May 25, 2019: Good Byes and See Ya Laters
Another morning of motoring awaited us before we got to Port Canaveral. As we got closer, we saw more sailboats and most of all, sport fishing boats. We had officially arrived in Florida.
We got in and tied up to Cape Marina to fuel up. There, we said goodbye to Jack and Marianna and hello to a family friend that picked them up.
In order to stay tied up at the fuel dock, we paid $20 to stay for an hour as we took turns using the marina showers. Not exactly what we wanted to do, but it is what it is. We weren’t sure what our next move would be, but a clear mind and clean body would help us do just that. After our hour was up, we decided to tie up to a local fishing pier to cook lunch, download weather maps, and discuss our next move. After a belly full of hot dogs, we agreed that we would take our time and spend the night at the anchorage and head out in the morning. After seeing the anchorage, it was a good thing we were only staying one night. We had finally witnessed the infamous sunken and abandoned boats that litter the Florida coastline.
May 26, 2019: Just the Two of Us
In the morning, we agreed to stick to the original plan of keeping along the coast towards West Palm Beach and then make our way across the Gulf Stream. As we weighed anchor, we contacted the lock operator to signal our intent to enter. However, the bridge had a curfew until 2pm due to the holiday weekend. We made a swift u-turn and dropped anchor again. This gave us the time to finish up some miscellaneous projects and tackle some much needed cleaning. At 2pm on the dot, we headed through the Canaveral Lock and the under the bridge. We headed out to the open ocean and off we went.
Since it was just the two of us, we decided to take 4 hours shifts instead of 6 hours with intermittent napping. Although it was doable with two people this way, I quickly learned that staying up between 4 am – 8 am was very tough.