We were fortunate that the boat was relatively clean and not infested with bugs, rodents and /or mold and mildew. There was not a lot of staining from th burning of sugar cane that takes place only a few miles down the road. It was, however, extremely hot ad humid when we got here and has continued for the last few weeks. 90 plus , living on a boat with little ventilation in the evening, is something neither of us enjoyed.
We had the boat moved out of storage to the work yard so we could get the hull painted as well as some other things to prepare for the trip home. The hull's anti foul paint was following off, so we decided to just scale as much as we could off and reapply some new bottom paint, in anticipation that it would stay on until we got the boat home and we could do a complete hull job. As well we had to replace the raw water through hull, something unexpected and costly.
We didn't get out of Indiantown for under $1600 this time. This covered the 10 week storage, the through hull, hauling, blocking , moving the boat and launching it.
The boat was launched May 26 and we took an extra day to make sure all the systems worked and again took the time to test the new transmission that was put in a few months ago.
We set out on may 28 and headed up the St Lucie canal to Stuart where we anchored out for the night. All systems worked well, except a small electrical glitch in the control panel. This did not affect the operation of the boat. Next day we headed north up the ICW to Vero Beach, where we fueled up and did some late minute provisioning..
Next day we anchored at Cape Canaveral, then Daytona Beach, St Augustine, (2 days) , Fernandina Beach,
We are presently in Georgia, 50 miles from Beaufort and about 115 miles from Charleston, SC, where we hope to be on Monday.
Again no real issues with the boat, other than the electric glitch, which I believe to be my engine hour meter,, an older analog unit, that may be drawing a bit to much power at times. I'll kept an eye on it.
New tyranny is working well and I am getting almost 10 miles per gal when we are going. We have been motor sailing a lot as the winds have been out of the east, which is great for us.
The ICW has been exciting as we have seen hundreds of dolphins, rays, herons, osprey, fish, pelicans a few gators... but no sharks. There were a few reported shark bites in areas we had just passed through this weekend.. we know they are there.
The only negatives at this time would be the oppressive heat and humidity at times, particularly at night. We have had a few nights of being bitten alive by the tiny "no-see-umps" (mosquito like insects, fly etc.) but you take the bad with the good. The other thing that we have to pay attention to are the violent storms and tornados that have been passing through. They come and go daily, We had one when we were working on the boat in the yard, violent rain, winds and hail . Daily on the water we hear of them in various parts of the state, we have seen them all around us, lightning and thunder a few miles from us, several times we have battened everything down and donned our rain gear in anticipation. Twice we have been fortunate to get into port or an anchorage before they hit. It is now hurricane season as well, so the fun keeps going and going.
Logistically we have traveled 420 miles, have encountered tides up to 8', battled currents 2-3 knots, 8-10 hour days averaging 50-65 mils per day, winds have been pretty strong . Some of the days have ben tedious, but mostly they have been great
I forgot to mention that we spent a day and a half in St Augustine... one nice city, with a huge Spanish architectural influence. Fountain of Youth and Ponca de Leon... dig out your history books. I haven't downloaded my pictures from the camera , yet so I'll put them in my next blog.
Well that's it for now. Here are a few pics to enjoy
Before
Check this old MacDonald sign (zoom in)
After
Hobe Sound beach
Boat launch
Cape Canaveral
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