Passage Home
My passage back to Oriental, North Carolina has begun. I will park the boat on the hard for the summer and return home to family in Oregon. My friend, Charlie King, climbed off his boat in Marathon, Fl., and climbed aboard Elysium to help me part of the way.
We left April 1st under sunny skies and light winds. We sailed with friends aboard two Hunters. The Hunter sailboat is a much lighter boat then Elysium and consequently a little difficult to keep up with in light winds. Our first day ended at Rodriguez Key, still in the Florida Keys just before the keys begin to bend towards the north and Miami. Rodriguez Key is a nice anchorage, well protected from wind at most directions and serves as a jumping off point for boats going to the Caribbean or lower Bahamas.
The second day ended at No Name Harbor at Key Biscayne. We decided to anchor outside the harbor as winds were light and we had more space and a quicker start to the next day getting out the channel.
Day three was a beautiful sailing day up the east coast of Florida. It was a long day but very pleasant. We set anchor at the Lake Worth Inlet which is in Palm Beach. Huge, beautiful mansions line the shores with huge, beautiful yachts parked in the backyard. While at anchor, a yacht motored past us called “Medusa”. I have to go on line and see if I can find it. It was enormous and carried many toys including a large helicopter on the back. As it crept by Elysium….within a hundred feet or so….everyone just stood there with their mouths open. It surely was a sight to behold.
Day four was another great sailing day in the North Atlantic en route to Ft. Pierce. The Ft. Pierce inlet has a very strong current. I had to goose the motor up to 2600 rpms to get through it. The seas were boiling at the entrance to the channel…but not to the degree that made it dangerous or scary. We had reserved a slip at the Ft. Pierce city marina for the night because my friend, Captain Jaye, was going to stop by for a few “sundowners” with Charlie and me…and share in our Tennessee Honey….and then later in the evening my cousin Dennis was coming over and we went out for a pizza dinner and more laughs. In November my friend Jack and I stayed at this marina for a couple of days and really enjoyed ourselves. It was nice to be back and brought back some great memories that I share with Jack from last November.
While in Ft. Pierce I had a fellow make a service call to check on my transducer as my depth sounder was acting up. He said it works somewhat on one frequency but not on another. In other words, it works sometimes. Really! THIS I ALREADY KNEW. I could have hung around for a few days, order a new transducer and have it installed…or hope it keeps working most of the time (as it has been) and repair it in Oriental. I chose not to hang around and get it fixed (and it has been working better than ever)..
This morning, after studying different weather charts and forecasts on my laptop, I made the decision not go into the Atlantic, but stay in the ICW. A storm is approaching and my concern was out-running it. We tried that once before and it didn’t work out so well. The problem with the decision is that although we’re safe from a storm, it is slow going and there really is no good place to pop back out into the North Atlantic until we get to the Florida/Georgia border which will add days to the trip.
So, in situations like this there is only one thing you can do. Sit back, enjoy the scenery and have a beer.
By the way, I’ve posted several more albums recently that include pictures of friends from Marathon and then pictures of the first four days of this trip. I’ll try to write more and post more pictures and update our position on the map when wireless internet is available.