2020: Cocoa to Palm Beach FL

12 December 2020

Depart: Cocoa Free Dock 9:15

Arrive: Private Dock Vero Beach, FL 3:30

Distance: 46.5 nm

Conditions: Considerable Cloudiness 

Until well after midnight I could hear music coming from the Park with the pavilion across the street from the park where we docked for the night. That music must have been extremely loud to be audible inside our closed up boat at least a block away from the pavilion. At some point, despite the music, I drifted off to sleep.

With no need for an anchor washdown and no power cord connected to shore power, we made a quick getaway from the dock. I readied the lines for departure while Clark started the engines. I pulled the lines in quickly when Clark said he was ready and we were off!

Bye Bye Cocoa, FL

Free Dock at Cocoa, FL

I laughed when I heard the report on the weather station "Considerable Cloudiness". It seemed an understatement!

By 12:00, my phone said the air temperature was  74 degrees. With a cold wind gusting to 25 knots in our faces, it felt nowhere near 70 anything!

We are both still a bit nervous about the engine, and today I could smell smoke while standing in the pilot house. Clark could not smell it up on the flybridge. Of course we had to investigate the source. Turns out it was not coming from the boat. Phew!

"I smell smoke!"

"There's the source!"

With Clark and I both bundled up against the cold wind, we could not believe our eyes when we saw a boat with two people in it dressed for a hot summer day. The woman, wearing a bikini, reached way over the bow of their small boat to try to tie the boat to a marker.

"Don't fall off!"

She finally gave up trying to get the line around the pole and tied off to the metal framework instead.

"That's better!"

We continue to see sunken sailboats as we travel through Florida. We saw one underwater today and one near to it with shredded sails!

Sunken sailboat (front)
Shredded sail on sailboat (rear)

Even though our friend Don was out of town, he offered us the use of his dock for the night. When we got to the dock, our friends that moved to Vero Beach from New Jersey met us at the dock to grab our lines. Sadly, instead of sitting down to chat or going out to dinner, we kept our distance and talked with our masks on. They left after a too short time, and we settled in for the night.

Sunset at Vero Beach, FL

13 December 2020

Depart: Private Dock Vero Beach 9:50

Arrive: Lake Worth Anchorage #2 5:55

Distance: 61 nm

Conditions: Sunny, High of 78 predicted, Hot when no wind

Should we go or should we stay? When I went to be last night I thought it was very clear that Clark wanted to stay an additional night at our friend's dock. This morning, Clark surprised me by saying we would be leaving as soon as we were ready to go. I scrapped my plans for a shower and a bike ride and got ready to pull in the lines so we could get underway.

As we passed through Fort Pierce, we started to see more and more interesting sights on the water.

This island is for the birds!

Pizza anyone?

Another island with a smattering of drift wood.

Jet skis!

Sun sparkling on the water.

Fort Pierce Municipal Marina

Fort Pierce Municipal Marina

Clark was disappointed when the satellite launch was put on hold on the 11th. I looked this morning and found that it was rescheduled for today at 11:20 and then promptly forgot all about it. The launch did happen today at 12:30 while I was in the salon eating lunch. Clark said he heard the word "launch" on the VHF radio, turned around, and saw the evidence of the launch.

Sirius XM Satellite is the squiggly line in the sky!

What a difference a day makes in Florida! Yesterday we were chilly with jackets on. Today, it felt like summertime. A lot of the scenes we saw today made it feel like I had traveled into some alternate reality where the weather was beautiful and no pandemic existed. Being a Sunday and a hot, sunny day, we saw jet skis, water skiers, a sailing club outing, paddleboards, kayaks, and lots of party boats. 

Just a small sample of the group of sailboats out 
enjoying the beautiful day.

Dressed for summer

Hanging out at a sandbar

Fishing from a paddleboard

Partying on the Pon Tiki party boat

Rafting up big time

Another, separate group of partiers

All together on the black-hulled boat

Just a few feet down the waterway and very near the partiers, we saw these two, lone observers of social distancing.

We saw more than one water skier out on the water today. They appeared to be very skilled. One of them appeared reckless as he "walked" up the tow line and then skied on the wake right next to the outboard motor of the boat. So dangerous! Clark stopped filming before the skier got that far.

Besides the amazing party atmosphere on the water today, we did see some other interesting sights.

With just a bit of decoration ...
a Gingerbread House

Vessel "Who Cares" - 115' long and 26' wide
What amazed me on this one was the height!

Jupiter Lighthouse

Santa!

Christmas Tree

Unique Cloud Formations

And our personal favorite ... 

A man leaning over the side of a moving boat
using a hose to washdown the side of the boat.
Why!!!???

We could not decide where to anchor. We passed the first possibility at 2:00 and felt it was too early to call it a day. We passed the Sandbar Anchorage and decided it was too busy.

Wading at the Sandbar Anchorage

We continued on towards the Lake Worth inlet looking for another opportunity. At 4:45 we considered another but decided that it might be a bit shallow, so we kept going. As we traveled, we encountered many slow speed minimum wake or idle speed zones to slow our travels while littler boats swarmed around and passed us like so many bees.

As we progressed towards our next anchoring option, Clark followed a Bob423 route on the chart. Unfortunately, right at the point where he needed to jog around a shallow spot, he found his way blocked by a little boat that cut the corner. I happened to have chosen that moment to be in the head. I nearly went headfirst into the toilet as the boat bumped bottom. 

At moments like this, I am ever so glad that I was not the one piloting the boat. Clark had to do some fancy maneuvering to get the boat out of there. He revved the boat in reverse to get off and found a little boat coming up behind blocking his escape. He moved again and bumped bottom a second time. He revved the boat in reverse again to get off. 

By this time I had made it to the pilot house from the head, and I was hanging on to the furniture with my heart racing. When I deemed it safe to move, I climbed the ladder up to the flybridge to get the full scoop from Clark on what had happened. It took a while for both of our hearts to stop racing!

We continued on our way hoping to reach an anchorage before dark. Clark brought the RPMs up a bit to check for a shudder from potential prop damage. We did not sense any problems and kept going. As Clark looked for a reasonable spot to drop the hook, I passed the time taking pictures of the sun setting.

The sun went down at 5:29, and so when we dropped anchor at 5:55, it was twilight.  After dinner I finally got that shower that I missed out on before departure this morning! We did what we have done for the past few nights watching a Christmas movie.