Pleasure Boaters

We are pleasure Boaters!

We left Ft Pearce Sunday morning and motored to dragon point for the night. Fought a terrific squall for about an hour. Rain so heavy we couldn't see marks and had to slow down and run on instruments. All clear at dragon point and went behind the swing bridge there and had the whole anchorage to ourselves. The area before the swing bridge is full of mooring balls now. It was hot, we were hot, so we ran the genset and had pleasant AC all night long for the cost of 5 gallons of diesel. Remember we are pleasure boaters.

Left early yesterday morning for the Canaveral canal. Along this we had to negotiate 2 bascule bridges and a canal lock. Once through all that we stopped at the Point Marina for fuel. Then we had to wait while a large cruise ship came in and turned in the turning basin to dock -- quite impressive. We had lunch aboard and left around 12:30pm and headed to sea. Conditions looked good. Wind under 10 knots with 2 feet seas mainly on the nose. We had to go 7 miles before we made the turn to head north. Now the seas were 2 - 4 feet with wind between 11-15. So much for the forecast 5 - 10 kts. . Once we turned the seas were mostly on the beam and rolling us miserably. We had 15 miles to go before we altered course again and the forecast was for more wind tonight. The stuff down below started making a lot of noises. We lasted 10 minutes then unanimously decided to go back in and head up inside to St Augustine and try this again. Remember pleasure boaters!

The ride back with the wind and waves just quartering on us gave a very smooth ride. Boy we could go like this for days but we had to get in. There was an adventure too with a large tanker coming in behind us. He was way out there then right on top of since he could go 16 kts to our 6 kts. The Pilot negotiated a passing scenario with me and all went well.

We got to the first bascule bridge and it was on a schedule now. We had to wait 40 minutes for it to open, then we did the lock and it was on demand but it is SLOW to operate. Then the last Bascule bridge was still on a schedule and we had to wait 25 minutes there. Now we were back in the ICW and it was 7pm. We ran for another hour up to Addison point bridge and anchored behind the causeway just as it was getting dark -- 8:15pm.

Wow a 13+ hour day and we had gone nearly 62 miles but in actuality only went 22 miles on the ICW.

The plan now is to go to Daytona today and anchor, then Palm coast marina tomorrow arriving at noon so we can do laundry and a grocery run, then onto St Augustine Thursday and either try the inlet and go offshore or maybe continue up the ICW.

Ohhh I like running the AC on anchor except for using 5 gals of diesel but it's worth it to pleasure boaters. We are sleeping like babies. I know sound like it too -- waaa waaa.

Just as I was feeling a little sorry about the new change of plans this morning I was sitting in the cockpit sipping my coffee and looking at all the cars on the NASA parkway heading to work. I felt better after that.