Day 47 - Vero Beach

Kite and Ringle decided to stay an additional day at Soverel Harbour Marina in North Palm Beach, to rest and take care of many chores that needed doing such as topping off water tanks, showers in a real shower, defrosting the refrigerator, and shopping for a few food items. The extra day also provided time for the weather to change, bringing strong winds from the south to help us with our northerly voyage. The next day we planned to travel 52 nautical miles to Vero Beach and Kite needed the help of the wind to make good speed to go that distance.

Kite departed Soverel Harbour Marina at 07:50 and motored 3 miles in favorable current to the first drawbridge. This bridge opens on an every hour and half-hour schedule, so we had a few minutes to wait before it would open. When it did open, it did it so slowly that Kite wasn't safely clear of the bridge until 08:35, which meant we had only 25 minutes to go 3.2 miles until the next bridge which opens on the same schedule. We missed the timing by 2 minutes and waited nearly 30 minutes to pass through this bridge. After that, there were 4 more drawbridges to go, but all of these open on demand, so we made good time for the rest of our day's voyage.

Kite was lucky today, encountering favorable currents during the morning and early afternoon while the wind was weak. Later in the day when the wind increased, we unfurled Kite's headsail and it helped propel us along at maximum speed. We used the headsail from about 10:30 until we arrived at 17:00, and our speed reflected it. Peter calculated the average speed for the day (not counting the lost half-hour waiting for a bridge to open) to be 6.3 knots! That is among the best we have ever done in the ICW. When we sailed past Fort Pierce inlet, which was ebbing, suddenly our favorable current changed to unfavorable, but by then the wind was so strong behind us that Kite was able to maintain her speed above 6 knots in the unfavorable current.

The only notable wildlife we encountered today occurred as we approached the first bridge. A stingray jumped completely out of the water in front of Kite and belly flopped. A few minutes later it happened again. We both witnessed both occurrences, but did not have our cameras at the ready, so no photos of this one. Instead we will offer our readers a sunset photo of a venerable old lady named "Queen Ann's Revenge" taken near Anchorage Marina on Key Largo. Hope you enjoy it.

"Queen Ann's Revenge" at Key Largo