Oh Golly and Eau Gallie

November 5, 2004
By Amy

Friday - October 29, 2004 - St. Augustine, Florida

Tom's dad called this morning and while talking to him I summonsed the evil spirits. You see, I was saying how we were going to move on from St. Augustine once we got our mail because we want to find somewhere where the beach is more convenient. It's a bit of a dinghy or bike ride from the anchorage here, so we've been hanging out in town rather than swimming. Tough life, I know, when your goal is getting the beach closer.

I don't think the sailing gods like that kind of smugness, so they broke our throttle cable. Thomas and I got the port engine out today for its servicing and oil change. All was well and we put it back in. I came inside while he was finishing up.

Being very perceptive, I figured there was a problem because Thomas had started swearing at the lazarette where the engine is and huffing around. In general, I just wait until he's ready to tell me the bad news. He said it was broken and we'd have to find another one.

So into town we went. Thomas was going to bike for parts and said I'd be more helpful staying at the coffee shop. We expected the cable to be difficult to get--it has been in the past--but a local shop said they could have one by Monday. Given how easy it was, Thomas decided he wanted to bike for steaks.

Calaloo said there was a grocery store across the bridge, so he headed out while I supplemented my coffee with an eclair. (Yes, I lead a very good life.) I finished said coffee and eclair and was getting close to finishing my book. No sign of Thomas.

Apparently, the grocery store is only over the bridge if you want to take the LONG way to it. He went over one bridge and came back over another, going like 15 miles to get to a store that's actually about 2 miles away. The good news, it was an Albertson's, which has our favorite cheddar cheese and a great meat selection. We will be having salmon tonight and steak tomorrow.

The neighborhood boat problems continue. Today a brand new Hunter sailboat anchored close to shore. The tide has since dropped out and he is sitting high on his keel, which is stuck deep in the mud. Not sure he's going to float free without further damage. Makes our problems look minor.

Now we just have to get back to what we were going to do: check for mail at the post office. We might get out of here this weekend after all.

Later....

Got our mail and bumped into Gecko. They said they were headed to the bar (Tradewinds by default) at 5:30. We said we'd meet up with them. Killed time wandering the town. Stopped at a bar I think was called "Mill" or something, in the old section. It was ok, had blues singer/guitarist. Then headed over to Tradewinds. Gecko never showed up, but the entertainment was cool. A 74 year-old guy played guitar and sang, sometimes accompanied by an 84 year-old WWII vet on vocals. I hope I'm doing something interesting when I'm half their age!

Saturday - October 30, 2004 - St. Augustine, Florida

We were debating getting out of dodge today, so we headed out on errands. We took a long list of items to the Sailor Swap, but ended up spending only $5. It's cool that they have stuff used and cheaper than sometimes found other places, but most of it wasn't quite right for us. We proceeded to the marine store for more items, then headed back to the boat.

We were waaaay down on power and sick of touristing, so we went up to the marina lounge where we watched TV, read books, and played on the computer while the heat of the day passed and our batteries recharged some without our interference.

I'd had about enough of Tradewinds, so we made it a quiet night on the boat with good food and good books.

More to follow, end of line.

Sunday - October 31, 2004 - Daytona, Florida

Got up early and weighed anchor. Although we had no problems with it holding, the chain rode was wrapped around the anchor several times. Thomas is considering swapping anchors to use the smaller CQR on the all-chain rode as our primary anchor.

We motored down the ICW with little to mention until we got to the final bridge of the day. We pulled up right after it closed, called the brige, and were told they were doing "major repairs" and wouldn't open for at least 30 minutes. Not sure why the tender didn't just hold the bridge, since there were three boats in line with us, but at least he was right on the timing. They only opened the one span, which was nerve-wracking, but we got through without too much delay.

The anchorage is not all we might have hoped for. It is just off the main channel. The good news is it is just at the end of the No Wake zone, so hopefully it will minimize the rolling due to passing traffic. We haven't figured out how we're going to get to the beach yet, but do intend to go to the western shore in a little bit.

Monday - November 1, 2004 - Titusville, Florida

Daytona--or at least the beach and surrounding craziness--turned out to be inaccessible from the boat. We went in and got a drink at a place called The Stock Exchange last evening. It was fine, beers were cheap, but it was nothing to get excited about. We returned to the boat to finish the salmon Thomas had bought at Albertson's in St. Augustine and went to bed early.

That left us well rested to continue our trek south early this morning. We had good wind, wrong direction, all day, so the batteries are topped up, even if we didn't get to sail. The depth sounder reset again, so we turned the fridge up to burn power until we got the anchor down here at Titusville.

The major events of the day were sucking a line in the port engine right before going under a bridge. We were waiting for the opening and put the engine in reverse and heard a loud banging. Once we got under the bridge, we stalled her out as best we could as Thomas got in the dinghy and floated under the boat to cut the line free. I found out later that every time I turned the wheel to keep us in deep water, the connecting rod was dragging him back and forth and basically kicking the crap out of him down there.

