Titusville - Mastri heads south and of course we visit Walmart

Joe left this morning for Boynton Beach where he has a condo for the winter months. He spends the summers at the Poughkeepsie Yacht Club on his boat and the winters in Boynton Beach. So he has the best of both worlds, warm weather all around.

The Gulf Stream is not far off-shore, clouds form there over the warmer waters and march east as above

Our stay at the Titusville Municipal Marina has been so pleasant that we've decided to leave the boat here instead of at Stuart when we return to New York for the holidays. The marina was willing to prorate the $10/ft monthly fee for the partial month we'll be here in January. That's a little under $14/day for our 42 ft boat, or $0.33/ft per day, not a bad deal. With that we'll have more time to explore the area and enjoy the warm weather before heading north to the cold climes!

The birds left a mess on one boat which the captain was washing off - leaving fresh water to drain - which attracts Manatees!

Every boater's friend is Walmart. With the advent of including groceries in Walmart Supercenters, it's a one stop shopping experience for a boater. We're fond of one of the quick meals they offer in the form of a pound of BBQ pork by Jack Daniels. It was $3 cheaper at Walmart than at Publix, $5 vs $8, enough to pay attention to. So fully stocked once again, we headed back to the boat and Hoolie's turn at the dog park making buddies with all the other dogs there. He just runs and runs and runs.

Kennedy Space Center from afar - we'll visit later in the week - it's one of the world's largest buildings

We plan on visiting the Merritt Island wildlife reserve on Thursday and enjoy their nature walks and look at the local wildlife. We have a list of gardens and wildlife areas we want to be sure and see over the next few days. We also finally got our flu shots today in time for our trip north for the holidays since it takes about two weeks for the shop to become effective.

Titusville - we rent a car and visit with Joe Mastri

We're tied up nicely, snug

I reserved a car from Enterprise for a week to have wheels for exploring the area. The total cost including all taxes and fees came to $175 for the week which I thought was very reasonable for a full-sized car. So we plan on visiting the Kennedy Space Center again as well as Merritt Island and several attractions inland (but not Disney World, not a favorite of Ann).

Birds abound around here!

So while I was getting the car I got a call from Joe Mastri. He was on his way south for the winter and called to pay a visit. Earlier that day we made a call on the nearest Publix supermarket to provision for the rest of the trip and buy a rotisserie chicken for dinner. What's one more for dinner? Not a problem. Joe partook of the chicken and has a comfy bed in the aft cabin for the night. He'll head out in the morning for his condo in Boynton Beach for the winter. We'll continue on exploring the area and enjoying the nice weather which is forecast to be in the 70's all week!

Cozy dinner with Joe Mastri8

We're settling in here for a long stay before heading north again. The marina has super protection and the slips have huge pilings to tie up to. Add in the fact that there's no current or tide, it's close to ideal - especially with the $10/ft rate for a month's stay. It's the least expensive monthly rate on the florida coast. Our TV antenna picks up 35 channels and the marina has free WiFi at a 6 Mbps rate, very good indeed. We may be here for awhile.

Titusville - at a dock

It's really thoughtful of the state to provide nesting sites for ospreys...

Another beautiful day in paradise. Not much wind but with temperatures in the 70's, who cares? There's no rain int he forecast for the next week so south we went. The anchorage at Rockhouse Creek last night was like being on land, still and no rocking.

We though this was just another abandoned boat but then look at the caption - they have a website! 

We saw dolphins and manatees along the way south along with ospreys and more. It's like being in a marine park (which we were part of the time). We passed under the Haulover Bridge which is used by the Kennedy Space Center to move equipment for launches. There were no delays today since there were no launches due in the near future.

We're settled in for the night - oops, we left our anchor light on (the one on the left) but we're not alone

So now we are settling in at Titusville Municipal Marina for a couple of weeks to enjoy the weather and explore the surrounding area. I have a car reserved for a week starting Tuesday and we'll see what looks interesting. We'll probably revisit the Space Center since I already have a pass from the spring and the Merritt Island nature center. Turning inward, we'll look at nature preserves next to the Indian River. It's all in the name of having fun in the warm weather.

Also on the agenda is getting back in shape for me (4 mile runs) and doing laundry. It's hard not to really enjoy the great weather, we're looking forward to it.

Nice of the dredgers to provide such a wonderful place for us...

Unlike Georgia and South Carolina, Florida has been hard at work making the waterways safe for boaters. We've seen more dredgers in Florida than all the other states combined, no contest. We passed two more just today dredging inlets where we barely got through in the spring. It's a great relief to see 14 ft of water where you saw  barely 5 ft in the spring (or less!) So at any rate, we made great progress today and got down to Rockhouse Creek anchorage. As we came into the anchorage, there was even a dredger in place but they had put two white buoys in place to mark a temporary entrance to avoid their dredging hoses floating on the surface.

