Vero - at a mooring in the cold weather!

Typical doubling up in Vero

 Vero is crowded with cruisers trying to find a weather window to the Bahamas. The weather for crossing the Gulf Stream has been terrible with strong winds out of the north for weeks on end (you do NOT want to cross the Gulf Stream with its 3 kt current heading north against a 20 to 30 kt wind out of the north!) So cruisers are holed up all up and down the Florida coast waiting for that magical window to appear for a crossing. Meanwhile, Vero is crowded. It's one of the few places that has a mandatory policy of putting more than one boat on a mooring when they get more boats than they have moorings. So if you get a mooring by yourself, you're asked to put out fenders on one side or the other in case they need to assign another boat to the mooring. So far, we are alone but we are becoming the minority.

As far as the weather is concerned, it's cold - at least for Florida. The high on Thursday is only predicted to be 56 with a low of 35 that night with winds of 15 to 20 in the morning out of the north! It's due to warm up some later in the week but only into the low 70's at best. We really need to get further south!! On that note, we plan on leaving Vero Thursday morning to reach Joe Mastri's area at Boynton Beach for two days before heading on down to Ft Lauderdale. We are so looking forward to Key West in February!

In Florida, no less!

This afternoon, Ann was wrapped up in the cockpit in a blanket - unheard of in Florida. But we were comfortable. We plan on running the genset tonight and generate some real heat in the cabin! If the sun comes out Thursday at predicted, we'll be quite cozy in the cockpit with the full enclosure.

Vero - at a mooring

Ann's sunrise photo

Ann peeked out this morning an saw a beautiful sunrise so she snapped a photo. You are constantly surprised at the beauty of what you see on the ICW. The night had been calm so we were well rested. I dinked Hoolie into shore for his morning relief and then we were out of there.

A white pelican, not common

Heading south, we still did not improve our speed of yesterday, around 6.8 kts even with a clean dinghy. Looking ahead, I called the Vero marina and asked for a recommendation on a diver to look at Fleetwing's bottom, suspecting it was fouled from almost the two month stay at Titusville. We were even passed by a Catalina, a great ignominy.

Our diver was done in less than an hour, he mostly cleaned the prop and a few spots on the hull

Our diver greeted us as we entered the Vero mooring fields and followed us to our spot. Vero has a policy of putting more than one boat on a mooring and sometimes even three if they are crowded. Luckily, we found a mooring just for us although we may get company later on. Our diver proceeded to clean out boat and found that the major problem was the prop, it was covered with white worms that had solidified into a  big mess. It's a wonder we had any forward speed at all. The bottom itself was in good shape, I had applied Petit SR60 ablative bottom coat in the summer and it was doing fine, it was the prop that had a problem. So he polished the prop clean and that should fix our speed problem. We know from past experience that you need to average 7 kts south of here to make all the bridges without having to wait -it's as if the  bridges didn't even exist. However, doing less than 7 kts results of LOTS of delays (just missed by a couple of minutes...)

So now we should be in good shape but the weather is uncertain. We had intended being in Hobe Sound on Thursday but we're waiting for the Wednesday forecast to make that final decision. Presently they are forecasting 25 kt winds, not pleasant for Hobe Sound.

At Eau Gallie - at anchor and how to NOT scrape the bottom of the dinghy

Eau Gallie sunset on the western bank

After almost two months at Titusville, we finally backed out and headed south down the ICW. One of the most fundamental principles when backing out of a slip is to be sure there are no lines still attached. Sounds pretty simple but it's more difficult than you might imagine. First of all, you have a lot more lines attached than normal since you were leaving the boat unattended for two months. So Ann and I double check each other on lines still attached. I got everything off (I thought) and gave the backout signal but Ann motioned to port, there was one more line still attached! It was from the aft piling to the midship cleat opposite the dock, one we normally do not use. Sure enough, it was still attached so I rushed to undo the line, just in time. Several times in the past we've come to an abrupt stop so we've learned by doing.

Getting up to speed we noticed that we were not getting up to speed. We normally cruise at 7.3 kts or faster but today we could only manage 6.8 kts! The dinghy appeared to have an abnormally heavy pull on the painter and we could see bad stuff on the front of the bow. No time to do anything about it now so onward we motored to our anchorage.

Upon arriving, we thought we would lift the dinghy up by the motor hoist so we could get at the bottom while still at anchor. So far, so good. Seeing the bottom covered with barnacles, I got out a scraper and proceeded remove them as the dinghy was suspended from the motor hoist. Now that is not a very stable configuration on a boat at anchor with other boats producing a bow wave. So my first mistake was not to wear gloves, barnacles are very sharp! A slight motion from a bow wave resulted in a blooded hand! Being under the dinghy (to get at the bottom still in the water) was thought not to be a good idea with more boats going by so I crouched up to get back into the cockpit and bumped my head on one of the many barnacles still on the dinghy bottom. Blood was everywhere. I should have worn a hat - I'm an expert at closing the barn door after the horses have fled.

So several bandages later, I finally scraped the bottom okay, not perfect but good enough for now - and - learned what not to do when scraping the bottom in the future! I also had to clean out the knotmeter paddlewheel which was solid with barnacles after two stagnant months at Titusville, much like the bottom of the dinghy. Eventually I got it to turn freely. Now we'll see if the 6.8 kts was due to the fouled dinghy or if there's more crud on Fleetwing's bottom.

We're headed for Vero Beach on Tuesday. When we called in to Vero we were told that they are rafting up at the present to fit everyone in. That's not our favorite thing to do so we'll just stay one day instead of two if that's the case. 

