April 24^th & 25^th

We planned an early departure on Tuesday so we could cover the 40 miles from Vero to Melbourne and arrive sometime shortly after noon.  The water in the anchorage was like glass and no one else was moving as we made our way from the mooring ball to the fuel dock at the municipal marina.  We didn’t need fuel, but did need to pay the dockmaster the fee for our mooring.  The office opened at 7 am, and we tied up just after 7, paid for our mooring and untied our lines and Diane took the helm and steered us off the pier and into the channel without incident.  I then went below and fixed a breakfast of avocado toast, bacon, and scrambled eggs for us to enjoy while motoring north.

There wasn’t much current either way as we headed north and cruised at a leisurely 5 knots.  It was interesting as we headed north on the Indian River that some of the sites were actually looking familiar from our trip south in February. 

This portion of the river is lined with many small barrier islands. Some of them appear to be several acres in size, while others have eroded away to not much bigger than a small bump the size of a parking spot.  Pelicans and other water fowl use the islands as rookeries …. nesting and hatching.  As we passed one island we could see what appeared to be hundreds of birds nesting. We never get tired of observing the scenery.

Just we before noon we still had about another hour to go before we reached Melbourne and the breeze pick up enough for us to let the jib out and motor sail for a while.  With the jib out we picked up an additional ½  to ¾ knot of boat speed, which meant it would probably only take us another 45 minutes to reach the marina.

We arrived at Melbourne Harbor Marina shortly after 1:30, and called our friends to let them know we had arrived in town.  They live in nearby Palm Bay so it was a short ride over to see us.  We spent the afternoon showing them EOS, visiting on board, and then grabbed some appetizers at the dockside restaurant.  We then spent the evening exploring the town.

On Thursday morning we did some more boat chores (washing the boat and changing the oil) in the morning and then got to spend the afternoon with Diane’s aunt and uncle along with one of their grandsons. We had a great time showing them the boat, catching up, and another great meal.  We’re are going to need more time exploring ashore to burn off some of these calories.

Later in the afternoon an 80’ powerboat (Vickie B) tied up to the slip next to us.  We spent some time chatting with the crew and it turns out they have been stopping at all the same ports we have along their way from West Palm Beach to North Carolina.  They spent a day at the same marina in Stuart, then stopped at the same marina in Vero Beach, tied up next to us here in Melbourne, and then will be stopping in Titusville tomorrow which is most likely where we will stop.  They are simply covering the distance a little quicker than we are and I would guess at a slightly higher cost per mile than too!

April 23^rd to 24th

It had been a perfect weekend and the sailing on Monday was a great way to finish off our time in Stuart. It is a lovely town with lots of neat little shops, great restaurants, and just a charming atmosphere.  It is on our list of places we want to return to in future trips south and we would definitely recommend it as a place to visit – even if you don’t come by boat.

As much as we liked the area, it was time for us to start heading north again, but unlike the trip south, we intend to take it at a slower place, not push the daily distance so much, and actually make time to stop at some of the towns.  So, shortly after 10 am we untied the mooring line, motored out into the channel, and called the bridge tender on the radio to request an opening so we could head south. Yep, we had to first head south a few miles back down the St. Lucie River before we made left turn in the inlet and could actually head north.

We re-entered the ICW at 12:30 and started making our way towards Vero Beach, Fl.  It felt strange leaving town and being back on the ICW, but it didn’t take too long to re-adjust. Now that we were back on the ICW we had to keep one eye on the chart, one eye on the channel markers, and one or more eyes out for boats …. Good thing there are two of us on board!

As we headed north to Vero we had favorable currents for the first part of the day and were easily making between 5 and 6 knots, but for the last two hours the current was against us and we struggled to make over 4 knots. Despite the contrary currents, it was a beautiful day on the water. 

Our guide book mentioned that Vero Beach had a nice municipal marina and mooring field that was well protected and close enough to walk into town. Since we were going to be arriving after the office closed (6pm) we called ahead to make a reservation.

