Our trip up Florida’s East coast in April
Tuesday April 19
There were so many things to do to get ready to cruise that John did not have time to activate our Delorme InReach tracking system before we left Fort Myers. He had the subscription turned on while we were in Fort Pierce and we will now activate it everyday that we travel. The system will show where we are and provide some stats like speed and distance, etc. We have to learn how to use this device correctly. Some of the stats were screwed up because we forgot to turn tracking off at the end of each day. In the morning when we leave we press a button on the device that sends out a message to friends and family indicating that we are leaving.
When we arrive at our destination, we press another button that indicates that we arrived at our destination. The message will indicate whether we are in a marina or anchored. This is a nice way of letting people be a part of our adventure. The messages go out as a text or an email. Obviously, it is new to us and recipients of the messages. We tell people to let us know if they want to be removed from the list. The messages go out either by text and by email depending on the person receiving it. Texting is more real time whereas email tends to get checked when people get around to it.
The Delorme InReach device will allow us to add a link on our Blog that will let anyone see where we have been and our current location. Hopefully, people will like this additional perspective to our travels. See the text in red below. The blue text contains the link…
Left the slip below at Fort Pierce at 9:04 AM. We waited for slack water in the marina. Slack water is when the water is neither ebbing or flooding. In other words no current. The boat is making a more noise from the props than it did before. John traveled at 8.89 to 9.30 mph to get with the current at a RPM that made the noise go away. We will run it for a while and try to figure out what it is. The prop guy swears that it can’t be the props now and that it must be something else.
Nice long day of riding. Wind about 15 knots from the East. As we were cruising, we came across a group of dolphins. Pam went out to the bow of the boat to sing to them. They must not have liked the song she was singing (BJ’s favorite- Few of my Favorite things) because they went away. It COULDN’T have been her singing that sent them swimming away.
Left the ICW and turned east just past the Eau Gallie Bridge at mile marker 914 to go up the Banana River past the old Dragon Point to get to our anchorage for the evening. Went through the Mathers swing Bridge at 3:40 Mara Beel put their anchor down and then John and I did our very first anchoring north of them. Took two times for the anchor to set, but we got it set and and put on the snubber to be set for the night. A snubber is a device that helps takes tension off of the windlass. We put the dinghy down and went back to Mara Beel for a great Beef dinner. The dinghy is running really rough. We think that maybe we have water in the gas. Hopefully! This is a great anchorage. Not a lot of fast boat traffic just small boats. This must be the training section for all kinds of small boats. We were entertained by Dragon boats, 1,2 and 4 person kayaks, paddle boards and lots of other crafts.
April 20 Wednesday
Brother Bob’s birthday
Start pulling anchor around 10 AM. Made it to Harbortown Marina Canaveral on Merritt Island. This is a free night for both of us since Mara Beel won a 2 night stay here from MTOA, they let us split this to one night each for our 2 boats. This was a LONG way off the ICW to get back to this Marina. Marina is a little rough. Very short docks, and not all docks have cleats.
Had lunch at the Nautical Bar and Grill at the Marina and then went in the pool late in the afternoon. Not much around Harbortown Marina, just a busy road, A1A right by it.
April 21 Thursday
Left Harbortown Canaveral marina at 6:57 am. Beautiful sunrise. Did a slow cruise through the barge canal back to the ICW. Dolphins hang out at the Christie McAuliffe bridge in the canal. Little bit of a windy day today. Chops at times got to be around two foot. Temperature should be around 80°. Long day of traveling today. About six hours, and around 50 miles. Couple of really interesting canals that we went through, and a really long space of 20 miles of nothing. Saw lots of Manatee, dolphins, and even a stingray jump out of the water two times. Went by some resort trailer parks, sunken sailboats, and other interesting things. Arrived at New Smyrna City Marina at 1:45 PM. John is getting pretty good at backing into slips. Got a ride from Pam the dock master to a food festival in New Smyrna Beach on Flagler Avenue. It was called the best of the beach, and different restaurants brought out some of their small favorites that you could buy for five dollars. We chose to eat at the Flagler Tavern. Really good meal. Afterwards, we walked over 2 miles back to the boat.
April 22 Friday
Left New Smyrna City Marina at 6:57 AM. Had to be careful of some shoaling areas as we went through the New Smyrna area. Shoaling is where sand, mud, or rock has accumulated and made shallow spots underwater. Saw some interesting anchorages. Trying to beat the rain that is expected later this evening.
Had to have two bridges open, but it worked out great because there were five boats that went through at once. The Memorial Bridge doesn’t start opening until 8:45 so we just caught it at 8:50. Lots of bridges going through Daytona. There are quite a few MTOA members that live in the town of Palm Coast. Most of them have slips right at their houses.
We arrived at Marineland marina around 1:45 pm. Since we had left our car here last week it was easy to travel by car to different locations. The picture below shows Mara Beel and Short Vacation back to back on the wall across from the office.
Short Vacation sits next to Silver Boots, a 2006 44′ DeFever. Nice corner of handsome boats.
Went to late a lunch at Captain’s Barbecue about 2 1/2 miles from the marina. Great simple restaurant. Trip Advisor claims it to be one of the top 10 barbecue restaurants in the south and gives it a 5 star rating.
We went Marineland to see the dolphins.
The had some big tanks and a few trained dolphins.
April 23 Saturday
Lazy morning. Becky and I went to Publix in the afternoon. Mark arranged an Ecotour. At 4 o’clock we took a 2 hour eco tour with Brandon. Cost $60 for each couple. Definitely not worth the money. He had promised to show us unique animals for Becky and John to photograph with their cameras, didn’t happen. Brandon knows his animals but didn’t fulfill on what was promised.
