One thing we have learned is besides checking cruising guides, chart software and even Facebook ICW groups, there is no substitute for constantly check the channel ahead with binoculars. Things can change quickly and there could be construction and/or dredging barges, bridge closures, sunken boats, and debris, including logs ahead. A perfect example is the lift bridge at Fort Pierce which has a new high level bridge being constructed beside the existing lift bridge. As it stood, we got there 5 minutes after the opening time, high is every half hour, so we had to circle around in the channel and wait. There was a current of just under a knot so bobbing around waiting wasn't an option.

Anchored at Valkaria between 2 islands as the wind was scheduled to clock around overnight.

https://youtu.be/Clz9ykXMkeM?si=M3QTkiLnSqDgM05k

Thursday started out as a really nice day. We even got to sail for 4 hours with a 10 knot wind on a beam reach (90° to direction of travel). we managed close to 7 knots and with no engine noise! The waterway was 2-3 miles wide with several bridges to go under. It's pretty exciting to go under a bridge with a 100' opening doing 7 knots under sail alone. But, as they say, all good things must come to an end. We started to get gusts up to 20+ knots so we reefed both sails until finally we had to drop them.

The wind continued to build and we saw it hit over 30 several times throughout the afternoon. We had planned on anchoring south of a bridge in Titusville which would give us cover from the west wind that was forecast to clock around to the northeast through the night, However hen we got there, the wind was still howling at plus 30 so we elected to go north of the bridged take a mooring ball. That was a bit of task with the wind but Sam did a great job controlling the boat while I picked up the pennant and got a line through it. A almost lost a boathook as the wind twisted the boat around but I managed to hook it with our other boathook before it sank!

The wind was supposed to drop at dusk and start to clock around but it continued to howl until 11 pm. Our mooring lines through the morning ball pendant were quite noisy as the boat bobbed around but at least we didn't have to worry about dragging anchor.

https://youtu.be/JYTj7BUX8iU?si=vob0W7LDi4gX2lza

The bonus of paying for a mooring ball here was that we got access to the dinghy dock, showers and washrooms as well as being close to stores to pick up supplies we couldn't get back at Jensen Beach. (a case of beer was too heavy with all of our stuff when shopping there, but we managed to snag 1 here!) We also grabbed a couple of merry cans of diesel fuel and 60 litres of water. Also we’re totally topped up on food, fuel, water and beer….still on the hunt for some wine but we’re not totally out yet!

Today's shot is of the Fort Pierce lift bridge with the new bridge span construction going on. It pays to check these things out with binoculars as things change quickly, opening schedules get affected by construction and sometimes things just breakdown.

Got to Jensen Beach today and took a mooring ball so we could go and do grocery shopping. The wind was blowing at close to 20 knots right out of the north so we decided to stop and spent the night here. It's also pretty cool out on the water with the wind. We tried to anchor but I couldn't get it to bite even with 120' of chain out in less than 9' of water! The chart says mud bottom but the chain and anchor came up clean so it must be super hard mud! This is the 2nd time in 2 days that we've had trouble setting the anchor so the bottom must be different here for some reason.

This is the nearest access to a grocery store and they have a secure dinghy dock, showers, nice wash rooms etc. The store is a km away so we broke out our fold up cart which has done double duty as a grocery getter and jerry can cart on this voyage.

It was a pretty big store and had a lot of selection. We were used to Bahamas grocery store prices so it was good to get back to the US for better selection. Although, their prices are pretty high on a lot of things. Even without the Canadian dollar conversion we saw prices that were higher than back home. With the US minimum wage much lower than Canada’s I wonder how low income people can cope down here. Another reason not to become the 51st state! We didn’t have room to get a pie as it would not have survived the trip back in our cart.

https://youtu.be/Z4q_MZ7CRvI?si=DNoMGTO-h3RjSjTf


Today shot is our handy dandy grocery/fuel/whatever you need to carry fold up cart loaded with groceries now that we are in the US. Food restrictions coming into the US change constantly so we were pretty much eating out of cans and the ever popular KD! We weren't there on singles night so no drinks unfortunately.

https://youtube.com/shorts/V0DzFiD1_RA?si=uN202LIhobXMaYkf

left Lake Worth and started The ICW trip north on Monday after a gusty and rainy night on anchor. Apparently there was a tornado watch for the area over night. I had last checked the weather on Sunday evening and once the cold front blew through by 10 Pm, it as supposed to be good. So not sure what happened there! We had hoped we'd be able to head outside and up the coast to Fort Pierce and avoid all the bridges and ICW traffic for the first leg of the trip. But, the weather continues to blow with strong winds, now out of the NW and North so we're stuck on the inside.

https://youtu.be/GLvohMXgcBo?si=jxqi8kMygKAsnb2v

Sam got out the white board and recorded all the bridge names, opening times and mile markers which was a great help to gauge our speed to optimize meeting the opening times. Lots of research to find where they all are, when they open, (some have schedules and some open on request) and some are under construction or repair so they may have closures on certain days or certain times!