We ended up grabbing a mooring ball around 6:30, quickly cleaned up the boat, and dinghied to shore so we could walk into town.  The walk to the beach was just over a mile, but majority of our walk was through an older neighborhood down street that was lined with live oak trees draped with Spanish moss on both sides of the street. The trees provided plenty of shade and often were the central feature in these beautifully landscaped lawns and gardens.  We actually didn’t stay too long at the beach because we couldn’t wait to walk through the neighborhood and live oaks more!

We got back on the boat just after sunset, made a light dinner, and spent a little bit of time star gazing.

April 19^th – 22^nd

The meteorologist were predicting heavy rain and strong winds for most of Friday followed by beautiful weather for the rest of Easter weekend so we were prepared to spend most of Friday hunkered down in the boat doing a few chores and then finally have some time to start reading some of the books we had brought down with us. Well, we were both only partially correct.

There wasn’t too much rain on Friday, and although we were treated to a great lightening storm in the evening, the remainder of the weekend was absolutely beautiful.  Clear skies, a light breeze, and temperatures in the high 70’s to low 80’s – perfect Florida weather.  We did manage to get our chores done on Friday, but they ended up taking longer than planned and we never got around to cracking open a book.

Saturday morning we took the dinghy out and went exploring the river and the shoreline.  We were gone for over two hours … it was great to have the dinghy (and motor) so that we could really cover some ground. When we returned to the boat shortly before noon it was obvious that our ‘quiet’ little anchorage in Peck Lake wasn’t going to be ‘quiet’ much longer.  The anchorage and beach were quickly filling up with weekend boaters looking for a nice place to spend the weekend. In the span of less than 15 minutes, at least 3 to 4 large powerboats (over 50’ each) pulled in and dropped anchor. 

We finished a quick lunch, pulled up our anchor, and headed back to Stuart.

Although the anchorage was getting crowded, the real reason we were leaving was to get back and be near a town so that we could attend Easter services on Sunday.  We had thought about possibly skipping church on Sunday and coming up with our own devotional time but both us really wanted to be in church worshipping and celebrating with others.  So back to Stuart we went.

We ended up grabbing a ‘mooring’ at Sunset Bay Marina (www.Sunsetbaymarinaandanchorage.com) in Stuart.  The marina has both slips and moorings.  Slips are basically a designated space on the dock or pier that you tie your boat to. The pier/dock is connected to the shore and once you tie your boat up you walk to shore.  A mooring is basically a permanent anchor that has been placed in the harbor along with a float and a line.  You pull your boat up to the mooring, grab the line off the float, and tie it to your boat and your firmly secured.  However, since you’re anchored and attached to a mooring, not a dock, you can’t just walk to shore, you need to swim, row, paddle, or motor you dinghy to shore before you can walk.  While not as convenient as being in a slip, it costs significantly less to rent a mooring compared to a slip.  Besides, we now have a dinghy with a motor and don’t mind motoring back and forth.

We spent a little time Saturday evening searching the internet for churches in the area and found First United Methodist Church (FUMC) of Stuart. Since we attend Zion United Methodist Church back in York, we figured we’d be comfortable with the service.  When we saw they had a Sunrise Service we knew this was the one for us. 

We grabbed an Uber shortly after 6am on Sunday and attended a beautiful Sunrise Service.  Immediately following the service, the church hosted a full breakfast. We ended up having breakfast with their pastor and decided to stick around for the traditional Easter service at 8 am.

After church we walked back to the marina, changed our clothes, and dinghied back to shore to go exploring the town of Stuart on bikes.  The marina has about a half dozen or so ‘courtesy bikes’ that you can borrow to ride into town, run errands, or just go exploring.  So exploring we went.  Diane liked looking at the shops but the highlight of the afternoon for me was the ice cream stop.  Nothing like two scoops of fresh ice cream to cap off a great day!

Another reason we had wanted to return to Stuart was so that we could host some friends on Monday and take them out for a sail. Earlier in the month we had visited them on the Gulf coast and had a great time seeing their new home and town.  So it was only fitting that once we got EOS back that they come over for a visit.

We were blessed with cool weather, clear skies, and a fresh breeze …. Perfect sailing weather! We spent several hours on the water sailing up the north branch of the St. Lucie river. We then spent some time walking around town and had a nice dinner before they had to head back home.  They were both quick learners on the water and did a fantastic job sailing EOS …. Looks like we found some potential future crew members to help us take EOS over the Bahamas next fall!

