November 20 - Heading down the ICW

Friday, November 20

7:10 am, we are off the dock and underway.  At the 3 miles checkpoint, Dan found NO leaks of any kind in the engine.  We are running at 2300 rpms with NO whine.  We have our head sail up and are making 7.25 knots.  WOW.  Life is good and we are enjoying this win!

 

Life on the ICW can be tedious at times, watching for channel markers, depth changes and other boats.  But, there is always something to going on that offset the tedium of being offshore where all you see is ocean.

Bridge openings.

Other boats.

Birds and dolphins.

Storm building on the horizon.

Yeah ... stuff like this.

And homes like this ...

 

2:25pm, anchor down in Titusville.  47 miles.  We are used to plugging along at 1800 rpms and 5 knots so

 

it is simply amazing to have Mr. Westerbeke humming along at 2200-2300 rpms, which we learned from the mechanic was the ideal rate.

We are also thinking that the whine noise we are left with after all the engine improvements is Prop Whine, something that happens due to the shape of the prop flange and the rpms.  The prop was serviced in BLM and looked fine during the short haul in Daytona, so we have no plans to deal with it now.  There are only a few rpms where the whine happens, so we avoid those.  Done.

Steak for dinner tonight … and a bottle of wine!

This is our first anchorage in ~2 years. Forgot how much we enjoy it.

Saturday, November 21

Up at 6:30am for an early start to the day, but it’s raining … back to bed to listen to the rain on the boat.  Something else that I forgot how much I enjoy.

8:30am:  Anchor up at Titusville.  Our goal is to reach Melbourne or Rock Point for the night.  We reach Vero Beach marina tomorrow, so the more miles we put under the keel, the better.  This section of the ICW is a straight runway N-S, something that the autopilot can handle just fine, which makes a 40 mile, 7 hr. drive all the easier to handle. 

2:30: Arrived Melbourne and would have pushed on another hour to Rock Point, but the rain started, which we generally take as a good sign to get the anchor down before the weather worsens.

Sunday, November 22

Another rainy morning, but underway by 8:00 am, under cloudy skies.  ETA 1pm to Vero Beach.

Vero Beach is a cruisers paradise.  It has a huge mooring field at $15/night.  They have a pump out boat that comes out to you in the mooring field, and they have a free bus into town that stops conveniently at the Publix grocery store, ABC liquor store and West Marine ... and that's about the center of a cruiser's universe!

We first thought we'd stay here just a day or so and then keep moving south towards Lake Worth/West Palm Beach where we'd wait for a weather window to cross.  But since nothing but shitty weather is predicted this week (winds +20 knots with rain), we decided this was a great place to stay thru the Thanksgiving holiday. 

We'll leave on Friday for Ft. Pierce to visit friends for a few days and then get to Lake Worth on Sunday.  There is a glimmer of a weather window to cross to the Bahamas on Dec 2,3,4 and we plan to take advantage of it.  Fingers crossed (as always!).