Stopped at the marina to fill up on diesel and the pump price was $3.69 vs the $6 we were paying in the Bahamas , so that was a nice change. We had a total of 7 bridges to get under for the day and there was a warning on The ICW FB page about problems with the dredging and bridges in Jupiter Florida. One thing we have learned is do your bridge research as things change constantly. You also need to keep a positive attitude when things come up or you would have given up long ago.

Along the way we heard on the VHF that 1 of the bridges was stuck up ahead so that caused a bit of concern. Also heard a guy who was likely in a catamaran that he only had 2' of room between his boat and the side of the bridge going through because they only opened half of the span. This, along with waxing and polishing time, is one of the few times I'm glad we have a smaller boat.

https://youtu.be/MJNpxvdqd_o?si=Jn5VHgo6f2Sqk4Ek

Today's shot was taken from the net but shows what some guys will do to get under a bridge that doesn't have enough air draft for their mast. Creative, yes. But the SPF would be pretty high I would think! Luckily we don't have these issues.

Had a bit of a rolly night on the hook and we awoke to a reversed wind/current situation which placed us over the corner of a restricted area. We had planned to go down the channel a few miles to the dinghy dock to go ashore and stock up on groceries. it was blowing pretty good so we decided to hoist anchor and motor down closer to the dinghy dock as I didn't want to leave Amaruq in a restricted area with no one aboard.

We launched the dinghy and headed down into the 2' waves dodging all kinds of very large cruisers. Once under the lift bridge it was chaos it's lots of luxury yachts being moved around, some other towing vessels and lots of flashing light on police and Coast Guard vessels. We pulled up to a police boat and asked where the dinghy dock was. The guy was super friendly but told us they were setting up for the West Palm Beach boat show that starts alter this week so there is no dinghy dock space available.
The money here is staggering. Check out some of the yachts and prices in this clip from a participating broker. Apparently there is a lot of Life in The Fast Lane going on down here!

https://www.northropandjohnson.com/events/palm-beach-international-boat-show

https://youtube.com/shorts/47OLaVcRzkg?si=LLXltEEYtZPH3IW6

https://youtu.be/PhC7Gh84CdY?si=_v-Tssv9CdlszZTA

Now if you've been following us you'll recognize that we have an habit of arriving at certain places along our travel route at the most inopportune times and seems to be a recurring theme! So no groceries for us! We got back to Amaruq , high was being thrown around in the wakes and waves in the anchorage and decided to move north to a quieter place. We did have to go through several miles of chaos with tons of boats blasting around as it was full on nice Saturday let's go out on the boat day!

We are fortunate that we came across on Friday and the weather is taking another turn for the roost with have winds predicted for the next week plus so we are happy we got across when we did.

Also an update on beached boat in Lucaya that I posted a few days back. Apparently the boat has a hole in the port side so the owner is trying to flip it over so he can patch it up before refloating it. The story is that his engine quit and he dropped anchor but his chain broke due to strong winds and he was blown ashore. I feel for the guy and hope he gets it resolved.

Today's shot is of the "small" boats at the slips in our anchorage. These are pretty small compared to some of the giants we saw being positioned at the docks where the boat show is taking place, 8 miles south of here. There is no shortage of money down here!

After 12 days waiting our weather window was here so we were up and off the dock under a full moon at 4:45 am on Friday morning. We would have left sooner as we had an 80 nm passage ahead of us but we had to wait for the tide which bottomed out at 3:30 to start coming in. Seeing as it is a full moon the tides are higher/lower than normal and the water in the channel is pretty shallow at low tide even in normal tide conditions. This gave us an extra 10" of water. Going aground in sand isn't the worst thing that can happen, but going aground in the dark in a narrow channel with rollers coming in is another thing altogether.

We could hear the waves crashing on the beach from the dock, which was close to a mile away so no telling what we were in for. But, it turns out to be waves in the 1.5-2' range so no problem. Once we were out in the deeper water things were pretty good. The recently cleaned boat speed transducer was working perfectly too so we had the full complement of instruments and chart plotting gear. Waves and 8 knot wind coming from the port stern quarter so they would both be helping to push us along. Not enough to sail but we put the jib out which gave us an extra 3/4 knot of speed and helped to soften the rocking of the boat in the waves.

We got hailed by a cruise ship paralleling us a bit further out telling us he was going to be turning into Freeport harbour soon so we had to alter course to pass to his stern. We had to alter course for a couple of moles to give him lots of room but it was good of the guy to call and let us know though. The sun came up and the weather continued to cooperate. With the gulf stream heading north for almost half of the crossing we would be pushed northwest vs having to fight it so that was in our favour.

We took turns having naps in the cockpit nd while Sam was asleep I spotted something odd on the horizon dead ahead of us. It looked like a dust devil but was in fact the beginning of a waterspout forming under a dark cloud. It gradually built its way up to the cloud with a long thin wavy line of water. It only lasted a minute or 2 but it was pretty neat to see. It was nothing like the full in tornado we saw over Nassau a few months back and it did dissolve quickly. A bit later Sam saw another 1 forming off in the distance under another black cloud but we were already past that and shortly after the sun came out for the rest of the day. No rainbow unfortunately but no harm either so we'll take that.

