
With Thanksgiving behind us, we stopped for a short visit to Cumberland Island with Jim and Cathy aboard Charm and were later joined by Dave and Joanne on Tropical Breeze. Goliath got a chance to run on the beach with his new buddy, Murphy from Charm. We all had great fun walking the beach and especially watching the dolphins play and fish right off the beach.

The stretch of the ICW from Fernandina Beach to St. Augustine was very shallow last year and reports were not good for this year. We chose to go outside to St. Augustine. Entering the inlet at St. Augustine was uneventful but interesting. Shoaling has continued and the depths would range from 10 to 8 to 50 feet and back rather quickly showing that the inlet was indeed filling up. It is marked well so the trip in was pretty straight forward.
After a brief stay we headed south through the dreaded Matanzas Inlet. Even at high tide this stretch showed some very shallow spots but we made it through all right. That evening we pulled into Halifax Harbor Marina in Daytona Beach for a few days of visits with friends.
The weather on this trip has been really dreadful and it wasn’t going to get better anytime soon. Not as cold as 2008 but very gray and wet. As we left Daytona it started to get worse. The rain started as a steady drizzle and then as we passed New Smyrna it started to pour down. For hours the rain never let up. Looking back I could see that the dinghy, which we were towing for this stretch was filling with water and starting to settle deeply into the water. Mary slowed the boat as I hauled it close to the swim platform. I jumped aboard and opened the drain plug. Mary brought the boat back to cruising speed as I hung on a watched the water slowly drain out. By the time we got to Titusville it needed to be pumped out again.

As we left Titusville we were chased by numerous squalls. The entire trip to Melbourne was miserable. Cold and wet! We tried to tuck in behind the southeast side of the causeway at the Melbourne bridge but could not get the anchor to set. The wind was blowing at least 25 knots and so it was difficult to back down slowly on the anchor. We chose to go to the west side where we got a nice set but spent a bumpy night.
As we settled in for dinner the Coast Guard announced a security zone had been established for a missile launch from Cape Canaveral. We located the launch info on the internet and watched live feeds from the Cape on the launch progress. After several delays it was launched at 2047. We watched from the cockpit as the sky burst into light as the launch began and then watched as the rocket soared overhead. It was very cool and we even got to see the separation of the boosters. Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures.
After a surprisingly nice day we made it to Vero Beach by midday. We had a wonderful dinner at the Riverside Cafe with our friends on Charm and Tropical Breeze. It was our sixth wedding anniversary.
I had offered to help Ed and Dee on Sea Fox X, another Oday 40, get their new Link 2000 battery monitor installed. They were in Ft. Pierce and after several trips in their car they decided to join us in Vero. They rafted up to us and the remainder of the work was completed. We were all invited to the CLOD (Cruisers Living On Dirt) Christmas party. That was a great opportunity for us to visit with other friends we met in the Bahamas earlier. There is a huge cruiser population in the Vero Beach / Ft. Pierce area.
As we planned to leave Vero, our friends Dave and Ginger aboard Avalon called us. They were on the way in and would stay a day to visit. Of course we always love to see old friends so we waited and soon they joined our little raft.
We left the following morning and managed to make it to Peck Lake, north of Palm Beach before dark. It was very nice as we slipped off to sleep but the rain caught up and by the time we were ready to leave in the morning it was pea soup fog. We waited a bit and headed out as the fog lifted for the seven bridge run to North Lake Worth (North Palm Beach).
The anchor had not been set for more than an hour before the wind started to pick up and the weather again turned ugly. We stayed anchored for five nights as the winds whipped through the area and torrential rain fell. We were able to make several runs ashore during lulls in the storms.
Tiger Woods’ boat “Privacy” was getting anything but privacy as paparazzi bobbed around in boats waiting for someone to appear. His motor yacht is docked adjacent to the anchorage. We never saw anyone go aboard but all the lights were finally on the night before we left.
We chanced a run on the outside to Miami and got a very nice ride down the coast. We anchored at Marine Stadium south of Miami. The next morning we headed for Rodriquez Key near Key Largo. We actually got to sail halfway with speeds in the mid 7 knots. The wind died later but we arrived late afternoon to drop the hook for the night. The winds picked up again and we had quite the rough night at anchor. Up early again we headed off for our final travel day of 2009.
The trip to Marathon was really rough. We had a steady 20-30 knots on the stern and 3-5 foot seas rolling just to the port quarter. Very uncomfortable combined with a constant sharp lookout for lobster trap floats which are littered all over the channel from Islamorada to Marathon.
We pulled into Boot Key harbor at 1400 and picked up mooring P4, almost the same location that we have been in for the previous two seasons.
We will stay put for a month or more as we prepare for the trip to the Bahamas next year.