Miami Bound !!

Sunset over the Georgia Marshes

With our hydraulic steering installed JUST IN TIME, we set out for our long trip of the year.  We have a lot planned, but primarily we want to take some time to just do whatever we want or do nothing.

The first destination was to be the annual DeFever Rendevous.  We went to the one last year and made many new friends that we have kept in touch with throughout the year.  So we were excited to attend this years Rendevous and get to see them again.

Old Ship in St. Augustine, Fl

We will also be attending the MTOA Rendevous.  The DeFever Rendevous is for boats designed by Arthur DeFever.  The MTOA Rendevous is for any Trawler, regardless of who designed or made it.  Both organizations provide a wealth of knowledge and support to help keep our boats working properly and to know where to cruise.

But in between the two, we decided to take some time and go see the Miami / Ft. Lauderdale area.  We are really looking forward to the blue waters further south.

This was actually built this way!

The trip down to the first Rendevous was mostly uneventful.  We had a very tight schedule to get there on time and so we traveled from sunrise to sunset for five straight days.  It left no time to stop and smell the roses.  Plus, we had already traveled the majority of this route and blogged about it previously.

The primary difference from before is that we anchored out every night.  What a cost savings from having to pull into a marina!  I am so glad that we got the generator working!

Ft. Matanzas

We did get into a scrape (literally) as we departed the anchorage at Ft. Matanzas south of St. Augustine.  I hit a sand bar only feet away from the ICW.  Since I believed I was close to the channel, I took a chance and powered through the bar instead of trying to back off of it.  The risk paid off and I easily made it through to the other side and in to deeper water!  Of course, it brought Marie running up from below to find out what happened.  I just acted like it was no big deal even though I was a nervous wreck!

One of many rowing teams we passed

Ft. Matanzas was built by the Spanish to guard against a sneak attack from the British on St. Augustine, after the British unsuccessfully tried it once.  The next time the British came up the river, they were met with cannon fire.  They never tried it again and the fort eventually fell into ruin.  I guess you could say it was a victim of its own success.

The DeFever Rendevous was held in the Old Port Cove Marina in North Palm Beach, Florida.  Poor little Elixir felt a little out of place among all the mega yachts that are parked there.  But she held her own.  All those renovations Marie and I were making this last winter gave Elixir something to be proud of and quite a few people came on board to check out the new and improved Elixir!

Dinner at the Palm Beach Yacht Club

We had a really great time with all our DeFever friends.  There was a pot luck dinner at the dock on arrival day.  We had classes to learn about our engines, boats, and how to go to and from places like the Bahamas and get back into the U.S.  We had lunch by the pool and a formal dinner at the yacht club.  We also got to tour various boats which is where you pick up ideas on how to fix up your own boat.  On the last night, four of the larger boats volunteered to host parties to say good-by.  Everyone meandered from boat to boat (and one of the boats was named Meander) to say their fair-wells and have a good time.

Marie and I with the sunset over Brianna, a 53ft DeFever

Two of the highlights for me was that I got to have dinner with my father, who lives in the Palm Beach area.  I have not seen him since our trip last year over to Captiva Island and it was great to see him again.  Him and his wife, Dottie were gracious enough to pick us up and take us to one of his favorite restaurants where I ate way too much!

We were also assigned to mentor a couple who were new to the club.  This was their first Rendevous.  In fact, it was their first trip on their boat, Moonshine!  Gary and Diane got on their boat two weeks earlier in the Florida panhandle and crossed the Gulf, went through Lake Okeechobee, survived the locks on the Okeechobee Waterway, and made it to the

This is 20ft deep and you can see bottom!

Rendevous!  They were a fantastic couple to be paired up with and we really enjoyed getting to know them.  Adding to their unbelievable braveness, they left the Rendevous and headed to the Bahamas!  We all wondered if they paired us up because their boat is named Moonshine and ours is Elixir. :)

We departed Old Port Cove Marina and went out into the ocean, headed south towards Miami!  It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed the sunshine, wide open sea, and the clear blue water!

