28 November, 2013

Now we're talking

Location: Vero Beach, Florida
Position: N 27 39.709 W 080 22.359
 
We escaped from the dock last Sunday and the past week has been awesome. We've been moving some and exploring some. Hanging out with some of our favourite cruising buddies and having quiet time alone. Exploring new places and visiting old favourites. All in a week. Now we're talking...this is cruising and why we love it.

We left the dock in Green Cove Springs timing it perfectly to get to the Jacksonville railroad bridge in time for it's 2pm afternoon opening. We were tootling along the St John's River enjoying being back on the water and finally moving again, when we heard a boat call the Coast Guard asking about the bridge opening times. The Coast Guard told them the bridge would be open from 10am to 1 pm. Huh? This was completely different from the info we had. Apparently they had changed the schedule just for that one day because there was a Jaguars football game downtown! Yikes! This made a huge difference in our plans!

We figured out that if we hightailed it at near full throttle we'd make the 15 miles in time to get there BEFORE it closed from 1pm to 4pm. Well, we did make it, thank goodness, by about 8 minutes, and even got to see the beginning of the game from the river! With a 2 jet flyover, cannons, fireworks, and a view of the huge TV screen in the stadium showing opening ceremonies there was lots to see. We caught the outgoing tide down the St John's river making 8 knots at times and luckily had no big boat traffic to worry about. The St John's is a major shipping river with massive freighters bringing cargo to and from Jacksonville, it can get pretty scary, especially with the strong currents.

We spent a lovely, quiet, full moon lit night anchored by the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway) just off the St John's and the next day traveled down to St Augustine, one of our favourite stops. Being the oldest city in America, you can imagine there is lots to see and do there and especially when you get to do it with good friends you haven't seen for a while. So we spent 2 days socializing and exploring then we were off again down the ICW. We spent 3 long days motorsailing in cloudy, sometimes rainy, weather which wasn't very fun but hey, we were on the water, moving, and we were happy.

We stopped at a new-to-us anchorage near Melbourne, Florida called Dragon Point. There used to be a huge sculpture of a dragon on a spit of land at the mouth of the Banana River, it is now a crumpled pile of concrete and chicken wire, but the spot still holds the name. We had friends who just spent 10 days there and sang it's praises so, as there were big winds forecast, we decided to hunker down there for a couple of days with our good friends on Barefootin. And we were able to get some cleaning done on the decks as we were enjoying sunny 80 degree weather for a day before the winds picked up.

We explored the area by dinghy and afoot, socialized, and while it was windy and rainy, even got to spend some time reading and relaxing. Aaaah, sweet!


Yesterday we moved down to Vero Beach, another favourite stop. Lots of cruising boats are rafted up on moorings and there'll be a huge pot luck gathering with over 100 cruisers for Thanksgiving on Thursday. We know lots of people here and we're sure we'll know lots more before we leave.
 

Happy Thanksgiving,