The days following our relaxing stay in Vero were a bit
challenging, day 1 we hoped to get from Vero to Cocoa Beach. It would be a long, mainly tedious day
motoring the ICW although there are some monster houses along the waterfront
and early on we did see a great boat although raft is probably a better
description.
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Look at this for a home! |
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Not sure how he copes in bad weather but he looks prepared even has a bike |
The day deteriorated for us, later afternoon we could see
the thunder clouds forming over the last to the west of us but we had been
lucky at Vero and only had a few rain showers in the afternoon BUT not
today. As we passed Melbourne
(not Australia)
a large powerboat ahead heading north turned and frantically started waving at
us to turn round, we could see the clouds ahead so assumed they had radar and
we concerned about the weather but with Magnum travelling 5 knots we were not
going to out run it. We rushed to get
the internet to look at a radar picture, this showed severe thunderstorms with
risk of tornados up ahead. We decided to
pull off the ICW immediately and get anchored, lucky the water to the edges was
3m, we pulled off with the wind starting to build, dropped anchor and Mark dumped
40 metres of chain just as the wind started to exceed 30 knots. Within minutes the wind was up to 44 knots
and the rain was torrential, we suddenly had a 1 metre chop in 3m of water and
were getting battered all over the place with lightening hitting the land all
around. We ducked downstairs popped all
our electrical equipment in the oven and hoped for the best, this lasted for an
hour, after the last few weeks this seemed like the last straw but we upped
anchor and headed to get a bit more shelter for the night. As we got back in the channel the winds were
still unpredictable, we had the foresail up and when we had to furl quickly due
to the wind, Amanda fell and this really was the last straw, we were glad to
get anchored tucked in behind the bridge at Cocoa beach and thankfully no more
thunderstorm for the night.
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Just after the worst of the storm |
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The calm after the storm |
Next day and up with the sun and more motoring, didn’t get
off to a great start as when we approached Daytona the channel was blocked by a flurry of small fishing boats who
were throwing fishing nets into the channel.
How did the expect us to get through? Were they even aware that we were
rapidly approaching? As we got closer we
had to furl the headsail as there was no movement from any of the boats, Amanda
moved to the front of the boat to give a loud whistle to make them aware we
were approaching, still nothing from the offending boats, all other boats
outside the channel completely aware, we are then about a boat length away when
Amanda shouts to one boat in the middle of the channel, one lone guy is stood
on the front and he throws a net right in our track, Amanda tries to explain we
need to stay in the channel as we have 7ft draft, oh no he tells us to **** off
to the otherside of the channel, this does not go down well with Amanda and a
huge argument erupts and soon we have various fishing boats shouting and
swearing at us even through they have no idea what has gone on. Finally we do have to move to the edge of the
channel feeling very uncertain about the depths still with a bunch of idiots
telling us to get back north, clueless!
The rest of the day we try to forget about these idiots and
just enjoy the countryside, we saw more manatees on this day than ever before
but I still struggled to get a photo. We ploughed on knowing that we needed to
make miles, at this point feeling even more desperate than ever to just get
home and avoid any further bad weather.
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Huge heron in the tree |
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Manatee just disappearing! |
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One of the many many pelicans |
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Lovely heron looking for his dinner |
Generally the fellow boats were very friendly,
there are very few sail boats at this time of year and mainly small fishing
boats and what we refer to as ice cream boats – they are like a floating patios with armchairs and coolboxes, very popular in this area due to shallow draft
and you imagine they are a reasonable price.
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Ice cream boat whizzing on by |
We were lucky with todays thunderstorm, it came just before
arriving in New Smyrna Beach
but passed quickly with wind topping out at just over 20 knots. We had visited New Smyrna beach the previous
year but this time we tried the free dock, great place, yes there are quite a
few local fishermen but mainly families that want to have a chat to find out
where you and from and where you are going, it was nice to meet some friendly
locals in this lovely little location. We
decided to stop 2 nights so that we could wander over to the beach the following
day and visit the lovely Nichols coffee shop, bit shabbier than we remember but
friendly quirky little place. But we were so worn
out we didn’t take one photo!
Our next 2 days were not very eventful, the first we stopped
in Palm Coast and enjoyed a beer in the local
Europe village in the evening, didn’t look much a village in the UK but it was
nice to have shower and go out for a cold beer, the weather was still way into
the 30’s all day every day and night.
We then had a shortish hop to St Augustine, the day was a little nerve
racking as the depths were under 3metres on many occasions but we did see our
first alligator on the ICW, just swimming along minding his own business! On our way South, Amanda had been really keen
to visit St Augustine but we had arrived one afternoon to find that mooring
buoys could be booked and we hadn't booked one but this time of year there were
only round 10 boats on the 100+ mooring buoys available so no problem and only
short dingy ride to shore.