No Name Harbor

We headed south until we eventually arrived at No Name Harbor.  No, its not a harbor without a name.  That is its name!  It's located on Cape Florida, near Miami.  A quaint little harbor, it is a popular destination for the locals who come there to eat at the little restaurant located on the premises.  During the day, scores of big and little boats would come and go as they dined at the restaurant.  We even saw some that apparently ordered takeout and would just pull up to the dock, get their meal, and leave!  The restaurant was a bit overpriced for the quality of the food, but everyone with a boat should eat there at least once.

Elixir gets front row seating at the restaurant

We only stayed there one night and it ended up being our last night of good weather for the rest of the week.

We headed south and anchored off Long Arsenicker Key.  We wanted a couple of days to sit and do nothing except read and watch the waves and this uninhabited island fit the bill.  Unfortunately, the weather turned lousy just after our arrival and so we spent two nights at anchor mostly unable to go outside the boat.  By the third day, they were predicting 30mph winds and so we decided it was time to find a safer harbor.

Boca Chita Key

We headed north to Boca Chita Key.  Boca Chita was one of the places I wanted to visit both because it looked like a pretty place and because of its history.  As I understand it, the island was purchased by Honeywell as a home for his family.  He had the basin created for his yacht, but the captain had difficulty finding the basin at night so Honeywell had a lighthouse built.  Yep, his own personal lighthouse.  Except only the government can build lighthouses (or so they claimed) and they made him shut the light off.  Then his wife died in a boating accident and he lost interest in the island and gave it to the government to be part of a National Park.

Talk about a tight squeeze!

But at this point we were running there to hide from the oncoming storm, not to sight-see!  However, when we got there, the basin was filled with locals there to camp for the weekend.  Camp!!! Didn't they know there was a storm blowing in?  The wind was already picking up and we watched as some of them ran after their tents which were being blown across the lawn!

Red Sky at night... Still windy the next day :(

With Boca Chita full, Marie quickly searched for an alternate hiding place and found one on Sands Key, the next key south.  Supposedly it was hidden up a narrow channel but the reviews said it was plenty deep once we got in.  And so we searched for the hidden entrance.  Twice, I ran aground in the shallow waters in front of the entrance, but spurred on by the reviews I kept poking till I got into the narrow channel.  The channel itself was deep enough, but it was so narrow that I only had about a foot on either side!  And the sides were lined with rocks!  At last, we came to the end of the long channel and just as promised, there was a pretty little cove well protected from the oncoming storm.  Except is was pretty shallow.  I immediately ran aground!  There was no way Elixir was going to float in that cove, so I decided to try to back her off the sandbar and turn around out of there.  Easier said then done.  I rocked her back and forth all the while turning the bow back towards the channel I had arrived in.

Elixir off Elliott Key

Little by little, I got her turned around and finally she floated back into the channel.  I think I dug a new channel in the process.  For a minute we didn't know if we would be stuck in there or not, but we finally made it out.

With the sun setting and the wind getting ever stronger, we decided to just drop anchor off Elliott Key, the next island south, even though it offered no protection from the westerly wind.  We put out every inch of anchor line we had and hoped it would hold.  It did, even though the winds gusted to 50mph that night.  It was a rough night but we survived.

Miami Skyline

The next two days were better, but not by much.  The winds were 15 - 20mph and we found
ourselves still trapped inside the boat, just in a different location.  But even through the winds, the locals came to this popular island and at one point I counted 75 boats anchored around us.  I guess people from Miami figured that compared to a hurricane, this was nothing!

Finally, after almost a week of being tossed around by the winds, the seas calmed enough to hop in the dinghy and go to the beach.  We spent about two hours looking for shells for Marie's collection (we found some nice ones) and then headed back to Elixir.  No sooner did we return than the winds began to pick up again!

