Serenity's back in her slip

SERENITY on a mooring at Vero Beach mooring field

Jan and I drove down to Vero Beach on friday afternoon. It was a little less than a 2 hour drive. We arrived at the marina and I put the dingy together. I was anxious to see Serenity because I had left her on a mooring for 3 weeks without any oversight. I even had a dream while I was in Richmond that I came back to her an she had 2 feet of water standing inside.

As we motored out toward her, I was looking at the waterline to see if it looked like she was sitting lower than normal. Everything appeared okay from the outside. I also had a fear of coming back and finding a layer of green mold growing on the inside.

Both of these fears come from experience. The first winter that I had Miss Janella (the winter of 2001/2002), I had left her tied to a dock in Colington Harbour - beside a 'friend' of ours house who was also a sailor - while Jan and I spent the winter in Key West. He told me he would keep an eye on her over the winter. Keep in mind that Miss Janella at this point was a 30 year old boat that I has just purchased for barely more than $2000 and while she wasn't in bad shape - she wasn't a 'looker' either. When I returned in April, 'someone' had left the companionway partially open and there was a foot of rainwater in the bottom of the boat. The moment I saw the boat, I saw that she was sitting lower than normal in the water. It turned out to not be a very expensive deal. The only real damage was some delaminated doorways - which I replaced when I refurbished Miss Janella in 2004.

So, the second fear comes from the winter of 2004/2005 when I had sailed Miss Janella 1000 miles south from Kitty Hawk to Key West. We lived in Key West again that winter and when we left to come home, I left Miss Janella on a mooring in Key West. We knew we selling our house in Colington, and probably moving to FL, so it was better to leave her there and bring her to our new home later. I left her unattended (seems that 'attended' didn't work out so well) on the mooring for 3 months. When I went back to her in May of '05, all was well except that she had a thin growth of green mold all over the walls. On the 26 foot boat that she was, it only took an hour or so of cleaning to get rid of it and having the air flowing inside kept it away after that.
To address this concern on SERENITY for this period of leaving her unattended and closed up, I had purchased 3 of the large DampRid chemical dehumdifiers (which pulls moisture out of the air by a chemical process) and put them throughout the boat.

I did a complete 360 around Serenity as we approached and checked out her topsides and made sure that the mooring pennant as well as my backup line showed no signs of chafe. So far so good.

So, as I climbed the boarding ladder on the transom of SERENITY, I was scanning the deck and cockpit for signs of problems. None. Still looking good. I unlocked the companionway and headed down in to the salon, the whole time sniffing - expecting to smell that 'super-musty' smell. Nothing. Everything looked and smelled normal. I went over the bilge pump counter (it's a digital readout that tells you how many times the bilge pump as come on) and it had not come on even one time while I was gone. SUPER!! This is one very dry boat to be 24 years old!

So, I went about the normal preparation for getting ready to leave on Saturday morning. Oil checking, deck readying and such. Around 5:30, Jan and I went out for a movie and to get something to eat. We returned around 9:30, watched a little TV and then headed to bed.

Up at 6am, we headed over to the Beach House restaurant for breakfast and then came back to the Marina. I headed out to the boat and Jan headed north toward a flea market on Highway 1 and then to home and work. At 7:45am, I was underway again.

This is a photo of a 43 foot Irwin that is just like SERENITY - except 5 feet longer. We congratulated each other over the radio on how lovely our boats were as he passed me to port.

The forecast called for winds from some flavor of North all day. This would be a 2 day trip and to divide it perfectly into 2 sections, I would need to make it around Cocoa on the first day. That would be no problem. Around 4pm, I made Cocoa and since I didn't know anyone there to stop and see, I decided to keep going to at least the Addison Point bridge - south of Titusville. This is a good anchorage area with a nice location on both the north an south side of the causeway. I made the Addison Point bridge by 5:45p. While being a good anchorage, there's no access to anything ashore here and if I anchored at 6pm, I'd do nothing but sit on the boat, so I decided to just sit on the boat while it was moving and go ahead and push on another hour to the anchorage outside of the Titusville Marina. I'm very familiar with this anchorage and marina plus it has a number of restaurants within close walking distane.

I picked out a good anchorage in 7 feet of water and dropped the bruce anchor and 60 feet of chain, set the hook and the started that wonderful 'unwinding' process that you can't get anywhere else other than on a boat.

Later, I dingied into the dock at the Marina and walked to the finest fried chicken establishment that a Kentuckian ever created and then to CVS for a couple of supplies.

Back on the boat after 9p, I sat out on the bow and looked a the darkness with anchor lights around me. All's good - except Jan's not here. We're working on that.

Underway on Sunday morning, passing another sailboat as the sun rises


Sunday morning, I got up at 5:09a (after one cycle of the snooze alarm) and made coffee and readied the boat. Not a breath of wind, just a very glassy anchorage with perfect upside-down reflections of the lights from Titusville in the water. I checked the oil and made my entry in to the ships log, tidied up the cockpit, readied the instruments and then drank my coffee. At 6:15a, I started the engine and went forward to raise the anchor. My windlass (the chain winch that pulls up the anchor chain and anchor) has been out of service since my trip south last month, so I pulled the anchor up by hand. This is no big deal in calm conditions - and in a shallow anchorage. However, with a lot of wind - single handing the boat - and other boats downwind of you, this can become quite a chore. At sunrise, I was headed north toward home - just 45 statute miles away.

2 pelicans fly by toward a disappearing horizon in Mosquito Lagoon


The trip home was enjoyable. On saturday, there were so many love bugs flying around that it looked like a black snowstorm and on Sunday, as I travelled through the Mosquito Lagoon, the large deer flies were all over the place for about an hour.
LoveBugs along for a free ride on deck

As I got within 10 miles of Ponce Inlet, I could feel the positive effects of the tide going out and carrying me with it at an extra 1 and 1/2 - 2 knots of speed over the ground. After I passed the inlet however, I felt the negative effect of the same motion - slowing me to as little as 3.9 knots over the ground at times.
A dolphin surfaces just south of Ponce Inlet

At 2:15pm, I called Jan (who now works at a CVS that's only about 5 blocks from the marina where we keep the boat) and she left work to come help me tie up at the dock and then take me home.

An enjoyable 2 days on the water. Now, I have a long list of little things I want to do to the boat. No big hurry I don't have a trip in my boat on the calendar at all for now.