Wednesday May 21: Road Trip North

It was an early morning as we prepared Yesterday's Dream to sit for the next 4 months. First time we've tried leaving the boat in the water rather than on the hard.

We'll see how that goes ...

So we're off to Ohio and then on to the Trent Canal and Guppy for the summer. Sometime in June or so. The blog will be back when we are on Guppy in a few weeks!

Sunday May 18: Jacksonville, FL - Home for Yesterday's Dream

An early getaway from New Smyrna made the best use of the tides and currents so we were off at 7 am.

It wasn't long before we were through Daytona and the last of the bridges under which we did not fit. It was nice to be done with them!

After Thursday's storms and rains, Friday was clear with some clouds but with a very cool north wind. It was a welcome change in the high humidity that we've been having the last few days. On to Marineland!

It's actually quite amazing how enjoyable and different this part of Florida is when compared to much of the area south of Titusville.

Much of the area is marshland so no homes. Small beaches and spoil islands (a result of the dredging of the ICW).

We arrived at Marineland Friday early afternoon after another 50 mile day, tied up and took off the bikes for a ride to the beach and through the old camping ground about 1/2 mile down the road.

This is the beach that has all of the coquina rocks - made up of compressed seashells. For more info on these rocks, CLICK HERE.

This may be our favorite beach. Steve of course was out looking for whatever he could find hidden in the rocks :-)

And we left our shoes where we thought they wouldn't get wet - man, you really need to watch that tide coming in!

Yesterday was another early morning leave time as we wanted to make the current coming in at the St. Augustine inlet - 2 hours away.

Timing was pretty good and the day of 57 miles to Sister's Creek passed quickly

We were traveling at low tide a good part of the morning - it's such a different looking water system when the tide is low. All of the mud/sand bars are visible rather than just seeing water everywhere.

The birds are out looking for food in the now exposed mud banks ...

and my favorite white pelican are sitting around on the banks as well. I've decided they only fly as far south as necessary as we never see them in the Keys.

This was the coolest house - spotted south of St. Augustine as I recall. Just thought it was so fun to look at.

Passing through St. Augustine we also spotted the tall ship El Galeon docked at the city marina.

This thing is HUGE. For more info, CLICK HERE,



The guys (I think) give you some idea of the massive size of this sailing vessel. Nice job with the camera, Steve!!

We continued on with favorable currents until we were within 10 miles of the St. Johns River - which leads us to Jacksonville.

However, the current was at that point 2 knots against us - time to just dock for the night and wait until tomorrow.

This is a great dock provided by the city of Jacksonville - at no cost! What's not to like :-) We spent the night with 2 sailboats and lots of fisherpeople.

Of course Steve had to check out what was going on with the fishing. We'll be back here for 2 or 3 days next time with kayaking/dinghying and fishing on the agenda. A really nice place.

Sunset was nice - it will be a lazy morning with a scheduled departure of 10 am to take advantage of the currents going up the St. Johns River to Jacksonville.

Up this morning on time and headed out on schedule.

It's about 25 miles up the St. John/s River so we'll be there by early afternoon.

Steve and his dolphins :-)  He motions them to come on up - sometimes it works :-)

Tomorrow? Pick up a car from the airport, spend a few days closing up the boat for 3 months and then off to Ohio with stops in S. Carolina, N. Carolina and Dayton, OH on the way to the farm :-)

Thursday May 15: New Smyrna Beach - Headed North

We are definitely back in Florida - welcome to the land of bridges! And crazy large homes. And original small Florida homes that have not yet been knocked down to make way for the crazy large homes.

Lots of wildlife along the waterways here (once north of Palm Beach), including the pelicans. Which was interesting as there were no pelicans in the Bahamas. Seemed strange to us.

Osprey are all over the place as well as the wonderful white pelicans. And lots of dolphins again. The travel has been pleasant with sunny skies and a nice breeze from the south pushing us north.

The inlets we pass by show the conditions of the waves due to the E or ESE winds of 15 - 20 knots. Not a day to be on the ocean! If we hadn't been able to cross on Sunday, we would still be sitting at the West End as the one day weather window we were watching fell apart. Looks like it would be mid next week for the next opportunity!

I loved this guy who was out in his kayak with his dog. Pull up on a sand bar at low tide, plant the umbrella and good to go!

For a weekday, it was surprising how many people were out and enjoying the sunny weather.

