Updateville
Quick update: we left Vero Beach after a productive stay. Initially I was worried we would want to remain in Vero longer than we were able, having heard it’s nicknamed “Velcro Beach” because cruisers arrive and then are loathe to depart. However it was a community that did not really speak to us…lots of aging cruisers fussing about their potluck dinners, the sofas in the lounge, and The Weather Channel. It was a community of liveaboards, but did not seem to be a community of many cruisers waiting to head further south.
Also, we had to raft up to another boat at a mooring for the night. That made all of us uncomfortable, particularly since the our neighbor was looking a little neglected. Our mooring company at home sent me an email this fall advising me our shackles and other mooring gear in Freeport were getting worn out. Believe me when I tell you it is all in much better shape than what we tied up to last night.
When we walked to Vero Beach for a bite to eat yesterday evening we were amused to see that across the street from all the condominiums there was block after block of storefronts for all the big retail financial planners. Gotta help those snowbird retirees manage their money.
The beach was beautiful in the gathering dusk. And the calm seas put us in the mood for some real sailing, so I think tomorrow we will go out the Fort Pierce inlet and head south 25 miles or so the the St. Lucie inlet. It will be nice to get both sails up again, and it looks like we will have clear skies and a favorable breeze.
This morning we cast off the mooring line and made our way further south. Not far…we are anchored in a perfect little cove just south of the Fort Pierce inlet. This anchorage has 360 degree protection and is delightful. We are in company of three other cruising sailboats we’ve been seeing off and on over the past week or so.
Moss got massacred by no-see-ums over the past few nights, so today Ellen dosed her with Benadryl during our trip and the kid was out like a light. Fortunately, Moss got her education for the day before the soporific effects of the medicine took hold. When she awoke, we were sitting pretty at anchor.
After lunch we all went for a swim to check out the water (warm, turbid), and the hull (fuzzy, barnacle-clad). We did a half-hearted attempt at scrubbing the six or so inches just below the waterline that we could see, cleaned the rudder, then paddled around until a few jellyfish freaked us out and we ended the swim. A real cleaning will have to wait until we are in the clear waters of the Bahamas.
Ellen is defrosting a chicken to roast for dinner. There’s ice for the bourbon. Things are great aboard Cupcake.
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Ok, so we didn’t have enough internet to post that quick update. We probably won’t have enough tonight either but I’ll write this now and post it later. (That last sentence doesn’t make much sense to the reader since, obviously, the posts have now been posted.)
We did not end up sailing outside the other day because a cold front snuck up on us and leaving the ICW through the Fort Pierce inlet for a day on the ocean seemed ill-advised. Instead we had a pleasant motor-sail in company of two of our neighbors from the night before. When the weather deteriorated and the wind picked up and the rain began, we furled the genoa (we have not raised the mainsail in weeks, it seems) and donned our foul weather gear. When the sun came back out, we sailed again.
Windswept
We enjoyed sailing with our two companions because they are the only boats we have ever passed under sail. (To be fair, the 42’ boat was taking it easy so her companion boat could motor-sail and keep up. But we passed them both.)
Ultimately we made it to a neat little anchorage in a harbor called Manatee Pocket. In a spot surrounded by big-money boats and bigger-money homes, we anchored in a mooring field filled with derelict boats. One of the owners of a not-particularly-derelict boat came over to chat for a while. We asked about the two boats that seemed to be tangled and he explained that one dragged its anchor five years ago and the two have been “dancing together” ever since. No owner or entity has done anything about the mess. Curiously, although some of the boats had shredded sails, others had busted windows, one had an osprey nest on its solar panels, one was de-masted, every one of the boats in the anchorage had a working anchor light.
Our visitor told us that the “boat police” will give tickets if there’s no anchor light.
The cold front didn’t bring the fierce winds we anticipated. Or if it did, we did not experience them in Manatee Pocket because it is so well-protected. We passed a peaceful night thanks to Ellen’s excellent choice of anchorage and thanks to Pablo. Just before the sun set, we saw our second manatee of the trip. They are big fat creatures. At at the nature center the other day we learned that manatees have prehensile upper lips.
From Manatee Pocket this morning we motored what may be our last day of more than a few miles on the ICW. We are anchored near Lake Worth and hope to spend tomorrow running errands (West Marine, hardware store, playground) and performing maintenance (solar panels, readying the boat for ocean again) before we make a full day trip outside down from here to Fort Lauderdale. That trip will get us back in the blue water and it will help us avoid about a million drawbridges on the ICW.
Today, thanks to Ellen’s peerless trip planning, we went through seven drawbridges without a hitch and without any delay. This feat is particularly impressive because three or four of the bridges opened not on request but on a fixed schedule. Miss the opening and you have to wait half an hour before the bridge will open again. Holding position for half an hour in the current and wind with powerboats zooming all over the place is a challenge we did not want to experience. So we made every bridge with a few minutes to spare. Now we are anchored at Lake Worth.
On the one hand, we have a huge pile of things to take care of before departing the US for five months in the islands.* On the other hand, all we really need to do is fill the horizontal propane tank and go grocery shopping. Lots of cruisers get stuck provisioning and miss opportunities to depart. Even more sailors never leave their home ports because they are never quite finished getting the boat ready. We acknowledge that we will never be completely ready to go, but we should be ready enough by Thanksgiving or so.
As excited as we are to be in south Florida with its palm trees, splendid weather, green water, sandy beaches, and family members (of ours…we get that pretty much everybody is someone’s family member) we are finding ourselves a little overstimulated. There’s a skyline at the water’s edge tonight, for goodness sake. There are so many boats all over the place. We think a week or two down here will be plenty and then we will be more than ready for the solitude of the Gulf Stream crossing and the s l o w pace in the Bahamas.
