CODA BAHAMAS BOUND 2025 (7)

CODA :  At a Vero Beach mooring day 2.

16 January 2025

Vero Beach Municipal Marina, Vero Beach, Florida  

Welcome to Vero Beach!

Marc- We have completed our second day here in a very welcoming port.  Even the birds seem friendlier here.  There are a large group of sailors at the moorings and the docks.  Most seem to be in transit while others are here for the winter.  My cousin Armand and his daughter Michelle came over and took us for lunch at C.J. Cannon's at the airport.  We were by a runway, we were inside (therefore warm) and it was a nice place.  It's a big airport, and there is a Piper airplane factory on the grounds.  Then they took us to Walmart where we bought 3 large cases of bottled water and more seltzer.  I replaced the fan that caught fire with a Caframo fan made in Canada.  This one seems much more robust than the Chinese knockoff that had aluminum wiring and poor insulation.

We are awaiting a D-tops sticker from the US Customs and Border Patrol to enable re-entry after our upcoming visit to the Bahamas.  I ordered it 1/3/25 online to be delivered at Armand's address.  It was supposed to take 4-5 days to get here... We will wait one more day here for the mail.

Sue checked us in to the marina while I waited at the bus stop (amazing free bus services here to downtown and the beaches).

Morning walk on live oak lined street.

Vero Beach.

Whistling ducks in the park.

Along an ICW trail.

My cousin Armand and his daughter Michelle.

CODA BAHAMAS BOUND 2025 (6)

CODA :  At a Vero Beach mooring for two nights.

15 January 2025

Vero Beach Municipal Marina, Vero Beach, Florida  

Marc-  We traveled 64 mules down the Indian River today from Titusville to Vero Beach.  This is an amazing river filled with fish, dolphins and many birds (including gulls and pelicans).  Our old reliable northerly wind helped push us south but we did run the engine, along with the sails, to cover the distance we needed to travel.  All boat systems, except the depth finder, are functioning well.  We are also eating well after all the recent provisioning! I was amazed how many islands are in the Indian River between Sebastian and Vero.  Most are undeveloped and a few have very large and expensive homes lining the shoreline.  There was not a lot of boat traffic.  Everyone, except the Coast Guard, gave us a slow pass, limiting their boat's wake.  

Titusville pre sunrise.

Sunrise.

Birds flew around the bow and stern of the boat and occasionally found some fish behind the boat.  I have it from a solid source (Charlie L.) that the boats passing disturbs the baitfish bringing them to the surface.  Perhaps that is why dolphins seemed to be always diving under our boat as well.

We walked around the beachfront shops and found this place still celebrating the New Year.

Coda tied up with another boat in the mooring field.  Most moorings have two boats some have three.

 

CODA BAHAMAS BOUND 2025 (5)

CODA :  At a dock tonight.

14 January 2025

Titusville Municipal Marina, Titusville, Florida  

CODA at the dock well secured for tonight's 30 knot winds.

Marc-  We had a great run today from Daytona Beach down the ICW,  past Ponce de Leon Inlet and its majestic pink lighthouse, through the threatening Mosquito Lagoon, through the Haulover Canal, and onward to the Indian River.  The North wind was 15 to 20 knots most of the day and we made use of it to motorsail (we are pressed for time) making up to 9.1 knots and averaging 8.4 knots.  Our trip was shortened by one hour with these speeds. These waterways had many dolphins and pelicans but no mosquitoes.  

Our arrival to Titusville was marked by the view of the NASA rocket assembly building at Cape Canaveral.  Unfortunately the area near the Titusville Municipal Marina of the Indian River had about eight boats stranded on shore as a result of the recent hurricane, Milton,  that passed through here in October 2024.  Apparently every boat still on a city mooring, when Milton came with its 100+ miles per hour winds, broke its line connecting the boat to the mooring ball and drifted away.  All city moorings survived the storm,  The Marina manager offered to secure each of the boats yet every captain refused.  Boats fared much better inside the marina lagoon at the docks.

This 25 foot boat seems to have faired well yet no-one has come to lift it on to a trailer (I saw no hull damage despite it being on the rocks.

This catamaran is obviously a total loss.  

Not all the boats around here a wrecks.

A local sign post.

Titusville has several beautiful parks.  I especially enjoyed the Space Park.

John F. Kennedy's inspirational speech.

And NASA's success.

