The Indian River

Monday, March 14, 2005, Melbourne FL

N28 04.672 W080 36.062

Today was an inland day. We needed to get to Melbourne on the Intercoastal Waterway (ICW). It meant a whole day of motoring.

The ICW is pretty pleasant down here. It actually follows the Indian River, a brackish river. The channel is very narrow, and we found that straying even a few feet outside the channel made the alarm on our depth sounder blat at us.

One encounters lots of other boats on the ICW going both ways and it’s fun to watch them. We learned that we were the slowest motoring boat on the ICW. Everyone passed us. We passed no one. I finally raised the mainsail and that gave us another knot, but we were still slowest.

The Indian River is full of dolphins everywhere. I didn’t know that. They’re fun to watch.

In the afternoon we got hit by a thunderstorm. We learned that Tarwathie can not be steered into a 30 knot headwind under power. We had to drop the anchor and let the storm pass.

We arrived at the Melbourne Harbor around 1830. 30 minutes after they close, but they were nice and waited for us. I managed to dock Tarwathie for the first time. It went without mishap.

This evening, my brother Ed and his wife Sally came for dinner on the boat. They were our first guests onboard. That was fun.

Tomorrow we’re going to shop, and I’m going to post these blogs. I’m not sure how many daily readers I have, but they’ll drop out unless things get posted. Tomorrow night, Dave Hackett and his wife Jonnie are coming for dinner. This whirlwind social life will tire us out.