Escape from Vero

Saint Lucie River
N 27 10.745 W 080 11.580 see the map

0600 I woke at the first sign of light in the sky, and turned on the weather radio. Hooray! The forecast sounded OK. I roused the others out of bed and set about the business of preparing Tarwathie to be mobile once again. By 0750 we were under way.

Not only that, but we got to sail for the first time using our new roller furler and new fore sail. There was plenty of wind for it, between 20 and 25 knots most of the time with occasional gusts to 30. All we needed was the fore sail, no motor, no main sail. We rocketed down the ICW at speeds ranging from 5 to 7 knots; hitting a peak of 7.87 knots. WOW! Tarwathie was feeling her oats.

It felt very very good to be under way and under sail once again. Libby enjoyed it a lot. Jenny was a little intimidated at first by the strong winds, but she soon relaxed.

Jenny got a good lesson on how things can build up to overload on a boat. We approached the intersection of the ICW, and the Saint Lucie River and the Saint Lucie Inlet. Within the space of 120 seconds, we spotted a pod of about 25 dolphins near the boat. Jenny got excited and ran for her camera. We had to make a right turn at the appropriate buoy. A big power boat came up behind us and decided to pass by cutting the corner on the inside of the turn. We had to jibe the fore sail and start the engine after turning. Just then the depth sounder alarm came on. It showed 5.7 feet and our depth is 5.5 feet. We were right in the middle of the channel where we were supposed to be. We had too much speed and too little room to maneuver to do much about it. Fortunately, we passed the shoal without bumping the bottom, but those were tense seconds.

Around 1500 we got to this place on the Saint Lucie River. It has good shelter from the ENE wind and it it out of the way of river traffic. We are surrounded by mega mansions of the rich and famous. I turned on the WIFI and found 8 signals to choose from. Life is good.

Tomorrow, we'll be in Stuart in the morning and we can spend the day exploring a new city.