Finished with engine

Sunday 19 April 2020

As we approach the final destination of this delivery job, we wonder what brave new world will greet us when starship Eleohn lands on Earth where we will have to get off and be ashore among PEOPLE?  We hear from family and friends about how they are coping with the virus crisis, but it is one thing to hear about it and another to be IN it.  One family member has the virus.  We have rarely left the protective cocoon of Eleohn this trip since the 20^th of March, and so much has changed since then.  Marina dockhands no long handle the large power cord as a courtesy and only loop lines over cleats for us before getting away as soon as they can.  We wash hands after plugging in power and flipping on the pier breaker.  That and a quick no-contact check-in at the office has been the extent of our human contact at marinas.  We wonder about getting groceries without exposure.  Rich is in desperate need of a new pair of glasses as the two pair he brought are in a sorry state with broken arms and scratched lenses, and he needs a new refraction for these new glasses.  He also needs to get the single molar implant process completed begun so long ago before anybody ever heard of CV19.  Both of us need haircuts.  How will all this be taken care of without exposure?  We have no masks or anything to make them out of aboard and only a few pair of gloves to protect us.  We have discussed a lot more use of our own boat to just get out of the house and breathe some fresh air once in a while.  Will this be the new normal for a year or more?  We don’t know.  Suffice it to say that despite.  A thunderstorm system, an invasion of swallows, yes, the birds, and a very annoying short period swell on the beam, we survived the 26.5-hour passage from Bradenton to Carrabelle and moored here without incident.  We apparently blundered across a swallow migratory flyway, because after we passed through the thunderstorms, we began to see the little fellows winging by us heading east in ones and twos.  Early on one of them landed on the bow for a breather before carrying on eastward.  I went below at 1600 to sleep a bit, but I gave it up as a lost cause at 1700 and went back on up to the bridge where I found a Mexican standoff in progress between Mary who was all the way over on the port side with her big straw hat in front of her and a swallow perched on a window valance on the opposite side.  Apparently the winged warrior had flow through the open bridge wing door right after I left, and the two of them had been chasing each other all over the place up there ever since.  It took a bit to corner it, but soon it was tossed out on its ear.  Soon there were more of them floating around in the air, and another one flew in to roost.  After it was likewise unceremoniously evicted, a sparrow-like bird landed on the binnacle.  OK, enough, we closed the doors and pulled the screens across the windows until after sunset when we figured they’d quit.  As sunset approached, there was a noticeable desperation as more and more birds were looking for places to alight out of the wind.  A scrum began to develop on the boat deck at the aft starboard corner of the pilothouse as bird after bird settled in to the pile in an apparent effort to share and conserve body heat.  There were about a dozen of them plus others seeking shelter on the securing ropes of the motorized dinghy and the rowing dinghy.  As the sun rose this morning, we began to see ones and twos of these little guys winging about in test flights before returning to a handrail here and there to stretch and preen before flying off.  Looking back at the scrum, we could see ones and twos stumble out of it like a drowsy person just getting out of bed.  Sadly two were left dead, but most survived to fly off toward Dog Island as it came into view.  After an almost sleepless and rolling night, the pass between St George Island and Dog Island ever so slowly crawled into view, and the rolling began to subside.  As daylight returned, the radars were shifted from anti-collision mode to land-finding mode, and the plotter and computer were shifted from night to dusk and finally daylight illumination modes.  I wonder how many times and places over the world I have been through the process of entering port at dawn?  Hundreds maybe?  The invigorating feeling, no matter how tired you are, of entering port after a passage always carries you through until you are safe alongside the pier and “finished with engines.”  This minor one-month boat delivery affair certainly pales in comparison to returning from six-month deployments in my Navy days, but there is an unmistakable cognitive similarity.  Finally, it was time to get up from the settee where we had been braced while monitoring engine instruments and electronics all through the rough night watch to stand at the wheel, binoculars in hand, to visually confirm the possible fiction the electronics were telling us about the channel markers.  It was a quick hour from Dog Island Pass and up the twisting Carrabelle River channel to The Moorings of Carrabelle where our pier space was waiting.  For the first time in 26.5 hours I touched the throttle to idle the 300-horse John Deere main engine bringing the, boat to a sedate pace, and after a short turn, a couple of bursts of bow thruster and a bit of backing to get Mary in range of the waiting dockhand with her stern line, we were done.  Finished with engine.

On the way...

