Titusville Marina - Rain and wind

 

Titusville is right in that blue area of calm winds on the coast!

Florida is being battered by the east coast storm. St Augustine is suffering through high winds with several boats coming ashore after breaking loose. One even hit the bridge. Up until now, the high winds have passed us by. We seem to be in the eye of a swirling pattern with typical winds of less than 10 kts 

A rate moment of no rain today

The weather just 80 miles north is entirely different with 20 to 30 kt winds pounding the ICW. We may yet have the winds down here but so far we haven't although we've got the rain. Taking Hoolie out has been a contest of finding gaps in the rain pattern using our radar weather app. 

Meanwhile, I've been doing Waterway Guide work (Alert updating) and Ann's been painting. Sarah has been doing her homework so we've all been busy. The rain is predicted to stop Saturday morning so we're looking forward to that! At least we're well protected with winds and waves here in the northeast corner of the marina. 

Titusville Marina - Getting ready for the coming storm

 

One wonders what the Ospreys do, fully exposed to the wind and rain

There's a front headed our way so I spent the morning getting the boat ready for the anticipated high winds and rain. The goal is to spring off the pilings and cleats enough so the boat does not touch the fixed dock. Just in case, of course, I put fenders in place at all the potential hitting areas. 

A care package from home

Sarah continues to study hard in her college work. Next semester will be all in-person classes but this time period has all remote classes. She spends the better part of a day hitting the books and laptop. She also is very handy having around when I have to adjust the lines and for other odd chores. 

Our last sunset for a while

We're having a canvass guy come over Friday morning to see what can be done with our enclosure which is now about 15 years old. We now have a dodger and bimini combination but the dodger part of the setup partially obstructs the view forward. It would be nice to get rid of that obstruction. We'll see what he has to say.

We restarting our walking/running program today. It felt good to get out and exercise. We got Hoolie into the regime too with a trip to the dog park. He ran and ran. It's to be a quiet night until about 10:00 pm when the winds and rains start but we're snug here. 

Titusville Marina - at last!

 

Here's a big barge coming through Ponce de Leon inlet on the ICW
We saw 8 MLLW on the ICW, probably helped by the frequent barges plowing through

Storms are due starting Thursday so we wanted to get settled in a Titusville before the bad weather. It was a beautiful trip south with light winds and full sunshine, couldn't ask for a better day. After an overnight at Bethune Park, our batteries which we zeroed out appear to be okay after a full charge at St Augustine, thank goodness. 

Titusville is full, again

We had the most protected dock in Titusville Marina and will all the lines we put out, we're secure for even major storms. Thursday morning will be the start of our re-entry into walking and running. When underway, we seldom get to exercise at all other than just being on a boat. 

Secure for the predicted storms on the way

We still looking for a car for our trip north over the holidays. Enterprise refuses to rent a car one-way. When I looked at just keeping the car for the time we're up north, the total came to around $3400! That's a bit rich. We kept the car for two month before at times and the total came to around $1400 so Enterprise has more than doubled their price! 

We are looking into other options but we're not sure what we'll do yet. Soimehow, we have to get north for the holidays. Meanwhile, we're well situated since we provisioned and did laundry in St Augustine so we'll take it easy for a day or so before proceeding.  

Bethune Park in Daytona - at anchor

 

White pelicans are somewhat of a rarity but we saw this flock today

We left St Augustine at slack tide after a flood so were expected a foul current heading south but we got the opposite! Once out of the St Augustine mooring ball area, the tide started to pick up again and we got a lift all the way to Daytona! We were doing 9 kts at times but mostly 7.8 to 8.4 kts. It was an unexpected lift and we reached our anchorage by 2:00 pm. 

Veterans Memorial Bridge in Daytona - it's a beautiful bridge, finally finished

The anchorage here at Bethune Park is one of our favorites since it has a dock for Hoolie and a place to walk around to exercise him. There are a lot of boats anchored but it's a big area and we have always been able to find a spot in about 10 ft of water like tonight. 

Can you make sense of this? There's a different speed limit depending on whether 
you're going north or south in the ICW channel!

