I’s Thursday morning and we are anchored behind a very small island about 5 miles north of Vero Beach. For reasons that aren’t clear to me, the spot is officially called “Jones Fruit Dock”. And yes, there appears to be a long dock nearby but I didn’t see any sign of life and certainly no fruit. Anyway, the spot is impossibly narrow and we crept into the inlet very slowly to be sure that we didn’t run aground.
I was particularly sensitive to the “running aground thing” as a few miles up the ICW, earlier in the day, we, no make that “I” as Brenda was down below, had run aground solidly as we tried to find our way around a dredging barge that was, not surprisingly, working in the middle of the channel. I had called them to ask for directions in passing but did not get an answer. As I am not used to passing a working vessel at an arms-length, I decided to give them a “reasonable” distance pass. Oops, not a good choice, too far to the left of the channel. Bump, bump, bump, you are stopping now… We were aground.
So, for the next half hour, or was it two hours, we worked ourselves around bit by bit. I was pretty sure that we were there for the duration, and didn’t see any solution save a call to the towboat service (yes I paid my dues). However, with Brenda at the helm and the engine roaring, I put up the genoa and hiked out on the lee rail until finally we were free. I guess the final “push” came from a bit of wind combined with my extra weight, such as it is, out on the rail to heel us over ever so much more. Well, that did the trick.
Unfortunately, there isn’t enough of me to make much of a difference when it comes to hiking on the rail, so I have decided to have an extra biscuit, or two, for breakfast today. You can never have too much movable “ballast” for next time and I am sure that there will indeed be a next time.
So, there you have it, the two kinds of cruisers on the ICW are those who have run aground and those who lie about it. Me, I am the former even if I am not proud of it.
Sorry, no pictures of our escape and narrow pass near the dredge. There’s something unsettling about pointing directly at an anchored dredge, less than 100’ away at 3,500RPM with the genoa up and sheeted in. Too busy, I guess.
Well, compared to that fun time, the rest of the day was uneventful but I have to say that I was plenty ready to drop the hook and enjoy a drink with Brenda after a long day of standing at the wheel.
Happily, the days are pretty warm now with yesterday the first reliably “short sleeve” day so far. And, if that’s not enough, this morning was the first that I didn’t have to turn on the heat when I got up.
Yahoo, we have arrived. It’s WARM again. When the temperatures begin to head “south” in the chilly north, I often say “well, it will get better in May”, now I guess I can say that “it will get better in Vero Beach”. Yes, we are now officially in “sunny Florida”, and I am thankful for it.
Last evening , after anchoring in this lovely spot, Brenda and I sat up on the bow of Pandora and enjoyed the sunset. As the light began to fade, and the mosquitos began to arrive but we won’t dwell on that right now, a dolphin slowly swam by and entertained us with his rhythmic breathing as he surfaced every few yards, while overhead the pelicans flew by heading home for the evening. It was a pretty idyllic moment and a lot nicer than being aground on a sandbar.
I didn’t get a photo of the sunset last evening as I was too busy drinking my G&T but I did get this shot of the early sunrise in Cocoa yesterday morning. This view captures the mood of last night aboard Pandora pretty well.
Cocoa was a fun place to spend a few days and Brenda made a point of visiting the local knitting store to get some silk yarn for a small format tapestry that she is working on that will be in a show in the spring. The show calls for pieces that are only 4”x6”. She will be working very small so getting the detail perfect at that scale will be tough. This is the image that she has chosen, a shot that I took early in our trip this year. 
I am excited to see how she interprets this in fabric. It will be a challenging piece to weave.
As I mentioned in a previous post, Cocoa is pretty serious about their waterfront area and this shot shows how much boardwalk they have. It’s a nice spot to walk in the later afternoon light.
While Brenda was picking out yarn for her tapestry, I was visiting that great hardware store that the town is known for. I had put a link into my last post about this amazing store but I couldn’t resist taking a few shots of the row after row of items neatly stacked on shelves. It’s hard to say how big the store is but trust me, you have never been in a hardware store that is better than this one.
How about an entire section of stainless steel fittings?
Or, a row of woven pickup straps?
There is no shortage of screws and bolts on this isle. “Do you have a 4″ #10 SS pan head self tapping sheet metal screw?”. “How many do you need?”. 
Who knows what this section holds but that’s a LOT of metal bins. I wonder where they found so many drawers? As my father would have said, “at the used drawer store”. Probably right.
Hey, who left the Home Depot “Homer bucket” in isle 25?
And, speaking of hardware, this trip aboard Pandora is no different than what most folks who cruise expect as they say “cruising is boat repair in exotic places”. And this trip has proven to have a few “repair opportunities”, as I have come to expect.
Two examples: A few days ago I put a 3” rip in my inflatable dink at a dock where I snagged an exposed nail. Oops! I think it’s fixed now but only time will tell if the patch holds.
And, yesterday I noticed that the engine wasn’t charging the batteries so I “pulled over” and anchored to check it out. After two stops and several hours of hunting, I was able to track the problem down to a cable end attached (well, it used to be attached) to one of the terminals on the engine alternator, that had cracked and was not longer connected. Of course, I didn’t have a spare “end” but was able to jury-rig a temporary solution that seems to be holding. Later today I will take the cable out of the boat and go to a battery shop in Vero Beach and have a new end fitting crimped on.
It is amazing to me that so much can go wrong, even on a well maintained boat like Pandora. I’d hate to even think of cruising if I wasn’t able to handle simple repairs myself. Note: If you are the type of guy that calls in a repair guy to change a tough to reach light bulb, don’t cruise on a small boat.
Well, I am pleased to have the toughest, or at least the coldest, part of the trip behind me and I am looking forward to balmy evenings and not too hot days here in sunny Florida. Perhaps this “pirate ship” that we passed yesterday anchored in the lee of a small island is a nice shot to use in closing out this post. It’s funny how many of these “home built” pirate ships we have seen along the ICW but this one looks pretty authentic, save the solar panels on deck. 
So there, I have come clean, for a second time, that I have indeed run aground on the ICW. I cannot tell a lie. However, don’t ask me to tell you about the “one that got away”. Well, it was big, really big. You will just have to trust me on that. HONEST!