High winds keep us in New Smyrna Beach 3 days

Firstly I want to remind everyone to check the blog site not just read the emails because Sam has put the live map back at the top of the blog so you can see where we are as we make our way each day.

We left Cocoa Beach early Thursday in the hopes of getting to New Smyrna Beach before the bad weather set in.  It was beautiful and the sun appeared above the trees just as we left the marina.

Seven o'clock departure...all looks great.

...but, thirty minutes later, as we were approaching a 65' bridge, I realized I didn't see anything on the other side of the bridge!  The fog was rolling in.

It seemed to be rolling in from both sides.  I looked back and saw the sun struggling to burn through.

Luckily it burned off about two hours later and the day redeemed itself.  What wind we did have was too close to the bow, so we used the "iron jenny" the whole way.  We enjoyed the Indian River but were glad to see the Haulover Canal that crosses us over into Mosquito Lagoon...progress.  We saw several lumps along the shore in the canal and assume they were manatees.  We also saw some dolphins, more than we've seen the whole trip.

It's always fun to watch them swim by.  They are so graceful.

The only other wildlife we have seen - - -BIRDS - - -and lots of them.  We were told in the Bahamas there aren't any pelicans because they all got eaten by the Bahamians (haven't researched that yet!) We certainly see lots of them here, along with cormorants and gulls and terns of all varieties, not to mention the elaborate osprey nests appearing on many of the channel markers .  

They hang out wherever there is a place to perch.  There are two mangrove islands right outside our marina filled
to capacity with pelicans.  We were surprised at the integration on the above sandbar.  We usually see the white
pelicans gathered separately from the grey/brown variety.

We made it to New Smyrna Beach City Marina before it started to really blow (around 2:30) and here we sit.  We had a reservation for two nights but they said we'd have to leave Saturday because they had boats coming in.  Luckily the weather kept many boats from moving and we got a third night. We walked around town a bit today and enjoyed a great lunch at the Cork 'n Bottle.  The staff here have been very helpful and it's a very dog friendly place (even tho there is a resident cat that has given Dory the evil eye whenever they see each other.)  Dan was able to get several projects done while we sat, I did some spring cleaning, but I can always read or knit.

It's still howling outside as I sit here writing this, but tomorrow promises to be better. Winds only 10-15 knots which is fine with us, it may still be on the nose, but if we get a chance there are a few stretches that might allow us to sail.  ~~~_/)~~~M&D

Back in Florida

With 36 boats waiting to cross the Gulf Stream and most headed for Ft. Pierce, there was a lot of chatter on Monday morning!  When to leave, which spot to leave the banks and the best time to hit the inlet at Ft. Pierce.  Slack tide was reported to be 9:54 am on Tuesday morning, followed by a rising tide flowing in, so everyone was calculating their speed and when to leave.  After all this discussion at least half the boats got antsy and left before the targeted departure time!  Not surprisingly, we were included in that bunch...

Dory watching as Dan returns with a piece of SUPER GRASS doggie pad cut from an over large piece
on a neighboring boat.  We had visited  this boat in the morning and Dory explored their decks, sniffed at the
"grass" and promptly peed!!! We hoped it would make the 24 hour trip easier for her.  

This grass is much more lifelike than any we've seen.  Dory did finally use it, but not until we were in the ICW on our way
up to Vero Beach.  She did it, but didn't look happy about it!  

We had lunch, took Dory for a last land based pee spot and pulled the anchor at 1:15 pm.  (Almost two hours "early")  The wind was still a little north of East and that made the 60 mile  trip across the banks a very broad reach.  We put the main up and were able to carry the jib for part of the trip, but the closer the wind came to East, the harder it was to keep it full, so before sunset we rolled the jib in and proceeded with main alone.  We also put the preventer on to keep the boom from bouncing around as the seas became rolly.  We left the bank at 11:30 pm and were surprised how sloppy the seas were and were worried how it would be when we actually reached the Gulf Stream (about 20 miles west of the banks)

Our buddy boat Kanga  looked great against the shallow blue waters of the banks, and Greg & Paula were more energetic and
managed to maintain wing 'n wing for a while.

We were pleasantly surprised to see that the seas actually calmed a bit in the Stream.  We opted to head much further south than the actual course to Ft. Pierce to keep from running the risk of being by the lee which could cause an accidental jibe.  It worked well because the Stream carried us north and we were right on target and on time by the time we got to the Inlet.  It was an easy ride in, but we did hear reports from earlier boats that it was nasty when the current was still flowing out.

