Vero Beach to Hilton Head

 Now that was a good week of travel!  We departed Vero Beach on Monday at dawn with a forecast of 15 to 20 knot winds, but from the East so it would be on our beam, and the relatively protected Indian River would not provide much fetch to pick up significant wave action.  As it turned out, the wind was more like 12-14 and that is a materially different sea state, with not much more than a light chop.  It was cool though, and this was the first day since November that we steered from inside all day. 

We had thought we might only get as far as Melbourne, but with the good conditions, we pushed on for Cape Canaveral area, which was a 50 mile run for the day.  There aren’t a lot of great marina choices in the area so we thought we would try something new.  It looked good on their website.  

Bad choice.  Worst marina ever.  We arrived about 3 and we didn’t have much choice about moving on so decided to stay.  The marina manager had said that the docks were new, which is usually a good thing, but these were so new they didn’t even have cleats yet.  We had to tie to pilings underneath the dock, and with the wind blowing us off the dock, that was a real challenge.  That might be excusable for the longer term, but the biggest issue is that the docks were not well thought out.  The fixed docks (not floating as little tide here) are built far too high, so that we had to position bumpers up around our cap rail to keep the boat off the sharp edges of the dock.  And the finger pier was only 20 feet long, with no added piling at the bow so securing the boat properly with spring lines and bow line was impossible.  The dock space was also too narrow so that when a 40’ boat docked beside us, there was less than 2’ to separate the boats.  I could go on, but fundamental to a good marina is the boat being secure, and this marina failed in every respect.  They didn’t get a good review from us.  

Our boat neighbour was up early with us the next morning to help us get underway safely.  The forecast was for similar wind conditions, but the day was quite dull with a low cloud cover.  The 57 mile run up to Daytona was uneventful, and had us in by 330.  The Halifax River Yacht Club in Daytona is a very nice stop though with great facilities, great crew and a very secure dock.  That made for a very comfortable night sleep, compared to the previous night.  

The weather continued to improve as the week went on.  Morning winds were very light, although it was still cool and we steered inside until about 10, then went “up top” to enjoy the day.  Afternoons were a bit brisker winds, but still generally under 10 knots, and from behind.  

We were away from Daytona after sunrise with the intention of going to St Augustine.  The day was spectacular though with clear skies and light winds.  And as we considered travel plans and constraints on availability of possible marina stops for subsequent days, and where we would be positioned, we decided to push on.  We ended up logging a 73 mile day, getting into our eventual destination of Palm Cove about 530.  This was a long day and one we don’t want to do often.  Palm Cove isn’t much more than a dry stack facility with some wet berths, but it does in a pinch.  It does have a Publix grocery store nearby so we walked up there in the evening.  

We continue to see some great sights along our travels.  We have numerous dolphin engagements every day, some lasting only minutes and just a pair, to some lasting up to half an hour involving up to 10. And one day we encountered a group of about 30 paddling sport athletes out for an afternoon training session.  It actually took us quite a while to get by them as we wanted to travel at minimal wake speed for their benefit, but they paddled quite quickly.

We were away at daybreak again the next morning for a 63 mile run to St Simons Island in Georgia.  Again, our travel plans were influenced by not being able to get into Fernandina Beach.  But St Simons does offer one of the best marina restaurants on the ICW, and Judy enjoyed fresh Georgia shrimp and grits and Greg enjoyed Picaunye pasta with scallops and shrimp.  

From that stop, Georgia doesn’t offer much.  A lot of salt marsh and winding channels. I think I calculated once that to travel the 80 linear miles thru Georgia, one has to travel 140 miles.   It is pretty country, in its own desolate way.  The one stop we have found here to break up the journey is a quaint back county place at Kilkenny.  Docks are functional and you usually have to tie yourself up, although crew from a neighbouring boat helped us.  But it is a very protected little backwater.  And very buggy.  We closed up upon arrival and ran the AC for the evening,  We had a good rain overnight, so at least that provided a start on getting the last 4 days of salt accumulated off the boat, as modest as it was considering the light winds and gentle seas.    

One interesting sight during this day was that we had a number of gulls following us.  They were very intent on our wake and at times would dive into the wake to retrieve something.  We figured we must be going thru an area of small fish or shrimp that our propellers were dicing up and leaving bits for them to feed on.  This went on for hours and wasn't just our boat, we noticed  it happening on other boats following us. 

We departed Saturday morning for Hilton Head, a 52 mile run into South Carolina.  The journey went pretty well until we encountered the one bridge that needed to open. It was stuck in the closed position, for likely the next week according to the bridge tender. A new high level bridge is being built but not in service yet, and I guess they aren’t spending any maintenance money on the old bridge which will be dismantled.  We had arrived right at high tide.  But fortunately they have 8’ tides here, so with a wait of an hour and a half, the clearance increased enough for us to fit under.  Unfortunately though, it stretched the day from arriving at 230, to arriving at 4.  May not sound like much, but after a week of relatively long days, we were really looking forward to that early arrival.  

We are rewarding ourselves for the good week of travel accomplished with a two night stay at Hilton Head.  This is a favourite stop of ours, and is one of the most bike friendly communities in America. Greg's first task of the day was get the bikes lubed and brake discs cleaned up as the moisture and salt air is starting to take its toll on the non painted parts of the bikes. We did a grocery store run in the morning, Kroeger's now. 

After lunch we did a ride to the beach and then for miles up and down the beach. It is very shallow slope, hard sand, once over the dunes and makes for great riding. In all we put in about 30km, and more than 20km's on the beach. 

We crossed a number of significant ocean inlets over the week including Ponce de Leon, St Augustine, St Johns River, Nassau Sound, St Marys Entrance, Cumberland Sound, St Simon's, Altamaha Sound, Doboy Sound, Sapelo Sound, St Catherine's Sound, Ossabow Sound, Savannah River and Calibogue Sound.  Those who read our blog for the trip south might remember our comments on the crossing of Cumberland Sound, where we got thumped as we had to stick our nose out into the Atlantic for a bit.  There were no pictures being taken at that time.  It was quite a different story heading north with light south winds and calm seas. 

Our weeks run totaled 350 miles, over 6 days. We covered 3 states, departing Florida Thursday, spending two nights in Georgia and now in South Carolina at Hilton Head.  

We are certainly happy with that progress, but the next weeks progress will be more modest as the intervals for good stops are not as far.