After leaving Vero Beach and cruising north along the ICW, our next stop was Telemar Bay marina. We tried to leave as early as we could in the morning so that the staff at the marina would not have to wait long for us. On the phone, we were told that someone would be there to meet us before going home for Christmas Eve, and we wanted that person to be able to go home as early as possible. We got to the marina in the late morning, and got set in to our spots.
The marina here was kind of unusual, in that it was almost empty. The basin was pretty big, with good quality docks, but almost no boats. The staff member explained to us that the marina had been sold several years ago, and that the new owners had to change the nature of the tenants. Apparently at one time this place was full of liveaboard sailboats. This was causing problems with the local home owners, who complained that the poorly maintained boats were bringing down their property values. This is actually a common situation in Florida, too many liveaboards are living in junky-looking boats. Well, the owner cleaned out all the liveaboard sailboats and was now in the process of attracting new clients. Although empty, the boats we saw were all well-maintained and clean.
Cool sunset from the back of the boat, you can see the sunlight streaming through the windows.
The next day was Christmas, and Louise and Melanie had planned a Christmas lunch for us. Louise made a tortiere, while Melanie baked pecan pie and banana pudding. The main meal was take-out from Sonny's BBQ. Rich and Melanie's daughter Lindsey joined us on the boat for Christmas lunch, and brought the BBQ take-out. We had ribs, pulled pork, brisket and ham, plus beans and coleslaw for our Christmas celebration.
Our Christmas feast. BBQ in Florida for lunch.
Bill got some chips and an Aero bar for Christmas.
The day was kind of cold, so we stayed in the boats all afternoon and watched dolphins. There was a family of them that was hunting just off the stern of the boats, and one dolphin even swam in-between our boats and the pier, swimming sideways with a fish in its mouth. The marina was located beside a swing bridge, so all day we got to watch bridge openings. One fishing boat, with a driver in a Santa hat, went through several times during the day, with a bridge opening each time.
The next morning, we set off for Titusville marina. Along the way we passed a lot of sailing catamarans heading south, likely getting ready to stage for a Bahamas crossing. We also saw lots of junky monohull sailboats at anchor. Something we have seen a lot of in Florida, that we did not see in other states, are lots of wrecks and derelict boats. These are almost always sailboats. There are three major classes of these, according to my own, highly-scientific, classification system.
Wrecks are boats that have sunk or been washed up on the beach. There is a surprising number of these here, some are recent but there are many that have obviously been sitting for years. Apparently, they are enacting new laws soon to go after the owners to clean these up. Wonder why this was not always a thing. We have been really surprised at the number of wrecked boats we have seen that have apparently been abandoned by their owners.
Derelicts are the floating homeless. These boats have no mast, and likely have no engine. They are filthy and covered with tarps, duct tape, jerry cans, and a variety of unidentifiable junk. They are always anchored, usually with multiple lines securing them, and look like they have not moved, or been pumped out, in a loooong time. You usually see a piece-of-crap dingy of some sort tied behind them.
The final class is the POS. These are dirty, have jury-rigged window air conditioners, duct tape, tarps and plastic windows, paint falling off, stains, and generally a scruffy appearance. They do have sails and engines, and sometimes look like they move once in a while.
Titusville marina was full of POS sailboats (and the odd POS powerboat). Pretty much every boat in the marina looked like it had been ridden hard. We saw some with decks that were caved-in, green fungus all around, you name it. Almost all of the boats in this placed needed to be cleaned.
We were docked beside this POS. Note the window air conditioner attached to a home-made cardboard manifold using duct tape. There were various parts strewn around the deck, as well as some empty chemical and oil bottles. Note the chipped paint on the side.
Check out the patina finish on this POS.
There were a few POS power boats docked at this marina. I don't think we saw any boats with polished gelcoat, and very few did not have chipped paint or tarps. Lots of home depot insulation panels all over the place.
They even had a POS super yacht! Lots of rust stains and sun-blasted gelcoat. I wonder how much it costs to keep this thing on the dock? Does it ever move?