Once inside we turned right and headed north to Vero Beach.  It took us another 2 hours or so to get up the the mooring field in Vero.  We called them and asked if we could stop at the fuel dock for diesel and to fill the water tanks before picking up a mooring ball. The dock was full so we idled and waited for it to clear.  When we got the OK to come in I put the engine in reverse to get us positioned and when I tried to put it in forward it immediately shut down.  I tried about three times, both forward and reverse with the same result.  We quickly dropped the hook so Dan could assess the situation.  He was worried it was a frozen transmission.  We radioed Kanga and asked Greg if he'd come help us tow the boat to the mooring ball they were on.  Dan headed off in the dinghy and was about 20 feet away when the epiphany hit - - - something wrapped around the prop!!  He and Greg came back (Greg in his bathing suit) and Greg went down and confirmed we had a wrap.  Dan's back was bothering him so Greg offered to continue to dive and cut it off.  We finally got the Hookah diving compressor out and he made quick work of it.

It isn't pretty!  The inset shows how the line had "melted" and "glued" itself to the shaft.

While this was going on I got a call from a high school friend.  Actually he had been an AFS eschange student during my junior year and we had several classes together.  We hadn't kept in touch, but I saw his picture associated with his 50th class reunion and contacted him  We had seen him in Ft. Lauderdale three years ago on our trip around to Ft. Myers and met his wife, Elisabeth. They are building a house in Vero and offered to come by to see if we needed anything.  It was a BIG help because we had to present ourselves in Ft. Pierce at the airport to pass through customs.  We thought we had it covered by signing up for the DTOPS program through the Customs and Border Patrol, but that only covered the boat, we weren't included!  The drive down was half and hour, we were in the small office for about 4 minutes and that's all it took.  We stopped at Publix on our way back to the boat because I had used  up EVERYTHING fresh, expecting the Customs guy to ask me to bring any produce with me... Nobody seemed to care.  Dan was not feeling up to going out, so he went back to the boat and I had  a lovely dinner with Flavio and Elisabeth.  I was back aboard by 8 and asleep by 9:15.

We headed out this morning a little after 8 am and had a nice trip up to Cocoa Beach.  The wind cooperated and we motorsailed most of the way.  We're not sure how soon we will be on the move again because a big weather front is supposed to dump 3 inches or more of rain in the next two or three days...~~~_/)~~~M&D

Last week in the Abacos...we think

Our trip back to the Treasure Cay beach at low tide was lovely, but no sand bar.  Dan's back was bothering him so he opted to sit outside the bakery while the laundry was being done.  Mike opted to stay with him, so Debbie and I headed off.

We walked to the end of the beach---no sand bar,  Debbie and I each found 1 shell...not anything special either!!

I couldn't pass up taking a bunch of pictures of the beach.... 

We felt bad that we hadn't said our good-byes to Ed and Connie Dooley, so we headed back to Marsh Harbour and anchored this time.  What to do,  there were two events advertised - - The Jib Room was offering $3.00 drinks if you brought an appetizer to share and Snappas was having a "Who let the dogs out?" event, buy two drinks and get a free hot dog.  Ed and Connie wanted to be at the Jib Room, so we went and enjoyed drinks and snacks and thought that was enough.  But Mike and Debbie wanted to hit Snappas, and we had mentioned to a couple on a Ranger 27 Tug that we would probably be going over there, so off across the harbor we went to Snappas.  As we tied up at the dinghy dock we noticed that two dinghies were pinned under the dock by the rising tide,  We were able to dance on the bow of one and pop it out, but the other (belonging to the Ranger) had the engine pinned under.  We went inside and they came out to try to work it out.  It took filling it with water and three of us standing on the tubes to get the engine out, but not without breaking off the shift lever. We had our "dogs" and then towed our new friends back to their Ranger!

We left early Friday morning because all reports indicated the Whale was "doable" ...and it was.  We heard "Piece of cake",  "EZ, PEEZY", and such over the radio.  We had the jib out, but the wind was so light it didn't do much.  We were approaching Green Turtle Cay near low tide, so we knew we wouldn't be going into Black Sound, so decided to try White Sound.  We had only been there by golf cart on previous visits.

These three colorful houses are on the southern end of Green Turtle Cay and I tried to get a picture last time...it took Dan and
his big camera to do them justice.

The channel into White Sound was none too deep as we entered slowly, I saw 6'4" a few times, but we never bumped.  We took the last mooring and counted our Bahamian money.  We still had too much, so we took the dinghy over to New Plymouth Harbor and bought a few souvenirs and some freshly made conch salad.  Back to the boat, still too much money, so we opted to go into Bluff House for dinner.  Of course it was more than we had, but they took the cash and charged the rest!  You get a lousy deal turning in Bahamian dollars in the US.

Here's White Sound,  Green Turtle Marina pictured on the left and Bluff House on the right (in reality, they are reversed)
and a wonderful sunset.

