Florida East Coast to Long Key

We had a wonderful weekend in Stuart and Ft. Pierce visiting our long time friends.  We spent a night at Bev and Colin’s home, in Stuart and enjoyed visiting with Jim and Kathy, Bev and Colin, Ann, Jim, and Kathy’s brother and sister in law from Indiana. Bev and Colin live on a canal and have a group of Ibis’ that hang out in the area and come visit on a daily basis.  We particularly enjoyed watching “Peg Leg”, a very special Ibis who has been with Bev and Colin for at least 3 years.  He/she has a broken or deformed leg, but seems to get around great regardless. However, he/she has fallen in the pool once.

"Peg leg"

We also had the opportunity to visit Ft. Pierce and our old neighborhood.  Kathy and Jim were our next door neighbors when we built our first house there in 1977 and they are still in the house they built the year before that. The neighborhood looks great, mature landscape and homes all kept up very nicely, except our old home.  Nothing has been done to keep it up, and the landscaping we had put in had all been taken out.  Such a pity, it was a really nice house (we thought, anyway!)

Our first home in Ft. Pierce

We enjoyed a nice drive to the waterfront and marinas and were able to appreciate the “facelift” Ft. Pierce has experienced in the last 30 years!  The downtown and the waterfront all have been modernized and are very inviting to mariners and travelers alike. After a nice dinner at Archie’s on the beach and great company, we returned back to the boat for the evening.

Stuart/Ft. Pierce friends at Archie's

Ann picked us up the following morning and drove us to the produce stand, liquor store and Walmart to grab some needed groceries, pizza for lunch at her place and back to the boat for the evening. Thank you, Ann! It was then time to continue our journey down the coast towards Key Largo.

We got had a nice run down the intracoastal waterway, uneventful and the weather was in our favor.  We stopped for an afternoon and night at Peck Lake, a childhood favorite of Ed’s.

Peck Lake walk on the beach

Peck Lake at sunset

We continued south and managed to time most of the bridges to make very good time. We continued to be surprised (well, not really) of how many people are on the East Coast compared to the West Coast of Florida.

Condo in North Palm Beach

Juno Park- We used to take the kids there when they were very young, used to launch our jon boat there!

Lake Worth Inlet anchorage

We went past a few large inlets and ports. We watched the freighters at work,  reminiscent of our trip down the Mississippi.

We listened to a distress call being placed by a boater taking on water outside the Dania inlet and watched the fire rescue boat come barreling down the waterway and out the inlet.

They were on the ball!! GO! GO!

 The homes along the ICW were outrageously huge and beautiful at the same time.

My FAVORITE palm trees, a light silvery green in color

The "Peace Sign" house

We anchored just off the channel in Lantana within earshot of The Key Lime Tree Restaurant and enjoyed live music by “Shauna" from the cockpit of Manatee. She was really good!

The following night we anchored by Oleta State Park and very close to Florida International University in North Miami.  It was a beautiful spot, just minutes away from the insanity of the waterway.

Anchorage- Oleta State Park/FIU

Going past Miami Beach and Miami was fun…lots of bridges and lots of very large yachts everywhere.  We were unsure about getting under the Julia Tuttle Bridge, which according to Active Captain, has 55 ft. clearance.  While anchored the night before we took a line and ran it up to the top of the mast, added the estimated inches for the windex and light, added the inches from the deck to the water and it looked like we were right at 55 ft. So it would be close. We didn’t time the tide very well and approached the bridge at high tide.  Ed was biting his nails, and thumping his foot in nervous energy and I was desperately looking in the binoculars for the fender boards with the clearance displayed.  There were no fender board, no fenders! The bridge was being worked on.  Yikes!  There was a worker on the far side of the bridge working off a small boat.  I tried to holler to him and sign language him to ask if there was a clearance display on his side, but he didn’t seem to understand  what I was asking or saying.  He just kept looking up at the top of our mast and the bridge.  Ed went as slow as he possibly could go with his hand on the shifter ready to pop the boat into reverse if needed.  Luckily there were no other boaters around pulling a wake and the winds were calm.  We squeezed under with only the flexible antenna bending.  The worker showed a sigh of relief and signed we had only a couple of inches to spare. WHEW!  Now we know exactly how much clearance Manatee needs to go under bridges! That’s how we roll!!

A sailboat with no mast...and tons of solar panels. Folks crazier than us!

They're building an island! In the intracoastal between Port Everglades and Miami

A shrink-wrapped yacht! Really??

Miami Beach

Look close- A window washer way way up there.  Hope he gets paid well!!

American Airlines building

Water taxi

Tequesta Point, Miami 

(Is that Capt Ed blowing that conch horn?)

Stiltsville

Anhingas hanging out

We were finally out of the Miami area and in Biscayne Bay, headed south to Key Largo. We were planning on anchoring by Pumpkin Key, but there wasn’t enough protection from the wind that was kicking up, so we continued on to Key Largo. We enjoyed a great sail in Card and Barnes Sounds before going under the bridge and anchoring by Gilbert’s Resort.  We’ll hang out here for the weekend and visit with Georgeanne and Rob before continuing on to Long Key on Monday.

Bye bye Georgeanne! Thanks for a great dinner!

Georgeanne up at the crack of dawn to see us off!

