And Back to the Chesapeake – Day 7

We have been “underway” now for seven days, and ended up traveling only two of those days, until today.  Even though wind speed today was expected to be in the mid 20’s, it is still less than what it has been for the last several days, mid to upper 30’s.  So we made the decision yesterday to cut and run.  We had been sitting for four days going nowhere.  Even though the park was nice, it was not accessible to anything unless you had transportation, which we didn’t.  So four days was about all we could take sitting in one place.

So, we got up early and were eager to get started.  Last evening we had disconnected the second power cord, topped off the water tank, filled up the drinking water jugs and had everything pretty much ready.  This morning we untied the seven lines we had holding the boat, disconnected the final power cord and pushed off at 7:04.  We had to wait a few minutes for the lock, but we were in and out before 8:00 and on our way.  The winds were fairly light at that early hour, but were expected to continue to build through the day before dying out later in the day.  By 9:30 the wind was blowing in earnest.

Stuart is about 14 miles from where we stayed, and as we approached Stuart around 9:30, we had to have a bridge raised to get through.  Immediately after the road bridge is a railroad bridge that is normally in the up position except when a train is approaching.  As we got closer, about a mile away from the bridge, we could see a train moving across the railroad bridge.  I hoped that by the time we got there the bridge would be up and we could get the highway bridge raised for us.  I hailed the highway bridge to let him know we needed an opening, and he informed me that he would not raise the highway bridge until the railroad bridge went up, since we couldn’t go anywhere anyway.  Makes sense.  As we got to the bridge to wait for the opening, the railroad bridge remained in the closed position, and there was already two other boats waiting, with another immediately behind us.  With the wind blowing us all around, we danced around each other in circles trying to keep far enough away from each other.  So we waited, and waited, and waited.  As we waited two more trains came through, so no bridge opening.  In all, we waited for about 30 to 40 minutes for the bridges while doing our boat ballet.  In the meantime, two more boats joined the parade on our side, for a total of six, and one waited on the other side of the bridge.  You could tell the bridge tender was getting a little tired explaining why he couldn’t open the highway bridge.  BTW, if you have been following along, this was the same tender that chewed out a catamaran operator for repeatedly trying to get him to open the bridge while he was waited for a boat towing a disabled boat, which had priority.  He didn’t chew anyone else out today. 

After we finally got through the bridges we headed down the St. Lucie River to the “Crossroads” where the Okeechobee waterway joins the Atlantic ICW.  The wind was blowing right in our face, and there was more than a little chop on the water.  Nothing too bad, two to two and a half feet, but it had some force behind it.  We made the turn and headed up the ICW to Ft. Pierce, and finally to Vero Beach where we are presently, attached to a mooring ball with little to no wind. FINALLY!! Tomorrow is expected to be a really nice travel day, so we will head past Cape Canaveral to Titusville for a couple days so we can resupply.  After that it will be on to Daytona, then St. Augustine.  I had originally planned to spend an extra day in Vero, but because we spent so much time in Port St. Lucie, we are moving on, the same for St. Augustine, one night then move on. 

Tomorrow will be a longer day than today, about 75 miles.  Today we traveled 53 miles for a total of 192 miles so far.  Not much for seven days.  Travel time today was 7hrs 35mins.

 

So boys and girls, Until tomorrow….

P.S. Hi Tyler.

Look how pretty and blue green the water is, almost like Caribbean water