There were quite a few wrecks on the marina breakwater here. There is a large mooring field outside, and I suspect that many of the boats moored here do not maintain their ground tackle. They then either drag anchor, or break their rodes during a storm and wash up.
The wrecks can get pretty big here. You would think that if someone had the money to buy something this big, they would at least be able to buy new mooring lines or anti-chafe guards once in a while. This one had a notice taped on the side to move the wreck, wonder if it will happen.
Vero beach had several piece-of-crap sailboats, one step up from the POS variety. The big difference between the piece-of-crap and POS was cleanliness - we did not see any fungus-encrusted boats at Vero Beach. The majority of the boats at Vero were older, but were on the most part well cared-for pieces of crap. The people at Vero were also pretty much all retirees, and most were staying at Vero waiting for a weather window to get to Bahamas or other Caribbean destinations. Indeed, one of the dock staff told us that Vero empties out each time there is a weather window before re-filling with the next batch of travellers. This cruiser population had even created a VHF cruiser net, which we experienced for the first time at Vero.
At marinas where cruising boaters tend to congregate there is often a VHF cruiser net. At a set time each morning, the moderator gets on the VHF to broadcast general info. Things like weather, marina updates, local info and buy-sell-trade. We experienced our first cruiser net at Vero, a sign of a semi-permanent cruising and transient community.
The clientele at Titusville was younger, and was mainly locals. They live there, they were not going to somewhere else. Living on a boat is much cheaper than living in a house. You buy a cheap boat and pay slip fees, which are much cheaper than apartment rent. The boats there were not on a stopover to somewhere else, this was where they lived. Surprised the marina tolerates the derelict state of many of the boats.
There was not much to see in Titusville within scooter distance, so we went to the local space museum. It was a small DIY-type place, basically a big room filled with space memorabilia. They had saved a lot of mission control consoles. Looking at these things reminded me of some of the lab instruments when I was in high school and when I was an undergrad - vacuum tubes and dial indicators. They also had lots of scale models that were built by NASA. When they were designing the various assembly installations, they built architectural models of whatever they were planning to help with the design of the buildings. Nowadays this would be done with CGI, but back in the day they built these detailed models of the various gantries, factories and labs. One neat nerd feature of the place was some small models of the starship Enterprise that were sprinkled in with the various displays.
They had a display that ran down a launch countdown using an old stepper-driven system. The panels were recovered from a batch that NASA was going to throw out, and were restored by volunteers at the museum.
An alligator that was in a small pond beside the marina. The gator is slightly left of centre and is black, it was about 4 feet long.
When we finished with the museum, we departed on our way back to the boats, but it started to rain so we ducked into the first restaurant we saw and had lunch. We chose well, as they had really good smash burgers. When the rain stopped after lunch we headed back to the boats, stopping in to a space walk-of-fame that the town had constructed in a local park. They had palm prints of most of the astronauts, including all the ones from the 1960's through the Apollo missions.
As we approached the marina, we diverted a bit to the breakwater to check out some of the wrecked boats. Rather than putting their boats on land for hurricanes and strong storms, these idiots leave their boats on anchor or on moorings. Being too cheap to do proper maintenance, I suspect that their ropes or chains were not in the best shape, and they broke free and were grounded.
Working on the DC electrical panel on the boat. I had to replace one of the breakers, and a few of the indicator lights. Luckily I brought lots of spare parts with us. When we left Hurst, we had several storage bins with spares. We have been steadily using them along the way.
The next destination was Daytona. Along the way we saw a pair of dolphins that were jumping and playing. They "bounced" in front of the boat and behind in our wake. Very cool. We also saw some pelicans trying to steal fish from some dolphins. The dolphins were swimming in circles to "corral" some fish - you could see the wakes on the surface. A bunch of pelicans were diving into the circle to get fish that were forced to the surface. The dolphins didn't like this and kept "shooing" the big birds away from the fish with their noses. The pelicans were pretty good at avoiding the dolphins and stealing fish.
