Great Stirrup Cay to Vero Beach FL

—Blogpost written by Bob

This blogpost covers our 163-nautical mile trip from Great Stirrup Cay to Vero Beach FL via Fort Pierce.  This trip didn't have separate identifiable days--two days were rolled into one long one.  So, I've organized this blogpost into "Prior to Departure", "Overnight Trip" and "ICW North to Vero Beach."

Prior to Departure

Last night, our fridge stopped working—apparently the Freon level was too low. (This confirms that we DO have a slow leak in the system—the system was last charged on February 14.)  We pulled apart the quarter berth for access to the compressor unit and added some Freon 134a from a can—this was like working blind without a set of gauges. 

It was 82 degrees and very humid inside the boat and there was no wind until much later when a rain shower blew through.)  We never got it working last night and we left the quarter berth apart so that we could continue working on it in the morning.

This morning at 7 AM, I simply started the refrigerator and the box temperature was at 54+ degrees at the beginning. The box temperature quickly started to drop in tenths of a degree increments. By 7:30 AM, the box temperature was 52.0 degrees. (This improvement may not sound like a lot but the trend was, in fact, cooling.)

The morning sky was overcast and the outside temperature was relatively cool (79 degrees F).  In checking the latest weather conditions for our upcoming trip, the winds will be 10 to 13 knots mostly from the south and the sea state will be between 0.9 and 1.5 feet (which is good).  Light rain showers were in the forecast for the daylight hours of today and tomorrow—no rain showers are in the forecast for the overnight hours. (In fact, we experienced the first light rain shower of the day at 7:45 AM.)

Rain drops from this morning's
rain shower on our overhead
companionway hatch.

One of eight cruise ships that
were anchored just north 
of Great Stirrup Cay
in storage. 

I had to run the engine for about an hour to charge the house batteries at 7:30 AM this morning because last night's fridge problem created quite a draw on our house batteries and sunlight for our solar panels was unlikely for today.  I hated to do this because it uses fuel that I would have liked to retain for the long trip ahead of us but we should have plenty.

We decided to throw away some fish that we had in our ice box before departing, thinking that is was probably bad since the ice box had warmed up so much.  Also we decided to cook the hamburger we had in the ice box and use it in pasta and sauce for Sunday in Florida.

Overnight Trip

It is never easy for me to wait but that’s exactly what I was doing—waiting until noon to depart. I’ve estimated the trip to take 19 hours to the Fort Pierce sea buoy—I didn’t want to get there before 7 AM and to have enter the Fort Pierce inlet in darkness.

We weighed anchor at 11:30 AM and made our way out of the little harbor at Great Stirrup Cay. The sea state was larger than predicted because of the wind velocity that was higher than predicted. This slowed our progress by 1 to 1.25 knots (plus I feel something was tangled in the prop) all the way out of the New Providence Channel, a distance of 63 nautical miles. We even motor-sailed to make better time (about 1/3-knot more speed) plus for increased stability. Because of this delay I didn’t have to worry about getting to the Fort Pierce Inlet before daylight, that’s for sure.

We motor-sailed most of the way
between Great Stirrup Cay
and Fort Pierce, FL.

We took 1-hour shifts at the helm until 8 PM and then we changed to 2-hour shifts. It got dark around 8 PM.

When we passed Freeport, we stopped the boat and Maggie dove over the side to check the prop in the pitch black water. She found a big wad of sea grass on the prop similar to what we experienced previously on this trip.  So, she removed the big wad of sea grass (assuming that it was the problem) and got back on the boat.  We resumed our course but there was very little difference in boat speed—it was still varying between 4.6 and 5.2 knots, which is very low for s/v Rainy Days.

We unfurled the head sail again to keep our speed up (5.5 knots at the most). At this point I was very concerned about our fuel situation because both our time to Fort Pierce was increasing (because of our lower boat speed) but fuel was still being consumed at a higher than normal rate. During early in the morning hours while it was still dark, I transferred fuel from our auxiliary tank into our primary tank (while we were underway).

