We spent the last day in Biscayne Bay getting ready to travel again, filling water tanks, going to the grocery gratis of the couple in the next slip at the marina and doing a pump out. We also walked to "The Grove" to the Sand Pit for dinner with some others at the marina. Charlie decided to stay in the marina instead of on a mooring ball. We enjoyed a beautiful sunset in Dinner Key Marina looking toward Coconut Grove.
Tuesday May 11, 2010
We left the marina around 0900 and proceeded to another one for fuel. Then we headed out of the Miami channel via the Fisherman's Cut. The waves were very turbulent going out due to wind going against the outgoing tide. Once we turned more northerly, the waves calmed down a bit but were still high The winds was 16-18 knots from the East. We had one reef in the main sail. It was rocking and rolling. It was too rough to go below to make sandwiches so we got by with peanut butter crackers and cokes. I actually was suffering a bit from seasickness . The winds died down to 12-13 in late afternoon, but at about 8 p.m. (2000), they picked up to over 20 and the seas got much rougher. We were near the area of Lake Worth Inlet so Charlie decided we should stop for the night. It was past sunset, but we have gone into and out of that channel in the dark before, so we felt confident we could enter safely at night. We safely managed the channel and were anchored in Lake Worth south of the channel by a little after 9 p.m. It felt good to stop and get some rest. We had planned on going all the way to Ft. Pierce that day, but it is always wise to stop early if the weather or conditions are not good. We felt pretty beat up.
May 12-13, 2010
We were on our way back out to the Atlantic Ocean by 0830 on Wednesday. We planned to continue on to Ft. Pierce.
We put one reef in the main expecting high winds again today. There were a little less strong, 12-15 most of the day. Soon we were in the Gulf Stream and going 8, 10, and 11 knots with its help. Since it was early afternoon when we neared Ft. Pierce, we decided to just keep going on to St. Augustine instead of stopping for the night.
We had each had a good night's sleep and felt up to it. By 9 p.m. the Gulf Stream was leaving us by going more easterly so our speed slowed down and the winds also decreased below 10 kts and became more SE on our stern. We began motoring at about 10 p.m. and continued through the night even taking first the jib down and then the main. It was a beautiful starry night. The winds were still under 7 kts in the morning so we continued to motor. We arrived at St Augustine channel at 1 p.m. and were at the Conch House Marina by 1:30. However, it was an extremely low tide and we could not get all the way into the slip. We were tied up 3/4 of the way in but we had to have them bring the work boat over for us to even get off the boat. A dredging boat was in their channel dredging it out! We certainly saw why! I hope they dredge the slips as well. We went up to their very nice restaurant for a late lunch. The restaurant has small tiki huts at which you can eat. It was several more hours before we could get the boat close enough to the side of the slip to get off the boat. Their work boat took us back to out boat so we could reboard it after lunch. The night was cooler and very comfortable! We were too tired to clean all the salt off the boat, so it will just have to wait till tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment