Stuart to Cape Canaveral

We had a very easy first day, leaving the dock, passing through the narrow bridges and anchoring just a couple miles down the St. Lucie River.  It was a mellow evening. After anchoring and going over a few check lists that we were working on, we grilled steaks and went to bed.

Martin navigating the river

The first night was a long one for me. We ran the air conditioning on our 9K generator but had to use house batteries for the rest of the boat. Martin knew it wouldn’t be a problem but I had to wake up every two hours to check the status of the batteries, because that’s how I roll.

Yesterday we weighed anchor and headed out the inlet. We had one brief “pucker moment” (thanks Sean, a very apt, descriptive term J when we briefly brushed the bottom at the cross roads. Thankfully it was a sand bottom!

Then we cruised up the outside from Stuart to Cape Canaveral.  

It was so calm, at one point it was like rolling glass.  It provided for some amazing photo ops while under way :)

(Don't try this at home)

We were happy that it was such a calm day as Martin and Jeff were fighting a few gremlins that turned up and it ended up being a bit of a stressful journey.

A few things we had to deal with:

  

*  The Simrad autopilot wasn’t communicating with our Furuno system up in the fly bridge so we ran from the pilot house. Martin fixed that issue.

* We had an oil leak in our #1 auto pilot pump and were losing pressure from our steering reservoir. Martin and Jeff had to find the leak and isolate the pump.  We'll get the pump fixed in Norfolk or Baltimore.

* The engine room is running very hot, despite our Delta T exhaust fans.  The hand rail was exceedingly hot so we have to remedy this as it would be dangerous in rough seas.

* We broke a toilet! After emptying the holding tank when we were more than 3 miles off shore, a bottle cap was accidentally dropped in the master toilet when filling it with the bacterial treatment. Martin & Jeff thought to suck it out with a wet vac which retrieved the cap but collapsed the flushing mechanism. Hopefully it’s just the valves that need tweaking and we can get the toilet back working, asap.

While the day was fairly stressful, we also had some lovely moments.  We saw dozens of huge turtles and flying fish.  I tried to get a picture of a bird taking a rest and a ride on the back of a turtle but it was too far away.  We had dolphins come play at the bow twice. One pod had a mom and small baby. 

Dolphins are always a highlight of a boat trip.

Mart resting while I was at the helm.

My view from the helm (prior to losing auto pilot :)

Martin did a great job at his first try docking the boat. We entered bow first to remove a snubber shackle that was banging on the bow eye and then he pulled her around stern in. Great job Mart!!

Driving from the docking station in the cockpit.

Shackle removal

  

Aren't those fenders tied up perfectly?

Over all, it was a stressful, beautiful and exciting day! Martin did a fantastic job. He was captain, engineer and mechanic.  He and Jeff were able to trouble shoot our problems without getting anxious, taking it all in stride. That's not my forte, however, I did hand steer the boat for an hour with no drama and I'm very proud of that :)

Today we head out for Charleston on our first overnight passage. We'll each take 3 hour watches. This will be our longest time ever running a boat at sea - exciting!!

See you in Charleston...