St. Augustine to Vero Beach - 2017

--Blogpost written by Bob

It was 7:10 AM when we left our mooring in St. Augustine on Friday, December 1.  We were here for six nights. This is one place that is hard for us to leave but knowing that we are on our way (3-1/2 days away) to another favorite place, Vero Beach, makes it somewhat easier. Florida’s ICW is so much better than the other states we’ve traveled through—it’s deeper, better marked, there’s less current, and the tidal range is not so extreme.

The St. Augustine mooring field at 6:30 AM--it was still
too dark to leave.  The white streaks in the water
are reflections from the boats' anchor lights.

There is a sailor's superstition about having bad luck if you leave a port on a Friday--I hope this doesn't come back to bite us!

This is the mooring field as the sun got closer to rising.

St. Augustine Light is located near the beach on the opposite
side of the barrier island from our mooring.

A very heavy dew accumulated on the boat during the night as result of the warm humid days and the cool nights. We had to wipe down all the windows on our cockpit enclosure before we left.  It is cool this morning, maybe in the low 60’s.

We anchored at MM 832 just off the ICW and just 
south of three fixed bridges and one 
bascule bridge in Daytona Beach.

We anchored at 2 PM, after traveling 54 statute miles.  We had a favorable tidal current most to the day.  We only had one near grounding--it was at the Matanzas Inlet, a couple hours south of St. Augustine.  We went under 5 fixed bridges and 2 bridges had to open for us but they were "on request"--so we didn't experience any holdups.  All in all, it was a nice day on the ICW with beautifully sunny weather and about 73 degrees high temperature for the day. 

Tonight, I am grilling stuffed jalapeños as an appetizer and grilling marinated pork chops and green squash for dinner. I got a little creative with the marinate for the pork chops--I mixed some hot sauce, Szechuan grilling sauce, banana liquor, and some olive oil.

Daytona Beach to Addison Point

It was another early start to the day, as we pulled up anchor at 7 AM.  We notice the sun coming up later each morning.  We checked the weather forecast on our cell phones--the high temperature will be 78 degrees--we decided to wear shorts from the get go.  

From our anchorage in Daytona Beach, the beachfront
condos can be seen before sunrise.  We are
surrounded by civilization here.

We motored down the ICW and caught the 9:30 AM opening of the Coronado Beach Bridge.

The Coronado Beach Bridge (a single bascule bridge)
New Smyrna opened for us to pass through.

New Smyrna Beach is always challenging because of all the day marks, many of which have nothing to do with the ICW.  There is also some shoaling and an ICW marker that always looks out of place, red #34. It almost looks like we should be on the opposite side of this red day mark.  We honored it but had only 7 feet of water at mid-tide.

There are a lot of derelict boats just below New Smyrna Beach—some left over from Hurricane Matthew last year and some new ones as result of Hurricane Irma this fall.

One of the many piers that were damaged by Hurricane Irma. 

About nine miles below New Smyrna Beach we entered Mosquito Lagoon (love that name!). This must be one of the most boring stretches of the ICW—10 miles of shallow water on the east side and spoil islands with scrub brush and small trees on the west side. There are day marks as far as you can see down the ICW—they never seem to end. Haulover Canal marks the separation from Mosquito Lagoon and the Indian River.

The entrance to Haulover Canal
approaching it from the north.

The Haulover Canal Bridge closing
after we passed through.

Our Addison Point anchorage, just below the
JFK Bridge on the Indian River.

We anchored just off the ICW below the JFK Bridge (MM 885) at 3 PM and traveled 53 miles today.

Addison Point to Palm Bay

There was only a light breeze and with no tidal effects, there was nothing to worry about. We have a short day ahead of us today and an even shorter day tomorrow before reaching Vero Beach. We slept very good last night. It is comforting to be in this position with a short distance to go and with relatively warm weather.

We weighed anchor as the sun came up (7 AM) on December 3. I had wiped the heavy dew off the cockpit windows and put the grill cover back on.  As usual, I strapped the anchor down with the heavy elastic strap and, after we got underway, Maggie washed off the anchor and the foredeck with the hose.  She also tied the anchor to the bow roller, a habit we adopted after last year’s fiasco with the anchors becoming loose in heavy winds and damaging our bow.

Cocoa, FL from the ICW

We noticed a nice anchorage just north of the bridge (and east of the ICW), as well as just south of the bridge (and west of the ICW), near Cocoa.  There is a park in this latter area where dinghy’s can land and tie up for the day.  West Marine and Publix are supposed to be within a 10-minute walk—this is always good for cruisers.  Since Cocoa is 55 statute miles from Vero Beach, it is a convenient day trip on our way back north in the spring.

We saw this wrecked sailboat just south of  Cocoa—it must be
45 to 50 feet long. It was laying on its starboard side
and it appears like the hatches and other
valuable hardware were salvaged.

At 9 AM we passed ICW MM 900–this means that we traveled 1,073 miles since leaving Baltimore. It’s a reminder that this trip is more like a marathon than a 100-yard dash and we must pace ourselves for the long haul.

By the time we reach Vero Beach tomorrow, we will have traveled 83 miles on the Indian River.  Most of the Indian River is about a mile wide. There is no tide to speak of and very little tidal current.  It makes this section of our trip very predictable.  We have been motoring along at 6.75 knots (7.76 mph) all day.  We went under 9 fixed bridges today, counting each of the twin bridges as two.

By 12:15 PM we anchored for the day at MM 925, just south of Palm Bay.  Right when we anchored and shifted into reverse to back down on the anchor, the cable control to the transmission broke (near the transmission attachment).  I was able to remove the broken end of the cable and manually shift the transmission.  It will be an interesting trip into Vero Beach tomorrow since Maggie will have to shift the transmission from below as needed!

In retrospect, I should have had Hartge's do a preventative changeout the shifter cable and the fuel control cable during the last haulout.  Now, at least, I will buy a spare for each.

We had a beautiful sunset from south of Palm Bay.. 

Palm Bay to Vero Beach

We left our anchorage at 7 AM.  With the overcast skies, enough light to navigate was a challenge.

The sky was overcast most of this morning.  A couple
rain showers appeared as well.

We came into the Vero Beach mooring field at about 11 AM.  Due to the broken transmission cable, Maggie was down near the engine, shifting as per my instructions from on deck (using our bluetooth communicators), as we approached our mooring.  We missed the mooring on our first try but snagged it on our second try.  This was really challenging!

After picking up the rental car, we picked up the new transmission cable at Advantage Marine in Vero Beach--they had it in stock.  (Tomorrow will be a work day, installing the new transmission cable.)

The sunset from our mooring in Vero Beach was gorgeous!

We're glad to be safe and sound in Vero Beach--this is one of our favorite places along the ICW.  More about our stay in Vero Beach will be included in our next blogpost...


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