Visit with Catherine and Bob Naples, FL Dec. 13-16th

We left the Marina in our rental car around 10 am, stopping off  at Morgan Sails in Cocoa to drop of the mainsail to have some cars on the mainsail replaced while we visited with family. Realizing we had 4 hours until our 24 hour car rental was to expire and a  4 hour and 15 min drive to Naples on the Western coast of Florida, we cruised at 80 mph across the state arriving with minutes to spare. My sister Catherine and her husband Bob were kind enough to pick us up from the rental shop and take us to their nice home in Heritage Bay, in north Naples. Arriving at their home was akin to staying at a resort as they overlook a pond and golf course and have their own private swimming pool right off their living room. Bob fired up the grill for a welcome b-b-que on Monday night and we enjoyed catching up as it has been several years since we last saw one another. On Tuesday, Harry, Bob, and I played Canadian doubles on the tennis courts by their clubhouse while Catherine did her own workout at the gym. Tuesday evening we enjoyed dinner at their clubhouse followed by a few games of bocci in the warm evening. Wednesday morning, Bob had a golf tournament to play so Catherine took us for a nature walk at the nearby CREW bird sanctuary where we caught a naturalist’s talk about the flora and fauna in the wetlands. On our way out, we spotted an alligator. Bob and his foursome won their golf tournament that day and we all relaxed in the hot tub and pool before heading out to Naples for a nice Italian dinner, dinning outside where we could watch the passing pedestrians and traffic. The evening ended with a stroll down Main Street to a nice Italian ice cream shop. It would have been easy to stay longer as we were settling in to the country club lifestyle, but we had a plane to catch for Boston to see our new grand child and the family on the 16th.

 

Titusville Marina Dec 11th - 13th

We left Mosquito lagoon around 10 am and motored south about 18 miles down the ICW arriving at the Titusville Municipal Marina and slip A-17 around 12:45. Harry backed Juno into the slip without difficulty, and with help from a dockhand we were tied up and having nan pizzas for lunch in the cockpit by 1:45. Our slip happened to be 4 slips away from Bob and Anne Sherer of “Bob 423” fame. Bob is well known among Beneteau 423 owners as he wrote a cruising guide to the ICW tailored to Beneteau owners. The marina was very well appointed with a little office/store, clean bathrooms, laundry, grills, and a small lounge with a tv. We spent the afternoon with Harry up in the rigging trying to add a piece to the upper shrouds to lengthen them but he wasn’t successful as a part had seized up. Headed to the showers to wash off the sweat and then out to Hoffman’s Table for a dinner of prime rib just a short walk from the marina.

On Sunday Dec. 12th, Harry went aloft again to finish rig adjustments, did some laundry, an then I Ubered to the Budget car rental shop around 3 pm to pick up a rental car. Stopped by Walmart to pick up some damp rids to combat moisture while we have the boat closed up for 4 weeks while we return north. Also picked up some tarps to keep seeds off Juno that are dropped by the starlings that sit aloft in the rigging. Taking advantage of the car, we went out for dinner again, this time ending up at Indian Surprise because La Marimba was closed for a holiday party. We spent the rest of the evening packing and prepping the boat for our departure by car tomorrow morning.

 

Some of our neighbors at Titusville Marina

Juno safely secured until we return after the New Year

Harry attempting to make some rigging adjustments

Holiday lights, Florida style

Mosquito Lagoon: SpaceX launch, Canaveral National Seashore and a Manatee? Dec 9-10

High on Harry’s list was to get as close as possible to a rocket launch and so we arrived in Mosquito Lagoon Wed. Dec. 8th in time to drop anchor before nightfall. Mosquito lagoon is a large (about 2 miles across) undeveloped lagoon surrounded by the protected lands of Canaveral National Seashore and Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and is about 15 miles north of NASA’s Cape Canaveral launch site. An early morning (1 am) SpaceX rocket launch was planned for the morning of Dec. 9th. So we got up, and saw the glow of the engines against the night sky shortly after it lifted off. Pretty cool.

