ICW
Intracoastal Waterway
On December 22, 2007 Mystique carried us safely off of our dock strings that held us so securely to the Holland Marine boat yard. It was a cold damp day the sun wasn’t shining, but we were determined to set ourselves free down the long passage of the Florida Intracoastal Waterway heading south. We had to motor because the channels are short in a lot of spots and you have to follow the markers that guide you through the channel safely. The fishermen place tons of crab-pots out all along the channel. If you happen to run over one, the rope will wrap around your propeller and mess up your boat. So, dodge all the crab-pots! You can easily lose your way if you don’t follow the markers correctly or worst of all get grounded when you have a 5 ft keel on your sailboat as we do. The one major thing that anyone that chooses to sail the ICW should know is that there are lots of bridges that you need to pass under. Some of which are too low for a sailboat to sail under. Our mast height is 59 ft. The lower bridges are the kind that will open for you, but they need to have someone on duty to do so. We are traveling during the holidays. This is something to worry about because its hard to tell where you will be at any given time.
We passed through our 1st major City, the city of Jacksonville. Carl calls the bridges from our VHF radio. All is well, and we pass under all the bridges with ease. Toward the end of our 1st day the channel becomes narrow and more deserted. We had to anchor at night, this may not sound very difficult but for us this was our 1st anchor ever. We were shown how to anchor in sailing school, and we have read books on how to anchor but this was our 1st solo. We didn’t end up at our destination before dark and the channel wasn’t real deep as the tide went out. We were so worried that we may drift into the trees or keel over, so we decided to stay up all night on watches each one taking turns. We are exhausted but fine the anchor held firm. Good job Caption Carl! The next few days the channel got shallower and shallower. We grounded our boat for the 1st time in Daytona. A real nice man and his wife drove their dinghy over to us and pushed the stern and gave the dinghy gas at the same time, we were free! It’s just soft mud pushed into the channels from all the power boats and yachts. We were told that lots of sailboats are getting grounded there.
We stayed at Smyrna City Marina over Christmas and Vero Beach Marina right before New Years. We enjoyed Vera Beach, lots of sail boaters stayed there. A bus drove into town every hour on the hour for free. So we took a ride and bought some move provisions like beer & soda! We even met up with the same couple that pushed our boat out of the mud for us. I’m sure that we will meet up with them again sometime because they are heading to some of the same places we are.
On December 30th , we decided to leave the ICW to sail out at sea toward Lake Worth. The weather reported mild winds and 3’to 5’ swells so we went for it 5’ waves are average for around here. Things were fine then all of the sudden the winds picked up to 23 mph and the swells appeared to be 12’ tall. The boat started to have problems. It just would shut off. We were heading south right toward the wind so we had to motor to Lake Worth. A sailboat with no power gets thrown around back and forth up and down. Terra couldn’t sit up, and Sailor hid his head “no one got sick.” But we did get thrown all over the place. We had no other choice then to sail without an engine back to where we anchored the night before. After safely anchoring and back on the ICW.
Carl worked on the boat until after dark doing everything we could think of on our own. Reading the manuals and troubleshooting. It’s really strange because the engine will start up just fine and then after so far it would just stop. The next morning Carl started the boat we ran it for quite a wile with no problem. Carl called a few marinas around and nothing was open on New Years eve. We pondered on what to do. I suggested that we motor down the ICW to get closer to Lake Worth and the motor might be fine now after all we did to her. We will have to motor on the ICW because its so narrow and we need to go south into the wind. Carl reluctantly agreed so we started south.
The channel continued to be shallow and narrow. The boat was fine for an hour then it stopped at Peck Lake. It was shallow but there was space to pull off the ICW. On the holidays power & fishing boats go flying by at high speeds on the ICW. To make a long story short we had to call a tow boat to bring us back to the anchorage where we headed back to the day before. The tow boat guy gave us a number to call a boat mechanic. It was New Years Eve so we would have to stay here at least for 3 days. We made the best of it and took the dinghy down so we could get to land.
We like this dinghy stuff Carl found a 12” fish inside the dinghy alive it looked kind a like a Mackerel or something, I guess we wont starve! There are 3 real nice restaurants close by. We cleaned ourselves up and dinghies out to dinner. It was a beautiful place and the food was superb.
I called Chris to wish him a happy New Year & Happy Birthday. Baby Kayla is sick so Chris and Amanda are staying home this year. I hope Kayla gets better soon. I called Karie & Alex, Janelle was in labor, and had her baby girl on the 29th. It’s really hard to be away from all of my family during the Holidays. But now is sailing season. All in all New Years Eve ended up real nice.
The day after new years day the mechanic called. We were so lucky, (where else can you find a mechanic that makes house calls?) Carl Took the dinghy to the dock to pick him up and bring him out to Mystique. He checked all the things Carl already checked. Everything Carl did was right. He did know how to blow out some hoses and do some other stuff that Carl didn’t but not a lot. Good news its not the fuel pump! The boat started just fine and ran for along time for him. The only thing that can be wrong is that we got bad fuel in Vero Beach Marina where we last filled up. He told us that it could happen again but the only thing we can do is use all the fuel up and refill it. I guess we stay on the ICW toward Lake Worth. Now the weather has changed from hot 80’s to high winds and cold low 40’s. Florida does that its weird. So here we stay until it clears up. “ITS COLD.”
Southern Florida down the ICW is truly hard to describe you have to see it to believe it. The aura of wealth seems to ooze from every side. Pricey mansions, high-rise hotels and condominiums line the waterway. The marinas and yacht clubs look like the fanciest vacation hotels. At the docks private and at the marinas all the yachts are huge, most are mini-luxury-liners with full staff aboard. The marinas offer more services then you can imagine. This area is exciting to see for the first time, but once is enough for these cruisers. On forward to Lake Worth where we will cross over to the Bahamas and begin our new journey south. (where the weather suites our clothes.)