Saturday 18 April 2020

The tidal flow had just stopped as the tide reached low , and the air was perfectly still when we very carefully got underway in semi-darkness at 0640.  Exiting the Manatee River into nearly flat Tampa Bay was a completely different experience than the day before yesterday when high winds had whipped it into froth and rolled us about like a pair of dice.  Taking advantage of one of the few means of recreation left in these odd times, small open boat after boat zipped by us as we plowed our furrow out of the river.  Our computer says our ETA is, well, it really depends upon our instantaneous speed over the ground (SOG).  Right now with an eight MPH SO, it stands at 0915 Sunday morning in Carrabelle.  Right now we have the Sunshine Skyway over Tampa Bay to starboard and Egmont Key guarding the entrance on our port bow in hazy weather with a few scattered low clouds.  There are warnings on the marine radio of the possibility of severe thunderstorms in the area today, but there is no evidence of any now.  Hopefully, we will get out to sea and leave any that do pop up behind.  After that, all we have to do is beat the storms forecast for the northern end of our route before they strike tomorrow.  Are we between a rock and a hard place?  AND not to be outdone by any other world events, Mary finished her quilt yesterday!

Ready, set...

Friday 17 April 2020

The winds here in Bradenton blew hard out of the east all yesterday and have finally moderated this afternoon.  The skies are cloudy because the front which went through here yesterday stalled out south of here and is now retreating back north over us.  This apparently does nothing to the sea state between here and Carrabelle as the forecast remains good for tomorrow and the first half of Sunday, but we need to be off the open waters before the potential severe weather rolls through the Carrabelle area during the latter part of Sunday.  If we were to delay for some reason, the next opportunity to cross the Big Bend would be a least a week, and maybe longer, away.  We can expect to be out of contact for about twenty four hours beginning around noon Saturday.  If conditions allow, I may get off a quick blog post before we lose contact.

In position for the finale

Thursday 16 April 2020

We got the anchor up about 0815 as the winds were picking up from the north in the wide open part of Sarasota Bay where we had anchored.  The weather continued snotty with low overcast and on and off rain as we exited the bay and followed the ICW between Bradenton and Bradenton Beach and entered Anna Maria Sound.  The Cortez bridge gauge looked just a little too low to risk going through, but it was a scheduled lift bridge due for a lift five minutes after we got there.  A few miles on we passed safely under our last bridge for this trip and will raise the mast tomorrow preparatory to getting underway on Saturday morning.  Tampa Bay was very rough for the few miles we had to transit along its southern edge before we turned up the Manatee River where we moored at Twin Dolphin Marina on a tee head.  The entrance to this marina is very odd with a restaurant bulkhead a very short distance inside the marina breakwater entrance, hardly a boat length between the two ends of the entrance and this bulkhead making entry and exit a tricky process.  Likewise, there may not even be a full boat length from this tee head where we are moored to the outer breakwater making our exit another difficult proposition.  With a strong NE wind pushing on our port bow when we moored, tying up he boat was simple enough.  With a south wind at 6 MPH predicted for our currently planned departure time on Saturday, our departure may be not be too tricky, but we may just have to back out of here.  My review of the forecast wind and sea conditions indicate that a Saturday/Sunday crossing of the Gulf will be best; so we told the marina that we would be here for only two days.  We got off the boat and walked through part of downtown Bradenton, a very clean and neat looking place but deserted on a Thursday afternoon due to the COVID19 crisis, to the nearest post office to take care of some business and then dropped by the Pier 22 Restaurant in the center of this marina to pick up a dinner order.  After we get into Carrabelle and are moored, we will probably just want to collapse for the rest of the day before beginning the cleanup and packing; so we have tentatively set Tuesday morning for Chip the owner to come pick us up and take us home.

Running out of sheltered waters

Wednesday 15 April 2020

My Mom’s birthday and what used to be tax day before the virus crisis struck.  We started off slowly today because our traveling goal was limited to 34 miles.  Underway time was about 1015 and anchoring time was about 1525.  Exiting the long Lemon Bay, we then traveled through Blackburn Bay and thence into Sarasota Bay where we anchored about halfway up the bay on the western, Longboat Key, side near Longboat Key Club Moorings Marina or directly across the bay from the Ringling mansion.  There are only three bridges on this coast which we need to have open for us when we have the mast down, and we went through all of them today without too much delay.  Tomorrow, we will go another 25 miles to Twin dolphin Marina on the Manatee River in Bradenton to wait for the weather to break in our favor for a 212-mile crossing to Carrabelle because at Tampa Bay we have run out of sheltered waters for this boat.  Only Clearwater Pass is another option for starting the crossing, and the owner of this fine vessel is a bit iffy about us taking it up to and out of that pass.  It really is not some much difference in distance anyway.  At an average of 7.5 MPH, that will be 28.2 hours.  If we can achieve 8 MPH, we cut it down by about two hours – it doesn’t make much difference in the larger scheme of things.  If we were to stage for our crossing at Egmont Key at the entrance to Tampa Bay, we would lessen the crossing by some fifteen miles, but a source familiar with the area says finding a calm anchorage at Egmont can be a challenge, meaning we might not be as well rested for the crossing.  Decisions, decisions.  There appears to be a window opening up this Saturday evening where my “wave predictor” website and my “wind predictor” website both agree that wind and wave conditions will be quiet.  We will watch developments from the marina.

