Northbound ’19 – Travel Day 6: Fort Pierce, Fl to Cocoa, Fl

Conditions: Sun and clouds, warm. Winds SSE 10-15 then to 20 mph in afternoon.  ICW waters calm to a light chop.

Distance traveled: 70 statute miles

Time underway:  6 hours 45 minutes

Average Speed: 9 kts

Max Speed: 17 kts

Fuel used: 71 gallons

First thing to note is that I finally, reluctantly switched from nautical miles to statute miles in the information above (though I’m still showing our speed in knots). The Intracoastal Waterway is measured in statute miles so it obviously makes sense to report our travel info that way.  I’m just so used to calculating in nm that I resist the transition.  And now that that important piece of business is out of the way…

Our brief stay in Fort Pierce was fun as we happened upon an Oyster Festival a few minutes walk from the marina and decided to give it a try with the Miss Norma Crew. 

We had some seriously large oysters from Rhode Island and they were delicious.  There was an awesome reggae band jamming but the day was hot and Jasper was done so after our little feast we headed back to OLOH to get to our daily chores.

That next morning, after watching the sunrise we had an easy departure from Fort Pierce City Marina at 7:30 am and made our way back to the ICW.  Just a few miles past the marina is the North Fort Pierce Bridge which opens on the hour and half hour.  Thankfully the water levels were such that we were able to just sneak under with our antennae down which kept us from having to wait.  It also enabled us to bypass a few sailboats that were waiting for the bridge which always makes things easier. We had lots of time on this leg with the ICW effectively to ourselves, other than the occasional small fishing boats out of the channel that we always slow down for.

As we were just putting a few of those statute miles behind us we heard the Cruisers’ Net based out of Vero Beach on channel 16 promoting their upcoming broadcast.  Cruisers’ Nets are locally oriented information broadcasts that exists in many areas popular with cruising boaters.  We heard one in the Exumas but this is our first one stateside.  It was hosted by a lovely sounding woman from her boat who moderated the session with various boaters chiming in with detailed weather reports and other info including the opportunity to share trouble spots encountered on the waterway, promote an event or business and even offer some boating trivia.  When she solicited for the names of listening boaters we signed in just after our friends on Miss Norma.  When she got to “open mic,” we mentioned our website in hopes that it could be a good resource for others wishing to travel as we have.  And when somehow someone mentioned something involving ropes on their boat, someone chimed in with the age-old argument that there are no ropes on boats, only lines.  Tim then proposed the question, “if someone has soap on a rope on their boat is it then only properly called soap on a line?”  To which someone responded, “deeeeeeeeep.”  It was fun.

We had a lot of dolphins playing in OLOH’s wake along the way which kept Jasper on alert. Other than that it was what we would refer to as a quiet ride.  The bigger areas you pass through in this stretch include Vero Beach, Sebastian, and Melbourne and the narrower stretches give way to some pretty big bodies of water that are pretty shallow outside of the channel.  As the day wore on the southeast winds really began to kick up.

Miss Norma left Fort Pierce around 45 minutes before us and we passed them just about two hours before arriving in Cocoa, a perfect opportunity for us to shoot those coveted running shots of each other’s boats.

Our arrival at Cocoa Village Marina was one of our most challenging to date.  We have stayed here before and were being put on their T-head which is the only dock that can accommodate us inside their basin.  There’s not a ton of room to maneuver to begin with for our size vessel and the wind was using all of its might to keep us away from the dock.  The approach initially went smoothly enough but just at the moment I handed off our bow line to the dockhand, the boat got in exactly the right position to catch a sharp, gusting wind funneling through the adjacent apartment buildings which blew us forcefully away from the dock.  After some stressful maneuvering we were safely tied but it serves as a reminder to always remain on the highest alert until the boat is secure.  Things can change very quickly.

Cocoa Village is a great stop.  The folks who work at the marina are simply terrific – some of the most friendly you’ll meet along the waterway and always doing what they can to be accommodating.  It’s also a very short walk to the very cute little village.  We’ll enjoy dinner with our friends from Endless Summer and some time with Miss Norma’s Crew while we’re here and take a lay-day to wait out impending thunderstorm activity before moving on to Daytona.  Unfortunately a space launch scheduled for our time here on the Space Coast was pushed off due to the weather which is too bad because we would have practically had a front row seat.

Daytona will be next.  See you out there…