Water pumps and Xmas decorations

They call it (Vero Beach) Velcro Beach for a reason - because most people have a hard time leaving. We, on the other hand, were able to pull ourselves away but regretted leaving about 10 miles into the trip.  Our raw water pump had been starting to fail over the past week.  Ted would come up out of the engine room reporting 1 drip every 4 minutes.  Given the problems we have faced recently, I didn't think this was too bad! However, after sitting in Vero for a few days, the drip increased to 1 drip every few seconds.  Not wanting to risk water getting into the engine, we dropped anchor in Fort Pierce to inspect things further and make a new plan.  Luckily, Ted was ahead of the game and ordered a replacement pump to be delivered to Aunt Lynne.  Even luckier, the part was delivered on Saturday instead of the scheduled Monday.  Even luckier still, Lynne offered to deliver it to us today.

So, today, we had a wonderful time making Xmas decorations with our ever-so-crafty Aunt Lynne while Ted successfully replaced the water pump. Tomorrow, we will try to head south again, for either Peck Lake or Lake Worth.

Painting shells

Here they are decorating plastic bulbs with paint and/or filling them with shells, painting shells and painting wooden ornaments.  Lynne thought of everything! 

We now have a new raw water pump.
(Thank you Lynne!!!) 

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving today in Vero Beach. Over 200 cruisers gathered for a potluck feast. It has been so much fun to spend time with such an impressive group of people and we are so amazed by the stories of adventure that surround us. We continue to meet more families with kids and retirees who did this when they were younger with their kids. Everyone has been incredibly encouraging of our trip and choice to be doing it now with Lucy and Scout. It has been nice to hear this from those who truly know. Tomorrow we are having coffee on another Valiant 40. Its owners sailed it around the world in the late 1980's with their two sons. It was their second circumnavigation - their first being in the early 1970's aboard their 30 foot boat!

On this day of giving thanks, we feel especially fortunate and know we have so much for which to be thankful. We were able to Skype with our families tonight just before we returned to the boat. During these past four years of living in India and now on Momo, we have found that this is one of the hardest days to be away from them. They are what we are the most thankful for and we can't wait to celebrate next Thanksgiving with them. 

Tomorrow we will take advantage of the free bus system to do some provisioning, and then Saturday we will continue south. 

Happy Thanksgiving.

The parking lot.

Dinghy race vs. s/v Sheila after the feast

Momo on the Chesapeake. (A few throwback photos taken by s/v Sheila from last month)

Entering the ICW in VA. We spent the night on the sea wall just past the bridge.

Vero Beach

Sunday we spent the day hanging around Titusville. We did some shopping and spent a lot of time at the playground. The highlight of the afternoon was spotting an alligator in the pond next the the playground. but only bring 3 feet long we doubted it had eaten many children. Yesterday we left Titusville with s/v Sheila and s/v La Smala and made the 30 mile trip to Melbourne. We anchored in the lee of a causeway, so we did not go ashore, however we enjoyed watching pelicans dive for fish all around the boat until well after dark. They soar about 50 feet above the water until they spot a fish and then tuck into a tight dive and hit the water with a big splash. Very fun to watch.
This morning we left Melbourne at 0700. We knew a big front was on the way (the precursor to the storm making Thanksgiving headlines), so we planned to get into Vero Beach as early as possible. About 30 minutes into the trip we spotted an 8 foot long alligator right next to the ICW! By 1230 we were hanging on a mooring in the sheltered cove in front of the city marina. This place is great and it is no wonder why cruisers flock here. $13 moorings, good showers and facilities, a great beach and town, and best of all - free buses anywhere in the county! We went ashore and took advantage of the free transportation with a trip to the beach and to get some ice cream. We will probably stay here through Thanksgiving because the weather looks rough tomorrow and the big potluck on Turkey Day seems like it will be worth staying for.

Titusville

Yesterday, with strong northerly winds and favorable current, we made excellent time from St. Augustine, averaging close to 7.5 knots all day. We ended up anchoring in New Smyrna Beach and immediately went ashore to stretch our legs. We met up with more of Amie's relatives, her cousin, Cindy, and her two children. Lucy and Scout had so much fun playing with them at the playground and then we all enjoyed some excellent Thai food for dinner. Thank you Cindy!
This morning we awoke to grey skies and stiff easterly winds with the threat of rain. We pulled anchor and were able to make the 30 miles to Titusville by shortly after noon. We went ashore and happily reunited with the crew of s/v Sheila. It has been great to reconnect with them and the girls had so much fun playing together. Tonight it is blowing pretty hard from the southeast and Momo is moving around quite a bit. Strong southerly winds and thunderstorms are forecasted for tomorrow so the plan is to stay put here for one more day. The good news is that it is warm!
No pictures from today, but here are a few random ones from the past couple weeks.

