Cruising the ICW

Our departure from Hilton Head Monday was forecasting moderate winds, but from the South so behind us, and we had a good travel day.   We needed to break up the leg to Charleston and previously we had stopped at Beaufort SC ( Bew-fert), but this time we wanted to get a little further. We picked a small marina on Dataw Island, about 15 miles beyond Beaufort, which made for about a 50 mile run for the day, arriving before 2. The marina had recently reopened after a rebuild from a hurricane a few years ago. It was about 4 miles off the ICW and a bit more exposed than expected, but they had a great crew to help with lines and securing the boat in the wind that had come up. What a find it turned out to be.  Dataw is a private golf community island and a beautiful residential community.  Since we had a good portion of the afternoon still we got out on our bikes. It was very good to get off the boat again and get some exercise, which I forgot to mention in our last blog ...

 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 ...

Since our last blog post, we spent two additional days in Marathon since the wind was still blowing. The Marlin Bay marina is a great spot to hang out for added time.   Greg developed a sore back for no known reason, and fortunately there was a massage therapist working at the club on our last day.  The combination of the massage and some time in the hot tub was ideal to allow us to get underway.  We got away from Marathon Tuesday in somewhat lighter wind conditions.  Although it was blowing from the SE and our route would supposedly be in the lee of the Keys chain, the shallow water dictates that one has to stick to the designated channel, which is still a number of miles from land and lots of fetch to pick up some wave action.   Progressing along the route there are some small keys and sand banks that provide a bit of reprieve from the waves, but the boat still got pretty salty by the time we got to Elliott Key, at the south end of Biscayne Bay. This...

We are back in the Keys, after a 3 day trek from our last post, and of course awaiting weather (wind) again.  We departed the lovely little marina south of Venice just after sun up and moved to a nearby fuel dock with the cheapest fuel available on the Gulf Coast.  Good thing, as we took on a lot!   After 45 minutes fueling, we were underway by 0830 for the run south to Naples.  This is a 70 mile run total, down Pine Island Sound and then into open water at Fort Myers Beach for 25 miles to Gordon Pass, into Naples.  The weather was generally good, with calm conditions in the protected waters and a 10-15 NW wind blowing from behind making for a reasonably comfortable trip in the open area.  We enjoyed a very quiet night at the Naples Yacht Club. We got underway early the next day for the 70 mile run to Little Shark River, all offshore with again 10-15 NW wind behind us.  We anchored for the night, after 3 attempts in different locations to get the ...

We spent a quiet week in Fort Myers.  The cold front that brought strong winds and cool temps, as forecast, developed and we were glad we holed up there for the week.  However, Fort Myers doesn't offer a lot to do or see.  There is the Edison Ford Estate, which is well worth seeing, but we had seen it two years ago.  We rode our bikes one day into a very nice residential area and around an historic church.  We used the pool as it warmed up later in the week, and we did almost daily trips to the close-by Publix grocery store, for something to do.  Greg couldn't even make much progress with any varnishing tasks as it was too windy.  But we managed to occupy the week, with great neighbors and got underway at the end of the week, in a bit of fog, which burned off early.   Our trip up Pine Island Sound was very nice and we anchored in the late afternoon in Pelican Bay at Cayo Costa state park.  Greg swam, as it was a good opportunity to surve...