Finally the day arrived – after weeks of jobs, we casted off our lines and sailed away (okay we motored away). We left the dock at 10:45am on Jan. 3. It was a beautiful day – sunny and hot but not much wind (hence the motoring). Mark spent some time calibrating our new wind/speed/depth instrument and we both got used to our new autopilot. Our new autopilot is awesome – no more loud noises or weaving back and forth. We arrived at our destination by 2:50pm. We stopped for the night at Metropolitan Park Marina in Jacksonville. We have lots of time to get to Vero Beach so we’re going slow.
By early afternoon on Jan. 5th, we were tied to a mooring ball at St. Augustine. We had a great ocean passage south from the St. Johns River and enjoyed a good paced motor sail. It was nice to hang out in the south mooring field and look at the display of lights left over from Christmas. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s only early January! The weather tricks you into thinking it’s summertime!
We left St. Augustine on Jan 6th with the intention of travelling about 45nm to Daytona Beach. Our timing was perfect – we had the current with us and saw speeds in the low 7 knots all day (that’s very good for us – our normal motor cruising speed is 6 knots). We were doing so well that we decided to keep going further south to New Smyrna Beach. At one point we were cruising along at 8.3knots (with the help of current and wind). It sure was a great day for moving south.
We’ve had lots of wildlife company on our journey. There’s been pelicans, seagull, and many cormorants. We’ve also been treated to lots of dolphins splashing around us. Many of the dolphins are moms with babies. It was very interesting to watch how closely the babies stick to the moms’ sides as they surface and dive.
Our slip reservation for Vero Beach City Marina starts on Jan. 10 so having lots of time, we decided to stay on a mooring ball at the Titusville Marina for 2 nights. It only took us 4 hours to travel the 28nm to Titusville from New Smyrna – again we had the current helping us along. We spent the morning in the company of 3 other sailboats. 2 of those boats stopped at Titusville also but they headed into the marina. We’ll spend the rest of today (Jan. 7) doing some wifi-ing and tomorrow we have a bit of grocery shopping to do. On Monday we’ll travel another short day down to Melbourne and then on Tuesday we’ll head into the marina. Excellent pace for the start of the season!
Crimson Kathryn and her crew 