Everybody was out on such a warm, sunny afternoon

One thing we've noticed this fall was the extraordinary number of jellyfish. The water was thick with them with one every foot or so. We've never seen them so thick. We had the genset running this morning and all of a sudden it quit. When I went into diagnostics on the genset menu, it said the cause of the shutdown was low seawater pressure. In other words, lack of cooling water coming through the seacock for the genset. It appears that a jellyfish got sucked up into the intake opening and clogged the flow of water. I took the washdown pump from the anchor locker, ran a hose to the cockpit and flushed out the seawater input hose to the genset. Once that was done, I restarted the genset and it seemed to work fine. I never ran into that before!

We won't' get lost, we have our own lighthouse here

On Monday we pull into Titusville for a week's stay. We'll also rent a car and see the sights nearby. Hoolie will enjoy the dog park right next door and we'll provision and do laundry and have some fun.

Ft Matanzas - at anchor

That's Ft Matanzas on the left

We had some more skinny water today, this is beginning to be routine, not good! On the other hand, we've seen more dredgers in Florida than all the other states combined. They want to attract boaters, the other states couldn't care less. So we made it through today without much spare room under the keel but make it we did. After a few trips you start to recognize the shallow spots and say, "Oh yeah, I remember this place, you've got to go to the green side to get by..." I dutifully update Active Captain so those following me south will have more to go on than I did.

Here's what 60 degree wear looks like down here - full body armor

We refueled at St Augustine. Ann does most of the boat handling now. She took us out of Harbortown and into the fuel dock at St Augustine, she's getting a very good feel for the boat and how it responds to wind and current which only comes from experience. I still do most of the navigating through skinny water where there're cautions on Active Captain but she's starting to do a few of those too.

We anchored tonight at one of our favorite anchorages on the ICW, at Ft Matanzas. It's actually a real fort form times before there was even a United States. The Spanish had control of the area then and were guarding against an attack from the French through the inlet and up to St Augustine. the park service runs a free shuttle to the fort with a tour once an hour and we're anchored right out in front.

It's not only the snowbirds that have trouble with the depths - locals too

We plan on continuing on Sunday to Rockhouse Creek and another anchorage, the price is right! Like here, it also has Hoolie relief, a must for us. The weather is predicted to warm up finally into the low 80's over the next few days, nice.

Harbortown, north of Jacksonville - at a dock

Nice condos right on the ICW

We came through some very skinny water on the way here, much more so than I expected. One of these days I hope they do some serious dredging. On the plus side, I did see two dredgers set up this afternoon and one was actually working. Even with a 4' 9" draft, there were places today where I would have been aground in the channel at low tide. With a 3 foot tide, I made it through okay.

A setting sun, a palm tree - we're down south!

We've always stopped at Harbortown just north of Jacksonville. It's a community of condo owners that rent out their slips to transients. However, they've had a bad experience with a couple of people in boats. Some skipped out without paying dockage and another couple found something to trip on and sued the marina for $5000! Now Florida is a no fault state for insurance and $5000 isn't enough to recover lawyer's fees to challenge so they paid the claim. The really sad thing is that it was all a scam. A few are preying on small marinas like Harbortown for cash so now the marina is no longer accepting transients. This is very sad that the irresponsible behavior of a few is affecting the majority. Why can't people just be honest?! I know of one other marina just south of here where the same thing happened to them. They are by an anchorage area and they allowed people to tie up to their docks to get to shore. No more. Someone sued them over some supposed tripping problem so their response was to put up signs that boaters are not welcomed to dock their dinghies any longer! It's disgusting!

Luckily, the dockmaster here knows us so we were accepted in for the night but all others were turned away.  It's a perfectly protected marina and we'll be calm here for the night. We're aiming for Ft Matanzas on Saturday as the weather here starts to warm up, only in the low 70's today.

Fernandina - last day at a mooring

An art gallery in town has local artists. Nice display.

We spent our second day at Fernandina exploring the shops and just walking around the town. It's quite compact with most of the shops within a 1/2 mile of the marina. Ann likes the bookstore which specializes in novels for young kids. I guess they know their customers (grandparents!)

Humm, proper attitude required too?

The winds have died down and it's perfectly calm now, not a whisper of wind. The high Friday will barely reach 70 but it will warm up after that. I think that the next time we come by we'll just anchor out. The mooring is closer to the docks but for $20 I can motor a little further.

I was repairing the galley faucet this afternoon when the end snapped off and I was left with a useless shower head and the remained jammed into the supply hose, impossible to get out. With that I order a new shower head from the manufacturer. This thing is supposed to be high quality but the part that broke off was plastic, ugh. Now Ann has just a hose for a water supply in the galley until we get to Titusville when the replacement part will arrive. It seems that there's always something breaking on a boat.

This is the one and only jellyfish we've seen

We'll leave Friday morning for Harbortown marina in Jacksonville, we know the dockmaster there and we've stopped on every trip south so far. It's very protected and less expensive than at a large marina in Jacksonville itself. It's nice to be in Florida, they take care of their part of the ICW!

Clear skies, good sunset