Positioning for Big Bend crossing

Tuesday 14 April 2020

Wishing to beat the forecasted increasing winds pressing us onto the pier after 0800, we got underway at dawn without hitting anything or anybody and headed out the channel to find water conditions less than ideal as we rolled and pitched energetically for the half hour or so it took to get us across open water to the shelter of Sanibel Island and into Pine Island Sound.  As we ran north, we passed the length of Sanibel and numerous other smaller associated islands before getting to Captiva, North Captiva and finally Cayo Costa Island before we felt the effects of the sea as we passed Boca Grande right after passing between Cabbage Key with its unique atmosphere and dining and the ultra-exclusive Useppa Island where we passed into Charlotte Harbor.  Then it was under the Boca Grande Causeway and into the narrow confines of the ICW in Placida Harbor and then the long Lemon Bay near Englewood.  We pulled off the ICW into a small bay just before the Tom Adams Bridge.  Now we have to consider our next and final big jump across open waters.  Modern technology has enabled the mariner to predict with some accuracy the anticipated conditions at sea, and we use several favorite site to avoid being too miserable at sea.  Because it does not take too much to cause misery at sea in a 55-foot boat, we are always looking for a prediction of the very lowest of wave heights before we attempt a long offshore run like the 206-mile run from Tampa Bay area to Dog Island Pass.  Right now, we are seeing excellent predictions for Sunday into Monday.  We hope that prediction stays intact, but even with such a prediction, we always remember that it is the open sea we are dealing with, and the difference of 0-2 foot wave height which is easily enough withstood and 3-4 foot seas with the occasional 5-footer can really throw us around in a most uncomfortable way.  Our current plan in this 90_plus degree weather is to motor on up to tampa Bay tomorrow and anchor some place.  Then we will likely go to Twin Dolphins Marina on the Manatee River for several days hoping the weather window holds for early Sunday departure.

Getting going again

Monday 13 April 2020

We are still in Fort Myers Beach due to the fairly awful weather – it’s just not worth the effort to move.  However, tomorrow morning we will get loose from here and head up the ICW and in a couple of days arrive at the Manatee River area in the southern part of Tampa Bay to await a weather window to cross the Big Bend in a 27-hour run.  The waves need to be reasonably kindly to take a 55-foot boat on that long a crossing, not for the sake of the vessel but rather for our sake.  Getting beat about in a can at sea is really tiring and after a while just hazardous because you get tired and can get hurt falling about.  Our concern for tomorrow’s getting underway is the closeness of the boat ahead of us (about three feet) and the wind which could be pressing us against the pier.  We’ will survey to situation and maybe get a dockhand to help let got the last lines so one of us does not have to leap aboard, or try to, as we hurriedly back away once I get a good angle with the pier.

Studying our next move leading up the the big jump

Saturday 11 April 2020

Studying the upcoming weather, we find that the Gulf of Mexico is unsettled until next Friday.  We could continue the march getting to the Tampa Bay area by, say Monday, only to sit around at anchor using our limited water supply and being bored or waiting a few days here in Fort Myers Beach tied up to Salty Sam’s Marina with all the water we want.  Our plan now is to leave Tuesday morning and motor up through Pine Island Sound passing favorite places like Cabbage Key and anchor just off the channel after about 50 miles of travel.  Assuming the forecasted weather window remains in place we would end up anchored in the Manatee River on the south side of Tampa Bay on Wednesday ready to cross the bay the fifteen miles over to Egmont Key late on Thursday all set for an early jump-off for the 24-hour run to Carrabelle.  The complex including our current marina caters to touristy type stuff with activities such as casual dining in a tiki-style thatched roof dining room, pirate ship tours, kayak rentals, boat and pontoon boat rentals and others.  Dining and pirate ship activities are shut down now, but kayaks and boats were being rented today.  With the weather being a bit iffy, the marine activity out our windows seems a bit muted.  Today I took the searchlight apart to look at its grungy reflector.  It is a 9-inch diameter parabolic reflector mirror which has become fungus etched and needs replacement or re-silvering.  I did a little bit of research and recommended to the owner that re-silvering may be the best approach.  Fuel was transferred to the wing/day tanks from the belly tank via the fuel polisher in quantity sufficient to see us through the end of this trip.  The engine oil was topped up, the mast was lowered for the coming low bridges, and the boat is ready to go again.  I went to the ship’s store this morning to discuss our two-day extension and found a number of people in line (about six feet apart) to rent kayaks or boats and decided that discretion was the better part of valor and left to continue my social distancing campaign – I settled the issue on the phone later on.