Titusville - Moving Day on Monday

Last day at Titusville - the sun sets on our stay there

Well, we finally got everything together and we're ready to move on Monday, heading south. It's getting a little chilly for Florida. It will be in the 70's on Monday but it's due to turn colder later in the week, down to 62 for a high! Gotta head further south!

There's been a lot of internet postings about problems in Marathon, Florida. It's a final destination for many snowbirds. With 220 or so moorings available, they have lots of room for transients. However, it's also the training grounds for Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) officers. Florida doesn't think the Coast Guard regulations are tough enough so they have their own requirements for boaters. For example, all dinghies must have not only the all around white light but also a red and green lights up forward, full running light for a dinghy! Furthermore, they have issued citations for boaters that have a dinghy tied to their moored boat when the dinghy didn't have its own anchor light (the mother boat was properly lighted)! Also, when motoring in the dinghy at night not only do you have to have the proper running lights but also nighttime flares (3) and also a class B-1 fire extinguisher along with a sound signaling device (horn). Of course, they continue the Coast Guard requirement of life vests for all. So today we visited our local Walmart and purchased a Class B-1 fire extinguisher for our dinghy (!) and a compressed air horn. We already had full running lights and life vests. To help address the requirement for an anchor light for the dinghy, we bought a sun powered patio light which is probably not legal but we would otherwise have to get a 12v battery and solar chargers, a little too much. We'll see what happens when we visit Marathon.

I'll turn the Hertz rental car in Monday morning and then we're off as soon as I get back (Hertz now offers free rides to and from the marina, competition from Enterprise I guess). We'll aim for the west side of the ICW at Eau Gallie for the night at anchor.

Titusville - Inside work today

Cement trees? (the trunks)

I've noticed that when the temps down here are in the teens or twenties, it always makes the first page of a newspaper up north. However, when the temperatures recover the next day to the 60's or higher, there's never any mention in the same newspaper! Today we topped out in the low 80's, did you read about it in the northern newspapers? Oh well, we enjoyed the warm weather anyway.

"Normal" palms

Today was another day of putting the boat back together after a 2 month absence. On Sunday I'll add the new ballast to hopefully balance out the new genset we installed last year. Rudy Colich was kind enough to round up 200 feet of 3/8" chain for that purpose which I'll put in the port locker. I currently have a 1.7 degree list to starboard. It will be interesting (to me!) to see how much correction I can get.

 Waling along the path to the dockhouse, I was reminded of our first trip south in a car. We entered a town and saw these rows of what looked like cement (artificial) trees. The trunks were completely smooth and didn't look real. We later learned they were Royal Palms and completely natural. There are close cousins down here next to the cabbage palms that have a more traditional look, at least to northerners (see photos).

After the last of the boat prep work is done (I hope) on Sunday, we plan on heading south once again Monday morning and anchoring in the Eau Gallie area off the ICW. It will feel good to be on the move again!

Hibiscus at Harvey's Groves

After a morning of cleaning inside of the boat from the results of over 1 month of a freezer that turned off, we were finally ready to provision Fleetwing for the trip to Key West. Unless you enjoy paying more than necessary for groceries (and anything else) you will shop at Walmart for major restocking.

Here's a view of the entire plant

So as we were checking out a familiar scene occurred. "Gosh, that's a lot of groceries", "Well, we're headed to Key West on a boat", "Groceries? (thinking of a cruise ship)",  "No, we're sailing on our own boat", "Wow, can I go too?" If we accepted all the offers we've had for crew, we'd need the Queen Mary. So $500 later, we were provisioned.

We also paid a visit to Harvey's Groves, a necessary visit if you're in the area. They have wonderful, fresh fruit at super prices, much better than the local supermarkets. We got 14 of the  biggest grapefruit I've ever seen for $10. I would highly recommend a visit. They had flower gardens outside of hibiscus in bloom. They are very stunning in person with large, 10 inch blooms. 

 Boat prep continues. More work will ensure on the inside before tackling the outside which also includes dewatering and cleaning the dinghy and adding ballast to the port side to balance the 500 lb genset on the starboard side. We'll see if the 200 feet of 3/8" chain is enough. 

A surprise for us at Titusville

Well, it looked okay from this angle

We had a leisurely breakfast with Joe and Lee Acosta before heading east to our boat in Titusville. We had expected heavy traffic going through Tampa and Orlando but we were surprised that we made it through without a delay.

On  the way south we took the inside route that avoided Washington, D.C. and all the coastal cities on I95. By taking that route we saved about $100 in tolls! Last year we did take the coastal route and we said never again! We rejoined I95 near Charleston, S.C. and didn't pay any tolls the entire trip. However, on the way over to Titusville from Tampa we were caught on a toll road by surprise. They charged $1 for about every few miles. Had we known that, we'd have found a way around the toll road. In contrast to nearby expressways, the toll road was practically empty - and, of course, not all the tolls booths were manned so there were long waits for the privilege of supporting the road.

So by and by we reached Titusville and we were pleased to see the boat appear to be in good shape as we approached our slip. However, going down the companionway, I discovered that the freezer was off (what's that smell??) Somehow the breaker had tripped while we were up north, oh my. Cleaning out the freezer from 1.5 months of spoiled food was comparable to one of the labors of Hercules, one aspect of boating I could have done without! After three hours of scrubbing, spraying, re scrubbing, respraying,  washing with bleach, etc. the smell was tolerable and the freezer kinda looked okay. We'll let it air out overnight before loading it up. Needless to say, we need a full provisioning trip on Friday. At this rate we won't leave Titusville until Sunday or maybe even Monday, a boat neglected for almost two months needs some serious TLC.