Fishin’

 3/31- Daytona to Fort Matanza

   We managed to float all night as we only had several inches of water under the keel. Thankfully there was virtually no wind. It took a while getting the anchor up as the chain was loaded with mud. I got a work out lifting many buckets of water to clean the chain. 

    We left early in the hopes of missing some of the traffic on the water. It must have been because it was Easter Sunday that there was very little traffic until early afternoon. It also helped that we were going through a narrower channel and this was a more residential area. It did pick up later but nowhere near like yesterday. 

   A lot of the boats we have been seeing are fishing and we see many people fishing from shore or dock all along the way. With all of the fish hooks that were in the water these last couple of days you have to wonder how the fish can miss them. Well it appears they seem to miss them just fine. We routinely ask people what they are catching and the almost universal response is nothing. Either the fishing is not that good or these fishermen are liars. 

    The other thing about all these boats in the water is what do the manatees do. Whenever you see one now they all seem to have prop scars across their backs. They have no wake and slow speed zones which most people seem to respect but they always leave a channel where you can go fast. Hopefully the manatees can figure out how to avoid these channels. 

   We have seen quite a few manatees in the past several days after not seeing any on the way down. They are not terribly easy to see. Sometimes you can see the nose or their back as they dive. Other times you look for what’s called the manatee divot. This is a disturbance to the water caused by their tail when they swim. It looks kind of like a hole in the water. 

   The thing that amazes me about manatees are their size. These are large animals. I had the opportunity the other day to have one just sit under my dinghy and it was at least as wide as the dinghy. I probably could not reach around a manatee. They are very gentle given their size and they don’t move particularly fast at all. The dolphins are much more entertaining. 

    We anchored for the night at Fort Matanza. This is a national monument and is staffed by rangers. It’s not much of a fort and as we could see pretty much all of it from our boat we declined to go on the tour. The anchorage is an inlet from the ocean. That means the tide rushes through here. Tidal currents can get up to 2-3 knots. It is a pretty place though and today it was just filled to the brim with boaters. It being a Sunday they all had to leave and it quite the parade of boats past us. We saw plenty of hawkers looking at us like they have never seen a sailboat before. The sheriff was in town today also and we watch him give out plenty of tickets. It has mostly calmed down after dark as the wind calmed down also. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sailing

 5/20- Boby Owl Cove, Broad Creek, Choptank River    We finally got to go sailing today. We put up the main sail and cruised out of the Wye River where I ran out the stay sail. When we made the turn to head for the Eastern Bay the wind was on the nose. We short tacked a few times before putting the motor back on to bump us around the point. Once there all three sails were up and we romped down the bay until the wind collapsed.      We had a choice here, we could continue sailing slowly and go outside of Poplar Island or turn the motor on and take the short way. We chose the motor as the wind was dying. Poplar Island is being extended with spoils from dredging operations. This inside track is a bit winding but near the southern end it gets very shallow. You have to follow a winding cut that is unmarked.     After we squeaked through there it was just a long couple of hour haul to the anchorage. This is another sweet anchorage which is kind of ...
Read more

Leaks

 5/14/2025- Rock Hall MD   Well it poured last night. It was the kind of rain that made me glad I was on a boat. It was a good way to test for leaks. Boats are always springing leaks usually right where you least want them.     Boat leaks are also notoriously hard to track down. I have a porthole that leaks and despite having sealed the outside with a whole tube of caulking it still leaks. Water will come from pretty far away to spill out in the worst places. It gets under the headliner and travels down the length of the boat. I swear it leaches uphill even. I have even gone so far as to dye the water to see if I could figure out where it was coming from.     Well this porthole of mine that has the notorious leak was in perfect form this morning. As the rain crashed down outside the leak magnified and dropped a deluge right on my face. It was almost like taking a quick morning shower. I decided to just get up when it filled my mouth up with water....
Read more

City Island

 6/7- City Island NY    We slept off the effects of barely sleeping the last two days and awoke fairly refreshed. We did a bunch of boat chores before heading into shore.      We watched as the yacht club was launching a couple of boats. They have a railway that they use with an engine that is almost 100 years old. It is all run by volunteers at the yacht club and launching is included in your dues. It’s a pretty sweet deal.      We walked down the main street which is pretty much the only street. They must have blown the budget on dead end signs because every side street was a dead end at the water. There was a street fair going on so we walked around before doing some provisioning at the local market. On our return to the boat it started to pour and we got soaked. I guess we should have taken the launch.      We then visited with our new friends on their Cape Dory 31 and the they came over to our boat. It was fun talking to a...
Read more