Rough day/close call

Friday 10 April 2020

We were easily underway from anchorage at 0650 in the gray pre-dawn with the anchor chain and anchor itself coming up clear and housing into the anchor chute without me having to hang a mooring line over the bow to catch and swivel the hook around so it would retrieve properly.  We knew the day’s ride was going to be rougher than yesterday because the wind had been blowing all night causing some swell to make its way into the harbor rocking us as the tide changed and swung us crosswise to the swell.  Exiting the harbor gave us the full story and we rolled (despite having the fin stabilizers activated) and pitched for five hours all the way to the Fort Myers Beach channel entrance.  It was a most uncomfortable ride, and food preparation for lunch was impossible.  Our information from Salty Sam’s Marina was that we were assigned to the tee-head of D Dock which would allow us to come in, turn around to head into the strong flood tide current and wind, and just sidle into the pier using the bow thruster to push that way and the engine idling ahead and judicious rudder to keep us parallel to the pier and from being blown downwind/current.  We had used this method before with great success.  After rigging all the fenders and lines for a starboard side landing, we arrived to find a 36-foot boat trailing a 12-foot dinghy taking up enough of the tee-head to make our landing problematic.  I informed the marina of the issue, and the dock master, who to this point had not sent any dockhands to help because we had agreed it would not be necessary, said we could use a side tie on the downwind and down current side of a long pier, across from a larger vessel moored on the upwind/current side.  So we pulled out in the stream and re-rigged lines and fenders for a port side landing.  The new mooring featured  a long floating pier with a vacant “half” slip defined by a finger pier jutting into the area, meaning our bow would probably stick some small distance into the half-slip once we were securely moored.  There was a pirate-theme tour ship moored on a parallel, downwind/current pier leaving a gap of maybe 70 feet for our use.  I knew about halfway into my first approach that I was too far downwind/current and drifting toward the pirate ship to make it work and hurriedly went into reverse and repositioned for a second attempt.  If you ram a parked pirate ship, do they swarm aboard yelling “Arrgh?”  Anyway, back in the real world, my second attempt had the bow well in toward the waiting dockhands, with us sheltered from the wind by the vessel across the pier, and away from the pirate ship.  However, neither the current nor the stern were playing along with this scenario with the stern quickly settling on a course toward the pirates giving us such a great angle with the pier that use of a spring line, had we been able to get it into the hands of the helpers on the pier, would have been impossible.  Backing clear this time was a non-starter because that was going to scrape our 55 tons of steel down the side of the pirate ship (did I see cutlasses waving in the air over there?).  I was beginning to see us wedged in this “slip” but thought there was enough room to pivot around if I could avoid the end of the half-slip’s finger pier now nearing our starboard beam.  With Mary on the headset aft (I have zero astern visibility from the pilothouse due to the wide boat deck) advising me whether or not we were going swing into anything, I clutched the engine to neutral and gunned the throttle while holding the hydraulic bow thruster control in order to push the bow to port (the engine has a power take off to the hydraulic pump).  The current, pushing us away from the pier, kept the big clipper bow swinging over the heads of the dockhands and prevented the bow contacting the pier as I frantically used the thruster to prevent us from hitting the finger pier to starboard.  Whenever I needed to use the engine to move us ahead or astern, I had to remember to throttle the engine back to idle before moving the clutch lever because nothing but very bad things would have happened had I forgotten.  However, I never let go of that thruster knob until we had pivoted about 135 degrees and I began to see light at the end of the tunnel – I am sure the pirates were sad to see our escape.  I informed the marina we were done with that little exercise and convinced them to get that damned dinghy moved before sidling into the tee-head and getting secured without our big airbag fenders ever touching the pier like I actually knew what I was doing.  Where’s my rum and coke?!  With the wild weather in the forecast, we may be here longer than the two days we had planned.  Mary told the owner we have decided to live here.

