bottom came up quickly, and we had less than two feet under the keel at which point we stopped and backed up while we tried to figure out our next move.

The red line sketched below shows what was happening.  After passing 81B we were heading for 81D.

You might ask why we didn’t round 81C first.  Well, because the blankety-blank trimaran sailboat had tied itself up to 81C and were pretty much pulling it over so we couldn’t see it as it was in line with all the crap on the back of their boat.

We saw this after we got close and began to pass him.  The boat appears to be stern down for some reason.

Passing this character to his right got us around the day mark on the correct side at which point we could continue to swing towards 81D and stay in the channel.

The sailboats behind us were real unhappy as they too got fooled.  One guy ended up aground (on a falling tide) and was trying to raise BoatUS Towing.  The other sailboat called the Coast Guard to report the boat being tied to a day mark and the Coast Guard responded that they knew of the situation and the owner was taking “full responsibility”, what ever that means.   Why there wasn’t any CG radio Pan-Pan’s prior to this is a mystery as they seem to report things such as dead heads in channels at times.  We could hear a lot of radio chatter of boats warning other boats heading south about this, and there was a parade of southbound vessels today.  Evidently people were doing exactly what we did; waiting for better weather before proceeding.

Our spot on the floating dock at Marineland.

Coming into Marineland, the sailboat following us must have been fixated on our course as he started to follow us into the basin here before realizing we were exiting the ICW and he made a right hand turn to continue on.  He probably didn’t think we would be stopping at 0945 hours, since he fell in behind us as we came out of Fish Island a bit after 0700.  New Smyrna is fifty miles from here, and we aren’t interested in getting in after dark.  There are also four bridges that we need to have opened for us and not all are on demand.  As a matter of fact the one bridge that opened on demand today, we waited for the sailboats to catch up  (only about ten minutes behind us) to keep the bridge tender from having to open and close in such a short time span.

Getting in this early allowed us to catch up on chores such as re-filling our water tanks and scrubbing the deck with Soft Scrub.  We were way to busy while at Fish Island to scrub decks :).  After our nature walk we took showers and did laundry (the laundry was busy when we first got here).

They have a 1.2 mile nature trail you can follow.

We also walked over the the Atlantic shore to check out the beach. The ocean has been rolling for days.

The staff leaves at 1700 hours and they need to lock up the washer/dryer room.  Since our laundry wasn’t quite dry, this required us to string up a line in the veranda for us to hang our clothes on.  We probably look like real cruisers, but since it is dark I doubt anybody will notice.  We had this issue last time we were here but were staying two days so they just left us the key which we returned in the morning.  Tomorrow we are leaving before the staff shows up so that won’t work this time.

Trying to dry our laundry.

Today: 17 sm in 2.5 engine hours.  Total:  2049 sm.

Dave

Well, we had to leave Fish Island this morning after several very enjoyable days.  We not only were able to visit our buddy Mike, but we were joined by another Pilgrim (Destiny). Destiny owners, Debbie and Tim, were just a pleasure to spend  time with!!!  It was great meeting you guys!!!  Hopefully we’ll see you again after the holidays!!!

We made it to Marineland Marina this morning before noon!! (Pretty easy day!!!)  Well, tomorrow we are off to New Smyrna.  (I’m pretty sure there will be shopping in my near future in New Smyrna!!!!)

Bobbi

Fish Island, Day 5

It is hard to believe that we have spent five days here.  The time goes by quickly and the evenings are truly enjoyable as the people we are around are so interesting and friendly.

Today we headed off to the St. Augustine Flea Market.  It is a large series of interconnected buildings where people rent space to sell just about everything and anything.  Most of it is over priced junk, but I guess that is the attraction of the place.  We didn’t see many people carrying around any items that they purchased which tells you something.  My guess is that you are supposed to haggle with these people as the marked prices are for the most part absurd.

This place had bins of electronic adapters although I can’t imagine plugging an expensive piece of equipment into anything purchased here unless you knew the exact voltage and amperage.

At the “office” of Fish Island they have a 125 lb Herreshoff type with a slightly bent shank. You don’t see these every day.

This evening we had a very enjoyable time aboard Flexible Flyer, pizza, wine and key lime pie  with the crew of Destiny, Flexible Flyer (although the cats were keeping a low profile), Tyne (Mike’s son) and Katei (a local live-aboard).  Mike gave us a very practical going away gift that he hopes we never need (I hope he is right).

Tomorrow, we have to be off the dock at 0730 (half tide, receding); the winds should be in the 15-20 knot range, down quite a bit from what we have been experiencing for the last few days.

Dave