Ocean Passages - Rough Start, Perfect Finish

Our mechanical issues were finally resolved late Friday afternoon allowing us to plan for an early morning departure from Bahia Mar Marina on Saturday morning. We enjoyed our stay, but were ready to move on. On Friday morning, Bill and I took a walk down to the Port Everglades Inlet to check out the wave conditions. Winds were still pretty strong, so the inlet was rough and did not look very inviting. However, the weather forecast was encouraging and we decided that we would take a look at the ocean water at 6am on Saturday and make a determination if we would take the ICW with all of the bridges, no wake zones and crazy Saturday boat traffic, or go outside.

We had one last dinner in Fort Lauderdale with the Friday night Spring Break crowd and headed back to the boat to try and get as much sleep as possible for an early wake up. We checked the water and conditions and decided to go for an outside run. We bid adieu to Bahia Mar Marina and headed down the ICW for a short run to the inlet. We saw a number of magnificent yachts on the way out. Fort Lauderdale is loaded with them. There was a little chop in the inlet and the ocean was bumpy, but not terrible. The further north we went, the better the conditions were. Things really calmed down after we passed Palm Beach, which we had decided was the bailout spot if the water was too rough and we couldn't tolerate it. There were a few boats out on the water, one particularly pretty sailboat.

We arrived at the Fort Pierce Inlet around 1:00pm and had to fight the tide conditions. We were riding the waves in and trying to avoid the other boats going both in and out. Once though the inlet, we just had to dodge all the Saturday boaters.  The marina was busy and we had to wait a little to get into the fuel dock and move to our slip, but all was well and ended with a peaceful afternoon and evening.

Since I am an early riser, even when we lose an hour sleep for the time change, I got up in time to catch the launch of the SpaceX Falcon rocket. It would have been nice to be closer than Fort Pierce, but the sky was exceptionally clear and I could see the flame of the rocket clearly. I watched fly across the sky until out of sight. Glad I got to see it. 

Sunday morning was pretty quiet at the marina. We untied the lines and left around 10am to head outside to Port Canaveral. Once through the inlet, where a big sport fisher boat waked us more than we have ever been waked before, the water was almost flat calm and beautiful. We passed a couple of turtles along the way and Bill caught a glimpse of a whale. We have not seen much in the way of sea life during our ocean passages. We had a great passage to the Port Canaveral channel. As we neared the channel we saw three Disney cruise ships anchored out, obviously waiting for the post-pandemic cruise business to restart. 

Entering Port Canaveral itself, we passed a couple of tugs and a barge with a long cylindrical contraption standing upright. We weren't sure exactly what it was until we got right up next to it................a booster from the a SpaceX Falcon rocket. This was the actual barge that it lands on in the ocean to be reused and was returning from a flight last week. Everyone was excited about seeing it. I was concentrating on the traffic as the channel not that wide and boats were coming and going.

We made it safely into the marina and got tied up in our slip. Tomorrow we head for Cocoa to spend two nights.