Arrived in St Augustine, aground again and anchored under a forts guns

29:53.732N 81:18.389W

19th April 2015

7836 Miles from Ramsgate by log.

This is a more detailed update and covers Fort Pierce all the way up to St Augustine and so overlaps a bit with the quick update I sent from Titusville earlier.

The Intra Coastal Waterway is not the carefree cruise up an inland waterway that I expected. The water depth is planned at a minimum of 12ft for the 900 odd miles from Fort Lauderdale to Norfolk, Virginia which with Spectra’s 6ft draft should present no problems, that’s the theory anyway.  Day one found us motor sailing along with a couple of meters below the keel in a very nice wide channel heading to Dragons point some 43 miles north. The dolphins and manatees were regular sights along with a whole smorgasbord of feathered friends, we lost count of the hawks and eagles that flew by with fish in their talons.

An Eagle makes use of Red 14. It has a chick just behind it if you look closely

In fact it was a good day, “what could possibly go wrong”, I thought as i continued to do my cycle, plotter, depth sounder visual check on buoys; plotter, depth sounder visual check on buoys etc, etc, etc. A small island appeared and as the channel turned sharp right around the back of it we drifted all of 10 meters away from centre channel, crunch hard aground, no amount of reversing would move her and as there is virtually no tide on the Indian River section of the ICW it was a frantic search for the Sea Tow insurance policy and telephone number. Mike and Kate had suggested this as a good idea and what good advise that was, for $169 we are covered for everything up to a full on salvage operation and that is where our normal insurance cuts in. A quick call and 1 hour later a very nice man turned up in a powerful RIB. He circled us and found 7 ft of water an arms length away on our starboard side, so close and yet so far. With a quick rev of his engine he pulled the nose around and off we popped none the worse for wear but a little red in the face. His advice was rather pragmatic, stay in the middle and if you run aground in the middle just give us a call, 30 seconds later while he was still behind us filling in the paperwork we ran aground again, this time smack bang in the middle of the channel, luckily it was only just and we managed to get ourselves free before he caught up with us. When we signed his paperwork it showed that without the insurance the bill would have been over $1300, which is a definite ouch and i certainly suspect we will touch bottom again before we arrive in Norfolk.

Our saviour, A knight in shining yellow from Sea Tow comes to the rescue.

The original plan had been to try and get as far as Titusville on the first day as that is the nearest town to the Canaveral space centre and a launch was scheduled, unfortunately with the grounding we ran out of time and interest, as the launch was at 1600 we would have missed it anyway. That night we pulled out of the channel just after passing under the Indian Harbour bridge and headed a half mile to starboard into the mouth of the Banana River. Dragons point is so named (I think) because of a 20 ton metal dragon that stands on the headland. Or it did stand on the headland until it collapsed several years ago and now it slumps rather dejectedly into the water. Anyway this was a lovely little spot, Mosquito free and frequented by a family of dolphins. I think it must be breeding season because they were definitely being a bit familiar with each other. They rolled over and over each other like a giant dolphin sushi ball right in front of the boat, even bumping into the anchor chain a few times in their excitement. After watching dolphin porn until the sun went down we went to bed with the now familiar crack and bang of the nightly thunderstorm ringing in our ears.

Frisky dolphins

And in plain sight of everyone the dirty swine have they no shame, why, why, just think of the children.

The next day was pretty uneventful apart from the flood as we continued north passing under five bridges on the 36 mile trip up to Titusville. The flood happened two hours into the trip when Norma suddenly shouted from below “there is water pouring in down here” now that is a statement straight from a skippers nightmares. With a view to not running aground I got Norma into the cockpit to take over the wheel and dashed below. I was met my water pouring into the galley from the ceiling, yes that was the ceiling, deck. I had a bit of a brain freeze and just looked at it for a moment as the water poured in, I even looked out of the window to make sure it wasn’t raining and then tasted it. Now the penny dropped it was fresh water and I could hear the water pump buzzing over the engine noise. I switched off the fresh water pump and the flow stopped, we have good showers on Spectra with a stinging spray the downside of a big pump sometimes is that it pumps a lot. The hose leading to the deck outlet had popped off the fitting above the galley and filled the cavity with water in no time at all before literally cascading through the deck lining into the galley causing havoc below. It was an easy fix once I got the deck lining down, I tightened the hose back onto the fitting and all was well with the world again but it did take two days for the lining and lights to dry out properly, on the bright side it did give the galley floor a damn good wash down so every cloud has a silver lining I suppose.

It’s a dogs life for this happy fellow

Now Spectra will certainly sail to windward better than that.

On arrival at Titusville we grabbed an available mooring buoy outside of the municipal marina and launched the dinghy for a trip ashore. Narrowly missing a Manatee on the way into the harbour we tied up and met the really helpful and friendly staff at the Titusville Municipal Marina. Halfway through our conversation the ground began to vibrate and a loud rumble could be heard. “Sounds like the launch”, said the man behind the counter and then dashed outside leaving our card in the machine along with everyone else in the shop. We followed just in time to see the rocket climbing into the clouds, (sorry about the pictures we were a bit slow with the camera), the launch had been delayed by 24 hours and so we did manage to catch it, one more tick next to a bucket list item for me. Titusville was very nice but seemed pretty devoid of people as does much of America so far, big wide spaces and not many people is the impression we have.

