bridges

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Destination: Velcro Beach

Some days I would give my weekly ration of chocolate for an accurate forecast; however best to save that for a jump out or an overnight. One of the reasons we bid farewell to St. Augustine on Monday rather than Tuesday was the disintegrating forecast that made Thursday look like crap.  Before Monday night, the forecast was updated and Thursday looked decent. Not ones to let the weather out-smart us, we decided to take advantage of the good weather and explore a couple of new places along the Indian River. Our bridge and inlet shenanigans made sure we couldn’t get too far on Monday, so taking an extra day to arrive at Vero just made sense.

Tues found us anchored on the Indian River’s west shore at Cocoa; a cute town with a free dock, oodles of waterfront boardwalk and several small and low finger docks where you tie up your dinghy. We met up with Patti on Lutra and learned she will be in Nassau for a crew change at Christmas time, same as we.

The Haulover Canal Bridge is always an experience and the bridge tender with an attitude gets your attention. She chided a boat, about a half hour ahead of us, for not bunching up with the ones in front of him and then trying to “make the opening.”  I don’t think she kept it open for him. Ok then, we looked around- way around and concluded we were alone and no bunching required! Missed one little detail though, and that was what about northbound vessels? You can’t see the bascule bridge until you turn the corner and then it’s maybe 1/8 mile away. The canal is narrow- but two boats can easily pass.

Just before the turn we hear a northbound tug and barge call the bridge- uh oh. We radio the tug, then the bridge, confirming we will stand off before the bridge to allow the tug to proceed first. Not that we had a choice, a movement restricted commercial vessel wins over even the big cat!  A much smaller m/v behind us also radioed the bridge to confirm they’d wait behind us.

Here she comes, we wait patiently.

Almost close enough for an egg toss!

After we passed through, I looked back and for a few seconds the m/v and barge looked close to a collision. The bridge tender sure thought so because she gave the m/v heck for not getting out of the way. Poor guy, he said he thought he was. I think he was fine and don’t you imagine the tug captain could take of himself if he had concerns about the other boat? Like I said, an attitude.

Wednesday morning we bid farewell to Lutra and walked into town. Today was market day in the town center- quelle chance.

Ossarios has all the tasty treats

No problem finding your way in Cocoa

Anchor up and underway by 10:30 to another new spot; Melbourne Beach Pier. This would bring us to SM 920 which means we’d traveled 920 statute miles (800 nautical) since Hospital Point in Portsmouth, VA, mile zero. Our total miles since leaving CT would be a tad under 1,200nm. We’d sailed 63 hours, approximately 430nm of that total.

Melbourne Beach is on the east shore of the Indian River and you simply leave the ICW channel in the river, head toward the pier and anchor close, but not too close off the pier. The pier is quite old and an historic site. Steamboats would bring beach going visitors to the dock and a hand powered trolley would take them the several blocks to the beach.

The pier at Melbourne Beach

The pier has two lower docks, one on each side for easy accessibility by dinghy. We walked to the beach after lunch; by that time the sun had all by vanished.  Our great find of the visit was the Melbourne Beach Supermarket. Oh baby, did they have a HUGE assortment of bottled soda (we’re not soda drinkers just impressed). We ooh’d and aah’d over the meat case and the assortment of desserts. We came away with affordable sausages, lamb chops and a slice of chocolate mousse cheesecake. Russ couldn’t resist sulfite-free red wine at 4 for $10. Drinkable but a bit wimpy.

Misty afternoon at Melbourne Beach

Thursday found us sitting in the first fog of our entire trip. Closer to Vero Beach we held our breath passing under a bridge whose height board read a measly 62ft and 9 inches. Feel more certain that we need 62 ½ ft as we both agreed we had a few inches to spare. What’s with all this high water?

Before picking up our mooring a stop at the fuel dock was needed for diesel, water and a pump out.  A few moorings had rafted boats and plenty of open moorings too. We spent the next two days food shopping, both at Publix and the terrific every Saturday farmers market, doing laundry and getting ready for our raft buddy Polar Pacer.

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Making a Beeline for Florida

One night at a Charleston marina: pricey. One day spent re-stocking fridge, freezer, pantry and two visits to Saffron: way pricey. One 29 hour overnight sailing to St. Augustine: price-Less! Oct 13 – Nov 9, I believe that would be less than one month to Florida. For once, when it counted, the forecast held true and the 200nm trip was uneventful, other than we hit 12.4kts for a few seconds, flying with the main and screacher on a starboard tack, a lovely beam reach… until the wind backed down just a few knots and we slowed down from the 8kts we’d been averaging. Seas a comfortable 2- 3 ft with true wind never more than 14kts. One we’d do again and that is saying something coming from “she who dislikes overnights.” Russ caught more zzzzzs than usual; still, nothing like the dead to the world sleep we get the next night.

40 miles off GA coast sits this Navy lighted tower- some tower!

A sparrow rests in the lee of Ortolan

Veterans’ Day weekend brought a pirate parade and other related activities to St. Augustine. We caught only a glimpse of the parade.

Free park entrance at Castillo de San Marcos for the weekend, so we took advantage of that freebie. Treated to a cannon firing demo which was very realistic, complete with the signal to cover your ears!

Cannon firing demo at Castillo San Marcos

Lightner Museum, formerly the Alcazar Hotel built by the railroad magnate Henry Flagler contains several floors of Victorian era displays. The Regina, below might be a familiar soundind name. The company since switched to vacuum cleaners!

The Regina- an early music player with a disk changer

Foiled by the bridge: Monday morning we found ourselves turning around at a “not-65ft” bridge just south of the St. Augustine mooring field. Sixty-four feet, hey that would’ve been fine too. But 62 and change with work (painting?) taking place such that the height must be less than shown on the height board, no way Jose. Yes, it was high tide but even so the clearance is supposed to be-at least CLOSE to 65 ft. Umm, we could wait an hour, maybe two. Or, we could jump outside and enter at the Ponce inlet; slightly better than St Augustine, but one we have not used. We’d been good little weather checkers and at one point thought we could jump out on Tuesday, mostly to avoid motoring against the current much of the day on the ICW. Well, that changed and we said oh heck, let’s get going on Monday because the weather was majorly falling apart on Thursday and we wanted to reach Vero Beach by EOD Wed. Monday was an ICW day due to SSE winds and we don’t do south when we are going south. Do you?

The influence on our thinking that we could jump outside on Monday was Mr. Wrong again NOAA who told us East winds Monday, even though Wunderground and Weather Channel said SSE. We made the 7:30 opening of Bridge of Lions and headed out the inlet which was nearly slack; never-the-less still its big-roller self; although not quite as bad as before recent dredging.  Shortly after turning south at the sea buoy (end of channel), Russ prepped to raise the main (only to motor sail), came back in and said, “we’re going back.” Must be pretty bad to choose that inlet again over the unknown! While we were headed out, a trawler made a request for St Augustine inlet info and we gave him the scope as we’d used it twice in four days. This was a serious, 58ft trawler and they were concerned about 4-6 ft seas further south along the coast. Don’t tell me that didn’t influence the Captain’s decision as he stood on the roof looking out at the swells. We meet up with him at the sea buoy and he seemed happy that we offered to go first.  The tiny inlet buoys get buried in the waves and are not charted due to the oft changing shoaling. ActiveCaptain was our savior once again on how to enter the inlet. A 40 ft monohull was heading out and I wish I had a photo- they were riding high on the swells and bam, down again.

Back to the Bridge of Lions for the 9:30 opening. The bridge tender was decent enough to refrain from a “nice to see you again” comment.