CODA BAHAMAS BOUND 2025 (4)

  CODA :  On the move at last.

13 January 2025

Berthume Point anchorage, Halifax River, Daytona Beach, Florida  

We are the gray boat in the green circle.  This is the preferred Daytona Beach anchorage: 12 boats anchored here tonight

Marc-  So happy to be moving along at last even if it's under power.  We averaged 7.4 knots today with some slowdown for bridges.  I had to return the rental car to the airport.  Sue stayed at the marina to do laundry.  Two divers came and cleaned CODA's bottom before we left.  There are a lot of marine creatures in salt water that like to attach themselves to a boat hull, which decreases the speed of the boat considerably.  Since the boat has been sitting in one place for 2 months it was important to have this done.  One diver noted that one propeller blade (we have three) is "a little bent".  We have not noticed any vibration or decrease in speed so we will hold off on any repairs for now.

Our passage from Palm Coast to Daytona Beach was uneventful.  We were following a large Catalina with a rather tall mast (64? feet) as we approached Daytona Beach and its several bridges.  The boat stopped before the first 65 foot bridge any slowly crawled beneath it.  The second bridge was the same.  We passed them among the bridges and saw that the third fixed bridge was only 64 feet from the height board beneath the bridge.  The Catalina did not cross beneath this third bridge and must have decided  to wait for the tide to drop some.  We are nicely anchored among the fleet tonight.

It is cool down here in Florida (note the jacket).

A rather gray day in hindsight.

Sue:  It's cold!  We were lucky to be in a pilot house as we travelled today.  Although I've heard for months how cool it was in FL this Fall and still, I failed to bring much warm clothing.  I have only one pair of long pants and one pair of wool socks.  But I do have a down jacket, and for that I am thankful.  It was gray and/or raining all day so that didn't help matters.  Before today we have been more active, so that warmed me up.  We have just been sitting today, and we didn't get off the boat tonight (because we set off late and it was close to sunset when we arrived) and already, day one of travel, I wonder if I'm going to go crazy in this boat.  And there were not many sights to see.  But we are getting to prettier places now, and normally we will get off the boat to walk and see the sights when we reach our destination for the day, and the sun will come out tomorrow, so things will be looking up.  The boat is running well, it's comfortable, we have plenty of food, hot drinks, and we turn on the heat at night.  All in all, it's pretty luxurious.   I used to say I was claustrophobic on the Lucy III.  Technically I wasn't, it was just an overall feeling of wanting to get the heck off a boat that was stuffed with too much stuff, my side of the bed was under cabinets, and there was a general "tight" feel to the boat.  We don't bump into things and suffer from "boat bruises" on Coda!  

CODA BAHAMAS BOUND 2025 (3)

  CODA :  Loading the provisions

12 January 2025

Palm Coast Marina, Palm Coast, Florida   

Loading is rather a mess before it gets organized and stored in every little storage area and, most important, location documented.

Marc-  We ended up buying almost all of our provisions on the west coast of Florida while visiting friends.  Yesterday we drove from Ft. Myers to the boat.  It was a bit cooler up here in Palm Coast compared with Bonita Springs (37 degrees at 0:600 vs. 48 degrees).  Route 4 was stop and go traffic through the Orlando area but overall the trip was fine. 

CODA appeared to be in excellent shape when we pulled into the marina lot.  On closer examination I found the a small fan had suffered an electrical meltdown.  The fan was made in China and used aluminum rather than copper wire and substandard insulation with a low melting point.  The wires melted and the power cut out preventing a fire.  Never go cheap on electrical items!  Everything else was fine.  Zero mold (we left the air conditioning operating for the 7 weeks we were up in Vermont.

Is this really Florida weather?

The intrepid sailors.

Local great blue heron.

We get rid of almost all of the packaging.

Sanibel Island Lighthouse (great shelling beach).

Sue:  We got most of our provisions onto the boat last night.  Today we are organizing.  Made one Publix run for perishables, and we'll make a Costco run later today for a few more things.  It's a beautiful day, albeit a long pants and jacket day. 

CODA BAHAMAS BOUND 2025 (2)

 CODA :  Provisioning for The Bahamas 

10 January 2025

Boat is at the Palm Coast Marina, Palm Coast, Florida.  We are in Ft. Myers.   