A farewell to Georgeanne and Rob Sunday evening and we were off once again.  We took the ICW this time and risked the shallow water areas.  We skipped over a few spots with 4.5 ft showing on the depth gauge, but due to the nice wind on our stern, we blew over the shallow spots and never got grounded. Another close call, but we did it!

Shallow water!!!

We found a nice spot on the west side of the bridge and after dragging anchor one time (actually this time during daylight!) we set the anchor and slept good.

Leaving the beautiful Bahamas! 3.23.16

Hatchet Bay dinghy dock and pavillion

We left Hatchet Bay Wednesday morning, after going from boat to boat to say goodbye to all the friends we met while there. The winds were moderate, 15-20 kts out of the east.  We motor sailed on the jib and got though Current Cut on the outgoing tide.  We anchored outside the cut, in lee of the Current Settlement and protected from the East wind.  

Pete and Bonnie, SV Mahina

Colby, Rachel, Paul  SV Jenny Ives

The Jenny Ives, under way, enroute to Current

Current Settlement

Full moon

We arrived at Bird Cay late in the afternoon and anchored out some, in a little bit of a surge.  We planned on getting in closer to the island, but the tide was too low for us to get into the hole we had anchored in back in December.  The following day we got up and found our sweet spot, and enjoyed a wonderful and private anchorage.

Bird Cay is definitely our favorite of the Berry Islands.  We enjoyed a couple of days there, snorkeling, conch searching and fishing. On the second day the  bracket for the outboard dinghy broke.  A bolt at the pivot point on the bracket snapped, leaving the bolts in the bracket itself.  Ed was not able to hit them out, a machine shop would be needed.  We have had nothing but trouble with this Lehr (propane driven) engine.  It was just starting to run decently for us when this happened.  Now it was worthless to us, as we can’t even rig it to be put on the dinghy.  We still wanted to play on the cay, so we pulled out the sail rig and used that to get to and from shore.

We spent a comfortable night on the hook and left at 3:00 am for the long passage over to the most western part of the Bahamas.  The weather reports called for very light wind, and flukey. We decided not to go back to Bimini and thought we might have a fairly comfortable night anchored on the bank around Great Isaac Cay.

Great Isaac Cay lighthouse

Well, Great Isaac Cay is just a big rock with an old dilapitated lighthouse and with deep water all the way up to the shoreline.  Ed was not comfortable anchoring in the deeper water and so close to rock.  There was quite a surge, making for a really rock and rolly night, so we motored a few miles to the south and anchored off the Hens and Chickens (also just a few rocks in the middle of the ocean).  We were still in surge, but anchored in 16 ft not too close to the rocks.  We were exhausted after a very long day on the water.  We ate an easy dinner and went to sleep, rocking and rolling.  We set the alarm for midnight and got under way by 1:15 am, for another very long day on the water.  

Hens and Chickens

I got my wish (planned it this way) for a calm crossing.  The seas were flat, the wind was calm and we picked up the gulf stream current which gave us a couple more knots/hr.  

Land Ho! Ed plotted the course just right and we arrived at Lake Worth Inlet, Palm Beach by mid afternoon.  Man!  The amount of boats coming out and into the inlet was quite a shock to our eyes.  Yes, we lived here and this was our inlet when we went sailing, but it has grown so much in the last 18 years, it was hard to believe we sailed around in our 22 ft. boat here!  Peanut Island was just an island back then.  Now it is a park with docks and buildings and tons of boaters! And its not even a weekend day!

Lake Worth Inlet

Port of Palm Beach

We motored past all the many many boats at anchor and went under the Blue Heron Bridge, north to the most northern anchorage in Lake Worth.  It too was pretty crowded but not as bad as near the inlet and south towards Palm Beach. 

We came upon this poor sailboat, sinking.  A sheriff came by and talked to Ed.  They knew who the owner of the boat is, but could not reach him, and he hasn’t been home for some time.  The following morning it was not to be seen, sunk. Sad, sad.

The winds picked up during the night.  Why, oh why do the winds always pick up and change in the middle of nights??  We dragged anchor and got too close to a neighboring boat, so had to raise the hook and move Manatee in the dark, in the crowded anchorage.  But we did fine and reset the hook.  The anchor grabbed and held. 

The next morning Ed rowed us over to the dinghy landing and walked the few blocks to West Marine to see about purchasing a new Mercury motor.  Of course, not in stock.  We ordered it for delivery the next day.  We made plans with our friends Bev and Colin to see them in Stuart on Saturday.  Believe it or not, the engine arrived at West Marine as promised.  We walked into town with our collapsible hand truck and picked up the motor.  Ed managed to get it down the embankment by the dinghy landing (it only rolled a couple of times) and got it set up on the dinghy and operational.  We motored back to Manatee in the chop and wind, but managed to get back safely.  

The following morning we motored up the intracoastal waterway, motoring past lots of childhood memories for Ed and memories of years in Martin County and St. Lucie County. 

Jupiter Lighthouse

Martin Memorial Hospital, where my nursing career began

The Roosevelt Bridge, many a morning stopped in traffic waiting for the old one to go down

We picked up a mooring ball at the Sunset Bay Marina, just under the Roosevelt Bridge in Stuart. Our friends Bev and Colin will pick us up tomorrow and we will have a fun weekend visiting long time friends here before heading back south. 

Peli says "ding!"