Obviously the exodus has begun.  We, and everyone else have been studying the different weather guru reports looking for the time to cross back to Florida.  We left White Sound on Saturday morning hoping to stop at Powell Cay for the night and then figure out where to stage our crossing.  Leaving White sound at high tide was easy and we headed for Powell and tried the jib for a while, but most of the 12 mile trip was (you guessed it) to windward.  As we approached Dad said, "I think that's a Catalina."  Sure enough it was, it was Kanga, a 42, friends of Mike and Debbie.   We anchored near them and took Dory and their "potcake" puppy, Abby, ashore.  Paula and Greg Smith adopted her from Andros and they say that potcake (referring to the "mutt" breed prevalent in the islands is a recognized AKC breed.

Dory, being the b..ch she is still doesn't like this cute puppy, we decided it was tail envy.  Abby's is LONG!  We ventured around to the windward side of Powell but were unable to reach the beach. The perigee tide seemed to be in evidence here!  Kanga's crew came over for dinner and we found out that Greg went to St. Francis Prep in Spring Grove!! (It used to be the Glatfelter mansion)  Small world again!!

 

Greg borrowed my phone to try to get a picture of our two boats "beached" but should have been on his knees!

Here's a potcake sunset!!  Abby  is adorable (don't tell Dory I said that!)

We all agreed to hoist anchor at 7:30 and head for Great Sale Cay and stage for the crossing.  The wind was 15-18 from the NE and what a sail.  We were able to sail the whole way until we rounded up to come into the anchorage at the SW corner of the cay.  There were 17 boats here when we arrived and I just heard there are at least 36 here now!  As I said, the exodus has begun.

Boats here, boats coming in to anchor and still more outside,"coming 'round the bend""

Tomorrow will tell whether we're on our way or on hold....~~~_/)~~~M&D

Treasure Cay instead of Hopetown

Before heading off from the Jib Room Monday, we dinghied over to the Royal Marsh Harbour Dinghy Dock across the harbor and headed to the BaTelCo office in hopes of finding out how our Bahamian phone went through over 1.3 gigs in one day when the first 2 gigs lasted 29 days!!  After an hour with customer service at the BTC office (whose internet was down!!!) I was told to get on WiFi somewhere else and update my iOS and that should solve my problem.  We made a quick stop at Maxwell's for groceries and headed back to the boat.  I went up to the bar at the Jib Room and got the new iOS downloaded and we headed off...but not for Hopetown.  We had heard on the Cruiser's Net that there were no mooring balls in Hopetown so we headed for Treasure Cay.

We followed Resolve the 13 miles to Treasure Cay and took a slip the first night....no moorings available.  A
very pretty setting but a bit rundown at the Marina, AND they had just raised their rates!!

We had studied the Treasure Cay listing on Active Captain and found all the complaints to be 

accurate.  Very old wooden docks,  so so facilities and LOUD music from the bar until 1 am.  Resolve had taken the last mooring ball, so we came in to take a slip.  We had been told we would get a great discount with our Royal Marsh Harbour Yacht Club membership, but that expired at the end of March!  That news plus the new higher dockage rates made it important to make it out into the mooring field (that price went up too, but $30/night is better than $2.15/foot!)  Luckily we were not obligated to use the electricity (it had been $24/day, we didn't even ask how much that went up.)  

First thing Tuesday morning Mike called to say he was in the dinghy hanging on to a mooring ball that has just been vacated.  We hightailed it out there and Mike was there to hand us the line!  It was an absolutely beautiful day so we headed over to the beach on the Sea of Abaco side and had lunch at Coco's Beach Bar.  Touted to be the third most beautiful beach in the world, we were sure it was the

loveliest one we've seen!  Lunch was good. 

I decided not to collage the beach pix...  These two catamarans were heading from Green Turtle, just about to pass No Name
Cay (home of the northern pigs) on their way out through Whale Cay Cut.

Wanted to include a little of the pristine white sand along the 3 1/2 mile beach.

Kite surfer near the southern end of the beach.

The wind piped up quite a lot last night and we were surprised how close we came to the charter catamaran on the mooring behind us, but close only counts in horseshoes...  The sky was brilliant and only the masthead anchor lights interfered with seeing the stars.

Debbie declared she has too much food aboard and asked us over for a brunch casserole and freshly baked coffee cake.  Quite a feast, and with Dan's famous Bloody Mary's we were set for the day.  We are moored right near Spartina from Clairborne, MD (they have a mooring in Tilghman Creek)  We had first met them 8 years ago down near Warderick Wells, and then once back on the Bay, so we caught up with them a bit.  They now keep the boat in Fort Pierce every other year so they don't have to do the northern trek every year.  Sounds tempting...