St. Augustine

Well our first morning in Florida started off on the chilly side. We had quite a bit of frost on the boat, but after a couple of hours it warmed considerably and even pushed into the 60's by mid-afternoon. We motored the 10 miles to St. Augustine in time to make the 0930 bridge opening in the center of town. The first thing we did when we went ashore was take much needed showers and do some laundry. Next we went for a scooter/walk and found incredibly tasty pizza nearby. Things were feeling better. Unfortunately, we lost most of the afternoon to a fruitless attempt to renew Lucy's passport. It involved too many taxi rides with little accomplished other than passport photos. This is one of those things we should have taken care of months ago but kept putting off. We finally decided we would take care of it in person at the Miami Passport Agency, which means we will be going to Miami. Although not exactly what we had planned, it will set us up nicely for our approach across the Gulf Stream and into the Bahamas. We ended the day with a nice visit with Amie's cousin and her two children. 

Frost!

St. Augustine is good for scooters!

Too cold to rest

We woke up to 29 degrees outside and still a stiff northerly wind. We hunkered down in the cabin trying to stay warm. By 0930 we gave up. It was just too cold to motivate to get the dingy in the water and make what would have likely been a wet ride over to the island. We decided the better course of action was to keep heading south and take a rest day in St. Augustine in a day or so. We put on all of our clothes and pulled the anchor. We headed down the Cumberland River and then turned to the east and rode a favorable current out of St. Mary's inlet and into the Atlantic Ocean. We sailed the 20 miles or so down to the St. John's Inlet and then turned west again to negotiate the channel back inland. That is when things got interesting. Behind us we could see a massive US Naval tanker heading in our direction. Just as we came around a bend in the channel we saw a HUGE car carrier coming right at us. I then had my proudest moment on the VHF to date. Within a span of about 2 minutes, we were hailed by the car carrier, US Navy and the US Coastguard. All went well and we negotiated a safe pass, but it was exciting. A few minutes later we turned south again to rejoin the ICW and then continued until dark when we dropped the hook in a quiet marsh just off the channel. We are ten miles from St. Augustine and plan to head there early in the morning and then go ashore for groceries, showers, scootering and stretching our legs. It is forecasted to be in the 60's - we can't wait.

Yikes!

This guy was not messing around.

Crab pots, tornados and cold temps

It has been 6 days since we stepped off the boat and we are starting to feel it. We have been going basically from sun up to sun down, and although it has been nice to make some progress, we are exhausted. Yesterday we spent the first half of the day trying to figure out a plan to deal with the tornado warning we learned about over the VHF. We were trying our hardest to make time in order to get to an anchorage with decent protection. We pulled into a little creek in the marsh and tucked behind a stand of trees at 1300, knowing the front with severe weather was just minutes away. We quickly tied everything down and then all went below. There had already been tornados to our west and the radio warned of 75 knot winds accompanying severe thunderstorms. We watched the radar carefully and were relieved when the worst of it passed to our south. The front moved so quickly we pulled up the hook an hour later and travelled another 15 miles before dusk. Then last night it blew hard out of the NW. Thankfully we found an even better creek with excellent holding, but Momo still did circles as the gusty wind and strong current fought for control of her position. Things were quieter this morning, but Momo's dancing last night caused the anchor chain to wrap around a crab pot. Nevertheless we untangled and were on our way by 0715. About an hour later, just outside of St. Simon's Island, Amie and I were in the cockpit when we heard a bang from beneath us. I immediately looked at the depth sounder and saw 18 feet. We were in the middle of the channel. I throttled back and we looked behind us and there was a crab trap buoy floating away in three pieces. It must have been submerged and at the exact depth for our prop to chop it up. We spent a few minutes making sure everything was running fine and we were relieved to find that indeed it was. We seem to have been having moments like this recently. Two days ago we were about 100 yards shy of a particularly troublesome area with lots of shoals. In these areas Amie and I often work together to navigate them. We were both in the cockpit, looking at the chartplotter, depth sounder, water in front of us and the ICW guidebook when all of a sudden all of the instruments went blank! We had a brief moment of panic until we looked down and there was Scouty at the instrument panel with a guilty look on her face. She had hit the breaker switch (when just a couple hours earlier she and I had discussed why she should never do this). To top it all off, it is stinkin' cold. It has been in the 30's in the mornings and today I don't think it got out of the 40's. Tomorrow morning is forecast to be in the 20's. With no heater on board, we have been chilly. We are REALLY ready for warmer weather. We can see Florida from our anchorage here at Cumberland Island, so we can't be that far from warmer temps, right?
Tomorrow we are taking the day off to explore Cumberland Island.