Thursday April 18^th

We spent last evening finishing up loading all the remaining gear back on board and checked into a hotel for one last evening shortly before 11pm.  We were up and checkout by 5 am so that we could swing by the grocery store and pick up all the fresh food items, load the coolers with ice, and get everything on board before the contractors came on for the final walk through.

It has been almost 7 weeks since we turned EOS over to the contractors and all the work is finally complete.  They were able to address all the items we had on our initial list and then some, and we couldn’t be happier with the results.  EOS is now ready to once again set sail and we’re excited to see where together we end up exploring. 

Since the area where EOS has been docked is rather shallow, we wanted to make sure we left as close to high tide as we could.  High tide today is at 9:24 am so leaving anytime between 7:30 to 11:30 was our target.

We ended up casting off the dock lines at right around 10 am and headed south for a short ‘shake down’ cruise.  We wanted to travel south a few hours and then spend a day or two anchored out so we truly get the boat organized and really check out the new systems and other improvements.  That way, if any issues arose, we would be relatively close by, could easily return to the boat yard, and get anything addressed before heading north later next week.

On our trip south I did notice that our It has been almost 7 weeks since we turned EOS over to the contractors and all the work is finally complete.  They were able to address all the items we had on our initial list and then some, and we couldn’t be happier with the results.  EOS is now ready to once again set sail and we’re excited to see where together we end up exploring.  fan belt was occasionally squealing for a minute or so when we would start the engine and then it would get quiet.  I did check the adjustment to make sure it was tight but didn’t really check for any abnormal wear.

Around noon on Thursday as we were heading to our anchorage the high temperature alarm on the engine went off.  Just like when your oil light goes on in your car, the proper thing to do is to quickly find a safe spot to stop and then stop your engine. So we quickly moved EOS to the edge of the channel, drop an anchor and shut the engine down so we could investigate what was the possible cause.

Our engine is primarily cooled by water and the most common cause for an overheating engine is a loss of cooling water. The first and typically easiest item to check is the strainer that keeps grass, seaweed, and other marine growth from being ingested into the engine.  I say ‘typically easiest’ because we ‘typically’ keep our back cabin empty and access to the strainer is located there. Unfortunately our back cabin is currently serving as our storage area for all the bins and other items we brought down  for the refit. So we had to quickly unload the cabin to gain access and verify that the strainer was clear. It was.

The next point of failure is the impellor or little rubber wheel that is part of the water pump.  As the pump turns, the impellor rotates and pulls the water from the strainer and then pushes it through the engine.  Over time the blades on the impellor can wear or break off and when that happens, the pump isn’t pumping water through the engine. So we opened up the impellor to check and all the blades were intact and looked good.

So that brings us to that squealing fan belt. Once I really examined it, it didn’t take long to see that the belt was really worn to the point it probably wasn’t turning the pump very well.  Fortunately we carry spares for many of the common items that will likely fail or break on the boat. The fan belt is one of those items.  So we grabbed the spare belt, replaced it, set the proper adjustment and restarted the engine.  It was a successful repair …. We had water flowing out of the exhaust hose as expected and the engine temperature remained in normal operating range… we were back in business.

We motored a few more miles south and ended up anchoring in Peck’s Lake which is just off the waterway.  After making sure the anchor was set, we put the dinghy in the water and motored over to the beach. 

We enjoyed a nice walk along the beach and then headed back to the boat for dinner and enjoyed a glass of champagne to celebrate getting EOS back and getting back on the water.

Monday April 15th

We weren’t able to fully put all our gear back on EOS as there was one final job being completed, and for that job the crew needed access to the cabinets and lockers on the port (left) side of the boat.

The last job being finished was updating a few of the components for our navigation system.  Like computers and other electronic gadgets, the technology and operating systems are continually being updated and improved. The systems on EOS were quickly becoming dated and weren’t capable of taking advantage of newer technology like WIFI and Bluetooth. So we decided to update our navigation system as well to finally bring EOS into the 21^st century. 