But the weather was changing quickly. We spent Tuesday night anchored behind Serenity Island - one of our favorite places to anchor.

It was still pretty windy and the rain clouds came and went. The double rainbow (second one left was very faint) was worth it - plus it never did rain on us.

And the sunset was nice to boot.


Wednesday we played tag with the rain showers that came and went most of the day.

Mostly we somehow managed to avoid them but it was getting more and more windy. Rather than anchor out again, we opted to try out the Titusville Marina - someplace we'd never been.

Nice enough marina but we didn't really explore very much - maybe next time through.

Rain and thunder storms were due in today so we were up and moving at 7 this morning. The original plan was to stop at Daytona Beach - 50 miles or 7 hours of travel.

This particular part of the ICW is one of the most boring, in my opinion. Indian River and Mosquito Lagoon are large shallow bodies of water so not much to see.

Except at Haulover Canal which connects these two bodies of water. It's the home of many manatee - we weren't disappointed as several of them were nearby the boat as we passed through the channel.

Radar on weather.com was showing the storms arriving at Daytona about the same time as us - docking in rain and high winds is never on our list of things we love so we stopped after 32 miles.

So here we sit at the free dock in New Smyrna Beach with the rain, lightening and thunder carrying on.

Definitely a good night to be tied to a dock :-)

Sunday May 11: Weary But Back - Palm Beach

Well, it wasn't the plan for today but as you know plans are made only to be changed!

It was overcast - winds were calmer than the past few days. Has a weather window opened for us today?

Boats on either side were getting ready to shove off. Quick check of the weather showed a forecast of 3 foot waves all the way from here to the Lake Worth Inlet - a change from yesterday that showed 3 - 6 feet waves near the coast.

We talked to the small boat (31 foot Sea Ray) that left yesterday and came back within 20 minutes. He agreed to give us a call on the radio when he was out of the harbor.

Of course mind you he can travel 35 mph so the trip becomes just a two hour ride for him!

But we saw no white caps with the binoculars - his call back was 3 to 4 swells. Good news for us so we also untied and took off.

I wasn't sure we were ever going to see the sign on the right :-)

It was a long 64 miles .... but we made it with no problems. Definitely one of those days when the rule is 2 hands on the boat at all times (and feet of course :-)  )

The winds were from the southeast as were the waves. We were traveling almost due west. So not the push we were looking for from the waves - actually what they did mostly was roll us around all over the place!

It is amazing to me the power of a 3 foot wave to shove this 9 ton boat around. The job of steering was a constant one as it was difficult to hold any kind of a heading.

The picture left shows the GPS when we were about 16 miles out of the inlet yet. It was nice seeing that we were truly getting closer!

The Palm Beach shoreline didn't start appearing until about 10 miles out - mostly due to the haze I'm guessing. We should have been able to see the high rises 20 miles away ... well, at least that's what the books all say :-)

I really like our little GPS - it makes it SO MUCH easier to navigate than just using paper charts like we did on Lake Erie back in the days!

FYI: a 3 foot ocean wave is NOTHING compared to a 3 foot Lake Erie wave! Give me the ocean waves anytime :-)

 A few cargo ships were spotted along the way - this one though was coming at a right angle to us.

Was I going to clear in time or not????

It wasn't an issue but for a while it was really hard to determine if I should continue on course or turn to slip behind him.

Not sure what this is though - Steve thought a natural gas tanker??

The large ship buoys at the Lake Worth Inlet were a welcome sight after  8 1/2 hours of being tossed around.

The saddest thing was that it was just to unstable for Steve to fish. He was hoping to catch a mahi-mahi while crossing over the gulf stream. So much for all of that rigged ballyhoo in our freezer for a month!!

Perhaps next time :-)

 Once in the inlet it wasn't hard to tell we were back in Florida :-) Party central on the shallow banks right off of the channel .....

Saturday May 10: Stuck in Paradise

Literally - we're stuck here in paradise. At least we like to keep in mind that there are way worse places to be stuck.

Yesterday, we cast off the lines about 8 am and headed out of the harbor. Destination? Lake Worth inlet - 60 miles away.

Waves were forecast to be 3 feet with an occasional 4. No problem as the winds and waves would be behind us and pushing us on our way west.

After 6 miles (about 40 minutes), it was clear that, once again, the forecasts were off a bit! I think it was the set of three 5 foot waves that made the decision for us ....

