Hole in the Wall—Vero—Ft. Pierce—Stuart (Hooker Cove)
Another restful night, thanks to Capt. Chris. His advice for this anchorage had us positioned well to get a little south breeze, and yet be protected from the boat traffic wakes on the ICW. With only 33 miles to our destination of Stuart, we started the day slowly and moved at that pace most of the day. I am sensing I need to do something to work on my reflexes, because living the trawler life doesn’t exactly demand a quick reaction to anything…other than a sandbar. There are times when it is critical to think quickly, but there are often hours between those moments, so sometimes the most dangerous this captain at the helm are the moments when nothing is happening, and staying awake is the biggest challenge.
When we did get moving, we headed out the same way we came in. Side bar: The tide swing here is less than a foot. That’s good when you’re at anchor. Not much to worry about when sleeping. But when dealing with shallow water, sometimes we count on a higher tide. For example, when the inevitable shoal finds the bottom of your boat, the rising water will eventually deliver you. But here, at this spot, not so much the case. I followed my track that we made coming in yesterday. Hard to believe it, but that was not a good idea. I hit the shoal we hit yesterday. No problem, I thought. I’ll just power through again. I managed to wedge our keel deeper into the shoal before the boat came to a complete stop. No problem, a little thrust to the left, then to the right, and then reverse and we will be on our way…I thought. I checked the tide chart, looking for the water I would gain. It measured I would gain about .2 (yes, 2/10) of a foot…in 3-4 hours! Amanda asked if I wanted her to call Tow Boat US. “Not yet!”, I said. I thrusted a little more, reversed a little more (red lined the engine) and BAM, the Honey Queen broke loose and started moving backward. We got lucky. The beauty of going so slow is we did not wedge ourselves too deeply into the shoal. We picked an unlikely route out of the side channel that ended up being the right choice. We found some 8’ plus deep water and puttered back into the ICW.
We had some weather today, but not too threatening. The water was fairly open, so we got to meet a few of the Florida Arrogant Big Boaters (FABBs). These guys love their big boats more than they love people. Most are blind to trawlers and other “lesser” watercraft. They throw 6’ wakes and generally enjoy the middle half of the ICW. Their time is obviously, very important because they don’t slow down. It takes them too long to get back on a plane if they slow down, not to mention the burn rate on fuel of 50 gallons per hour…per engine. This is really my only complaint about South Florida. The rest is pretty nice.
We saw our first green water today. Ahh…
Condos along the ICW enjoy beautiful views.
We’ve seen a few porpoises along the way, but the further south we go, the more we see.
We arrived at Hooker Cove, coincidentally, about the same time as yesterday’s schedule, 4:45. Six hours underway took us to this great, very open anchorage, which is known as a great take off point for crossing the Okeechobee. This is the end of the St. Lucie River. The basin is pretty large, but well protected. But I’m sure it can get pretty choppy on very windy days because of the shallow water. But our time on the hook gave us just a nice breeze. And the best part, there was not another boat that anchored in our sight, so we pretty much had it to ourselves. And because of the size of the basin, the homes on the water are far enough away so we don’t feel like we pulled up in someone’s back yard and camped out.
We arrived at our first critical destination a day early. This is Saturday afternoon. We have an appointment in the boat yard for 9:00 am Monday morning. If we had had any inclement weather, we would not have made it today. But our aggressive miles earlier in the week, complimented by mostly good weather, have us ahead of schedule. We will look forward to Sunday, and make it a day of rest.