Leg 32 - Melbourne Anchorage / Coconut Point
It was a nice morning and we had a simple breakfast as we prepared to get underway for the first time in quite a while. With a light breeze from the east southeast, we removed the slack lines and devised a plan to remove the taught ones. Finally, Sue cast off the final line as I gently motored out of the slip into the fairway. We turned back around to the fuel dock to visit the pump out before finally heading back out onto the ICW. Once underway we were enjoying being back out of the water. We were heading south to get to our southern most port of this year's ICW trip - Fort Pierce to visit with a friend. It was a pleasant day motoring in the warm sun and chilly shade. We arrived at Melbourne Anchorage with plenty of daylight to spare and decided to continue further south to lesson the trip tomorrow and finally picked a point called Coconut Point. We picked our spot in the almost empty anchorage area and dropped the anchor. Unfortunately it didn’t catch so we went around again and tried a second time. This time it caught and we deployed about 70’ of chain. I released the ‘down’ button on the controls and the anchor windlass started pulling the chain back in. There was nothing I could do to make it stop so I ran down below and turned off the windlass at the breaker. Then I returned to the anchor where we had almost all of the chain recovered. I manually deployed enough chain and then hooked the anchor bridle and settled down to trouble shoot what was going on. After a few hours and taking many things apart and trying many different solutions I gave up and stopped to have a cocktail and then dinner. The celebratory dinner of grilled steak, asparagus, and sautéed onions and potatoes hit the spot. We sat in the cockpit watching our new surroundings until about 10 pm when we went down below to be.
Leg 33 - Coconut Point to Fort Pierce
We were up early to get a decent breakfast before I had to go out and manually retrieve the 100’ of chain and my oversized anchor. The weather was a bit warm but still cool enough for some exercise. I communicated over our headphones with Sue to give directions as to when and where to move. Eventually we tugged the anchor free from the bottom and out of the water. But, I was unable to pull it past the swivel using the handle on the anchor windlass. So I grabbed the anchor float line (you remember, Bobbie?) and after a dozen tries I was able to grunt the anchor aboard. In this process I inadvertently knocked the boat hook overboard. Rats. I cleaned up the area, stowed everything in the anchor locker and returned to the cockpit where Sue was confidently motoring us back into the ICW and heading south towards Fort Pierce. I rested a while until I got my wind back. It was another nice partly cloudy day with winds still coming from the East Southeast and a small choppy waves. Boat traffic heading north was steadily increasing as were the very large boats with very large wakes. Not many slow down as they do further north in the ICW. As Sue was motoring along I went below to order the part I believed is not functioning in the anchor windlass electrical system. West Marine had 0 in all their stores country wide and 6 in an east coast warehouse. After being on hold for quite some time I finally spoke with someone who was able to release one for me and ship it priority overnight to the marina. That solved, for now, I went topside to enjoy the rest of the trip to the marina. We arrived at the Fort Pierce North bridge for the opening on demand but apparently that has changed as we had to wait about 25 minutes for the next opening. No problem, we will just go around in circles until they are ready. The opening time arrived and we squirted through and headed on the final mile or so to the marina. They put us on a long pier where all we had to do was gently motor up and let the wind push us into place. We took time and cleaned up and then my friend Grace came down to visit with us. We went to dinner nearby the marina and caught up since the last time we met. We also planned tomorrows events around the impending delivery of the part. After dinner we relaxed and then called it a night.
This is Friday. Since we still haven’t left I can update yesterday, Thursday, for you now. Well, the part never came. Grace came to the marina and drove us to some stores where we could get some items we forgot before. Also we stopped by West Marine to get a new boat hook (let’s see, that is about the 4th one in 6 years….) as well as take the opportunity to see if the manager could help expedite the part. He could not. Apparently West Marine was bought by another company at the end of last year and they are upgrading their systems. He was unable to help. We had a late lunch at the historic Waldo’s restaurant on Hutcheson Island in Vero Beach FL. It was a great place and we had a table overlooking the beach. We then did some more shopping while checking out the area. Finally we had a stop at Grace’s home and were greeted cheerfully by her two rescue dogs. They were such wonderful dogs to be around. All this time I kept calling the marina with no luck. Finally we headed back to the marina to be there before they closed (around 6PM) with once again, a negative answer. We parted with Grace as she went home to prepare for a visit with family members. We relaxed on the boat and went to bed. Hopefully the part arrives today so that I can install and test. I am still not absolutely sure this is the issue but it was the last piece of the system that would make sense. Time shall tell. You might hear me scream if it doesn’t work.