Completing that work was going to take another day or two so we needed to find something to do to occupy our time so we decided to go boat shopping!

During our return trip home we want to be able to spend some more time exploring the various towns and waterways that we will pass through.  Since we will mainly be anchoring out rather than staying in marinas on the way back north we need to have a way to get to shore.  Our current options are to either swim ashore or row. Swimming really isn’t an option if we plan on staying ashore for dinner and while rowing does work, we’re limited in the distance we can reasonably cover. Also, next fall when we head south again we really do need a small dinghy with an outboard motor so we can explore the various beaches, ride into town to go shopping, etc.  We found a good deal on a used dinghy that was too good to pass up so we decided to buy another boat!

We spent Tuesday afternoon exploring Manatee Pocket via the water while the contractors finished the last bit of work on the boat.

We’ll be underway soon.

When we arrived in Stuart to check up the boat, it became obvious that they still had a little more work to do to finish putting everything back in place.  This actually turned into good news for us, as we had some friends on the gulf coast of Florida and some more in Alabama that we had been wanting to reconnect with so this delay gave us time to do that. 

We made a few phone calls, packed our stuff in the rental car, and headed west. That’s not 100% accurate. We packed up the rental ‘truck’, not a rental ‘car.’  Given we’ve considered getting a truck once the van finally expires, we decided this would be a great time to try one out and drive it around for a few days to see if we like it or not.  While making the online reservation we selected a Ford F150 ‘or similar’ for our model selection.  The F150’s are full sized trucks and most likely the size we’d buy. When we showed up to pick up the truck, the one they had available was a Dodge 1500 ‘Big Horn’ edition with a 5.7 Hemi engine!  Much more truck and engine than we’d ever buy, but it would be a fun ride for a few days.

We enjoyed several days over in the Port Charlotte area catching up with friends and then headed up to Alabama for the weekend to visit more friends. Catching up and sharing time with friends is always fun and we are so blessed and thankful to have the time to visit, reconnect, and create new shared experiences to keep the friendships alive.

From Alabama, we returned to Stuart to again check on the boat. 

More waiting ….

Without getting to technical or going into too many details, the initial work we were having done on the boat was similar in scope to removing your kitchen cabinets and then the drywall in your home to expose nothing but the studs and replacing some items buried deep behind the cabinets.  While they had what was essentially the drywall removed, there were a few other items we wanted them to address as well. And as with any major home improvement project there are often some ‘discoveries’ along the way that you either need to decide to correct or just to live with.  We elected to have the items corrected now rather than later so this has added some time to project.

Since they needed a few more days to complete the work, we again loaded the truck up and decided to head up to Cape Canaveral and visit the NASA & the Kennedy Space Center.  We found out that there was actually going to be a rocket launch taking place while we were there, so we purchased passes to view the launch from the Space Center. The launch ended up getting delayed a day, but since we were still waiting for the boat to be finished, we had the time to hang around for another day. 

Seeing the launch from less than 4 miles away was really special. We able to feel the rumble as the rocket finally launched and could see the rocket boosters come back to earth after separation.

The specific rocket that was launching was a SpaceX Falcon Heavy and it was delivering a new communications satellite for customer in the middle east. Most, if not all, the rocket launches today are actually commercial projects and not NASA projects.  There are apparently a few private companies that are getting into the rocket business and SpaceX is one of them.  In addition to developing the capability to launch the rockets, SpaceX has developed the capability to have the main rocket components return and be reused for future missions, thus saving millions of dollars in cost.  Once separated from the satellite delivery portion of the craft, the rockets actually ‘flew’ back to the earth and ‘landed’ on recovery pads. Two of the rockets landed back at Kennedy Air Force Base a few miles from the Space Center, and one landed on a drone ship that was stationed several hundred miles off the coast. We obviously couldn’t see the third rocket land, but did get to see the first two return.  Truly amazing.

Next up after the rocket launch was a trip to Tallahassee Florida to visit Diane’s brother and wife. Tallahassee is the home to Florida State University and Florida’s capital, so there is definitely alot going on there.  It’s a beautiful town and we really enjoyed our visit and time there.

