{"id":4003,"date":"2015-01-22T11:51:31","date_gmt":"2015-01-22T11:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=4003"},"modified":"2015-01-22T12:24:08","modified_gmt":"2015-01-22T12:24:08","slug":"theres-only-two-kinds-of-cruisers-on-the-icw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=4003","title":{"rendered":"There\u2019s only two kinds of cruisers on the ICW."},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019s Thursday morning and we are anchored behind a very small island about 5 miles north of Vero Beach.\u00a0 For reasons that aren\u2019t clear to me, the spot is officially called \u201cJones Fruit Dock\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 And yes, there appears to be a long dock nearby but I didn\u2019t see any sign of life and certainly no fruit.\u00a0 Anyway,\u00a0 the spot is impossibly narrow and we crept into the inlet very slowly to be sure that we didn\u2019t run aground.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I was particularly sensitive to the \u201crunning aground thing\u201d as a few miles up the ICW, earlier in the day, we, no make that \u201cI\u201d 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.\u00a0 I had called them to ask for directions in passing but did not get an answer.\u00a0 As I am not used to passing a working vessel at an arms-length, I decided to give them a \u201creasonable\u201d distance pass.\u00a0 Oops, not a good choice, too far to the left of the channel.\u00a0 Bump, bump, bump, you are stopping now\u2026 We were aground.<\/p>\n

So, for the next half hour, or was it two hours, we worked ourselves around bit by bit.\u00a0 I was pretty sure that we were there for the duration, and didn\u2019t see any solution save a call to the towboat service (yes I paid my dues).\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I guess the final \u201cpush\u201d 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.\u00a0 Well, that did the trick.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, there isn\u2019t 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.\u00a0 You can never have too much movable \u201cballast\u201d for next time and I am sure that there will indeed be a next time.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Me, I am the former even if I am not proud of it.<\/p>\n

Sorry, no pictures of our escape and narrow pass near the dredge.\u00a0 There\u2019s something unsettling about pointing directly at an anchored dredge, less than 100\u2019 away at 3,500RPM with the genoa up and sheeted in.\u00a0 Too busy, I guess.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Happily, the days are pretty warm now with yesterday the first reliably \u201cshort sleeve\u201d day so far.\u00a0 And, if that\u2019s not enough, this morning was the first that I didn\u2019t have to turn on the heat when I got up.<\/p>\n

Yahoo, we have arrived.\u00a0 It\u2019s WARM again.\u00a0 When the temperatures begin to head \u201csouth\u201d in the chilly north, I often say \u201cwell, it will get better in May\u201d, now I guess I can say that \u201cit will get better in Vero Beach\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, we are now officially in \u201csunny Florida\u201d, and I am thankful for it.<\/p>\n

Last evening , after anchoring in this lovely spot, Brenda and I sat up on the bow of Pandora and enjoyed the sunset.\u00a0 As the light began to fade, and the mosquitos began to arrive but we won\u2019t 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. \u00a0\u00a0It was a pretty idyllic moment and a lot nicer than being aground on a sandbar.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t 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.\u00a0 This view captures the mood of last night aboard Pandora pretty well.\"\"<\/a>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.\u00a0 The show calls for pieces that are only 4\u201dx6\u201d.\u00a0 She will be working very small so getting the detail perfect at that scale will be tough.\u00a0 This is the image that she has chosen, a shot that I took early in our trip this year.\u00a0 \"\"<\/a>I am excited to see how she interprets this in fabric.\u00a0 It will be a challenging piece to weave.<\/span><\/p>\n

As I mentioned in a previous post, Cocoa is pretty serious about their waterfront area and this shot shows how much boardwalk they have.\u00a0 It\u2019s a nice spot to walk in the later afternoon light.\"\"<\/a>While Brenda was picking out yarn for her tapestry, I was visiting that great hardware store that the town is known for.\u00a0 I had put a link into my last post about this amazing store but I couldn\u2019t resist taking a few shots of the row after row of items neatly stacked on shelves.\u00a0 It\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How about an entire section of stainless steel fittings?\"\"<\/a>Or, a row of woven pickup straps?\"\"<\/a><\/span>There is no shortage of screws and bolts on this isle. \u00a0“Do you have a 4″ #10 SS pan head self tapping sheet metal screw?”. \u00a0“How many do you need?”.\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/span>Who knows what this section holds but that\u2019s a LOT of metal bins.\u00a0 I wonder where they found so many drawers?\u00a0 As my father would have said, \u201cat the used drawer store\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 Probably right.\"\"<\/a><\/span>Hey, who left the Home Depot \u201cHomer bucket\u201d in isle 25?<\/span><\/p>\n

And, speaking of hardware, this trip aboard Pandora is no different than what most folks who cruise expect as they say \u201ccruising is boat repair in exotic places\u201d.\u00a0 And this trip has proven to have a few \u201crepair opportunities\u201d, as I have come to expect.<\/p>\n

Two examples:\u00a0\u00a0 A few days ago I put a 3\u201d rip in my inflatable dink at a dock where I snagged an exposed nail.\u00a0 Oops!\u00a0 I think it\u2019s fixed now but only time will tell if the patch holds.<\/p>\n

And, yesterday I noticed that the engine wasn\u2019t charging the batteries so I \u201cpulled over\u201d and anchored to check it out.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Of course, I didn\u2019t have a spare \u201cend\u201d but was able to jury-rig a temporary solution that seems to be holding.\u00a0\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

It is amazing to me that so much can go wrong, even on a well maintained boat like Pandora.\u00a0 I\u2019d hate to even think of cruising if I wasn\u2019t able to handle simple repairs myself.\u00a0 Note:\u00a0 If you are the type of guy that calls in a repair guy to change a tough to reach light bulb, don\u2019t cruise on a small boat.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 Perhaps this \u201cpirate ship\u201d that we passed yesterday anchored in the lee of a small island is a nice shot to use in closing out this post.\u00a0 It\u2019s funny how many of these \u201chome built\u201d pirate ships we have seen along the ICW but this one looks pretty authentic, save the solar panels on deck.\u00a0\"\"<\/a>So there, I have come clean, for a second time, that I have indeed run aground on the ICW.\u00a0\u00a0 I cannot tell a lie. However, don\u2019t ask me to tell you about the \u201cone that got away\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 Well, it was big, really big.\u00a0 You will just have to trust me on that.\u00a0 HONEST!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019s Thursday morning and we are anchored behind a very small island about 5 miles north of Vero Beach.\u00a0 For reasons that aren\u2019t clear to me, the spot is officially called \u201cJones Fruit Dock\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 And yes, there appears to be a long dock nearby but I didn\u2019t see any sign of life and certainly no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_s2mail":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4003"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4013,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4003\/revisions\/4013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}