Out of the wilderness

9 April 2020

Today’s transit here went right according to Hoyle, and we arrived here at a makeshift anchorage just outside the channel inland of marker Green 14.  We are just outside of the no-wake zone which means that all the boats run right up to us and slow or zoom out of the no-wake zone to pass by here.  In our old 40,000-pound boat we would NOT have enjoyed this, but in this 110,000-pound boat, it’s not so bad.  Nightfall will end all this activity.  We are just lucky that it’s a Friday and not the usually busier weekend.  While arranging our next port visit to Fort Myers Beach, I had an interesting conversation with a marina manager there.  I supposed that the boating activity there on the weekend was not so heavy right now due to the virus crisis, but he assured me that it was indeed heavy because it is one of the few activities open to people these days. At this time, we have two marinas in FMB offering suitable transient dock space for us and we are considering going to the one deeper in Estero Bay there for calmer water while the coming front moves through.  Hopefully, our early departure tomorrow will get us through the open waters between here and FMB before the wave action picks up.  Either way, we are going because we would be stuck here at anchor for days otherwise.

Into the wilderness

Wednesday 8 April 2020

This will be posted when we get back from the internet-challenged Everglades, probably on Thursday from near Everglades City.

We were most fortunate in the calm weather we enjoyed at anchorage last night because Jewfish Hole is more an indentation in the north coast line of Long Key than a protected anchorage.  We probably didn’t move much at all after anchoring.  In these benign conditions, I told Mary to stay in bed a bit longer if she liked because getting underway was a one-person job.  If she wasn’t awake before I weighed anchor at 0730 she surely was after because the screaming hydraulic windlass and clanking chain and chain hook dropping on the steel deck was right over her head.  Who knows, maybe the large windlass brake bar got accidentally on purpose dropped too.  The first hour or two of this relatively short day was spent anxiously watching the depths as we saw less than 2 feet beneath the keel a lot and even a brief 0.0 feet – scary.  However, the last 2/3 of the trip was run with luxurious 5-7 feet under us in aqua-marine colored but slightly clouded water; so in contrast to the Atlantic side, we could not see the bottom.  We anchored around 1400 in the mouth of the Little Shark River inside Everglades National Park in preparation for another short jump to an anchorage near Everglades City tomorrow.  Crab pot buoy dodging , as we did on the way here, is a mandatory sport engaged with by all who pass through Florida Bay, unless you are inside the Park markers a mile or so off the shoreline because crabbing is not allowed inside the Park. We were outside the markers for an hour or two, and there were plenty to dodge.  During the middle ours of our run we were in water maybe 13-15 feet deep with no other vessel or land in sight.  The weather is salubrious in the extreme with air temp 80 at noon, a light breeze from the west creating wavelets maybe six inches high, and a few puffy clouds around to give accent to the blue sky.  BUT it always pays to listen to the weather on the marine radio.  We may not have internet or TV or even reception of a decent radio station here in the remotest Everglades, but we do have the good old fashioned NOAA weather radio stations blasting out over our whole country.  While planning the next few days’ runs, we discovered the weather was forecast to turn rather sour Saturday night; so rather than depend on the weather to hold off until Saturday night, we changed our plan for tomorrow from a lazy short day of 44 miles getting to anchorage near Evergaldes City to a rather longer day of 69 miles in order to anchor at Marco Island.  That way we will be in position to run a mere 38 miles in dependably good weather on Friday to Fort Myers Beach.  Hopefully there will be a marina in FMB which is still offering transient dockage, but if not, FMB is a very short couple of miles to entrance to Pine Island Sound where we can find a sheltered anchorage somewhere in its vastness.

