Rogue ICW Day 5

Last night was quite windy, which made for a difficult night’s sleep.  The boat was swinging from side to side and my fear was the anchor would pull out and we would drag anchor across the anchorage.  There were probably a half dozen other boats there as well.  I was a little nervous about it even though I felt we had plenty of scope on the rode. I ended up waking every few hours and looking out the ports to see if our orientation had changed relative to other fixed objects and boats. Turns out all was well, but I really didn’t sleep all that well, even after a long day yesterday.  I forgot to mention that we went through the St. Lucie lock which dropped our level 13 feet to enter the St. Lucie River.  On the west side of Lake Okeechobee we went up several times to get to lake level, then on the east side we went down. Getting to be old hands at this, it’s not such a big deal anymore once you know the drill.

Today we raised anchor by 7:30 and hit the channel. Everything went really well.  We motored from Ft. Pierce up to Vero Beach (which is where my original plan had us last night) where we picked up fuel and pumped out. Turns out my fuel burn numbers were overestimated so we didn’t take on as much fuel as I had anticipated. Still had quite a bit in the tanks, more than I thought we would. I originally had planned to get some groceries and do laundry in Vero, but scrapped that to move on. We are running low on a few things, actually maybe more than a few. Nonetheless we made it to our day 5 destination which is an anchorage called “NASA Launch Viewing Anchorage.”  I can see the rocket assembly building from here, just outside of Cape Canaveral. It is still quite windy, but this anchorage is a little more protected from the Southeast/East winds.  There are three other boats here but plenty of room between them. We arrived here early, at least earlier than any other day so far.  Had time to actually cook a decent dinner and watch the sunset.

Tomorrow I had planned to pull into the Palm Coast Marina, but am rethinking that due to the need for supplies.  Palm Coast is somewhat less expensive than some others, but they have no access to supplies.  I am pondering another marina nearby, but still have to do some further research to decide.

Today's statistics are 83 miles traveled, 9.17 hours moving, 42 min. stopped, total time 9hrs. 57 min.

Here are some pictures of the day.

Rick swabbing the deck after raising anchor.

 



 The houses lining the ICW around Melbourne

 

 One of many small "islands" with clear water and white sand beaches.  Very tropical looking.

 

 Rick was playing with the camera.  The captain was tired.

 

Tonight's sunset from Rogue's back porch

 

 

Until then......