Later in the day, we entered the land of NASA, and it is them I will blame for our weird depth sounder incident earlier today. We just went through a channel NASA claims as theirs when the depth sounder started giving wacko readings. Like 0.6 feet. No boats had passed, which often confuses the depth sounder. It stayed that way for about 10 minutes and then repaired itself. I can only assume the government is working on a top-secret depth sounder-blocking device that we will send into space under the auspices of a "research mission," thus disrupting marine navigation worldwide. When this happens, remember you heard it here first.

On the way in to anchor, we saw Still No Clew, the power boat with a relatively young couple on it, which we've seen now three times and still haven't hung out with. Perhaps we'll try again. Other than that, we're planning on steak quesadillas tonight with more leftovers from the St. Augustine grocery trip. There is also a grocery store here, which we might hit tonight or tomorrow morning.

Tuesday - November 2, 2004 - Banana River, Indian Harbour, Florida

Gladly left Titusville this morning, pretty much as soon as I was conscious. Took our usual one-hour shifts; we both played on the computer in our down time.

Kind of felt like a bombing range. The pelicans were going wild. At any given moment, three or four birds were dropping from the sky and making a huge splash in the water. From the looks of it, they were having good success catching fish. That's more than we can say. All we caught was our own boat when we forgot to reel in the port fishing line before trying to anchor.

Our first anchoring effort was in Melbourne. We thought it was weird on our approach that there weren't really any other boats around. Figured we'd try it anyway, but dropped anchor twice and it broke free both times. Guess that's why there's no other boats.

We remembered seeing lots of boats one bridge further north, and Skipper Bob referred to it as a "popular" destination. Looked good so we backtracked the four miles. This is, in fact, a nice place with good holding. There is a marina nearby where we hope we can land a dinghy. The beach looks like it's about a mile away.

We launched the dinghy and went over to older couple on Island Packet catamaran who we'd seen at the bridge earlier in the day. They invited us aboard for a tour (believe their names were Bob and Maxine). It's a nice boat in terms of accomodations, although very heavy and very slow. They told us where to take the dinghy and also gave us info about keeping a boat in Florida during hurricane season, which we are considering doing this coming year.

We headed in to town and found the Texas Roadhouse, which was a decent spot. Everyone was asking everyone if they had voted. We ended up back at the boat waiting on news of the election returns.

Wednesday - November 3, 2004 - Eau Gallie, Florida

I spent the morning doing boring paperwork stuff (paying bills, etc.) while Thomas roamed the countryside in search of bait. Thomas got chicken necks and bait and we tried catching dinner. The crabs here are HUGE. Unfortunately, the water here is much clearer than on the Bay, so the little suckers see you and let go before you can net them. Fishing resulted in numerous catfish, but we didn't keep anything.

Thomas went back out in search of crab traps. He rode over to Eau Gallie on the other side, He determined that the other side, while less protected in the anchorage, is much nicer, so we picked up our anchor and headed over that way.

We are seriously considering the possibility that this place is heaven. There is a really nice library right on the waterfront. You can sit all day reading books and using the computer, in the air conditioning no less, and still keep an eye on the boat in the anchorage. How cool is that!

Then there is the bar, Conchy Joe's. Happy hour starts at a very reasonable 3 PM and they set out a buffet of sorts. Thomas isn't as fond of some of the items as I am, but we were able to get our money's worth while playing this stupid trivia game.

We stayed at Conchy Joe's until 6 PM, even won the trivia game once, then headed back to the boat to watch a movie. Gingerbread Man, which I traded another cruiser for back at Barefoot Landing, was quite awful, despite its all-star cast. Oh well. It was nice to hang out in front of the television anyway.

Thursday - November 4, 2004 - Eau Gallie, Florida

Well, it was an expensive day. We got up early and were on our way to West Marine in the morning. Picked up a strainer thing for the shower drain, and I found their canvas sneakers on sale for $8. They last about 3 months and I've had mine since June.

We were also looking for dive gear. West Marine people said there was a dive shop nearby. They didn't open until noon and it was only like 9:15 AM, so we went back to the waterfront library until noon then walked back up to the dive shop, where we proceeded to blow almost $500 on gear. They only had 2 women's wetsuits, neither in my size, but other than that, we are both totally decked out with fins, masks, snorkels, suits, and yes, another pole spear.

We were pretty loaded down, so it was back to the boat then back to the library until happy hour. Conchy Joes for happy hour, of course. Again, enough food that we didn't need to bother with dinner. We did poorly on trivia, though.

At 6:30 PM, West Marine had Steve Pavalidis (he writes cruising guides and the like) giving a talk on Bahamas Cruising. We went to that. Unfortunately, it turned out to be pretty useless. He talked for about 5 minutes about the Bahamas and the rest of the time about the Caribbean. While we intend to hit the Caribbean, we really wanted info about the Bahamas first. And most of his comments were about routes to take, which are clearly outlined in pretty much any cruising guide. I would have found it more helpful if it was more oriented toward tips or "news." We did get his opinion on the best charts for the area, though, so that was good.

We returned to the boat and read books to the sound of the Conchy Joes band. The wind kicked up overnight but the anchor held.