Titusville - Dog park and sunset

 

Hoolie's tree in the dog park - round and round he goes

With the genset now working, it was a more relaxed day. It's an in-between time for cruising news since most people are already down here and not traveling north again until spring. Space in Florida is still very tight with no long-term slips available. Everything is still open around here. Masks are being worn for the most part but are not mandatory. For ourselves, we are strictly following masking protocol. Even if it's considered mild, we don't want it. 

Somewhat of a good sunset

The high winds have subsided for now so we took Hoolie over to the dog park. He just loves to run and be a dog - without a leash. Once he realizes he's headed for the dog park, he's like a tractor pulling forward - one direction - straight ahead. You would think the leash would part but it held together. 

We'll do our final laundry here on Wednesday, rent a car for Thursday, and get groceries delivered to the trunk the same day. Then we're finally ready to head south if the weather forecast holds. We were able to get a slip in Ft Lauderdale which we needed after the mooring field there was disbanded. It's a little warmer there too as we wait for a window to reach Miami, hopefully on Wednesday. Then it's another waiting game in Marine Stadium until a window comes up for reaching Marathon - but then it's much warmerer there, in the 60s at night and 70s during the day. 

Titusville - The wind is starting to blow

Titusville has moorings too - but they are rather exposed

The weather has changed. A cold front has passed through triggering rain and strong winds out of the north. Of course, all is relative - our cold front brings temperatures down into the 50s at night but with highs in the 60s and 70s. We'll manage. 

Palm trees survive by yielding to the wind - all the branches stream back, 
allowing the wind to pass without damage to the tree. Hoolie helps to keep 
the tree healthy!

The weather will be variable over the next few days so we decided to stick around Titusville until Saturday morning when we'll restart our journey south. In planning ahead, we reserved a slip at Las Olas for Tuesday night at $2.50/ft. The price next door at Bahia Mar but $4/ft! Hopefully, we can make the jump to Miami outside on Wednesday to Marina Stadium. I confirmed that they do not offer moorings anymore. The new owners didn't want to manage them and the town didn't either so they were eliminated. 

Today's big event was getting the genset to work. The latest versions have multiple sensors all over the engine to prevent possible damage from any number of scenarios. In the latest case, the "seawater pressure sensor" was defective, shutting down the genset when nothing was wrong. I merely unplugged the sensor and the genset ran fine. I'll have to watch it more closely for a clogged intake but it works! It's nice to have a genset on a cold morning to warm up the cabin.

Titusville - Birds and boat cleaning

 

You should have seen it before!

The marina here has many pros but one con is the bird population which wouldn't normally be a problem except for the berry bushes nearby. The birds eat the berries and if they roost on your rigging, you can hear the ping - ping of the digested berries falling. Over the course of several months (the time we're away), the accumulation of detritus can be discouraging. So today was cleaning day to remove two months of deposits. It took three hours in all but it's done now! Now I just have to keep the birds away for the next three days until we leave. 

I wish I knew what they were trying to accomplish here

Next door is Sand Point Park which is a great running location. There's a pond there with a warning to now swim due to the possibility of alligators. It used to be a clear pond with a water spray which aerated the water but they/ve changed that to a series of round floats, it appears. Now scum is apparent on the surface and I can only guess that they are trying something new? I wonder what the thinking is? It certainly doesn't look as attractive as it used to. 

We are starting to seriously watch the weather now and it appears that Wednesday is a go day with Thursday as a backup and we hope to reach Miami by next Tuesday. Then is once again waiting for weather for the rest of the trip to Key West.

Titusville - Groceries and putting things away

Titusville Marina is full!

 We continue getting ready for our trip south. Looking at the weather, it appears that Wednesday or Thursday would be a good day for reaching Vero Beach. We plan on either taking a mooring if available or just anchor south of the bridge and use the public boat ramp for Hoolie relief. 

Nice swing - I meant to get a photo with the captain in the chair but missed it

Before all that, we needed to provision for the leg to Key West and we used Walmart delivery for that. It wasn't the greatest experience. They insisted I had entered to leave the groceries "at the door" instead of calling me first on my cellphone. Well, leave them "at the door" they did, by the marina office, baking in the sun. Luckily, I wasn't all that late and carted the supplies back to Fleetwing without losing anything to a big melt. To add to the confusion, I had a spam blocker on from Verizon which blocked the call from the deliverer when she arrived and also prevented me from calling her back! I'm going to turn that spam blocker off! It's been more trouble than it's worth - and hasn't prevented many spam calls anyway. 

The weather continues to be outstanding and the slips here have been in short supply, they are full! It seems that all of Florida is full so it's wise to have reservations. We'll head out Thursday, most likely. We aren't due in Key West until 1/28/2022. 

Titusville - Returning a car and visitors

We had visitors aboard Fleetwing! Hoolie liked them too.

We had a hard time finding a car for our trip from Deltaville. Enterprise ran out of cars so we tried Hertz but had to go all the way to Hampton, VA. So far, so good. We found the car already had 77,000 miles on it, a 2019 model - I guess it was the best they could get. Most of it worked except for the windshield wipers which had no fluid. I bought a new supply but that didn't fix the problem - the fluid pump for the windshield was defective. With the road haze being thrown up on the windshield, you need the water fluid to be active for clear vision. I wound up clearing the windshield by hand with a rag at every stop. 

 

From yesterday's haulout - nevermind unscrewing the through hull, just grind it off - quicker

Ok, fine, no big deal. I returned the car this afternoon but the clerk said it was too dirty, that I had to wash it myself or incur a rewash fee! After 40 years of renting from Hertz, I had never encountered that upon returning a car. On top of that, they wanted to charge me $400 for a couple of "dog hairs" they said they found on the rear floor. I was seeing red. I took photos of everything and I'm taking my case to their customer service. We'll see what happens. Hertz used to be very customer responsive but this seems to be a new Hertz after coming out of bankruptcy last year with new owners. If you're renting from Hertz now, be careful.

As is often the case in marinas we visit, several couples came by to say hi. Captain Bill runs a boat delivery service and uses the Bob423 tracks and info on the ICW Cruising Guide Facebook Group. I am finding a wide range of boaters that reference the Guide and tracks, I hope they have find them useful.

We are still getting Fleetwing into shape. We have yet to store everything and the biggest task is ridding the decks of all the bird droppings, ugh!. Then there's the teak, the list goes on... We will probably not leave until Wednesday or Thursday when calmer weather returns. We want a nice, relaxing trip south, we've had enough excitement already. 

Titusville - Here at last!

Replacing the forward hatch - first, you have to get off the old hatch and grind down the surfaces

 We started the day in Jacksonville at 7:00 am headed south. Traffic was very heavy but everything was moving in the right direction. We reached Titusville about 9:30 am and it took six loads of carts to move into Fleetwing. The boat was covered in bird crap from all the local berries they are fond of. I have a severe cleaning job ahead of me.

In the middle of working on Fleetwing - there was a Starlink launch by SpaceX!

I was exhausted after moving all the supplies but then it was time to haulout Fleetwing to replace a seacock and a forward hatch, no time to rest. We arrived at our appointed hour at 1:00 pm only to find another boat still there! 2.5 hours later, the boat was finally moved out of the slings and our adventure began. 

A closeup

Replacing the forward hatch was easier than I anticipated and was done while we waiting to enter the slings to replace a seacock. The seacock screws into a through-hull fixture and I thought they may just unscrew the old one - but rather than mess with that and 20 year old threads, they just used a grinder and cut into the through-hull to remove it rather easily. 

With one guy in the aft locker with the new seacock, they screwed the new one in by rotating the through hull from below. I could see that was easier than trying to screw the seacock itself from inside the locker - no room there. At any rate, all was done in about an hour and now we're ready for our trip south except I have to clean Fleetwing and find a place for all the stuff we brought aboard!

Deltaville - We survived the storm!

 

You should have seen this view at 9:00 pm at night!

On Sunday afternoon, we became aware of a developing storm that was due to hit North Carolina.We followed the predictions and thought that it was going to pass by mid-day and after that it would be clear for us to travel south. Boy, were we wrong! At the time it sounded like a good idea. 

The snowfall was very heavy

We had intended to leave Monday morning at 6:00 am but with the storm coming from the west, we thought it would be better to leave around noon from New York so we would hit North Carolina at the end of the storm - when they had time to clear the roads. Ha! Our mistake was thinking that North Carolina would tackle the show clearing like we would do in the northeast. It's not so much a matter of expertise (although that does play into the equation some, if you don't do it frequently, you can't be as good) but rather available equipment. Such snowfalls happen so frequently in the northeast that they must have the equipment to remove it, not so farther south. 

There's some beauty in a snowfall too - but only when you not trapped in a car on I 95 for the night

So with the mentality of northeast snowfalls and the expectation of a cleared road after a couple of hours, we headed south around noon. We did not figure in the other part of the equation, the familiarity of North Carolina drivers with driving in snow. Again, if you rarely do it, you can't be as practiced as someone that drives in snow every week. It's a matter of practice, if you do it a lot, then you're better at it after you've tried a few things that didn't work. 

We had a nice cottage to retreat to, courtesy of Waterway Guide

Our trip south started out easy enough with no snow until south of the New Jersey Turnpike. Then we noticed the roads were not cleared as we were accustomed to and we started seeing cars scattered to and fro to either side of the road. The roads never seemed to be cleared to asphalt, there was always a sheen of snow and ice left behind. Added to that was the occasional tree that blocked part of the road that was ready to surprise you rounding a turn. Or, the car that was trying to get into their driveway but didn't have the traction - but was still blocking one lane of traffic - surprise, surprise as you rounded a turn. 

Somehow we managed to avoid the disasters and made it through several places with overhanging trees that formed a tunnel to drive through in the Arctic-like landscape. It was surreal. We eventually made it to Deltaville at 9:45 pm, needless to say, we slept well that night. Unfortunately, many on I 95 did not after they closed a portion of it nearby for almost 24 hours!

Our saga did not end there. We had a car reserved with Enterprise for pickup at 8:00 am on Tuesday morning but when we arrived to claim the car, we found that they had no cars to rent! It seems that no one returned cars as scheduled due to the storm. So now we were stranded without transportation to Florida and warm weather. 

We made calls to Hertz and found a rental in Newport News, Virginia - a hike from here but what to do? We needed a car. I called to be sure they actually had a car - they did - and we headed out. About halfway there, I received a call that the office had just been closed due to a COVID case! The office was closed = no cars can be rented! Now we're back to square one. We then called all nearby Hertz rental agencies and found a minivan available at the Hampton, Virginia office. We immediately said we would take it and continued onward but farther south than we had originally intended. 

Arriving in Hampton, we finally secured a rental car for our trip to Titusville. We are now in Deltaville and looking forward to a good night's sleep before setting out on Wednesday at 7:00 am for a nine-hour trip to Jacksonville. Our boat, Fleetwing, is due to be hauled out on Thursday at 1:00 pm to replace a seacock and if we miss the appointment, we would have to wait until 1/14 - much too long.

All this is part of the adventure I suppose but we hope for much less "adventure" on the rest of our cruise to Key West.