We passed this derelict on the way. It has a mast, but the deck was covered in junk. Looked like the yard to Sanford & Son.
The channel in this part of the ICW was very narrow. The area is basically a big shallow lake with a shipping channel cut through the middle. From time to time we passed other boats going in the other direction. When this happens, each boat swings over to their starboard side of the channel so both boats can pass port-to-port. Well, today we encountered several "channel hogs" who refused to move from the center of the channel. Dicks.
We got into Daytona and tied up on the gas dock at the boatworks. This place is a big-boat marina, with super-yachts. The trip this day had been pretty long, 5 hours of travel, including some shoaling, strong tide currents and twits that would not give space, so both Rich and I were pretty tired after driving. So, Louise and Melanie took their scooters into town to look around. After a couple of hours, Rich and I each got a text summoning us for dinner at an Italian restaurant named Little Italy. The inside part of the place was packed, so we sat outside on the patio on the sidewalk. It was getting cooler, so I brought Louise's coat for her, and dressed warm myself. As we ate dinner, a singer set up a small stage and sang Sinatra songs all evening. He was really good. Not only did he sound like Sinatra, but he could sing really well. After he sang New York New York, we scootered around the local park, that was decorated with Christmas lights. They had used lots of color-changing LEDs, so the display was constantly moving. Very nice.
Nice park beside the river. Every street here was lit up for the holidays.
Color-changing LED's on this street made for constantly changing display.
Singer outside Little Italy restaurant. He sounded exactly like Sinatra.
There was a rocket launch scheduled for midnight, so we set our alarms to wake up about 15 minutes before the scheduled event. Walking to the end of the gas dock gave us a good vantage point. We saw the initial fireball and the rocket ascending, but it quickly went into a cloud bank so we didn't get to see MECO or second-stage ignition.
When we were scootering around after dinner, Melanie spotted a hippie coffee shop. So, the next morning Louise, Melanie and I went for coffee just after lunch. We kept an eye on weather however, as thunderstorms were forecast, and the weather radar showed a large band of then heading toward us. As the sky darkened, we decided to get out of Dodge, and scootered back to the marina, getting everything inside the boat just as the first drops started to fall. We had pretty hard rain for the next few hours, as two thunderstorms rolled through.
Just before sundown, we saw a strange-looking catamaran coming into the harbour. They tied up right in front of us on the gas dock. We had never seen a boat like this before, it looked like a giant Galileo shuttle craft from Star Trek. There was a hydraulically lifted-hatch in front that covered a balcony and big window. Really nice interior too.
Next morning we were off to Hammock beach. This is a marina that is affiliated with a resort. Nice place to stay over for New Years. Along the way we had long stretches of no-wake speed, as the channel was very narrow and congested with docks. Not everyone paid attention to the no-wake signs. We got waked by a massive catamaran heading north. This guy blew through the no-wake zones, we could see the wakes coming over the fixed docks, which were about 3 feet over the water. Another boat got on the VHF to tell the guy to slow down, with no effect.
When we got to the marina, Eevee wanted out so Louise took her for a walk along the dock. She walked the entire length of the dock at least twice, stopping to flop down in the shade. After Eeeve wanted back in the boat, we took the shuttle bus over to the resort with Rich and Melanie and hung out beside the lazy river for a few hours. Louise went in the lazy river, but the water was cold and the water was also not flowing, so she walked around once then we all sat in the sun. In late afternoon, the fog rolled in and it got cold, so we went inside to see if they had a place to eat. This resort is built around a golf course, and the prices were through the roof, so we went back to the boats for dinner. After dinner we returned to the resort briefly for gelato.
The lazy river at the resort. It was nice, but super-expensive, and the water was not heated.
The next day was New Year's eve, and it rained most of the day. Louise and Melanie went to the hot tub and pool at the marina, while Rich and I napped on the boats. Louise and Melanie cooked steak dinner which we all ate together, then of course we turned in early.
Next morning was New Year's day and we were off to St. Augustine. We arrived at slack tide, which was lucky for us as the marina here has a reputation for strong tidal currents. The tide had about a 5 foot swing, so lots of water moved in and out every day. We got set in early in the day, and visited St. Augustine.