During daylight, we were the only boat to be seen in Mosquito Lagoon as the sun shone down but winds were about 10-15 out of the north so it was a little cool. We dighied to the National Seashore where the park ranger forewent the $40 monthly landing fee since we were only going to be there for a few hours. Surprising as remote as we were, there were a few other sunbathers on the “clothing optional” beach who had driven down from New Smyrna to the north. We found flock of terns by the water’s edgeto be more interesting than the naturists.

Since we decided we’d rather hang on the anchor in Mosquito Lagoon than in the Titusville Marina where we’d made a reservation to leave Juno for the Xmas holidays, we stayed Friday Dec. 10th as well. The sun shone brightly and it was warm enough to put on a bathing suit for the first time in many weeks. Temperatures were in the 80’s and privacy led us to shower on the stern for the first time in a long time (bathing suits not required), and then we took both sails down as Harry has ordered a new jib and needs to have some cars on the mainsail replaced. We spent the day relaxing on Juno, writing Xmas cards and aired out clothes from the hanging locker in the warm sun. We weren’t sure, but in the calm of the early evening, we thought we might have spotted a manatee (on our list to do spot) but by the time you see something break the water’s surface it would be gone. Anyway, we enjoyed gin and tonics as the sun set. Eventually three other boats joined us in the lagoon and discovered that mosquito lagoon is aptly named as the mosquitoes did descend at sunset.

 

Sarah on lookout for Manatees

Royal terns on Canaveral Seashore

Sunset in Mosquito Lagoon

SpaceX Launch at 1:00AM

New Smyrna: Home of Bob Ross School of Art, a Lousy French Bakery, Publix, and a nice Business District Dec.6-8th

We arrived from Daytona on Monday Dec. 6th after nearly being hit by a young motor boater en route who wasn’t looking where he was going as he was focused on his cell phone and was steering with his feet.  Sarah flipped him the bird which got his attention and told him to pay more attention. Anyway, we anchored south of Ponce Inlet off of Chicken Island in Sheephead Cut, about 1 mile from New Smyrna, adjacent to a condo complex as space was tight. It turned out to be a great spot as there wasn’t much ICW traffic since Chicken Island is situated in the middle of the ICW thus splitting all traffic in half.

We didn’t know anything about New Smyrna other than our St. Augustine friends Jan and Tanya had said it was nice and we found it to be most pleasant. With the help of Google Earth, we found a Publix supermarket close to a spot where it looked like we could land the dinghy (Callalisa Creek) and set off to pick up a few groceries.  En route to Publix, we were excited to spot a French bakery so we had to stop. Always room for an almond croissants and French bread but we found them both to be mediocre at best and a disappointment. However, the Bob Ross Painting Studio in the shopping mall with Publix was a rare find. The class in session happened to be on their coffee break and they saw us peeking in, encouraged us to enter.  About 15 people had the exact same painting partially completed. Turned out they were learning how to be instructors of the Bob Ross painting technique and one we befriended was from Indiana. We then shopped for groceries at Publix, returned to the boat for lunch, and then dinghied to the town of New Smyrna which had a nice row of shops and restaurants on Canal Street, including an artist’s collaborative shop where we bought a trivet and met the artist. Further along, we found a 1950’s pharmacy/sandwich shop/cafeteria that looked authentic but which stopped serving food after 2:30 pm, City Market Bistro (nice looking restaurant, closed on Tuesdays), and an old fort of “uncertain" origin. 

On Wednesday morning, we explored the mangroves by Callalisa Creek and could easily have gotten lost in the thick growth with many intersecting creeks, all of which look identical, but we managed to find our way back to Callalisa park, left the dinghy, and walked to New Smyrna Beach. It was high tide when we got to the beach, which was nice white sand. Ordinarily they permit cars to drive the beach, but being high tide, there wasn’t room for any cars. As we walked the beach, we saw several surfers in the water and discovered that the beach is well known to surfers. We could tell that in a few more weeks, the beach scene at New Smyrna Beach would be popular with the college kids as it had surf shops and eateries as well as a 1950’s shuffleboard club for the older crowd. 