Turn around - tomorrow is another day to try. Who needs to plow through this for 8 hours? Somehow, the pictures just don't do justice though .....

At least we knew where to dock :-)

Back and tied up by 10:30 or so. Coming back was against the wind and waves so we had to slow down some for a more comfortable ride in.

So here we sit at the West End awaiting a chance to make the trip across the Gulf Stream. Fortunately we don't have any deadlines which really helps.

The best thing about going out was that we didn't sit here in the harbor (where the wind is not blowing as hard) thinking 'we should have gone'.

Our decision to turn back was confirmed by the folks in a 52 foot Sea Ray and a 40 foot Sea Ray that came over from Port St. Lucie.

They said it was TERRIBLE. Of course they were going into the wind and waves so it would have been even worse than the waters we were in..

Sounded like it was 5 and 6 footers most of the way - in particular in the gulf stream. That I don't need :-)

The TV broke off the wall, glasses broke and indicative of the worst: the toilet seat broke off from being bounced up and down so much as the boat went over a wave and crashed into the bottom of the next one. But they had been waiting 4 days ....

So we're willing to be patient. Slight chance of tomorrow but most likely Thursday.

That's ok - like I said if you have to be stuck somewhere it might as well be in paradise :-)

Thursday May 8: West End - Revisited

Wednesday morning we pulled out of Allans-Pensacola and continued to head West. The plan was to travel 45 miles to Rosie's Place on Grand Keys.

The sky was cloudless, the sun hot and the water calm with ripples. Perfect day to travel.

And of course the fishing poles were out! For a long time - nothing. Several hits but it would either be a small fish of some sort or a half eaten ballyhoo bait. I can't figure out how a fish can bite these rigged ballyhoo in half and not get hooked.



Finally though - a real strike and a REAL fish!

This is a mutton snapper - great for eating. All 7 pounds, 26 inches of it! Crazy thing was HUGE.



Steve's foot in the picture on the right is approximately 12 inches long. Gives you some sense of the size of this fish.

How's that for a snapper, Dave and Joyce?!!

We arrived at Rosie's Place in the Grand Cays - one of the northernmost cays on the western end of the Little Bahama Bank. I'm not sure how to describe this place though - maybe just leave it at "interesting."

There is basically one street, one bar, one restaurant, one marina and a hundred thousand sea gulls that squawked at each other from sunup to sundown - literally. It was a sensory overload from the cries of "mine, mine" :-)

There was a defunct barbecue place that looked like it was fun at some point in time. Most of this harbor seems to revolve around the fishing in the area as these cays sit right on the ocean side so there is easy access to the deep sea fishing.

A huge eagle ray was gliding around by the boat any number of time - along with several large bull sharks. Apparently they come in to feed when the fish caught for the day are cleaned.

Once the sun set and the seagulls quieted down, we were set for the night. We finally had a chance to talk with the folks on the catamaran that has been anchored near us for the past couple of nights.

They are also headed for the West End and then back to Florida. The trip to the Bahamas is an every-other year for them as they move their boat back and forth from here to New Hampshire.

And that is a LONG way by boat.

Steve got us moving early - the water level under the boat was reading 3'7" and was going to go lower. Get out while we can!! Mmmm... which way was the way in? Thank goodness for charts and GPS plotters.

It was 7 hours with nothing in sight for most of the time. A total of 58 miles to the West End. It continues to amaze me that anyone can make any kind of a living at some these really isolated cays at the north end of the bank.

Walker's Cay (next cay west from Grand Cays) used to have a marina and dive business but that was wiped out in a hurricane in the mid-2000's and has never been rebuilt. Some of the 200 people living on the Grand Cays used to work there. Now what do they do?

All was quiet until I heard the fishing pole line with it's distinctive "zing" as it plays out line. Lots of it. Big fish. Really big barracuda with really big teeth.

Can't eat them but Steve still enjoyed catching it!

And then he discovered the other line had gotten wrapped in the prop while we were being tossed around while he pulled the giant fish in!

Oops .... this of course waited until we were in and tied up to the dock. Definitely not smart to be under the boat as it's being pushed up, down and sideways by the waves.

As it was, he had to get the snuba stuff out to be able to cut everything away from the prop and the shaft. It's a really strong metal leader and needed a wire cutter to get it all off.

The West End finally appeared over the horizon but it seemed as though we would never get there!

The winds were still strong from the east with waves of two feet or so pushing us around.

It was going to be good to be in and tied up :-)