It's almost low tide, so we are going to head back to the beach to see how big a sand bar develops. The cruiser's net has been talking about this being a perigee time so tides are more extreme. ~~~_/)~~~M&D

FYI

I keep forgetting to mention that, although most of you get an email whenever we post...and read it right there, IF you go to the actual website  sailbrunelle.blogspot.com you will see the map Sam has set up at the top of the site that shows our SPOT locations.  M

Ready to move on from Marsh Harbor

I should have known when bubbles came out of my underwater camera when I turned it on underwater out at Mermaid Reef that things weren't good!  It's dead.  My last underwater bit the dust at just the same age (just under 4 years old).  I did get the pictures off the SD card and shared them on the last blog.  Many hours and a tupperware full of rice didn't do anything to revive the camera tho...

Not all that much to report about Marsh Harbor.  We enjoyed the Wednesday night Rib night here at the Jib room, adventured around town with Debbie and Mike and waited for Ed and Connie Dooley to return from West Palm where they went to deal with Connie's broken wrist follow-up.  They got back on Friday and we celebrated with Resolve and Southern Pilot (Ed and Connie's boat) aboard Brunelle.  I made "Aunt Nancy's Tilapia"(familiar to many) with local grouper and it was a well received.

Saturday at the Jib Room is steak and limbo night and we enjoyed both.  It was great fun watching all the kids whiz by under the limbo bar when it was high and a few made it through successfully as it got lower, but there is no competition for Desmond.  He has worked here for over 20 years and has wowed audiences every Saturday night.

The young lady in the coral dress took it seriously, but finally resorted to crawling before Desmond replaced
the bar...

 with a FLAMING one.

Desmond does a little stretching with a one handed push up and then puts a cigarette in his mouth and begins
his amazing trip beneath the bar, stopping to light his cigarette before passing on through and jumping up!!!

We had a relaxing Sunday with a little rain and Dan's famous Bloody Marys and are now ready to move on.  We hope to find a mooring in Hopetown this afternoon so we can get reacquainted with Elbow Cay.  ~~~_/)~~~M&D (I'll have to rely on iPhone and Dan's big SLR for pix from now on.)

One night at Tahiti Beach, off Elbow Cay and then back to Marsh Harbor

Monday morning, the wind was still pretty strong from the southeast so Resolve  and their trusty hunting guide decided against a visit to Snake Cay and suggested we join them at Tahiti Beach on the south end of Elbow Cay.  We headed up through the shallow draft entrance as it was almost high tide and made it through comfortably and were anchored in time for a Bloody Mary before venturing ashore.  Easter Monday is a big holiday around here and the place was packed. The beach was crowded and so was the anchorage. Mike and Debbie and a couple they had befriended came over for cocktails and snacks which were "heavy" enough that we didn't need dinner.  Debbie brought lobster pizza and I had made pull-apart cheesy bread with bruchetta sauce...not exactly a balanced meal, but yummy.  Once again, the sunset didn't disappoint.

We also had fun joking about the burning boat....   A group had a big bonfire on the beach, and from our vantage point it looked like the boat anchored off the beach was in flames.

The fire burned for more than an hour and really looked like it was on the boat!

 The weather reports this morning said light and variable winds in the morning followed by thunder storms in the afternoon, so we headed toward Marsh Harbor.  While on the way we stopped at one of my favorite reefs called Mermaid Reef.  It is just outside the harbor and I have seen a great variety of fish each time we stop.  Today was no exception.

I really got a kick out of the expression on this Midnight Parrotfish (top).  A Queen Angelfish and French Angelfish
are in the middle and a spotted ray, grunt and a doctorfish (vertical stripes) round out the group.

Top left is a Queen Triggerfish partially hidden by two Blue Tangs.  Ballyhoos on the right.
Middle is a mish mash of all kinds! and a Blue Parrotfish posed nicely.

I also got a picture of Resolve (left) and Brunelle  from the water ...AND if you look closely at the last shot you'll see the new propeller zinc in place.

Before we hauled up the anchor to head into the harbor it started to rain, not much just a light shower. It followed us into the harbor but stopped long enough for us to pick up fuel at the dock before taking a slip at the Marsh Harbour Marina, across the harbor from Harbor View where we stayed before. The rain picked up again as we were tying up but when we decided to dinghy across the harbor to have dinner at Snappas (we are out of just about everything...kids cleaned us out!!) it wasn't raining. 

 We picked up Mike and Debbie on the way across the harbor (they had anchored out) and had a great diner accented by thunder and occasional lightning, but no rain.  Just a we were finishing up the rain arrived, so it was a VERY wet ride back across the harbor, BUT nothing compared with the squall that hit around 9 pm.  We were rocking and rolling in the slip and turned on the VHF radio to see what chatter we could hear.  Those out in the anchorage were all asking just how much wind did we have, and did anyone drag?  Someone reported 47-48 knots of wind and Mike texted that he heard someone thought it was 140 knots!!  A window blew out of their bimini.  The word is more is on the way,,,  We are glad to be well tied up! ~~~_/)~~~ M&D