November 2, 2015
The waterfront park which had been so busy yesterday evening
was quiet at 6:30 a.m., with just a few walkers, joggers, and dog walkers. We landed the dinghy on a small pebble beach at
the spot where the park’s canoes and kayaks were stored and launched. Sasha did a good job playing Frisbee without
getting distracted by other dogs in the park.
She did run around a bit with a friendly young hound, Jeb, and even
shared her Frisbee for a few throws.
 |
| Marina Jacks (view from our mooring ball) |
 |
| Waterfront park in the morning |
We wanted to get an early start even though we were only
planning to go about 38 miles (5-6 hours at 7-8 mph), because we had at least 2
bridges that we would need to have opened and we didn’t know how many “no wake”
zones there would be along our route.
 |
| Blackburn Swing Bridge - our first of this type that we had to have opened |
 |
| This operator had to walk onto the bridge to open it. She was very nice and friendly. |
We were still in an area where there were a lot of homes
along the channel, so we traveled at 6-7 mph for quite a while.
There were still quite a few stretches of narrow channels
with shallow water on both sides, but we don’t worry about them at all now
unless a bigger boat passes us from behind going fast enough to throw off a big
wake. When that happens, we cut in
toward the boat as soon as it passes, and then turn our bow away so that we
take most of the wake on the stern. In
narrow channels there is really not enough room to get the bow around fast
enough to take the wake on the bow at a good angle.
 |
| This bird was wading close enough to the channel to get a good picture |
 |
| It is unusual to see a daymarker without at least 1 bird on it. |
We made good time despite the bridges and no wake zones and
arrived at our anchorage near Don Pedro Island by 2 p.m. There is a no wake zone that starts near DM
3, and we turned in between the daymarker and the second no wake sign. We had 7.5-9 ft, dropping our anchor at the
point where we could swing freely with 75 ft of rode out. This anchorage gets good reviews in Active
Captain, and Ray and Linda of Second Noelle also endorsed it. Since it is in a no wake zone, it is pretty
quiet. It is near Don Pedro Island Park,
so we did see some kayakers and paddleboarders go by.
 |
| Stand-up paddleboarding is very popular |
You can stay on the same side of the channel to go to Don
Pedro Island where there is a beach, picnic shelters, and nature trails. Since dogs aren’t allowed on the beach, we
went to the other side of the channel where there was a land side park with a
small dock. It wasn’t anything fancy at
all, but there was a large open sandy area that was perfect for Sasha to get
some exercise.
We had planned to try to get our watermaker going after we
anchored, but after 2 hours of trying, we called it quits. When Rob had wired the booster pump, it
seemed to work fine when tested. Once we
had the reverse osmosis (RO) membranes installed and were trying to prime the
system, however, it kept blowing fuses.
Rob did some troubleshooting and talked with the vendor we had bought it
from, but it wouldn’t keep running with a load on it. The vendor was very helpful with
troubleshooting tips and is sending us a new pump since it seems to be a pump
issue at this point. Fortunately, we
don’t really need it since we will be at Ft Myers Yacht Basin for at least a
month starting tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment