Bethune Park - at anchor

 

The dredge at Ft Matanzas. Note the diamonds on the right side of the pilot house.

Sunny with light winds and a following tide, what more could you want for traveling the ICW? We came through Ft Matanzas and the least seen was 9.4 MLLW on the Bob423 track. They were dredging the passage but they were out of the channel, off to the west side. The dredge had the diamonds displayed so we just honored the diamonds, no need for using the VHF - the correct side to pass on was obvious. 

Fleetwing was part of the racecourse! They all missed us!

In the past, when they dredged this inlet, they dredged the entire width of the passage which is unlike most areas where they only dredge a channel 75 or 150 feet wide. The sand was being pumped northward to a beach area just south of Marineland Marina. 

The trip took about 6.5 hours to travel the 49 NM but we were still happy to stop. My autopilot is still not working, another to-do later on and certainly before my trip north in the spring. I don’t use the autopilot to automatically follow a route, I just use it with the + and - buttons to manually keep Fleetwing on course for the many straight sections of the ICW.

The youth sailing club was out in force and Fleetwing served as one of the turning points so we saw everyone up close. It’s good to see the young crowd learning to sail. Tomorrow is the last leg of our trip south this fall and we’re looking forward for a relaxing time in Titusville.