Monday February 25th
Before turning in the night before we reviewed the guidebook, charts, and weather forecast for the next day as has become our nightly routine the past 20 days or so. They say it takes 21 days to effectively break or start a habit, so I wonder if Diane and I will now find ourselves planning the next days activities each night before we go to bed for now on.
The forecast for Monday was ‘iffy’. Clear skies but high winds out on the open water as a Nor’ Easter was approaching the area. Unfortunately, although Monday was ‘iffy’ the next couple of days were ‘sketchy’ at best as rain was forecasted to move into the area as well.
On a positive note, if we did decide to leave in the morning we would have a very favorable tide & current situation. We’d be leaving the marina right at low tide with a ‘slack’ current. The slack current is that period when the water stops just before it changes between an ebb or flood tide. This would be particularly beneficial as the currents near the Ft. Pierce inlet just outside the marina can reach speeds of up to 3 knots or about half our overall speed. This slack period only lasts a half hour or so and then the water begins to flow again and the currents pick up strength.
Low tide was at just after 9 am on Monday so if we left at the ideal window of 9 am +/- 30 minutes, we would not have to deal with any current leaving the narrow entrance of the marina, and then would have a favorable flood tide as we travel down to Stuart. But there would be high winds to deal with.
Needless to say, we had a lot on our minds when we turned in Sunday evening.
When we woke in the morning it appeared that unfortunately the weathermen had indeed gotten the initial part of their forecast for the week correct. The winds were beginning to pick up. We walked out to the end of the marina so that we could get a good view of the harbor and Indian River and were surprised to see the river relatively calm despite the breeze. What to do?
We ate breakfast, looked again at the forecast for the rest of the week and saw that the weather was not supposed to improve for several days and would in fact be getting worse as the week went on.
The sun was shining, the slack period was approaching, and the winds didn’t feel that bad so we decided to quickly clean up from breakfast, untie our lines, and head on down to Stuart.
As we left the marina, transited the short but narrow channel, and entered the Indian River we were blessed with a moderate breeze coming from behind, no real waves to speak of, and sunshine. It looked like we had made the right decision. We only had just over 20 miles to go.
The next 3 hours flew by and the favorable conditions held up. We actually put out one of our sails to get a little extra push and to take advantage of the breeze. The combination of the flood tide and breeze helped push Eos along at just over 7 knots for most of the trip south. What a pleasant passage for the last day of this trip. Boats traveling up the river against the wind and current didn’t look like they were having as much fun!
We left the ICW at mile 986 just before noon and headed up the St. Lucie inlet and then made a quick left into Manatee Pocket (more like manatee creek). We only had a mile to go. Unfortunately since Manatee Pocket is such a small creek there isn’t much detail provided in the guide book or charts to provide direction. We followed the channel markers, had google maps going on the iphone as an alternative to our chart plotter, and were on the other phone talking to the guys at the boat yard to confirm we were headed in the right direction.
They helped guide us in and just when we thought the creek couldn’t get any narrower, we were instructed to make another right turn and head up into a small canal. The canal wasn’t much wider than 75 to 100 feet (narrower than the Dismal swamp canal we traveled at the beginning of the trip) AND there were boats tied up on each side of the canal. Fortunately we did not meet any on coming traffic and finally reached Mack Yacht Services small boat yard.
We got Eos positioned into her slip, threw the lines to the guys on shore, and tied Eos up. We docked at just after 1230.
After almost 1200 miles and 20 days we finally reached our destination. It was a great journey and we learned a lot about ourselves and the boat as we traveled and were blessed with great weather and safe passage throughout.
Now all we had to do was remove literally everything from the boat and put it in a storage trailer so that the contractor could begin to prep the boat and start the work.
Zionsail 