Old Sewing Machines

Enough is enough we said, and so we decided to leave the next morning and head to Miami.  We anchored at Belle Isle, which is next to the famous South Beach.  A short dinghy ride to the police dock and we were able to tie up the dinghy and walk to South Beach.

We spent the day being tourists and checking out all the stores.  We found one clothing store that had old sewing machines all over the store.  I don't know why they had them, but it looked pretty cool!

We ate both lunch and supper there since they had about 4 restaurants per block!

Ace is the place!!

And of course what trip to South Beach would be complete without a trip to Ace Hardware?  I was surprised that they had one at all and this one had more stuff than any Ace Hardware back home!

I told Mare that you can always spot a boater because they are the only ones that are browsing up and down the isles at an Ace Hardware!  We spent at least an hour in there finding all kinds of things we just had to have.

I'm giving her all she's got!

The next morning, we pulled up anchor once again, and headed north to Hollywood.... Florida that is.

Along the way, I picked up a guy paddling his board and he started drafting me!  I mean, I know Elixir is no speedboat, but this was embarrassing!  Actually I was in an idle speed only zone but this guy actually kept up with me for 15 minutes at 5 knots!  He said being behind us made it easier.  I kept her slow after the speed increased because I didn't have the heart to make it harder on him!

Hollywood Boardwalk

We pulled into the Hollywood Marina for some much needed water and got fuel while we were at it.  We wanted to rent a car and drive to Ft. Lauderdale because there are a bunch of marine stores there we wanted to check out.  Unfortunately, we could not get a car early enough in the day, so we decided to stay two days and play tourist the first day.

Ship entering Port Everglades

We walked over to the beach where they have a two mile long boardwalk.  It is lined with the little hotels common in Florida back in the 60's and 70's as well as restaurants and shops.   We walked the entire length and even found a few things to buy.

The next day we got the rental car and drove to Ft. Lauderdale.  We were not disappointed.  Anything you want for a boat you can find in Ft. Lauderdale.  The West Marine there is the biggest we have ever seen!  After a day of shopping and trying out new restaurants, we returned to Elixir ready to continue our journey the next morning.

The next day found us passing through Port Everglades in Ft. Lauderdale.  It is a busy shipping port and we had to get out of the way of an incoming container ship.

One of the many huge homes in Broward County

We passed many beautiful homes on the water and with each one we had to guess whether it was really just a home or a hotel.  I think they were all homes!

This part of Florida is nerve racking for cruisers because of the many bridges that cross the ICW which are too low to go under.  That means you have to stop and wait for their scheduled opening which can be 15-20 minutes away.  Holding still in a narrow river with lots of little boats running around and a current pushing you one way or the other is like trying to stop a car on an icy road!  On this day, we went through 13 bridges in four hours and ten had to open for us!

No anchor holds here!

We finally reached our destination, a quiet little cove, and dropped anchor.  But it dragged, so we reeled it in and dropped it in another spot.  But then it dragged again!  It caught itself and we thought we would be OK, but then it dragged a third time!  Not wanting to risk it dragging at night, we weighed anchor and headed a little further north for a better anchorage.  We found one about 30 minutes later and were glad to see the anchor hold on the first try!

Fairy Tale looking bridge in Boynton Beach, Fl

Our next stop was West Palm Beach.  This is where I grew up, so I knew the turf.  Or at least I
thought I did.  When I was a teenager (a long time ago), Clematis Street in Downtown West Palm was known for all its high-end shops.  You couldn't afford anything but it was interesting to window shop.  So I wanted to take Marie there and let her browse.  We anchored off the city docks which allow you to tie up your dinghy there and Clematis Street dead-ends at the docks!  We were very disappointed though as Clematis has changed!  (40 years - go figure)  It is now pretty much all restaurants - no shops.  So we did find a couple of good places to eat, but other than that the visit was a bust.

