We left the beauty of Jekyll Island, GA on December 27th and motor-sailed to Fernandina Beach, Florida. We had a brief sense of accomplishment as we entered Florida – the last state to traverse before we jumped to the Bahamas. The sensation was brief when we realized how extensive the eastern coast of Florida is: another 250 nautical miles!
At Fernandina the primary anchorage co-exists with a mooring field. There is lots of room and lots of boats. Aesthetically, it is less than pleasing. Situated on the industrial side of Fernandina, surrounded by paper mills, ship building, and the regular rumbling of trains and loud noises from the mill that occur all night.
One night was enough.
Sisters Creek – Jacksonville
A popular stopping point near Jacksonville is a free dock at Sisters Creek, just off the IntraCoastal Waterway northeast of Jacksonville. Free docks are far and few between. We arrived early afternoon to find five boats already tied side-to along the dock. As we hovered in the channel, various boat owners discussed how they could squeeze our 50 footer onto the crowded dock. The resident pelicans on a sandspit across the water watched with great amusement as we tried to maintain position in the fast current. Ultimately, we ran aground trying to circle back. Minor setback, just soft sand and we were able to motor off.
Boaters are resourceful. Within a short time, the people on the dock had moved an unoccupied boat further towards the end of the dock and adjusted a number of other boats to create room for us. Docking required a parallel parking maneuver, but we got secured to the dock and the other Gaviidae (with Howard and Kerri-Ann) rafted to us. They also tied 40’ dock lines to the dock in front of and behind of us. This double-tying was suggested by some other boaters who were very familiar with the fierce flow of the current that switches direction numerous times with the tide every day.
Happy Happy Drinky Drinky
A spontaneous happy hour was held on one of the other boats, Ancora Qui, hosted by Tom and Beth. They managed to squeeze ten of us around their cockpit for some pre-storm libations and swapping of stories.
With severe weather forecast, we opted to stay two nights at Sisters Creek. A couple of boats departed in the morning allowing H&KA to secure their Gaviidae directly to the dock.
The storm did arrive, and we all scrambled to add more lines and fenders to our respective boats. We were still adding fenders to protect Gaviidae when the first wave of the storm hit. We got completely soaked as we tried to push Gaviidae away from the dock to squeeze in the last fender. It was a wild storm with lots of lightning and heavy rain, but the boats were all safe along the dock.
St. Augustine, Florida
We departed Sisters Creek early the next morning. Not long after we got into the main channel, a heavy fog rolled in. With Dan on the bow watching, we slowly maneuvered our way dodging small fishing boats that were racing back to the boat launch around the corner from where we had docked.
At times the visibility was reduced to 10-20 feet in front of the bow. Common sense would’ve mandated that we stop, but we were in a very industrial area with no obvious place to stop and drop anchor or tie-up.
As we inched our way along, we could only hear the loud sounds from the factories and shipyards along the route. The fog seemed to amplify the noise, making the sounds much closer than they were! After a stressful 1.5 hours the fog lifted, giving way to sunny skies.
We arrived in St. Augustine after motoring for 34 nautical miles and grabbed one of the municipal mooring balls. After the stressful run in the fog, naps were the first priority.
St. Augustine celebrates the holidays each year with the Nights of Lights. The event starts mid-November and runs through the middle of January and attracts 100,000 people to the city. Everything that could be decorated was covered in cheerful holiday lights.
We stayed four nights in St. Augustine, which included celebrating New Year’s Eve. With so many visitors, most restaurants were fully booked. Howard found one, however, Forgotten Tonic that had room for the four of us and we enjoyed some special holiday drinks and had a great dinner. As a bonus, we got decorative lighted hats to help us celebrate the festivities!
Fort Matanzas
After exploring, provisioning, laundry, and other boat chores in St. Augustine, we were ready to cast off the lines from our mooring ball and head south. We didn’t travel far, just 12 nautical miles to Fort Matanzas. The fort was completed in 1742 as a defense for the Spanish military settlement of St. Augustine. It turned out to be a lovely anchorage with just the two Gaviidaes overnight.
Dan and I did a little dinghy tour to explore the small museum, stroll around the park, and putter around the harbor. We didn’t get a chance to see the fort as their shuttle boat was the only allowed access and it was awaiting repairs after storm damage. Next time! A singular event in that anchorage that night was witnessing the successful launch of an unmanned rocket from Cape Canaveral some 80 miles south of us.
Daytona Beach, Florida
From Matanzas we motored 35 nautical miles to Daytona Beach and stopped at Halifax Harbor Marina. While the marina is huge, with over 500 slips, neither Dan or I can remember a thing about our one-night stay! Looking at their website, it looks nice. And since it was less than $2.00/foot for dockage, the price was right!
