aPhantom.net Bahamas - 2014
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It's amazing how time flies these days. We have spent the last two years at different marinas from Savannah, Georgia to central Florida.
Each place seemed to have its own bit of charm but we usually found ourselves ready to move on after a couple of months in one location. We like to say that when the bartender knows what we drink, it's time to move on.
Spring finally arrived and we began planning another trip to the Bahamas. Instead of spending our time at marinas, we would likely spend at least half of our time at anchor or on moorings. This meant that the days of unlimited power and water and the convenience of simply stepping ashore would be replaced by generating our own power, conserving water whenever possible, and using the dingy for transportation to and from shore. Changing from life in marinas to life "on the hook", was going to require many items that had been stored away for many months.
We decided to tackle the transportation problem while still in the marina at Palm Coast. We took our inflatable dingy off the deck, inflated it to see if it would hold air, and attached the outboard motor to see if it would actually start. Our dingy is about fifteen years old and the outboard is about thirty years old. Both these items had been "in storage" on the boat for at least two years. As it turned out, the dingy held air perfectly for several days and the trusty Mercury outboard started on the second pull of the starting cord.
Any place in the United States that you use the dingy, or any boat for that matter, you are required to have an approved life jacket for each person on board. 
The life vests we have been carrying for this purpose were made in Argentina and were original equipment on our twenty-nine year old boat. The straps meant to secure the vest basically dissolved when removed from the storage bag, which promptly ripped as well. One more trip to the marine supply store to update our safety gear was in order. New life vests for the dingy and while we were at it, new vests that included harnesses to attach ourselves to the boat for overnight sailing were now added to our equipment.
We had already filled the food, beer and wine lockers, the refrigerator and freezer, water tanks, diesel fuel tanks, gasoline containers for the dingy and generators, and all the spare parts we could think of. Armed with a weather forecast of four beautiful days, we set off to the south on the Intracoastal Waterway to begin the first leg of our trip.
On the first day we traveled about forty miles to New Smyrna Beach just south of Daytona. The Waterway was very busy all day as the spring migration of "snow birds" going north had begun several weeks before. There were so many boats headed in the opposite direction that we didn't need the channel markers to find our way, we could simply follow the line of boats headed north. The only problem was that the extra traffic filled up the anchorages and marinas, so finding a place to stay for the night got to be a bit more challenging. We happened upon a beautiful new marina, not yet listed in the guidebooks, that welcomed us to an outside slip with easy access in the fast moving current.
The facility included a great restaurant right at the marina, brand new restrooms and showers, and a heated swimming pool. It all sounded pretty good to us. We shared a dock with several large sport fishing boats that left with great fanfare at about five the next morning. The promise of great weather for the next three days sent them about forty miles out to the Gulf Stream to catch the "big ones", or so they said.
The promise of good weather also made us think about going straight to the Bahamas from our current location instead of continuing south another one hundred miles in the Waterway. Ponce Inlet was only about two miles away and we had gone straight to the Bahamas from that inlet several times before. The distance from there to our chosen spot to land in the Bahamas is about one hundred ninety miles. The distance to the same spot from Fort Pierce is about one hundred ten miles. Eighty miles in the open ocean translates into about fourteen or fifteen hours at our normal speed. If we didn't actually get that "perfect" weather that was predicted fifteen hours could seem like a very long time. If we set out from Ponce Inlet we would be in the Bahamas in less than two days so it was tempting, but there were other reasons to go south. We wanted to meet some friends in Vero Beach. Other friends were coming to Fort Pierce about the same time we were and they too were planning a crossing to the Bahamas. We decided to stick to our original plan and move south to Vero Beach.
The Intracoastal Waterway south from New Smyrna is a straight and narrow channel through the aptly named "Mosquito Lagoon". There are only a few small towns and fish camps and lots of shallow water, quite the fisherman's paradise. Near the end of the lagoon, you can see the large assembly building at the Space Center at Cape Canaveral about twenty miles away. As we approached Titusville, the "Gateway to the Space Coast", we were fortunate enough to see a missile being launched. This is quite an impressive sight at such close range. You can see the large contrails of smoke and feel the sonic boom several minutes later. When the space shuttles were still being launched, the area would have been crowded with spectators and authorities. This day, we did not even see any boats anchored or cars parked along the bridges to view the launch. Granted, the missile launches aren't quite as awesome as the shuttle launches but it still is quite an experience.
We stopped for the day about fifteen miles south at Cocoa Beach. As the good weather forecast was still holding, we decided to anchor just off the Waterway, near the Cocoa Beach Bridge. This was an anchorage that offered little protection from adverse winds and seas but turned out to be just fine in the settled weather. It was a quiet night and things went pretty well considering this was our first night at anchor in at least two years.
One of the last projects completed before we left Palm Coast was to install a deck wash system. This provides a way to spray salt water on the anchor chain and anchor as it comes off the bottom. The bottom along most of the southern Intracoastal Waterway is very muddy. While this is great for holding a boat at anchor, it is quite a mess when the chain and anchor come back aboard and into the anchor locker. It is very desirable to remove this sticky muck as the chain is lifted from the bottom. The deck wash project had been on the project list for some time and was working perfectly when we left Palm Coast. Now, when we needed it, it refused to co-operate, so we were back to scooping water up from the river in a bucket and dumping it on the chain, a few links at a time. Fixing the deck wash system was now back on the project list.