Turning the corner headed home

Tuesday 7 April 2020

The city lights made getting underway at 0530 a bit more illuminating than our run of the mill anchorages out in the wilds.  As we turned down the main shipping channel where all the cruise ship moor, we spotted a police patrol boat with blue lights flashing.  I made our intentions to go to sea known on channel 16 but got response.  However, the patrol boat immediately raced from his position at about the middle of the line of five giant cruise ships to a position 100 yards to our rear and to the starboard side (that’s starboard quarter for you lubbers), as the ships were moored in a line on the starboard side of the channel, the patrol boat was in a good position to accelerate and intercept us had we turned in that direction.  I dunno, would some corona virus infected passenger hatch a plan to jump for it and be rescued by a friend, or would somebody want to drive a bomb into a ship?  Next up in the dark was figuring out what was coming at us in the channel – turned out to be a ferry boat, but they NEVER answer the radio – what is it about those guys?  The is a single turn in the channel about a mile out, and as we came clear of the intervening spit of land I beheld a moving mountain of lights headed in the channel and as luck would have it we were looking like meeting at the bend, not cool.  It turned out to be the Celebration-something cruise ship, and the pilot agree to pass port-to-port while I nervously hugged my side of the channel all the while with seas picking up and bouncing us about.  Mary took this somewhat expected bouncing around for about two hours before retiring to the sofa in the salon well aft in the boat where the ride and sleeping was better.  Later on the seas subsided a bit as we got into the Hawk Channel where the outlying reefs stop a lot of the Atlantic’s boisterousness.  For the ride down the outside of the Keys we were treated to emerald green and clear water through which we could see the bottom in the mostly 15-foot depths.  At 1630, we turned from our southwestward course to a northwest route up Channel Five and very cautiously felt our way out of the Atlantic and into Florida Bay.  We had finally turned the corner headed in a northerly direction toward home!  We anchored a short distance away from Channel Five in 10 feet of water in a wide bay called Jewfish Hole off Long Key.  We saw several other vessels out on the water including one very large and powerful sailboat under full sail which overhauled us from astern – oh, the shame of it.  However, overall the numbers were skimpy.  I watched the four lane bridge at Channel Five for a while at 4 PM and saw very few vehicles.  It is just a bit eerie.

Mary "standing" watch in heavy seas.

Ready to jump off from Infectionville

Monday 6 April 2020

As planned, we sucked all the water we could out of the marina’s water system until 1100 today when we got underway and headed on down the line to Miami.  In contrast to the weekend, there were essentially NO other boats on the water except a police boat of one jurisdiction or another at every turn as we closed in on Miami.  We saw very little activity of any sort along the close-by banks of the waterway.  The MacArthur Causeway bridge is near where we are now anchored (since about 1500), and at rush hour there is hardly any traffic on it.  There were police cars parked at various public places on the waterfront with yellow police barrier tape strung around in an apparent attempt to convince people they have no place to go and to stay home.  As this is typed, we have a little piece of severe weather rolling through the area with funnel cloud potential.  Our 150-pound anchor with ½-inch chain is holding like a rock in the 1 MPH gustiness.  The projections for weather along the Keys tomorrow are good, but if they are not so good, Mary says she will just go lie down and let me do all the hard work.  Looking across the intervening spit of land from our anchorage, we can see the cruise ships at their terminal.  One or two of them had corona virus deaths aboard, and some of the passengers are still restricted aboard.

