With Friends in "The Ditch"

When Linda departed from Palm Beach, I was joined by two old friends, John and Beau, who flew in to help me get north. John was actually returning for another tour of duty -- he was with me in the Keys before Christmas. The remnants of the cold front were still hanging around, so it was cool and winds were out of the north. Once again, the winds were coming from my destination, making sailing impossible.



Old Beau at the helm



Johnnio, as his friends call him

Thursday we departed the beautiful Palm Harbor at 8:30 a.m. and immediately called the bridge tender of the Flagler Bridge to ask for him to open the bridge at 8:45. The commuters backed up as he let us through. We felt a little guilty.

We repeated this about ten more times that day as we made our way up the intracoastal waterway toward Stuart, the crossroads of eastern Florida. It is called this because the Okeechobee River crosses the ICW into the Atlantic. Boats with a mast height of less than 49 feet can take the Okeechobee River across Florida to Fort Myers. If I had really wanted to go that way, I could have paid a vendor to put 1,000 gallons of water on the deck in bladders to heel the boat over so that the mast will clear the bridge.

But, we weren't going that way. We pulled into Sailfish Marina in a little cove called "Manatee Pocket." We were the only sailboat among a slew of Sportfish boats. Stuart claims to be the "Sailfishing Capital" of Florida. The marina allows you to use your grill (some don't because of the fire hazard), so we grilled up some steaks for dinner.

On Friday morning, we continued up the ICW toward Vero Beach. At this point, most of the highway bridges have 65-foot clearance so we didn't have any bridge openings to contend with. The weather was beautiful and each day was getting warmer than the last. We were back in shorts and enjoying the beautiful scenery on both sides of the boat.

This would be a good spot to comment on how much I like the Atlantic ICW. I had heard reports of big power boat wakes, narrow channels, etc. Maybe we were just there in a slow period, but every power boat that came by us slowed down to reduce their wake. Maybe they were so astounded to see "Chattanooga" on the transom of a boat that they were slowing down to see if we had shoes...or teeth.

The scenery of mansions and mega yachts slowly morphed into views of mangrove islands teeming with wildlife. Dolphins played in our wake every hour or so as all manner of seabirds put on a fishing show for us.





Bob, my crew from Clearwater to Key West, lives in Vero Beach so he came to the municipal marina as soon as we tied up. He took us on a tour of Vero Beach and drove us to a great restaurant for dinner. Then we went to the grocery store to replenish our food supplies.


As we left the marina on Saturday morning, we had to slow down to snake our way through the the Vespoli rowing shells of a local female rowing club. It was a beautiful day to motor-sail to Melbourne. We saw large numbers of beautiful white pelicans that had black wingtips. When we got to Melborne at 2:00 we decided to continue on for another 5 miles to a little village named Eau Gallie.

What a great decision that was! As we came down the entrance channel a pod of dolphins were jumping all around us at they fed on mullet. They were jumping so high we thought we were at "SeaWorld." The pelicans were also diving on the mullets all around us. When we got to the marina, it looked like we were in New England. The marina office was located in a canvas shop and a local artist was carving a block of cherry into a dolphin sculpture outside the door.


We walked into town and found a local bar called "Squid Lips" where they brought us some oysters and made our favorite cocktails. A couple of musicians were performing and Beau joined them on stage for some percussion assistance.





We came back to the marina and grilled a pork tenderloin. After dinner, we joined some other boaters around a fire pit and told stories. We also listened to an unfolding drama on the VHF radio as the Coast Guard attempted to assist a sailboat that was 100 miles off the coast with an very sick captain.

By the way, We heard some conflicting stories about the meaning of the town name, Eau Gallie. My college french has worn off, but I knew Eau meant water. Gallie means rocky, according to one resident, but another said the combined phrase actually means clear water. Either way, it is a cool little place with loads of character.


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