There's a storm on the way for Thursday for the next three days but Wednesday is clear and a good day to reach our destination for leg 1 of our trip, Titusville. We are still having a lot of trouble getting a car to go north in. The local car rental agencies don't like to rent one way trips anymore! We made a reservation with Hertz several months ago and we hope they will honor it but we've heard some are not, we'll see.

Nice, cozy anchorage, easy shore access via floating dinghy dock

It's due to be a calm night and it will be good to get settled and prepare for our holiday trip north before returning in January to continue on to Key West.

St Augustine Day II - We explore St Augustine

I was putting on my shoes when I got this look from Hoolie, "What's taking so long? I've got to go!"

 Before exploring, we had to do laundry and do a pump out. In conversation with Ann's friends up north, they all think we are on an extended vacation. We say that we're doing everything you would do in a house except it's floating. You have to buy groceries, do laundry, take out the garbage, be a handyman for repairs - in fact, you do more: plan the day's trip, look in detail at the weather, look at tides, be careful in docking your boat, and so on. It's not a vacation in the normal sense of the word where everything is done for you. It's a floating home where you're the chief repairman, handyman, sanitation engineer, and so on. Still, we do enjoy the cruising. 

A view of the main thoroughfare - at least is't not full

After the morning chores of laundry, pump out, and groceries (delivered to the boat), we all went for a walk down the pedestrian avenue in St Augustine. It was a Monday so it was not as crowded as yesterday on a Sunday. Almost nobody was wearing masks but then the virus level in Florida is now one of the lowest anywhere, besides, we stayed outdoors. 

A night walk with a picture

The house batteries that were completely discharged have been recharged after 24 hours of pumping amps into them. We'll see if they hold a charge overnight when we anchor out on Tuesday. We're headed for the Bethune Park anchorage which has a convenient dinghy dock for Hoolie relief. There's plenty of room there in 10 ft water for lots of boats. Then it's on to Titusville the next day. 

St Augustine - at a dock

 

We're in Florida! Time for flowers!

I watched the Ohio State University football game with Penn State. It was a good game and OSU won but not by as much as they should. They are currently fifth in the standings and they need to be fourth at least to get into the playoffs. We were at the Jacksonville free docks which do not have electricity so I used the inverter for AC to power the TV. I forgot to turn off the water heater and it turned on to heat the water, draining the batteries flat!

Bird of Paradise. These are from the planting around the St Augustine Art Association
If you're even in St Augustine, this is a must-visit, great local art!

I thought it wasn't so bad since I could run the engine to charge the batteries underway - however, the charger will not turn on if the batteries are less than 12 volts and mine were 11.7 volts. That was not good. We pulled into St Augustine Marina and plugged into shore power and luckily, the inboard inverter which has a built-in charger did turn on. It put 70 amps of current into the batteries for the last 6 hours and only now started to ramp down, now at 50 amps. Hopefully, I didn't ruin my three 4D deep cycle batteries.

The marina here has fully recovered from the rebuilding of the last hurricane, everything works now and the docks are in great shape. It's Halloween night her and the place is rocking - but only in town, the docks are quiet. We will be here one more day to see the sights and then move on to the Bethune Park anchorage on Tuesday. Titusville is next after that, Fleetwing's home for the next three months. 

Jacksonville Free Dock on Sisters Creek - at the facedock

 

We passed the naval base, there was a submarine in for refitting

Saturday was a much better day to travel south! The winds were light, less than 10 kts, and the seas were flat. We left around 7:30 and made the Jacksonville docks by 2:30. We had wanted to stop over in Fernandina but they were full when we called that morning so we just made plans to travel farther. 

Two more boats came in later for a total of five boats here tonight

We had friends over for wine at 5:00 and had a great time. Ann had chicken thighs in the oven which doubled as heat for the cabin. It's due to get down into the 50s tonight, we need all the heat we can get.

Strange sunset

We will head for Ft Augustine in the morning for a two-day stay to explore the art center and just walk around. It's getting cooler up here, time to get south.