Day 3 - Daytona Beach

It was another beautiful day in paradise, sunny, clear skies, gentle southeast breeze as Kite dropped her mooring tether and headed south once again down the ICW. At 08:00 the sun was low and the reflection on the nearly smooth water was blinding whenever her course was easterly, which it was just now, as Kite passed between the moorings to enter the ICW channel. As soon a she had passed between the two red buoys marking the right edge of the ICW channel, Peter revved the engine up to cruising speed and turned south, heading for the next red buoy a quarter mile distant. Kite accelerated quickly with the flooding tide and was soon up to her 6 knot cruising speed. And then BUMP, as her keel collided into the sandy shallows at the edge of the ICW channel, and Kite lurched and came to a sudden stop. Peter reacted quickly, backing down the engine and pivoting Kite until she pointed north, then powering off the sand bar into the flooding current. Kite was free in an instant and heading across the ICW channel, to the "green side," referring to the color of the buoys marking that side of the channel.

Consulting his GPS map display, Peter discovered that in heading for the next red buoy, 10A, he had left the ICW channel, because a buoy was missing and he was actually heading for buoy 12! (We heard hours later on a radio broadcast that buoy 10A had floated away during the night.) Safely on the green side, Kite cruised down the ICW again at 6 knots and the rough start was soon forgotten as she headed for Daytona Beach, 45 nautical miles to the south. Ringle left her mooring a half-hour later, but had no difficulty catching up, as her cruising speed is 7 knots. Peter caught a photo of Ringle

as we cruised together through the beautiful waterfront homes of Palm Coast.

Ringle in Palm Coast

The ICW in this part of Florida passes inside narrow barrier islands, often less than a half-mile from the Atlantic Ocean. There are often dense forests blocking a view of the ocean, but the temperature of the easterly breeze is much cooler as it moves across the cold ocean water. We were tempted to put on our jackets. The favorable tidal current stayed with us for most of our voyage today, but as we entered the Halifax river at 15:00 it turned against us and slowed our progress. There are two draw bridges in Daytona Beach that we had to pass through, and the last one had restricted opening hours from 16:45 to 17:45 to accommodate the rush hour auto traffic at that time. At our reduced cruising speed of 4.5 knots, Peter calculated that Kite would arrive at the last bridge during the restricted hours, and would have to wait half an hour for the bridge to open. So he pushed the throttle all the way forward to get maximum speed, hoping that if we could maintain at least 5 knots we would arrive before 16:45.

The southeast wind was blowing directly at us, so we could not count on getting any help from our sails. During some strong gusts Kite slowed to 4.8 knots, then as the wind subsided her speed returned to 5.2 knots. The timing was going to be close! At 16:37 we passed through the first drawbridge, and from there we could see to the second one. It looked different! In fact, it wasn't even there! Only the fender walls still remained to mark where the ICW channel passes through. In less than 1 year since we has last passed through this area, they had completely removed the Memorial Drawbridge and it is no longer a consideration to navigators passing through Daytona Beach. It is hard to say if we would have made the opening had it been still there. It certainly would have been close. But we just passed through and accepted our good luck.

A few moments later we arrived at Halifax Harbor Marina, our destination for the next 2 days. Rain and t-storms are in the forecast so we will wait a day and enjoy Daytona Beach. Our slip in the marina is just across the dock from Ringle, very convenient.

As we were "rushing" to make the bridge opening, we heard a Coast Guard broadcast about the Cape Canaveral security zones in the ocean being closed at 16:00 for a rocket launch. Looking online, Lyn discovered that SpaceX would be launching a Falcon9 rocket with a satellite payload from Cape Canaveral at at 18:30. This was to be the first re-use of a previously launched booster. And that is what happened, as you can see below.

Launch of Falcon 9 rocket on 30 Mar 2017

We learned a few minutes later that the booster rocket had been safely landed on a barge in the ocean,  ready to be re-used once again.