West Palm Beach skyline

We did take advantage of the stop to visit with my sister, Katie, and her husband, Brad.  They live in the Jupiter area and drove down to have lunch with us.

They were also kind enough to drive us to the West Marine store in North Palm Beach for a part to fix our toilet.  It had died a few days earlier and we were having to use buckets of salt water to flush it.  You can imagine how much fun climbing down on the swim platform at 4am to scoop up a bucket of water was!  We were very glad to get the toilet working again!

Peanut Island Kaos

We pulled out of West Palm on Easter Sunday.  OK, maybe not the best plan in the world, but I had places to go.  It wasn't long before we ran slam into the party crowd at Peanut Island.  There were more boats than you could possibly count.  People were everywhere!  In the boats, in the water, on the sandbar, and on the island!  It was a nightmare trying not to hit the numerous small craft cutting across your bow.  It's like they had no clue that my 30,000 pound boat has no brakes!  While they were having fun I was just crossing my fingers that I was not the cause of the end of their fun.  But we did not hit anyone and so we watched in awe at the mere mass of people enjoying the day.  They even had pizza delivery!

Pizza anyone?

After we made it through the crowd we left Lake Worth and entered the winding river past the beautiful homes of Jonathon's Landing and Admiral's Cove near Jupiter.

As we turned into Jupiter Inlet, we caught sight of the Jupiter Lighthouse.  Its bright red tower makes it stand out against the skyline.

After a short trip further up the ICW, we dropped anchor for the night.

Jupiter Lighthouse

Eau Gallie city docks

Our northbound trip has us heading towards Daytona Beach, where we will be attending another Rendevous.  This one is for the Marine Trawlers Owners Association (MTOA).  Generally, every association assigns mentors to help assist first timers with any questions, concerns, etc. that they may have.  Since this will be our first time, we were assigned mentors.  We were contacted via email by our mentors, Mike and Dotty onboard Cool Beans, a 36 foot Kady Krogen Manatee.  They gave us some tips on how to prepare for the Rendevous and asked if we had any questions.  As the days progressed, we began to realize that they were only a half day ahead of us.

Cool Beans

At that point, they told us they were stopping for the night at Eau Gallie, and that we were welcome to join them.  We had never been to Eau Gallie before and so we jumped at the chance to visit a new place and meet our mentors.  It meant we had to travel an additional 2 1/2 hours but it was worth it.

We pushed on to reach Eau Gallie and our second catastrophe occurred (the toilet being the first).  We suddenly lost all our instruments!  The chart plotter, rpm indicator, water temp gauge, everything was dead!  In addition, other DC powered things like the bilge pump died, but not all DC powered things.  Hmmm.

Need a wrench?

I called for Marie who was down below and she came up and took over the helm.  She loaded up Garmin Blue Chart on her iPhone and used that for navigation, but we had no depth sounder!  After I diagnosed that this was not a problem I could quickly fix while underway, I knew I had to at least get the chart plotter back up.  I realized the problem was in the old DC wiring and luckily I had just installed a DC sub-panel that was only a few feet from the upper helm and was wired directly to the batteries.  So I cut the power line to the chart plotter and re-wired it to the sub-panel.  Viola!  The chart plotter was back on line!  I then climbed down into the bilge and re-wired the bilge pump to a spare battery I had down there so that we would not take on enough water to sink us! I will have to get the rest of the system working at a later time.

Selection of wood burning stoves at Travis Hardware

We finally arrived in Eau Gallie and went by dinghy to meet Mike and Dotty onboard Cool Beans.  After a very nice, but short, visit, we excused ourselves to go into town.  Pretty much everything was closed but we had a good dinner at Chef Mario's Cafe.  After we returned to Elixir, Mike and Dotty came over to visit on our boat.  It was the first time someone had come to visit us by dinghy, so we got to mark that off our list!  The night ended too soon but we discovered that they were planning to stop in the same area we were going to the following night, so we decided to convoy up together.

