Day 54 Sunday, December 13, 2015
Passage - Marineland Marina, St. Augustine, FL to Anchorage Rockhouse Creek, Ponce de Leon Inlet area New Smyrna, Fl
29°03.91’N 80°55.71’W
9:58 AM Underway
4:19 PM Anchored
46 miles 7.8 engine hours
We delayed our departure from Marineland Marina this morning to go to the Farmer’s Market being held literally right in front of the boat. Bought some home made cheese and then we got underway.
There is lots of boat traffic from the weekend zippy boaters. That means we are passed often by faster boats. Each pass is different and requires appropriate action on our part so we won't be rocked sharply. I followed two sailboats south for most of the day as they were only going slightly slower than Liquid Therapy likes to move. The cruising boats certainly have a protocol about them that the weekend boaters don’t know about or care about. Many of the weekenders pass way too close and too fast to get Liquid Therapy in position for their wakes. So, we got tossed around a bit from the passing boats. Nothing got broken and we just dealt with the wakes as best we could.
We had a favorable current most of the way through Daytona and Ormond Beach. I finally passed both sailboats and a kind of harrowing situation where two tugs were pulling and pushing dredge pipes. Susan shot video of the tug passing. I might put that on Facebook. I was BUSY trying to not get too far out of the channel (into very shallow water) to pass the long tugs and pipe situation, and staying on the edge for quite some distance. It’s not wise to pass a tug and then promptly get in front of him. That would be the time when a filter might clog, loss of power could occur and then the tug could run over us! So, you have to not “cut off” a commercial vessel that has to stay in the channel. Yet you have to not get too far out of the channel or the ground will come up and smite thee.
Susan and I started looking for anchorages in our books and electronics and decided on this nice creek near the Ponce de Leon inlet. Four other boats were already here so I went further up the creek until it almost pops out the other side into the inlet. Nice view of the Ponce Lighthouse and you can hear the ocean waves crashing the shore. We even get an occasional ripple wave from the ocean. Very nice. Rained a bit and the wind got up a bit, but my 3 anchor alarms said we were not dragging. It calmed down about the time the 11PM news came on. We had great TV here at anchor.
Tomorrow we will head to Cocoa, Fl. It’s a very nice town for cruising boats and the hardware store is like a museum. More about that later.
Today’s picture is our buddy Tom Murphy and his boat Monday Morning near Daytona.
29°03.91’N 80°55.71’W
9:58 AM Underway
4:19 PM Anchored
46 miles 7.8 engine hours
We delayed our departure from Marineland Marina this morning to go to the Farmer’s Market being held literally right in front of the boat. Bought some home made cheese and then we got underway.
There is lots of boat traffic from the weekend zippy boaters. That means we are passed often by faster boats. Each pass is different and requires appropriate action on our part so we won't be rocked sharply. I followed two sailboats south for most of the day as they were only going slightly slower than Liquid Therapy likes to move. The cruising boats certainly have a protocol about them that the weekend boaters don’t know about or care about. Many of the weekenders pass way too close and too fast to get Liquid Therapy in position for their wakes. So, we got tossed around a bit from the passing boats. Nothing got broken and we just dealt with the wakes as best we could.
We had a favorable current most of the way through Daytona and Ormond Beach. I finally passed both sailboats and a kind of harrowing situation where two tugs were pulling and pushing dredge pipes. Susan shot video of the tug passing. I might put that on Facebook. I was BUSY trying to not get too far out of the channel (into very shallow water) to pass the long tugs and pipe situation, and staying on the edge for quite some distance. It’s not wise to pass a tug and then promptly get in front of him. That would be the time when a filter might clog, loss of power could occur and then the tug could run over us! So, you have to not “cut off” a commercial vessel that has to stay in the channel. Yet you have to not get too far out of the channel or the ground will come up and smite thee.
Susan and I started looking for anchorages in our books and electronics and decided on this nice creek near the Ponce de Leon inlet. Four other boats were already here so I went further up the creek until it almost pops out the other side into the inlet. Nice view of the Ponce Lighthouse and you can hear the ocean waves crashing the shore. We even get an occasional ripple wave from the ocean. Very nice. Rained a bit and the wind got up a bit, but my 3 anchor alarms said we were not dragging. It calmed down about the time the 11PM news came on. We had great TV here at anchor.
Tomorrow we will head to Cocoa, Fl. It’s a very nice town for cruising boats and the hardware store is like a museum. More about that later.
Today’s picture is our buddy Tom Murphy and his boat Monday Morning near Daytona.
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