We discussed the weather forecast with Vince and Eveline and agreed that we would spend two days in Daytona Beach. Then they invited us to dinner aboard Ringle at 19:00, to be followed by a viewing of High Noon, a 1952 western that won several Oscars at the time. The spaghetti dinner was delicious and the movie was fun. We went to bed late and planned to sleep late in the morning.

Day 2 - St. Augustine

Kite and Ringle spent an uneventful night anchored near Blount Island and were ready to depart at 08:30. The half-hour trip to the ICW took 45 minutes because the current in the St. Johns river was flooding against us at 2 knots, slowing our progress to 4 knots until we reached the ICW. Then the flooding current helped us as we made a quick passage down the ICW to St. Augustine. This took us through 30 miles of salt marshes where the predominant life forms are waterfowl, fishes and dolphins. We enjoyed seeing pelicans gliding above the water with only their wing tips skimming the surface, and cormorants surfacing from a dive with too big fish in their bills that they managed to swallow whole anyway. And a treat for us was a swallow-tailed kite (named for our boat, no doubt) that soared through the trees along our route for several minutes.

Kite soars through trees along ICW

If not for the wildlife our day might have seemed boring. That is, until we arrived in the vicinity of St. Augustine. As we approached the famous Bridge of Lions drawbridge, we were obliged to dodge away from "Freedom", a schooner that was tacking its way out to sea.

And then we passed through the Bridge of Lions on its 15:00 scheduled opening. That is Kite passing through ahead of Ringle.

After we arrived at our moorings, we freshened up and then hopped into our dinghy to meet Vince and Eveline (from Ringle) for some delicious dinners ashore at Harry's Seafood Bar.

The Voyage Begins

Right on schedule at 15:00 this afternoon Kite and Ringle departed our marina at Ortega Landing in order to catch the 16:15 opening of the Main Street Bridge in downtown Jacksonville. The current was favorable as we made our way downtown in the St. Johns river and it was apparent that we would arrive early. As we entered downtown, the normally open FEC railroad bridge started closing, cutting us off from the rest of downtown. We knew that a train must be coming and that the bridge would open as soon as the train passed. The time was 15:40 and trains usually are not longer than 10 minutes so we were not especially worried. We watched as a long freight train rumbled slowly across and were gratified when, 10 minutes later, we watched the last car roll towards the bridge.

But wait! Approaching from the opposite direction were the engines of another freight train on an adjacent track and they started across the bridge before the last car of the first train had cleared it. This was another long freight train and we began to worry about making the 16:15 opening of the Main Street Bridge. The last car of this new train crossed the bridge at 16:00 (exactly 10 minutes) and a couple minutes later the bridge opened to let us pass.

Fortunately the Main Street Bridge is a short quarter mile from the railroad, so we arrived with 10 minutes to spare, and we passed under its raised span at 16:17. The rest of our trip down river went smoothly and quickly, as we benefited from a strong ebb current. Our destination today is an anchorage on the east end of Blount Island, near where the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) crosses the St. Johns river. We enjoyed a view of our picturesque suspension bridge, the Dames Point Bridge, near the Jaxport shipping facility.

A Fresh Start in 2017

It is nearly Spring in 2017, and Kite is ready to once-again try a cruise to the Florida Keys and beyond, to the Dry Tortugas. She should be traveling in company with Ringle and we have set the departure date as March 28, 2017 from Jacksonville, FL. Last year's ill-fated attempt ended the first week, in Daytona Beach, when Kite developed serious engine problems that required 2 months to fix. But we did fix them, and are now preparing Kite for the same journey, a year later.

Our outbound itinerary will be slightly different this year, as we are planning to join Alison and Laura's families at Hutchinson Island, near Stuart, FL for a week on April 9th as we travel down the Florida east coast toward Miami. Kite will stay at the marina at Hutchinson Island Marriott Beach Resort and Marina while the others will stay at the resort. After a week visiting our "kids" and grandchildren, we hope to join Des who will fly in from Alaska, and continue on to Miami, and then the the Keys and Dry Tortugas.

Lyn is currently provisioning for the voyage and I am maintaining the engine and rigging before departure.

Stay tuned for regular updates after the voyage begins!