Becky is ready to capture the perfect picture .
Brandon going over rules of the short trip.
A little of the ‘wildlife’ from our eco tour.
Fort Matanzas National Monument
April 24 Sunday
Went to church at the Methodist Church in Palm Coast. Excellent pastor and great sermon. Went back to Captains Barbecue for breakfast. This really is a good restaurant. In the afternoon, we used our free passes and we went to the Marineland Dolphin Adventure across the street from the marina. This attraction was built in the 1930’s as Marine Studios, the world’s largest aquarium. It was built as an underwater filming studio. Some movies and even some series of the 1950’s TV show Sea Hunt were filmed here. I think that it has seen better days. They have two turtles, about eight dolphins and no stingray even though they advertise that there is one.
April 25 Monday
Left Marineland marina at 9:30 AM after moving to another area for a free pump out. Went through some narrow passages just north of the marina. Arrived at Rivers Edge Marina in Saint Augustine around 12:35 PM. Had to turn up the San Sebastian river for about a mile to get to this marina. We will be staying here for one week. Becky has signed up for a Birds and Wildlife Photo Seminar. Becky is a great photographer and has taken classes with some well known photographers. Mark and Becky went to get their rental car that she will be using to go to the workshops. When they got back the four of us went on the trolley tour of Saint Augustine. It was a 90 minute long tour. The ticket we bought is good for three consecutive days of using the trolley. This is a great way to see downtown Saint Augustine. After the trolley tour we drove the rental car and picked up the van at Marineland and brought it back up to Saint Augustine. As we are sitting here tonight we’re listening to all kinds of noises on our hull. We think its fish hitting on our boat. We later found that the floating docks had so much growth on the docks that little shrimp were living in the growth and making the noise that we were hearing.
April 26 Tuesday
In the morning Becky and I and got haircuts at Spa 192. You are never sure how your hair will turn out when you try different hairdressers from different ports. We are lucky enough to have car right now so it is a little easier to get to our hair dressers if they are not close to a marina. Before we left for this endeavor we became members of a few groups such as MTOA (Marina Trawlers Owners Association) , AGlCA ( American Great Loop Cruisers Association) and DeFever Cruisers. These are associations that are made up of people that are traveling on the waterways or live on the waterways or are just boaters. John receives e-mails daily from these groups where people are on forums discussing questions and thought about all kinds of boating topics. There are people that volunteer to be Harbor Hosts or Port Captains that live on the waterways and are there to help people as they go through their area. We found this Hair Salon because we called a Harbor Host in St. Augustine and ask her if they had any recommendations for where to go to get our hair done. Spa 192 was on of her suggestions. Yelp has been a big help on finding restaurants, hair dressers, grocery stores and churches too.
A boat next to Mara Beel was being fueled up so Mark asked the fuel truck to please come over and fuel up our two boats too. We took on 197 gallons at a $1.93 a gallon. This is a great price. We hope that the cost of diesel stays low for a while at least.
Gas truck backs right up to the walkway and strings his hose down the dock to fuel us up.
Our odometer says that we have traveled 355 miles with travel time of 63 hours. That figures out to be 1.8 miles to the gallon. John is not happy with this and says we need to slow down. How much slower can we go? 7-9 MPH seems pretty slow already. Hope that we continue to get good prices on diesel though.
After lunch, we drove to and visited the distillery, and the winery.
We went strolling and shopping down George Street.
NOOOO, I didn’t buy this one.
The wrong hat for my captain!
April 27 Wednesday
We took a tour of Flagler College in the morning. It was originally built as the luxury hotel – The Ponce de Leon by Henry Morrison Flagler. In 1968 it became Flagler college. The campus is gorgeous and has a beautiful dining hall with Tiffany stain glass windows surrounding it.
Toured the Flagler Presbyterian Church. Henry Flagler had this church built and his body and a few of his relatives are in crypts here.
After the tours went to lunch at the famous Columbia restaurant downtown Saint Augustine. Food was OK.
April 28 -30 Thursday- Saturday
Becky spent a lot of her days at early morning photo shoots. The rest of us did boat projects, laundry, met other boaters at the marina ran errands, just basic stuff. We eat dinner at Hurricane Patty’s right at the marina. Pretty good meal. Mara Beel moved over to the T head on A dock. A guy was coming over to take his slip for the month. We had couples from Mara Beel and Chesapeake (Joe and Connie Moran) over for dinner that evening.
Joe and Connie stayed over at our boat after dinner and gave us some suggestions on anchorages and marinas going from Jacksonville all the way up to the Chesapeake Bay. They like to anchor and have been up and down this part of the ICW a few times and really know a lot of information on it. It was a very helpful and informative evening.
May 1 Sunday.
Went to church at the Presbyterian church that Henry Flagler built and is buried in. Nice church. Mark calls the Presbyterians “The Frozen Chosen”. After church, John and I went out and got breakfast at the Village Inn. In the afternoon, Mark and I drove the two vehicles 1.5 hours and put the van at the Marina at Ortega landing in Jacksonville. It is interesting to drive a car to the spot that you will be cruising to in the boat. It has been great having a vehicle at marinas that we have been staying at for a while. After we got back we went over to Chesapeake and talked to Joe and Connie again. This time we got some ideas of what to do on the Chesapeake Bay. They live on the Chesapeake and are very familiar with it.