There is a rocket on its way to the space station on top of that.

Fancy a dip to cool off in the local pond?

Me being brave with the local wildlife, it’s not only Alligators that have teeth you know.

So after two nights we headed north again, this time for Daytona beach 47 miles away. Trying to get into the unmarked anchorage here was an experience, twice I had to reverse quickly as the bottom rushed up to meet us but eventually we found our way round the back of the sand bar and dropped the hook with 1 meter below the keel. We shared the anchorage with the local rowing team who rather pragmatically changed their course to make us the finish line as soon as we dropped anchor and carried on with their practice session. Daytona beach was memorable for the chocolate factory which had a free tour advertised and so in we went. Now if you run a small chocolate factory and you want to be different you have to push the boundaries and so this place had, chilli chocolate (not too radical), Chocolate covered crisps (sounds strange but surprisingly tasty) and the step too far chocolate covered bacon, (oh my God!!). We did actually buy a box of chocolates, minus the bacon, and very nice they were too.

Lightning over flamingo island, fancy a well cooked Flamingo anyone?

One night in Daytona beach and then we headed, yes you guessed it North again, 39 miles up to Fort Matanzas. This was a great day deep water for 37 miles and no hassles at all right up to the last corner. Captain Bobs guide to the ICW says that shoaling occurs near the Matanzas river inlet and to obey local buoyage, With Fort Matanzas temptingly in sight and 3 meters under our keel we were steaming along doing 7 knots with the current in our favour when I saw a seemingly impenetrable line of green markers right across the channel. I slowed right down and turned left towards the shore as the depth reduced rapidly. Eventually with 0.5 meters below the keel and about a boats length from the beach we squeezed passed the last green buoy and found a very shallow channel parallel to the beach which ran for half a mile around a huge sand bar. When the channel finally opened out again we found ourselves in the mouth of the Matanzas River where Captain Bob suggested turning to Starboard out of the ICW and going up the river to find an anchorage in 8 to 11 feet 100ft below the fort. With no other yachts in sight it was a rather tentative approach at under 1 knot as we crept up the river eyes glued to the depth sounder. Long story short after a very nervous approach we dropped anchor under the guns of Fort Matanzas with a healthy 1.5 meters below our keel and settled in for the obligatory thunderstorm as night approached.  

Anchored under the protective guns of Fort Matanzas

Three other yachts joined us as it got dark and a very pleasant night was had once the local fishermen had stopped buzzing around woo wooing in their high speed RIBs.

One that didn’t make it, the ICW is littered with abandoned boats like this one.

Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny and so after summoning the crew onto the foredeck for Sunday service, (which they rather pointedly refused to do), it was shatter the tranquillity of the day with my shiny new bright red two stroke petrol generator. It is noisier than the old one and doesn’t give the same amps but it works so I love it, thanks Gemma and Duncan. We had a debate about going ashore but it was very isolated and Norma was very keen to get on up to St Augustine and so we decided to up anchor and head North again. This decision I discovered later was heavily influenced by the fact that Norma’s cigarette packet was nearly empty although she denies that this was a contributory factor and the fact we were nearly out of milk for my tea in no way influenced my vote. The trip was a mere 14 miles and we found the deepest water so far 10 meters under the keel, wow, but that didn’t last for long. St Augustine Municipal Marina was full and so we had to go through the bridge of Lions and anchor up on the other side for the night. No great hardship but I had no milk and Norma had no fags, the situation was tense. I was not happy with either the depth which was dropping fast and the holding which although it seemed good had a strong current making the anchor work for a living and so I would not launch the dinghy to go ashore. A tense situation became tenser. The scheduled thunderstorm came through as always but this time with a change in the direction of the current flow combined with 30 knot winds our anchor tripped out and reset. The problem was it took a boat length to reset and was still dragging slightly leaving us too close to the shore side pontoons for my peace of mind. Norma gallantly donned waterproofs and went out into the deluge to get the anchor up while I motored out into deeper water. With the anchor reset and 25 meters of chain on the bottom we settled down under our full cockpit canopy and watched the rain lashing the windows, it was quite nice really.  

            That’s it for now we are waiting for the call from the marina to let us know our mooring ball is free and then we will go ashore for fags and milk what more could I ask for?

As we are in the good old US of A and separated by a common language I thought it best to caveat that we are going ashore for cigarettes and not the other sort of fags. Thought I would mention it just in case Tony S got all of a fluster and caught the next flight out.   

On Tuesday we shall meet up with Mike and Kate again in Right Turn as they are coming up from Fort Lauderdale on the outside track as I write. So now we are going to settle in for a few days and become tourists again, I will write soon.