Calabash Creek Anchorage anxiety

Diann and I have made good progress as we have traveled from St. Augustine Florida to Myrtle Beach South Carolina.  Travel days, left,  are just four- until we make it back to New Bern. Yesterday we pulled off the Georgetown Landing Docks at 6:30AM and made it to Calabash Creek anchorage at north Myrtle Beach.   After setting out 100 feet …

Melbourne FL anchorage basin

We arrived on schedule for the City Marina in Vero Beach.  After a $17 Lyft ride back from Walmart we took showers and went to Riverside Café’ for dinner.  The next morning YachtaFun had an oil change and left Vero Beach for Melbourne. A weather system in the Texas / Louisiana area was to impact Florida weather.  It began as …

Boat Project- dinghy chap repair

Yesterday Diann spent the day with Sunbrella sewing projects- making new items; repairing older items; and shortening a cockpit gear bag. This morning she is removing seam threads in preparation for replacing worn and torn fabric on the sides of our dinghy’s protective chaps.  UV radiation takes its toll on rubber.  The chaps reduce the rate of ultimate failure of …

Avoiding weekend boaters in Florida

Every waterway community has inexperienced and/or rude boat drivers.  “What’s a right of way”, they may ask.  Or they may say to friends on board, “big wakes give small boats a challenge- so let’s blast by ‘em.”   Florida has many people and many boats.  The amount of boat traffic is dense in areas such as Hollywood, Jupiter Inlet, Stuart, and …

Lake Sylvia dinghy landing

Lake Sylvia, in Ft. Lauderdale is just off the ICW.  There isn’t a dinghy landing spot- so you need to go elsewhere to go ashore.  The most direct route is to go under West Lake Drive, which  has bridges with very low clearances.  At high tide there is just enough room for a dinghy trip under the concrete spans.  We’re …

Lake Sylvia at Ft. Lauderdale

We were early to arrive at Lake Sylvia on Thursday.  Since weekend travelers, and local folks, were few- we were able to pick an anchor spot close to our one back in February.  Hopefully holding will be as good as then. The “lake” is close to marinas and so gaining fuel via 5 gallon jerry-jugs is pretty easy.  The process …

Smooth Ocean Water

Having turned tail on Sunday from heavy seas at Miami’s Governors Cut- we returned to Biscayne Bay to wait for smoother conditions for heading north.  The wait was worth it.  Thursday morning Biscayne Bay was almost glasslike.  No time during our 2015 / 2019 visits (totaling 3+ months) did we have such smooth conditions.  Generally there is always some chop, …

Travel Plan evolution

It’s Tuesday in the Dinner Key mooring field.  Having aborted our coastal departure on Sunday, we’ve been here since.  Based on the Sunday afternoon NOAA forecasts, leaving Wednesday was to be with 2 ft seas and straight forward.  But, now that has seriously changed upward. Regarding departure- there’s this holding tank thing.  It’s now been eight days since our Key …

John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park

Diann and I had enjoyed Coconut Grove in south Miami.  And, we wanted to remain in Florida for a tad longer.  But, we didn’t really want to add the extra 3 or 4 days necessary to visit Key West- because once there we would have to return.  So, we decided to go off shore to Key Largo- a one day …

Offshore Experience with wave height

Our Gemini catamaran, YachtaFun, can handle seas that have waves of over five feet- if the period between waves is long.  But, the wave periods on our most recent two outings (from crest to crest) seemed to have been in the three second to 4 second interval.  Small waves aren’t too bad.  You get a bit of bounce, like choppy …