27:06.762N 80:08.584W Hove Sound
Timeandtide
Sat 24 Feb 2018 17:04
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So its now Feb 24th, we decide to head back out to sea
at Fort Pierce and try our luck at sailing.....what a surprise! Wind blowing
right in our flippin faces again! More motoring, this was not panning out to be
the trip we'd hoped for but again we didn't have much of a choice. If we hadn't
had a schedule that we had to stick to then we'd have taken a different route or
hung out for a few days here and there to wait for better sailing weather. But
the permit was about to run out so we had to keep heading south as quickly as
possible to our 'jump off' point in Miami. Our guests were very patient and
hopefully were relaxing while we plodded on (they're big readers! Went through
more books in 2 weeks than i'd read in 2 years). Finally ended up in a
place called Hove Sound, it looked lovely, little beach to one side, lots of
people anchored and enjoying sundowners. So we joined them, got ourselves
settled and finally put the lights out at about 10pm. By 3am we were all wide
awake and scratching like mad things due to a plague of bloody noseeums that had
managed to slip through the bug netting that we have on all the hatches! The
boat was full of them, and we were covered in red blotches. In Georgia at the
boatyard, this was never a problem, they never seemed to get through. I guess
the further south you go the smaller these little bastards get. We were warned,
but I didn't have time to change the netting before we left. Note to self; don't
anchor anywhere near mangroves or wooded banks!
It's worth mentioning here what these things actually do
to your skin. Nothing as simple as a bite, oh no, these things 'throw up' some
kind of acid onto your flesh then proceed to suck up the resulting goo that it
produces. Charming. If you don't scratch then the itch should disappear within
20 minutes......like that's ever going to happen! You scratch like crazy! Thank
god for Gold Spot anti-itch lotion with Lidocaine.
So, as we were up, we decided to make an early start and
continue down the ICW. From here on in there were bridges galore that you had to
radio ahead and ask them nicely to open for you. Quite satisfying holding up the
traffic while you leisurely floated past. |