We went thru a rain squaw very early in the morning—the sea state got rough and the wind intensified but it was short-lived. We rolled down the cockpit enclosure side windows to stay dry.

As we got within 40 to 50 miles of Fort Pierce, we experienced a thunderstorm with a lot of lightning and high wind but very little rain. It lasted only an hour or so but the high sea state lingered.

As we got closer to Fort Pierce and the influence of the Gulf Stream had subsided, our old boat was back to herself again and resuming boat speeds in the range of 6.3 to 6.7 knots. We still don’t know what the problem was with the prop but it is gone now.

Our list of waypoints clipped
to the binnacle guard.

At about 10 to 15 miles outside of Fort Pierce, my toiletry kit slid past the control panel and turned off the instruments. I’ve never felt so helpless at the helm—no chart plotter nor auto pilot and in an instant! It seemed to take forever to get them all back working again.

We arrived at the Fort Pierce sea buoy at 4:10 PM—over nine hours longer than I estimated! We came in the inlet and picked up fuel at Fort Pierce City Marina. There was only one guy working the fuel dock but they were conveniently open late—we didn’t get there until after 5 PM (on a Sunday).

We were prepared with our face masks because of the pandemic and found that no one else we saw was remotely concerned about the pandemic—quite a change from the Bahamas.

Sunset in Fort Pierce with
bridge in background.

We anchored for the night just south of the North Fort Pierce Bridge—it was nice and peaceful after a horrendous 163-nautical mile passage. There was nothing fun in the 28-hour overnight passage—in fact, it may be my last one. I’m not giving up sailing nor living aboard, just long overnight ocean passages. 

ICW North to Vero Beach

The temperature was 63 degrees last night—quite a change for us!  The morning was beautiful and sunny but with a very cool (to us, cold) 14-knot wind out of the north.  We weighed anchor at 9:10 AM and had to wait for a scheduled 9:30 AM opening of the North Fort Pierce Bridge. Once north of the bridge, our boat moved along at over 6 knots on the ICW, despite motoring against the 14-knot wind.

We caught the 9:30 AM scheduled
opening of the North Fort
Pierce Bridge.

Even though we couldn’t see 6 inches down into the murky Indian River, it felt good to be back in the U.S.  As we began our short trip north to Vero Beach on the ICW, I felt confined within the lines representing the edges of the ICW channel.  We got to Vero Beach City Marina just before noon and took our assigned slip on the south side of the north dock.  We were bucking (that’s with a “b”) the wind entering the slip—I had to power into the slip a little more forcefully than I’d normally like but the boat made it into the slip without crashing or scraping the side of the hull (to my delight).

Maggie picked up our rental car right away and brought back hamburgers and French fries from Burger King for our lunch.  While she was out and about I contacted a local marine refrigeration guy (Ty Cobb) who will be here at the boat tomorrow morning to fix our fridge.

I also opened our packages that arrived here at the marina.  We received our Ultra Flip Anchor Swivel and a new headlamp (Black Diamond) that I was looking forward to trying—it seems great at first glance.  We also received some replacement toilet lid hinges from AirHead, as well as a wheel barrow full of mail.  It will take some time to sort through all of it. We drove out to pick up some liquor ($200+) since liquor is considered “essential” in Florida and some minor groceries. (We will wait until our fridge is fixed before we get most of the provisions for our long trip north on the ICW.)

Most everyone in the grocery store (Publix) were wearing face masks and honoring the CDC guidelines, including social distancing.  Fortunately, Vero Beach is one of the more classy places in Florida.

Before we knew it, it was time for Happy Hour and we decided to have two Happy Hours since we’ve missed one for a few days now.  It feels good NOT to be on the move this afternoon. 

s/v Rainy Days in slip at
Vero Beach City Marina.

I hope everyone back home is healthy and safe!  Thanks for following our blog!