Treasure Coast and Space Coast

Since leaving South Florida (Lighthouse Point Yacht Club), we have traveled approx 230 nautical miles over the past 6 days, with stops in North Palm Beach, Fort Pierce, Melbourne, Titusville, New Smyrna Beach, and Palm Coast, arriving St Augustine today, Monday.  We pushed on to here to meet Judy's sister Wendy and spouse Craig, to spend a week with us.  We have seen a lot, if from a distance, so this note will just be a brief summary. 

Weather has been variable, with generally sunny skies, but some cloud, rain at night, and even a bit of fog one day.  And cooling enough that I have been wearing my light sweater for some parts of the day, but then longing for a pool at the end of the day due to the heat.

From Lighthouse Point to North Palm Beach, we were still in the land of large ICW front homes for a number of hours.  Up to about Boynton Beach, the ICW is still a fairly narrow canal, but then transitions to Lake Worth.  The lake is as much as a mile wide for a number of miles, but largely only 3 feet deep. The marked canal is 10 feet deep, but only 120 feet wide, so quite deceiving, with a mile of water to look at, but only 120 feet of it to navigate.



There were still a number of bridges to transit, which made for a long and tiring day, averaging barely over 6 knots given the bridge opening time constraints.  There were some very pretty bridges though.

We passed by the Flagler home and museum in Palm Beach area, but it is not nearly as impressive from the water side as it is from the land side.  They have added some structures since it was originally built, with the pavilion shown in this picture which houses his private rail car. 








Of course, the route goes thru the commercial harbors as well, and this 380 ft yacht, Ulysses, was on display in the Port of Palm Beach harbor. She has only been in service for a year, but obviously getting a major re-work already.  For more info, see the link below.

https://www.superyachttimes.com/yacht-news/world-exclusive-116m-explorer-superyacht-ulysses-delivered

This section of the coast is known as the "Treasure Coast" due to the number of wrecks along this stretch of the ocean, and the great diving. The ICW becomes much more remote in sections from here north, with no development, no roads, and only a few boats.  Fortunately, lots of dolphins.

During our stop in Melbourne, we noticed a lot of rowers, kayakers, and racing canoes out practicing at the end of the day, and a lot of french been spoken.  Turns out, the Canadian "oar sports" team uses this area as their winter training headquarters.  We didn't get to talk to any of them, but did enjoy watching them practice.  A bunch of very buff young men and women!

One constant seems to be the dolphins love our boat!  Judy has at least 15 videos of the dolphins surfing in our wakes.  One interval, we had 3 our our starboard side, 2 to port and 2 on our bow.  And this went on for about an hour.  Throttling back to 1100 rpm and 7.5 knots seems to be the perfect speed for them.  They seem to compete for attention as they surf the various wakes.  The best videos are files just too large to post, so you will have to enjoy this one until we can show you more. 

As we moved further north, the homes along the waterway became somewhat more "modest", but on much bigger properties.  One island in particular, Orchid Island has the ICW go by quite close, and the beautiful homes went on for miles.  Certainly good to break up the trip, as we were also getting into rural areas of no homes, very little interesting scenery (compared to boating in BC anyway), and extensive shallow water.  Good thing there was lots of time with the dolphins to keep us entertained.

We arrived in Titusville, near Kennedy Space Center on Cape Canaveral, on Friday, well timed for the launch that night of the Space-X Falcon 9 rocket, destined for the space station.  This was a big event here, as there hadn't been a launch of a manned US rocket here since 2011.  Titusville, being the main town near the KSC, has suffered as a result.  The launch was at 0249 Saturday am, so we set our alarm to get up for it.  In the fog of being half awake, I didn't have my own camera quite ready, so we are sharing a pic that was taken close to us.  The launch pad was about 10 miles from the boat, so we had a great view.  Being a night launch, the immediate firing lights up the eastern sky, and the launch continues to broaden the glow.  The ascent is dramatic, and after a minute or so the sound of the sonic booms reached us.  Quite a sight as it was a clear night and still air.

We continued north to Smyrna Beach, with plans to visit the sister and husband of a friend in Vancouver.  Smyrna marinas were very busy, so we had to dock closer to Daytona Beach, a bit north of Smyrna.  Had a good beach walk with them, and a lift to the grocery store, which was much appreciated. 


Between Smyrna and Palm Coast, there is a very beautiful stretch called Fox Cut, which of course, has more beautiful homes.


Next stop was Palm Coast, at a marina which was part of a resort development.  From the yacht harbor, we had to get a 1 mile shuttle to the resort, which is on the ocean and offers a great golf course, and six pools.  Took advantage of the pools and the last half of the warm afternoon.

Unfortunately, we woke to the sound of concrete grinding going on as the adjacent condo was having some major reno going on.  And the wind was blowing the concrete dust directly at our boat.  They were done by 9, but the boat was covered by a fine dusting of concrete grit by that time, so I spent the next hour+ cleaning the boat.  Wasn't complete, but good enough to get away and continue to St Augustine.  Did another round of clean-up when we got to St A as well, so boat looks much more presentable for Wendy and Craig to arrive tomorrow.  Looking forward to seeing the many sights of St Augustine.