We started out by walking around downtown. This is the site of Ponce de Leon's landing and discovery of Florida, and the downtown area was very historical. There were lots of really old buildings as they had preserved many historical sites here. After walking around the main tourist area, we took a trolly ride around town to see all of the main tourist spots.
Old sheriff's car at the trolley terminal.
A lot of structures here were built with coquina, which is made from fossilized shells. The material becomes extremely hard when dried, and was used to make lots of buildings in St. Augustine. This wall had oyster shells added to it to prevent people from climbing. The shells are very sharp, so you get cut if you try to climb it.
The trees beside this street formed a kind of tunnel, growing right across the road and hung with Irish moss. Really beautiful.
Tacky tourist area at the fountain of youth.
Small college in the centre of the city, but very well-funded.
The buildings on this street were over three hundred years old. This is the first school house in North America.
That night we went for dinner at a Mexican place, then walked around downtown, which was lit up with lots of festive lights. The traffic here was completely congested, the main street was a parking lot. The sidewalks and park were packed with people walking around looking at the lights. Quite the spectac.
Lights in the park at St. Augustine. There was a traffic jam all though downtown that added their tail lights to the festival.
Clock tower in downtown St. Augustine.
Every building on the main street was covered with lights.
Trees lit up in the park.
The next day we journeyed to a free dock just north of Jacksonville. We were the first two boats on the dock, and parked at the far end to allow others lots of space. The tidal swing here was 5 feet, so there was a heavy current flowing out when we arrived, which we docked facing into. Whenever there is current or wind, it is much easier to handle a boat if you are going into the current or wind. Moving with the current or wind the boat tends to wander, and you have less control. You also cannot stop easily, as the current pushes you forwards. About an hour after we docked, a big sailboat came in who were gold loopers. We visited with Latitia and Mark for a bit and then went to help another sailboat that was coming in to dock.
Eevee decided to hang out with us on the dock. She likes concrete, and usually rolls on it.
A second sailboat came to dock between Jewel and the gold looper sailboat. The driver of this sailboat completely mis-judged the current. Initially he came in well, against the strong current, but all of a sudden he did a 180 degree turn to come into the dock WITH the strong current. To make matters worse, he kept the throttle on coming into the dock, and only at the last minute did he realize he was being pushed by a 4 kmph current in addition to his boat's speed. He went to full reverse, but didn't have the horsepower to stop and made a very hard crash landing on the concrete dock, almost hitting the gold-looper sailboat. To make matters worse, his bow was now stopped, but the current was pulling his stern out and he was swinging around 180 degrees. The current was so strong that it was impossible to stop the swing and he was headed to hit the other sailboat. Letitia managed to get a fender in between his boat and hers just before they made contact. No damage to either boat, luckily, but it was a tense moment.
Later we found out that they had scouted the dock, and made plans to arrive on a rising tide, which is why they made the approach they did. Well, it turns out they were delayed, so when they arrived they were on a falling tide. This is why he made exactly the opposite approach that he should have. They made the mistake of not reading the current, which was easy to see and which we told them about, as well as not checking their tide tables more carefully. His docking approach was one of the dumbest things we have seen so far on the loop, and we have seen lots of stupid. This guy planned, but did not allow for plan B's, and then did not take time to check the ACTUAL conditions before he arrived. He was lucky that he only got a few scratches when he hit the concrete dock.
After a quiet night on the free dock, we set off for Doctor's lake marina, home port of Jewel. When we arrived at the marina, Rich and Melanie of Jewel officially crossed their wake and became GOLD LOOPERS! Congratulations to Rich and Melanie on their accomplishment!
Our plan is to wait for a Bahamas weather window here in Jacksonville. This will allow us to provision up for the trip with access to transport, at a place with an inexpensive long-term rate. Our plan is to head south in a few weeks, as soon as a possible weather window is forecast, then head east to Bahamas.
Boat name of the Day: Jewel