We had our usual complement of flying fish escorting across and a new marine animal as well. When first sighted it looked like an inflated ziplock back bobbing across the waves but once up close we saw a transparent sail with a brilliant blue body attached in the water. Apparently they are called Velella or sail jellyfish. Very cool looking critters.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velella

Throughout the day the wind clocked around about 180° and ranged anywhere from 2-9 knots and the waves did a full 270° shift ranging from 1-3'. But interestingly enough, this is exactly what Windy had predicted and we managed to maintain a pretty good speed in the 6.5-7 knot range. The Gulf Stream was paying off. We got into Lake Worth and managed to find a spot to anchor by 4:45 so a full 12 hours and 80.5 nm. We made it!

Next task was to check in with customs and for that we would use the CBP ROAM app. The app has 2 part authentication with the 2nd step being a code texted to our cell phone, which had a US sim card which we hadn't used for 4 months. Surprisingly it booted up and worked after a few minutes. So I submitted the entry report on the app and a few minutes later we had our call with the agent. The guy couldn't have been nicer explaining all the changes to the recently changed US Alien policy, which affects Canadian travellers, and he even approved us as verified travellers meaning we are low risk. All done in about 10 minutes and we're legal and cleared for our trip north and home!

Tonight's shot was taken by Lynn a few weeks back and shows Amaruq as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! She has been our home for 6 months now!

(can't believe most of these guys are still alive...and performing!)
https://youtu.be/YRglhaeokqQ?si=-H0_gA3ttaq86y6H

It's been 2 weeks doing weather checks 3 times a day looking at Windy, Marv's and NOAA weather forecasts. They don't always agree a few days out but as a date gets closer they usually align better.  We're gonna make sure we pick the right window it's the combination of wind speed/direction and wave height/direction.  It's been changing direction frequently right now and sometimes clock around 270° in a 24 hour period.  And the favourable conditions sometimes occur at night so we may be leaving in the dark....again to take advantage of that.  

We're planning on leaving from here vs. heading up to West End first.  It adds about 14 nm to the crossing trip distance but due to our jump off point the gulf stream current, which is somewhere between 2-3 knots, will carry us northward as we head across.  We can't predict how wide the current actually is as it changes so can't plan the actual course to steer with any degree of accuracy.  But I can set the target destination on the chartplotter and then set the autopilot to follow that.  As the current speeds up and slows down the AP will adjust the heading so we end up where we want to get to. And it continuously gives you an ETA so you know how you're doing.  The bonus it's the conditions we're gonna cross in is that we can sail with a following wind and sea, so we could be looking at 7.5-8.5 knots vs. the 5.5 we had coming over here fighting the wind and waves. So, we have a plan!

https://youtu.be/jnv0Afyp-fs?si=YwxVoYeoe7GMu8Km

It all sounds good in theory but you never know what you're dealing with until you're actually out there.  We also are seeing forecasts of earlier than usual hurricane conditions this year so the sooner we can over to the ICW, the more protection we'll have.  So it looks like a 5 am start on Friday morning to get this done! So we're now in finish what ya started mode!

https://youtu.be/Sp5Nd93gQ5I?si=FWRwjynP2TjjpQUS

Preparation included getting fuel which required a taxi ride to the nearest gas station and a 30 minute wait while the world's slowest diesel pump filled 20 gallons in 4 gerry cans! Sam went through all the food we had to make sure we are compliant with the regs surrounding what you can bring into the US. We also did a fair amount of research into what we need to do to be compliant with the new US alien laws, of which Canadians are included under. hopefully things will calm down as the 2 sides work through the trade war issues but personally I can't wait to get home and away from this chaos So dust off your Noforeignland app button as we're on the move again!

We also had a boat pull into the slip beside us on Tuesday from Ontario. It turned out to be a 35' trawler that the owner Bryan had converted to all electric. He was only here over night so I didn't get a chance to talk much to him but he has a Youtube channel with over 125 videos profiling his journey retrofitting the boat as well as his Great Loop voyage. He left Ontario in June 2024 and made his way through Lakes Huron and Michigan , down the Mississippi , across the Gulf of (insert the name of your liking as you see fit) Mexico, through the Bahamas to here.

From the videos of his engine room he appears to have done some very good work technically. His power system consists of 90 kwatts of battery power, 6.9 kwatts of solar panels and 800 watts of wind turbine generation. There are twin electric motors driving his propellers along with inverters and chargers. It's a pretty elaborate system and I would hate to guess how much he spent on it all ($ 6 figures I would guess) but it seems to work as he's made it all that way in under a year! You can check him out on Youtube. Here are a couple of clips out of the many he has.

https://youtu.be/3Wph378lQA8?si=uFgNd4wTz2bQH9SH

https://youtu.be/SnVTD-W4YFU?si=NuGO9oIsCTyGxZTh


Today's shot of the sun setting on Amaruq from the Bahamas for likely the last time.