The day has finally come, you can look at a new location on Google Maps! So, it's off with the dock lines and we're headed north, but not without a less than stellar departure and I'm sure a bit of marina entertainment. With 10 knots of wind on our beam, we backed out of the slip and the wind promptly took the bow away pointing us to shore. We knew it would, but you can always hope. As Jim tried to back out the fairway, prop-walk and wind pushed us ever closer to the million dollar yachts tied along the other side. I ran comically back and forth on the boat as if I could fend us off but, I knew that wouldn't work as Charm is really too big and heavy to stop when the wind has her. For what seemed an eternity, we lost ground, but Captain Jim jockeyed back and forth and finally worked us to the exit of the fairway where we could swing through the wind and proceed out of the marina. Charm is under-powered and it really hurts us in situations like this. We barely had enough oomph to back against the wind and current and when you throw in a narrow fairway, it can get ugly. We both had visions of the anchor scraping along the side of one of the million dollar yachts, but fortunately the Captain and a little luck saved us an expensive insurance claim. If I'd been a real photojournalist, I could have gotten a great closeup of the shine on one of those hulls.
The rest of the day was uneventful. We fought 20 knots of NW wind and a couple knots of current most of the day, but occasionally the wind came off the bow so that we could roll out the jib and get a little boost. The wind had been predicted to only be 10kts, wrong again Mr. NOAA. We were happy to finally be underway again, but both a little sad to put those ICW marker triangles to port, i.e. heading north. I think the animals felt differently, as Tali quickly assumed her perch under the dodger and the invisible Nikki joined us in the cockpit as if to say, "Hooray, going home!" Murphy was also a little forlorn as he has gotten to love marina life and all the treats he gets from his buddies, in particular Joanne.
We pulled into Vero about 5:30, picked up a mooring ball, and called it a day.