About midday on Day Three we noticed clouds building just to the south of us. Why was this happening? The weather forecast still called for sunny skies and light east winds. A check of the weather radar revealed just a few flecks of green somewhat south and east of our current location. 
The further we went, the darker the sky became. Rain was imminent, so it was time to get out the foul weather gear, pants and jackets designed to allow one to stand out in the pouring rain and stay reasonably dry. These had also been in storage for some time. If it rains at the marina, you simply wait until it quits or take the umbrella and move to the next shelter. The bright yellow pants and jackets were kind of faded and stiff but still kept out the rain pretty well. There was a pattern building here as we calculated that our foul weather gear was also about thirty years old. The really good news was that we could still get into clothing that fit perfectly thirty years ago!
About the time the rain arrived, the wind moved to the south and kicked up some nasty short waves. At this time, we were in a quite wide part of the Indian River which gives the waves a better chance to build and thus hamper our forward progress. We had been running a small headsail which helped us maintain forward speed but now with the wind right on the nose, it became more of a hindrance than a help. We had noticed a small tear in the sail cover when we first rolled it out. When some lines got crossed as we were rolling in the sail, the cover ripped in several places and pulled everything into a knot. The beauty of this small headsail is that you can simply lower it to the deck if you need to get it down in a hurry, which is exactly what we did. Our project list was growing as now the sail was in need of repairs.
The weather radar was now showing plenty of green stuff all around and ahead of us. I called our friends in Vero Beach who confirmed that it was also raining there. Oh Good, thirty more miles of wind and rain! We considered just anchoring where we were and moving on tomorrow, (another day of predicted sunshine and light east wind) but by this time we had come to a narrower part of the waterway with only the narrow channel having enough water depth to accommodate our six foot draft. It seemed there was nothing to do but to keep plodding along.
Another hour saw the skies lighten a bit, and another hour brought the next round of rain. We were trying to figure out where to apply for weather forecasting jobs because they still get paid even after a miss like this one. In typical Florida fashion, the last two hours of our trip brought partial sunshine and nearly no wind.
The city of Vero Beach maintains a small marina and about sixty moorings in a well protected lagoon just off the Intracoastal Waterway. Life on a mooring is much the same as life at anchor except that someone else provides the underwater part of your anchoring system. "Velcro Beach" as it is called by many cruisers is a very popular winter destination. A free city bus comes right to the marina several times a day with a route to the beach or to shopping and restaurants in the area. During "the season" many of the moorings are shared by two or three boats rafted together, maybe a little bit more togetherness than some would like but conducive to making new friends.
As many of the boats that had spent the winter here were already moving north, we were able to secure a single mooring not too far from the marina office and dingy dock. We arrived at about four-thirty in the afternoon. The deck was littered with sails and line and the cabin was littered with soggy foul weather gear, jackets and gloves. Our friends were there to greet us and we were ready for beer and wine and to rest up for a few days before tackling the next leg of our journey.
By the second day on the mooring it was time to re-charge our batteries. There are many ways to accomplish this while not being attached to the landside electrical grid. Some boaters choose to run the main engine with a large alternator for charging and some have built in diesel or gasoline generators. Most cruisers will also augment charging with solar or wind power.
We have two small portable generators that can be wired together to provide about the same power as the 120-volt dock side electrical service. The generators can be stowed easily and run on a very small amount of fuel. Both units were out on the deck, wired together, and purring nicely. When we switched the system on it made a very unfriendly noise and refused to begin charging. A quick check of the generators revealed the output of one of the units was only about one-half the voltage it should have been. We can recharge the batteries with just the one unit but if we wanted to heat water for showers or make coffee at the same time, we needed both units running. The main air conditioner will also not run with only one unit. If we wanted to maintain these conveniences, we needed both units working.
It turned out that there is a generator dealer in Vero Beach so we delivered the non-working unit to them the following Monday. It also turned out that a sail maker in not too distant Stuart was coming to the marina to pick up someone else's sail on Monday and agreed to take ours as well, so that put us in "waiting on repairs" mode for at least a week. The weather forecasters finally looked out the window and predicted rain and wind for the next several days so we weren't going anywhere anyway. We settled in to explore Vero Beach. There was more shopping to be done. We also took several rides out to the beach to sample the restaurants and entertainment. As for local entertainment, we had an afternoon show of crop dusters spraying the mosquitoes around the lagoon which was quite entertaining and probably great fun for the pilots.
One week of waiting on repairs easily turned into two weeks. The sail maker was "slammed" with work and the generator had to be taken to another facility that actually knew something about generators. A small installation adjustment put the deck wash system back in service. Our thirty year old staysail was still serviceable with some new stitching on the cover. The generator needed an eight hundred dollar part, a new generator costs about a thousand dollars, so one working generator will have to do. Another prediction of good weather for several days made us anxious to pack up and move on once again.
Click Here for Part Two.
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