We returned to Stuart later in the weekend and were ready to finally start putting our gear back onto EOS. The contractor’s clean-up crew did a nice job cleaning up and making the boat look like they had never been there. While everything was still off the boat we decided to take the opportunity to do an additional deep clean and then re-oil all the woodwork and cabinets to make them really shine.

Once that was completed, we finally began to put our gear back on the boat. We’d be sailing again in just a few days.

If you want to see great pictures or a video of the launch check out the SpaceX website … we were too busy and excited watching it live that we didn’t take any pictures!

We’ve been very busy since we left EOS and made our last entry back on 26 February, so we thought we’d catch you all up to date.

We left EOS on the 26^th and remained in Stuart for a few more days exploring the area and then headed home for a few weeks while the contractor started working on the boat.  Shortly after arriving home we were greeted by 4 to 5 inches of snow!

The next few weeks flew by as we spent time visiting with friends, taking care of a few household chores, and doing our taxes. I also needed to go back into work and ‘officially’ retire.

We got word from our contractor that the boat should be finished and ready for us to pick up by the first week of April so now we needed to figure out how we wanted to get back down to Florida. Do we fly and rent a car once we arrive or do we drive down and visit family and friends along the way? If we did drive down what would we do with our car once we got it down there? One option we considered was to drive our 2006 minivan down, keep it until it was time to start sailing again, and then donate it or give it away.  With over 220,000 miles, a sagging headliner, and some duck tape on the front fender it probably wouldn’t be worth much in a trade…. but it’s paid for, runs well, and we’re able to haul a ton of stuff in her ….. besides, if we did leave it in Florida, then we’d need to get a new car once we got home, only to leave it sitting in the driveway over the winter while we’re cruising again. What to do? Aren’t choices wonderful?

We eventfully decided against leaving the car down there and my parents volunteered to drive us down and to go on a little adventure of their own. They were up for the trip, but didn’t really want to drive straight through (neither did we) so we broke the 12 to 14 hour drive up into several shorter legs of only a few hundred miles a day. Compared to the 50 to 60 miles a day we covered traveling down in the boat, covering 300 to 400 miles seemed like we were traveling at some space aged hyper speed!

The trip down was great.  We got to stop in Winston-Salem to see our daughter and son-in-law for an evening and had Kranky’s famous chicken biscuits for breakfast.  We then stopped in Brunswick, Ga just south of Savanna for the night. We found a great little local restaurant and enjoyed fresh seafood and Brunswick stew while overlooking a marina and the river. 

After Brunswick, we stopped in St Mary’s Florida just outside of Orlando to visit with my aunt and our Florida cousins.  We had a great time and really enjoyed catching up with everyone.

We arrived back in Stuart on April 1^st.  My parents spent a few days with us and got to visit one of dad’s old college teammates who lives in the area before they headed back north for the rest of their adventure.  We picked up a rental car and started making plans for the next few days since we found out ‘it would be just a little longer before the boat was ready.’

Tuesday 26 February

After a long afternoon of packing on Monday, we moved off the boat and into a room at a small local hotel right on the St. Lucie River and right across the street from the railroad tracks. (Harbor Inn and Marina if you want to google it). We needed to get a room rather than stay on the boat for several reasons.

With all the gear getting staged for packing the boat itself was quickly becoming more and more cluttered and less and less inhabitable as the hours went on.  Additionally, this boat yard is currently just that – a yard along the canal without any facilities other than a place to tie the boat. The contractor had recently purchased the lot so that his customers could have a place to leave their boats and his crew perform the work on several boats without having to travel from marina to marina.  He is in the process of renovating the lot and will eventually have a small office, a work building, and restrooms.  For now though, none of that exists on site.  So they really don’t want owners living on their boats there yet.

We were picking up a rental car later in the afternoon so that we could explore the area for a few days once we finished packing everything up.  We did get to take our first ‘Uber’ in the morning from the hotel to the boat yard since our car rental didn’t start until after noon.

We’ll spare you the details of the unpacking, but it did take us until Tuesday evening to get everything removed from the boat and properly stored in the trailer.

We’re going to spend the next few days exploring Stuart and the surrounding area and then fly back north on Saturday.  We’ll be leaving Eos here for almost a month to get the work complete.