Traffic, bridges, inlets, and precautions

Sunday 5 April 2020

Today was busy on the water as more and more people woke up and realized is was Sunday, and they needed to get out on their boats since most other activities are restricted in one way or another by the anti-corona virus measures taken by government.  It was nice and peaceful in Hobe Sound as I got the boat underway from a quiet anchorage while Mary went through her waking up process after I let her sleep in knowing I did not need River and then Lake Worth Creek dumping us into Lake Worth around North Palm Beach.  The lake was broad and easy to follow the channel through eventually leading us to West Palm Beach where we waited for a lift bridge go up.  To our east as we waited was Mar-a-lago, President Trump’s weekend getaway resort.  Next we went by Lake Worth Inlet and followed along more of the lake until it petered out into a narrow canal in Boynton Beach where we saw many elderly retirees sitting along the waterway banks in front of the many housing complexes they must have bought into a long time ago.  The buildings were clearly of an earlier era and well below the opulence we saw farther north and later south of there in the Lauderdale area.  Then we passed Boynton Inlet.  I might explain that inlets have a dramatic effect on the speed we make because depending on whether we were north or south of an inlet incoming tides (flood) would push against us or push us along – same effect, only in the other direction for ebb tides.  We would find ourselves making 9-10 MPH (a most welcome speed for this slow heavy vessel) over the ground as we neared an inlet with a heavy ebb current sucking the water out of the AICW, and as soon as we crossed the inlet, we were down to 5-6 MPH fighting against the water flowing to the inlet.  About halfway between the inlet we had passed and the one we were approaching the current would be light and variable.  It made predicting when we might arrive at our day’s destination a bit iffy.  Then there were the bridges.  As we got farther, more Sunday boaters showed up on the water and more bridges were too low for us to slide under with our mast lowered to get us down to an air draft of 17.5 feet.  As we with our large and unwieldy bulk came to a stop a few hundred yards from the bridge, the current usually seemed to be from astern required us to back the engine to keep from being swept into the bridge.  This action usually ended up putting us at quite an angle to the channel somewhat blocking all the smaller boats which could get under the span.  Being impatient as most folks in speed boats tend to be, they squirted around us on either end leaving me no options about placing our engine in gear to turn the boat either toward the bridge or away from it in order to go back a ways to get in a better position to run through the bridge whenever it opened.  One time  when we were getting too close to the bridge, I just engaged the noisy bow thruster in high speed to get our bow around while putting the engine in forward gear with the rudder thrown hard left and let the smaller craft scatter and save themselves as best they could.  We all lived.  Somewhere in all this boat dodging and bridge waiting, we went by Boca Raton Inlet, and Hillsborough inlet slid by too.  We ogled at the massive homes and guessed at why boats were named what they were and even used Zillow on Mary’s phone to check out some homes with for sale signs.  We saw them for sale for 19-40 million.  Eventually, we arrived at the only marina in Fort Lauderdale willing to take in a wayward transient boat, Hall of Fame Marina.  The swimming hall of fame in located on the marina grounds, or vice versa; thus the name.  The reason we stopped here was because we needed to replenish our water, and Mary wanted to catch up on laundry.  She does a load, and I go out and put the water hose into the tank fill; wash and repeat.  If I don’t keep up with her, she will drain the tank and cause problems with the pump running dry and the water heater being empty.  Tomorrow we will get up late and wander down to an anchorage near the cruise ship terminals in Miami so that we will not have any contact with shore there.  After going to the marina office to sign in and then next door to order take-out food from a restaurant, I came back to the boat and stripped and took a shower before eating my dinner.  From the Miami anchorage, we can easily exit Miami early on Tuesday morning to run the 94 miles to Channel Five where we pass through the Keys into Florida Bay, as previously mentioned.  The weather will likely not be perfect for this open water passage, but hopefully it will not be so rough we have to turn around and return to anchorage.  We need to make the several day run to the west coast of Florida while our water supply is in good shape.

Stepping off into the infectious zone

Saturday 4 April 2020

Underway from our anchorage in a wide spread of water at 0720 hoping to make about 76 miles today toward Jupiter.  The winds were light to naught last night affording us a very quiet night of rest.  I was curious to see what this day would bring in the way of aquatic activities because a friend told me the governor had ordered all Florida waters closed to boating and fishing.  Apparently no such order was given because the first big boat ramp parking lot we saw was full of empty trailers, and there seem to be plenty of fishermen about,  I have seen an official order by the Freshwater Fish and Game Commission, the overseer of the Florida Marine Patrol restricting the number of people allowed on any vessel (ten) and the further restriction of vessels being no closer that fifty feet to each other (excepting marinas).With us in the long straight waterways of Florida’s Atlantic  coast and heading south every day, I have happened upon a novel sun screen economy measure.  Up to about 0900 the sun streams strongly in the port side windows of the pilothouse onto my left arm and left side of my face while I am at the helm.  So I apply sun screen to those areas and swap sides in the afternoon.  With a prolonged period of no contact with shore facilities facing us as we try to avoid contact with Miami area residents and the fact that all marinas there and south into the Keys are closed we have been watching our water use carefully because we only have a 150-gallon tank – by comparison our much smaller Calypso carried 240 gallons.  After three days, we have consumed only 25 percent of our supply; so we are confident that filling up in Fort Lauderdale at a marina which has given us an overnight reservation will possibly see us through the rest of the trip if we do not get stuck somewhere due to mechanical or weather issues.  Today saw us cruising sedately by Sebastian Inlet, some interesting homes along a stretch of twisty waterway at Wabasso and Winter Beach, Vero Beach, St Lucie Inlet and down into Hobe Sound where after 73 miles we anchored.  Despite the corona virus warnings to stay home and isolated we saw many Saturday boaters (many younger adults) out on the water packed shoulder to shoulder with their friends on fast boats.  I guess they figure they cannot transmit the disease in the open air, DUH.  Tomorrow we will wend our way to Fort Lauderdale where we will enter a marina and stock up un water before getting down into Miami where we will anchor in preparation for a pre-dawn underway time in order to travel the 94 miles at sea in the Hawk Channel outside the Keys to arrive at Channel five before darkness.  We did run across some familiar faces, err, fins along the way.