Titusville, Florida
Titusville is where Cape Canaveral and the big rocket launches occur. We arrived on Sunday, January 5th using our reserve fuel tank. It was time to stop for some diesel! Our stay at the Titusville Municipal Marina was for four days. We saw our first alligator (a very small one), bought deep water fishing gear for Dan, and explored the town and various dining options.
Howard and Kerri-Ann spent a day at the space museum. We opted to relax, figuring we would see it on our northbound trek.
While at Titusville, we met several other cruisers who were all heading to the Bahamas. One sailboat was named Cat Face and another was Moose. SV Cat Face was not a catamaran but did have a four-legged crew member named Philip.
This gray four-legged purring critter was very sociable, and I found him curled up on our Persian rug below decks. Dan was cooking dinner and almost stepped on him! Dan, of course, assumed that I had invited Philip aboard – not so. But I did steal a few cuddle moments once I convinced Philip that being below decks was not in his best interest!
Melbourne, Florida
After heading under the Melbourne bridge, we made our way to our target anchorage for the night. Suddenly, we were swarmed with birds, like a scene out of that Alfred Hitchcock movie! Thousands of small seabirds zooming all around us, fighting with each other and diving for food. By the time the anchor was down, the aerial display was over.
Velcro Beach
Our next stop was Vero Beach, Florida or Velcro Beach as the locals call it. Apparently more than a few boaters stop at Vero Beach and simply stay, like they were stuck!
The municipal marina has a huge mooring field tucked in off of the ICW behind a series of mangrove islands. The demand for the moorings is so great that they allow up to three boats to raft on each mooring. Some find this charming as you get to know your neighbors quite well. We looked at the situation and decided it looked like a great way to mess up the finish on Gaviidae’s shiny green hull, or listen to someone’s generator run half the night.
We passed on the moorings and made our way to the back of the mooring field and dropped the anchor next to the mangroves.
Jensen Beach, Florida
Our motoring trek to Jensen Beach was uneventful other than we saw our first manatee – not just a glimpse but the entire manatee not far from the boat along the ICW. We also saw lots of abandoned boats littering the shore or parked at awkward angles in shallow water.
We intended our stay in Jensen Beach to be short as we needed to get to West Palm Beach, another day’s travel down the ICW to await a favorable weather window to cross 90 miles to the Bahamas. Reports from other boaters indicated that the West Palm Beach area was full of boats waiting for the same opportunity. Instead, we grabbed a mooring ball to wait out the weather for a few days or perhaps a week.
We ended up staying in Jensen Beach for over two weeks, as big winds made any thought of crossing out of the question. The Jensen Beach mooring field can accommodate up to 56 vessels in the Indian River Lagoon adjacent to the ICW. Between the very strong currents and big winds, Gaviidae swung back and forth on the mooring ball doing regular 180-degree direction changes with the current. Sometimes the wind was strong enough to counter the current causing our mooring ball to drift alongside Gaviidae. Besides creating a disturbing thumping noise as it bounced off our hull, the ball was potentially going to damage the paint on the hull. We ended up shortening the mooring lines and suspending the ball from our dolphin striker–the cable-and-rod underpinnings stabilizing the bowsprit and genoa halyard.
Provisioning
During our stay at Jensen Beach, we rented cars a couple of times to do provisioning runs to Costco and Trader Joes. We also went to numerous boat places for spare parts which we thought might be difficult to obtain in the Bahamas. One of our car rentals was from Turo, which we won’t repeat. The acceleration on the car would mysteriously disappear at the worst times. After a couple days of having angry motorists blare their horns at us for doing 10mph in a 30mph zone, we returned the car to the owner.
Our next rental was through Costco and was half the cost of the Turo!
Jensen Beach has a very nice dock for tying your dinghy to or bringing the big boat in to get fresh water. It also has a very sociable crowd of regulars who organize happy hours at the big picnic shelter. We met numerous boaters and ran into others who we had met along the way.
Riviera Beach – Singer Island
Our next stop (and last) on our Florida journey was to HAVN Yacht Club near Riviera Beach–a couple miles from the jump-off point in West Palm Beach. We were running late and needed to get diesel before our potential sunrise Gulf Stream crossing the next day. The marina hailed us and let us know that with the high tide we could take a shortcut into their marina. The shortcut got us docked at 1645–15 minutes before their scheduled close time.
Our slip was right next to the fuel dock, so we were able to top off the diesel tanks, get water and do a final load of laundry at the marina.
We were officially ready to leave Florida for our crossing to the Bahamas!
December 27, 2024-January 26, 2025 26°46.870’N 080°02.441’W 2641.6 Nautical Miles