*Here’s a partial list:
get a Bahamian SIM card for the phone so we can have a data plan in the Bahamas
replace the bracket on the water maker filter that I broke back in Virginia
take all our extra clothing and gear off the boat and dump it at the in-laws’ place
get flu shots
remove the batteries
replace the batteries
finish installing the solar panel frame
get plane tickets for Simon so he can visit in December
get the propane tank filled
have AT&T unlock our iPhone so we can use a Bahamian SIM card
The to-do list Post-It port light.
restock the first aid kit
get additional fuel filters
get more motor oil
don’t forget Simon’s birthday
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Well that last update didn’t post with our slow cell service. It’s now November 18 (Simon’s birthday). Yesterday we moved just a few miles down the ICW to the southern Lake Worth anchorage. Because the trip was so short, we had time to go ashore beforehand to check out the West Marine to get a few things, and to check out the grocery store where Ellen scored a half-year supply of Parmalat boxed milk. (Landlubbers, boxed milk is a magical product that needs no refrigeration until it is opened. So we can store 40+ quarts of it and make ourselves less dependent on the expensive and unreliable grocery stores in the Bahamas. Also, it tastes creamy delicious.) After the shopping and the moving of the boat, we realized the water was so clear we could see the bottom at 11 feet.
Frogman.
Of course we dug out our snorkel gear and jumped right in. Saw a little ray/skate on the bottom, saw a school of little fishies, saw a spiny lobster carcass, and saw the anchor all dug and snug. We also were pleased to see that although Cupcake has a bit of slime and some barnacles on her hull, she is not nearly as fuzzy as we were afraid might be the case. The three of us got about 1/4 of the bottom clean before we gave up and just went swimming. There will be plenty of time to scrub in the coming weeks. The zincs we installed in Delaware are still zincing away, so I can wait a few more weeks before renewing them.
After the swimming and dinner I went straight to bed so I would be rested up for today’s long trip out on the ocean. We wanted to do some real sailing to make sure we remembered how, to run the water maker for the first time since North Carolina before hurricane Florence, and to avoid the 21 bridges we would have had to contend with on the ICW.
Today’s run from Lake Worth inlet to Fort Lauderdale/Port Everglades inlet was our longest day in miles and in hours since Atlantic City, New Jersey…it was 47 miles and was our first trip on the ocean in quite a while. We hoisted the mainsail before hoisting the anchor so we were ready to go when we caught the wind at the outside of the inlet. The Lake Worth inlet was super easy and fairly calm. Turning south towards Fort Lauderdale we rode a fabulous east wind and were screaming along at 7+ knots for hours. We occasionally hit 8 knots through the sapphire blue water. We have finally gotten to water that is indescribably beautiful. Offshore a few miles the water was clear and warm and exactly what we’ve been dreaming about for years. At one point we were able to make out the sandy patches on the bottom in 44 feet of water. Aah.
My dirty little secret is that I often get seasick when we go offshore. Sometimes I am completely fine in the bounciest of weather, other times it takes very little under sail for me to feel queasy. Every time we have been in the Gulf Stream I have been miserable and puking the whole time. Because I anticipate similar problems on next week’s crossing to the Bahamas, we decided to experiment today with the anti-seasickness patches we brought. I patched-up at 6am and felt fantastic all day despite some work below in the bouncy waves, despite putting in more and more reefs in the mainsail (at one point we were reefed down to our third reef points), and then letting the reefs all out again. Reefing our sail is typically the kind of activity that makes me vomit if I am on the edge of nausea to begin with. (Landlubbers: a reef-point is a set of grommets in our mainsail that allows us to reduce the amount of sail we are flying but still keep some sail up for speed and control. We have three sets of reef points, each set reduces the size of the sail-triangle a bit more. Contrary to common sense, reducing sail will often make the boat sail faster. It usually makes the boat sail easier. It always makes the crew feel less anxious.)
Today was a great day for testing some of our systems. The patch was an unqualified success. When I started feeling drowsy, a RedBull kept me awake. Usually when I have a RedBull it makes me wired for hours. It is clear that the patch was countering that caffeine because after my drink, I just felt non-sleepy instead of completely hyper. We are figuring I will need two or three to keep me on task for next week’s crossing to the islands.
Once we got to Fort Lauderdale, we were in the midst of south Florida craziness like we have not come close to experiencing yet on this trip. There were oil tankers offshore, a host of enormous cruise ships at dock, millions of gnat-boats zipping everywhere without the slightest regard for manners or rules of the road. You can’t get mad at them because you would lose your mind. Far better to be amused at their ignorance and get over it. Moss was freaking out because of all the eye-candy: huge private yachts, fabulous water-front homes, gigantic sailboats. Oh my.
Our anchorage for the night is a protected basin called Lake Sylvia. We intend to anchor here the night before we cross to the Bahamas. So it made sense for us to check it out now so we know what to expect next week and so we have a path already in our GPS showing us the way in and out. Our plan is to depart well before dawn when we are here next week, so it is essential that we have an easy exit to the ocean.
Now we are sitting at anchor waiting for all the day boaters to leave so the wakes die down and peace once again settles over the anchorage.
Tomorrow we will head to the municipal marina in Hollywood for a few days of provisioning, visiting, and giving of thanks.
BIG container ship south of Fort Lauderdale.
Skipper Moss.
This is the spectacle that greets cruise ships arriving in Fort Lauderdale.
This is the dinghy storage in the side of a super yacht.
Here’s what you came to see: the selfie.