 

Deciding to Go

[This was originally intended to be published back in October but got overlooked, so here it is.]

We have decided to take Juno on another adventure to warmer climes for the winter of 2021-2022. Getting ready covers a large swath of activities. They range from boat maintenance or upgrades to provisioning and getting everything on board. But first things first, we had to decide to go and where we wanted to go.  After Harry decided to retire from Akamai in June we were pretty sure that were ready for another sailing trip.  We thought we would do more general traveling but COVID has put a big crimp in those sorts of plans.  Our first trip was in the winter of 2019 where we spent most of our time in the Bahamas aboard Juno.  There are 700 hundred of islands and in four months we only visited about 40. That was a lot, but clearly there are a lot more to experience.  Many of those we did not see are more remote and we would need more time for them. So, a return trip to the Bahamas seemed like a good idea.  On the other hand there are many beautiful islands south of the Bahamas in the Caribbean.  Since we are never sure if there will be another trip like this, we started focusing on the Caribbean with the hope that we would get another chance to see more of the Bahamas in some future trip.

The Caribbean is a slightly different beast. First of all getting there is a lot more work. The options we considered were first to join a group of other sailors leaving from Norfolk VA in early November and sail Armada style, non-stop for 10 days to Antigua.  The second island hop through the Bahamas, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico to get south.  While thinking through the first option we knew that we had managed pretty well  as just the two of us on our Bahamas trip, not needing more than a couple of 3-day / 2-night passages.  On these we shared “watches” of two to four hours during the night, then rested during the day. However,  for a ten day offshore passage we decided that we would need to enlist the help of a third crew member to lighten the watch load and also provide a buffer in the case that one of us got sick or injured.  We started making a list of potential crews and felt we had some good candidates.

The “island hopping” option, or the “Thorny Path” as it is also known, was definitely worth considering. We  could do it on our own and we could also see many islands that we do want to see some day.  The challenge is related to the name “Thorny Path”. It gets this name because the prevailing winds in the southern Bahamas are from the South East, just the direction we are trying to go, or as sailors call it, going upwind.  In a sailboat that doesn’t work too well as you have the zig-zag back and forth, about 45 degrees away from the wind. Now instead of going six mph towards your destination you are only making a little over four mph.  On top of that, the waves are coming much more towards you so the boat has to plow through these. The last complication is that many of the sea currents that you encounter on the Thorny Path are also against you. While you can’t do anything about the currents, to get over the prevailing winds coming at you, you can wait for fronts to pass that cause the wind to move to more favorable directions for a few days.  All of this makes for a much longer passage to get to Caribbean.

So while we were mulling the above over in our minds, trying to decide which is the better alternative, there was that pesky thing the world is all too familiar with - Covid - happening.  Each island, or small island group, in the Caribbean is either its own country or part of another European country.  As such, each has its own Covid protocols. Generally though it means going through the “Test-Get results-Request Permission-Travel (hopefully)-Check In - Retest and/or quarantine” routine. This isn’t insurmountable, and lots of people are in the Caribbean managing just fine, but it started us reconsidering the Bahamas. The Bahamas too has added back more restrictions now requiring testing when moving between Bahamian island groups but it still seems much easier than trying to travel between different countries in the Caribbean.

The final factor was the wonderful news that our daughter and her husband were expecting their first child, and our first grandchild, in November. Now thinking about the more complicated, and somewhat more expensive travel options to return home for a visit or two (or three) really started to tip the scale in favor of The Bahamas.  So, sometime this summer we dropped the Caribbean and started focusing our planning on The Bahamas and some time in the Florida Keys.

The image below shows the 10 day, non-stop passage from Norfolk to Antigua in red. The Thorny Path is in yellow with the opposing prevailing trade winds indicated by the green arrow. The first leg of the red path takes advantage of more westerly prevailing winds further north.