Our plans for the end of the month are not even close to being firmed up yet, but we’re thinking we’ll probably start our trip back down a week or two early and visit some friends and family as we travel south again. This time at a slightly higher rate of speed so that we can spend more time visiting with friends and family along the way!

After that we’ll pick Eos back up, put all the gear back on and then start our next adventure.

Stay tuned. We’ll start updating the blog again towards the end of March.  In the meantime, thanks for all your prayers and support along the way. We are truly blessed to have such a great family and group of friends following us along and praying for our safe passage.

God bless.

.…… How to pack up a boat ….

Monday February 25^th

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. 

Sunday 24 February

With two days to cover the remaining 86 miles to Stuart we knew we could take our time and enjoy a little more of a leisurely pace.  I know some of you may be thinking you can’t get any more leisurely than only traveling 60 to 70 miles a day, but hopefully by now you’ve come to understand the time and effort it takes to cover that distance each day in a sailboat. 

We could not have asked for better weather for a Sunday outing. The sun was shining and the temperature would be in the mid to upper 80’s throughout most of the day. It was a great day to be on the water.

Apparently lots of other people had the same idea as we did. The waterway throughout the day was filled with lots of boats of all types – mega yachts, speed boats, jet skis, and even some other sailboats. It was great to see other people out enjoying this weather, but it did make travel through some of the narrow passages a little tricky.

When a powerboat is traveling at almost any speed other than just above idle, say 4 to 6 knots (about our speed), their movement through the water creates some pretty big waves.  This is called their ‘wake’. Depending on how fast the boat is going and how big it is, a powerboat or even a jet ski can create a fairly big wake. When these larger waves reach the shore they accelerate the erosion of the shoreline and can also cause damage to docks or other boats. 

In environmentally sensitive areas speed is restricted to ‘no wake’, meaning you need to be moving slowly enough that you don’t create waves.  In many developed areas there will be signs posted along the shore or at the end of the docks reminding boaters that they are responsible for any damage caused by their wake.  Some people have even gone as far as installing cameras at the end of their docks to record the passing boats in an attempt to encourage boaters to go slower.

Eos doesn’t create much of a wake at all so we don’t really have to be concerned with generating a damaging wake.  We do however need to be mindful of the effect other boats wakes have on us.  When a powerboat passes on basically a parallel course, the waves reach Eos on her side or beam and this causes the boat to roll from side to side.  Again, depending on the size of the wake, the rolling motion can be uncomfortable and actually cause things to move around down below and even fall off the shelves or out of cabinets. 

If the wake is big enough and we have room & time to maneuver we will try to turn Eos into the wake so that we cross it ‘head-on’.  This up and down, or pitching, motion is more comfortable and creates considerably less havoc down below. So throughout the day we were constantly turning Eos off her intended course and into the wakes of passing boats.

Although not a legal or regulatory requirement, it is common courtesy for a powerboat to slow down as it passes a sailboat, or other smaller craft like a canoe or kayak. By slowing down the wake is much smaller. As with anything that is ‘common courtesy’ some people exercise it regularly while others don’t.

We always appreciated and tried to acknowledge with a wave and a smile those boaters that did slow down as they passed. For those that didn’t we tried not to expend any energy educating or reminding them of their lack of courtesy, but rather continued on just thankful that we are out making this trip as we were rolled from side to side.

This section of the ICW takes you down Florida’s Indian River. Throughout the river there are many small barrier islands.  Most of these islands are not inhabited and our guide book pointed out that several of them are rookeries for various species of the pelicans we’d been seeing the last few days.

With this being a weekend, we would often see boats pulled up to the island and people fishing or camping for the weekend.

As motored along and dodged wakes of passing boats we were again treated to beautiful scenery and a generally peaceful passage.

Our destination for the day was Fort Pierce and we had booked a slip at the city marina so we could get cleaned up and fill up Eos’ tanks.  We reached the marina shortly before 5. Filled up with water and ice, and enjoyed a dinner of mahi-bites and conch fritters!

We had reached ICW mile 965. Monday would be a short day with only 21 miles or so to go.