100's of little fish eating at the surface!

The following day, we followed Cool Beans to Cocoa Village.  After pulling into Cocoa Village Marina, we met Mike and Dotty in town for pizza (they tied up to the city docks on the other side of the bridge).  Following lunch, we had a little time to spend before we met up with my mother and step-father so we went to Travis Company Hardware.  Yep, another hardware store.  But this was no ordinary hardware store.  It had EVERYTHING!  Think of anything you can find at an ordinary hardware store and they not only had it, they had every size of it!  Just look at the selection of wrenches as an example.  Then they had things you would not find at any other hardware store.  The selection of wood burning stoves, wooden wheels for your covered wagon, old fashioned wringer buckets for doing laundry, and amazingly enough, the gaskets I had been unsuccessfully searching the internet for!  The store has been in business since the 1800s and I'm pretty sure some of the inventory was bought back then!  If you are in the area of Cocoa Village, you have got to check this place out.

Cocoa Beach

Later, my mother and step-father stopped by to visit.  It was his 87th birthday so we all went out to dinner to celebrate!

Following dinner, we took a drive out to Cocoa Beach since Marie had never been there.  We drove around looking at the sights and then made a short stop at the beach to feel the sand in our toes.

As the sun set on a perfect day, we were dropped off at the marina with a promise that we would visit some more the next day!

Jetty at Port Canaveral

The next morning we visited the many shops in Cocoa Village.  When most people think of visiting Cocoa, they think of Cocoa Beach.  But the real gem is Cocoa Village.  We have visited there several times now and have yet to see every shop.  Each time we go we find something new to buy.  And yes, we went back to the Travis Company Hardware store to get some more things!

Later that afternoon, my mother and step-father came to visit.  We went to dinner and then they took us for a drive to see Port Canaveral.  This is becoming a busy port for cruise ships and it is still expanding.  There are many restaurants there.

Silly Wabbit!

They also took us to the Jetty Park where you can enjoy the beach, go fishing off the jetty pier, or just sit and watch the Cruise Ships go in and out.

While we were standing there talking, a baby rabbit came out of the grass to visit my mother.  He spent about ten minutes eating the grasses around her feet!  We were surprised at how brave he was and of course we all took many pictures of him.

Elixir underway

The next morning, with threats of a week-long storm on the weather reports, we decided to high-tail it all the way to Daytona Beach, where the MTOA Rendevous was to be held.

Along the way, we apparently passed another MTOA member who was on her boat in a marina and she sent us a couple of pictures by email.  It is not often that you get pictures of your boat underway, because you are usually on it, so this was a nice gift!

Rockin to the Oldies!

At the MTOA Rendevous, we met up with some of our friends as well as met new friends.  In all, there were 64 boats there!  Our friends, Jim and Ann on Wild Goose were already in port when we arrived, as were our mentors Mike and Dotty on Cool Beans.  Its nice to belong to such a strong community of friends.

Aside from a lot of social functions, we attended classes to learn about our boats.  Bob Smith, the guy that designed the engine that powers Elixir, was there to answer any and all questions.

SOS!!

I attended a Coast Guard safety course on signal flares and even got to set off some flares.  Normally it is against the law to set off a flare unless it is an actual emergency, but we had permission from the Coast Guard to practice with them.

Elixir received a safety inspection by the
Power Squadron and received a Coast Guard decal showing she had passed the inspection!

Marie went out on another boat full of women to practice docking without their screaming husbands along.  What... me yell?

Eat, drink, and watch the boat!

Finally, the week was over and we headed back to Brunswick and the end of our trip.

Along the way we stopped for fuel at Inlet Marina in St. Augustine and grabbed a quick lunch right on the beach.

We had to hurry home as I had to get back to work, so the trip from Daytona to Brunswick only took two nights.  And then it was over.....all too soon.  We are already looking forward to our next adventure.  Somebody just give me an excuse to go somewhere!