Cocoa—Melbourne—Palm Bay–Sebastian–Hole in the Wall(N of Vero)
W. Cocoa Beach Causeway Bridge where we spent last night
Left Cocoa Beach Anchorage around 8 am. It’s the first morning we’ve not had a fog excuse for getting up early. The anchorage, though near the bridge, was quiet and well protected, so it was another good night. We’ve been blessed by nice weather and temperatures.
One small addition we made to the boat since the Loop was fans. We installed 4—12volt fans; 2 in the state room, 1 in the pilot house, and 1 in the salon. Now that we’ve gotten further south, the moving air feels nice with the higher temps. The low voltage fans pull fewer amps from the house batteries than using 120 volt fans, through the inverter. We also added a new 12-volt freezer. This will allow us to keep more meat and frozen goods on hand for our trip to the Bahamas. Our hope is to spend more time on the hook and less time in marinas and grocery stores. The fans and the freezer have been a pleasant surprise regarding amp usage, drawing less power than expected, extending battery life in between charges by the generator.
I touched base with our former training captain, Chris Caldwell, from Vero Beach, and got a heads up on a good anchorage. He said the Hole in the Wall anchorage, near Pine Island/N. of Vero Beach, was good. So we charted to the spot and headed that way.
The day was pretty uneventful, for the most part. We did bump the bottom at 4 1/2′ (our boat drafts 4′-9″) as we came off the ICW into the anchorage. I took a chance and powered my way through, hoping for deeper water beyond the shoal. It’s probably not a good idea to do that, but the charts showed deeper water just beyond, so I went for it. We got lucky and just a few feet later, we were floating again, without noises coming from below. We got to the spot about 4:45, taking about 6 hours to arrive. It was early enough to allow a few minutes on the bow cushion to enjoy the warmth of the day and watch another boat fight getting their anchor unstuck from the soft mud. Temps ranged from 75-80 degrees and the weather was quite pleasant.