Another long run in pleasant conditons

Friday 3 April 2020

We got underway from anchorage after a very peaceful night off the channel and ran for ten hours in the AICW at a pace somewhat quickened at times by the tidal flow.  We ran down the Indian River North which turned into Mosquito Lagoon with its southern end so far away it was over the horizon.  Near the southern end of this ominously named body of water, we west to ran through a narrow canal called Haulover Canal for a mile or so before entering the Indian River proper.  After ten hours of running we pulled off the AICW in a wide spot near Melbourne with adequate water depth to anchor for the night.  We plan another long day tomorrow heading down to an anchorage seventy six miles from this one.  Another sixty-plus mile day after that will put us into a marina for the night in Fort Lauderdale.  Next up on Monday will be a short day getting through Miami and into the southern reaches of Biscayne Bay to anchor and set us up for Tuesday which will hopefully be at 78-mile run down the Hawk Channel on the seaward side (Atlantic) of the Keys to get to a cut through known as Channel Five which will place us in Florida Bay, the Gulf of Mexico side.  Very shortly after we get underway tomorrow Mary will have the opportunity to gaze at the area where she spent summers and other holidays with her widowed aunt.  It will be a slow pass for sure.  The weather has continued to be exceptionally dry and cool and clear which makes long days at the helm much easier.

A slightly different outlook today

Thursday 2 April 2020

This morning we got underway promptly at 0700 and motored down the waterway for an hour to Palm Coast Marine where we took on 613 gallons of diesel in order to make us independent of further connections with land in this area which is a hotbed of CV19 infection.  We now have enough fuel to go through the Keys and around the tip of Florida getting to Carrabelle.  And a bit of news from Eleohn’s owner was that The Moorings Marina in Carrabelle reversed course and called him to say that his slip will be available upon our arrival.  After fueling we continued down the AICW sightseeing all the houses and docks and boats along the way.  We ended our day at 1400, early for us, in a nice anchorage off the channel at New Smyrna Beach.  Tomorrow should see us in Cocoa, about sixty miles along.  This evening was spent in managing routes through the keys and up to Fort Myers by importing routes I have used before down here from other files in Coastal Explorer to my Eleohn delivery route package.  In the next couple of days as we near Stewart, I will transfer some of them to the Garmin plotter so whatever route we are on is displayed simultaneously on the laptop and the plotter.  We have obviously given up on the Lake Okeechobee route – we were just a month too late.

Afloat on a sea of uncertainty

Wednesday 1 April 2020

When we finally got our act together after breakfast, we got underway from the bouncy berth alongside the very swiftly flowing St John’s.  As we struggled up stream for a couple of miles to the point where we would turn off the river and reenter the AICW, I mentioned to Mary that just a few miles up this very river as a child of seven with but one impediment, I first had relatively unimpeded access to a significant body of water and these things called boats.  On more than one occasion, my harassed mother was required to drive along the road near the apartment complex we lived in in Green Cove Springs in order to be that single impediment and fetch me from the jaws of death in an old rotten rowboat several of us had found.  Further misadventures afloat continued in Doctor’s Inlet near Orange Park off the same St Johns River until at age nine we moved to Pensacola.  But it was time to pay attention to current events, and we made the turn into the AICW intending to stop at Saint Augustine for the night.  The marina there is convenient to food stores and has fuel, but at the moment we needed neither.  The decision was made to press on another twenty-some miles to Marineland Marina which had neither of these amenities, but was far cheaper for moorage plus being farther along the way home.  Sometime after we passed Saint Augustine, two significant facts came to our attention.  Firstly, the water level in Lake Okeechobee has sunk to a level which makes it unsafe to take this boat through.  Secondly, Mary saw on her cell phone where Florida’s governor will enact a stay-at-home order for all non-essential persons.  I also discussed the fuel situation with the boat’s owner which before the Okeechobee development had been sufficient to get us the Carrabelle.  We have no real idea how this unprecedented stay-home order will affect the marinas, but we do know that all marinas in Dade County and the Keys, which we must now traverse are closed.  We called a car service as soon as we could after mooring at Marineland and got ourselves to a grocery store and stocked up for the long haul.  We also ascertained that a fuel dock 7 miles south of here will be standing by tomorrow morning to provide us 750 gallons of diesel to top us off, well before the midnight start of the executive order and any possible impact it may have on us.  Now if we get stalled along the way we can always anchor and run the generators for electricity and have plenty to eat.  Another interesting fact the owner informed us of is that the Moorings Marina in Carrabelle, the boat’s intended destination, will not be allowing any vessels to moor there until the Covid-19 crisis is over.  We are so far away from there right now that the fact we cannot go in there has little impact on current operations, and the owner has said he may just meet us someplace and take off from there to wherever he may want to go with the boat.  Stay tuned as we are afloat in a sea of uncertainty.