Marc-  We know from our previous trips that it is good to stock up on staples (rice, potatoes, pasta oatmeal, flour, etc...) we need a two month supply on everything that could be rather expensive or hard to find in The Bahamas (which is most everything.  We still plan on buying fresh food (fish and bread, anyway) in the Bahamas.  Our friends, Roger Wallace and Susan DeSimone, shared their provisions list based on their voyage to The Bahamas last winter, and that is proving to be very helpful.  We agree with the rule that if we don't eat it now, we probably won't start eating it in on this trip.  We don't like spam now, so there is no reason to believe we would like it four weeks from now.  We bought ingredients with meals involved, canned chicken, tuna, salmon, ham, pasta, potatoes, spaghetti sauce, fried rice, stir fry.

This looked like a nice place to provision.

Well, maybe not such a good idea.  Captiva Island was battered by two hurricanes this past Fall: Helene and Milton, and recovery is very slow.

We had much better luck provisioning at Cosco for some of the items. 

We passed this astute fisherman at the beach.

I really like the watercolors here.

Marina decor is nice as well.  My friend Fred Lewis with foundry experience will enjoy this collection of dolphins in bronze.

Our good friends Donna and Frank Maher who helped us with the provisioning list.

Master provisioning list.

Roberta and Sue at Captiva.  The Mucky Duck restaurant is wrecked from Hurricane Milton and closed again.

Not all island businesses were closed.

The Bubble Room Ice Cream Parlor was open!

Sue:   We spent 2 days with Donna & Frank Maher in Bonita Springs, and yesterday we came to stay with our friend Roberta Parillo in Ft. Myers for 2 days.  We worked on the provisioning list with Donna & Frank, and had a great time at the Lakes Park in Ft. Myers with them.  

We went to Sanibel/Captiva with Roberta and had lunch at The Green Flash Restaurant on Captiva looking out at Pine Island Sound.  We all got crunchy grouper sandwiches, and they were very good.  Then we walked over to the Bubble Room's Ice Cream and Bakery store.  The Bubble Room Restaurant, which is still closed due to hurricane damage, is selling their famous cakes there.  We got one slice of their signature Orange Crunch Cake to share, along with vanilla ice cream.  The cake was to die for.  It was 3 layers and 8-10 inches from end to end and several inches thick - 5 inches?  I'm talking about just one slice.  It was a huge slab, really, not a slice.

Sanibel was in pretty good shape, though still recovering from Hurricane Ian (September 2022) and from Helene & Milton just recently.  Captiva did not fare as well with the recent hurricanes and still has a long way to go.

Marc couldn't wait to get to Costco.  We planned to go to one near the boat on the East Coast, while we still had the rental car.  But here we are on the West Coast, and he was itching to go.  Roberta was game for going with us, so we went.  She moved us right along and in no time we'd spent $480 and filled up the back seat of the rental car.  The next day we went to two Walmarts to get more food and stuff, and to one Publix. The Bahamas do not have big grocery stores, and their food is very expensive.  Most people who live there order their food from the mainland and it comes on the mail boat.  So we need to take with us most of our food for the 2 months we plan to be there.  We need to take the paper and cardboard packaging off of everything in order to prevent bugs from getting on board.  We need to label the cans with a marker, or we will never know what is in them--we'd have a "surprise inside" every time we opened one!

CODA BAHAMAS BOUND 2025 (1)

 CODA :  Return to Florida at last:  giving up snowflakes for sunshine 

8 January 2025

Boat is at Palm Coast Marina, Palm Coast, Florida.  We are on the West Coast of FL.

Winter lights around the steamboat Ticonderoga at Shelburne Museum,  Shelburne, VT

Marc-  We spent the winter holidays with family and friends in Massachusetts and Vermont.  Yes it was plenty cold in the North.  The Champlain Valley had very little snow although the surrounding Adirondack and Green mountains had plenty.  Even Cambridge, Massachusetts had more snow than our home in Vergennes.  We had a great time at Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years.

Walking with our friend Marie at Shelburne Farms.

Hot chocolate and cookies with Bernie in Vergennes (I think I ate too many cookies).

Sue made these Spritz cookies (very good).

Sara Lou in Cambridge snow.

Enough snow for one of these to appear.

Steph came up from NYC by train.

Skiing with Steph at Smugglers Notch.

More Shelburne Museum lights.

That's all folks.

We are spending the next several days provisioning and doing more preparations to Coda for our eventual crossing from Key Biscayne to the Bahamas.