We spent two days at Newport Marina in Port Canaveral. We mostly slept the first day. The second day we went out to purchase supplies and made repairs to our rudder and drive shaft packings. We had watched the news and knew that there was some weather coming through, but at $100 per day we couldn't afford to stay another night at Newport.
We woke at 0700 on Friday and had ham and egg sandwiches for breakfast and had showers before getting ready to sail. We cast off at 1015 and by 1145 we were due south of Cape Canaveral. By sunset we were well north of the space center, outside of a restricted area fro the scheduled launch of the space shuttle.
The winds were picking up, gusting to 25nm, so we decided to lower our jib. At about 1900 the light boom on our staysail snapped, and I lowered it as well. The seas started to mount at 8' as we heard on the radio that the shuttle launch was canceled that evening due to high winds. Eugene went below to sleep as I took the first watch for the evening. Winds continued to blow up to 35nm from the NE, building the seas up to 12-15' high. It had been a long time since I had conned a boat through this kind of weather, but had no trouble with it. The winds finaly started to die out at 0200 and I woke Eugene to stand his turn at the wheel. I stayed with him for an hour and taught him how to ride the waves, then went below to get some rest. Waking on my own at 0600 I went topside to find Eugene at the helm with the winds still blowing strong. A GPS plot showed that we had been blown back south by a few miles overnight. The weather and waves started to slack off and by 1000 we decided to raise our staysail again, loose footed without the boom.
We continued our way north, tacking against the NNE winds all day. By nightfall we weren't much further north than the night before, though further off shore. NASA had re-scheduled the shuttle launch for that evening and several times a navy helicopter buzzed us, checking to see that we were heading away from the launch area. At 2000 the space shuttle Endeavor launched, treating us to one of the most spectacular sights I've ever witnessed. Television does not do a shuttle launch justice, it lit up the entire sky like it was another sun. It probably isn't as spectacular to see it from shore, but out at sea it looked like the boosters seperated directly above us!
We tacked NW most of the next morning trying to get closer in to shore at Daytona beach to use the celular phone. I confirmed our arrangements for storage at Fish Island Marina in St. Augustine, and talked to my dad about coming to pick us up.
Aquarius did her best to take us north all day, but with winds blowing lightly from the north it was slow going even with full sail raised again. At midnight we were 6nm from the sea bouy at St. Augustine, but at 4nm the winds died altogether. We started the engine and headed for the channel bouysi, making the first at 0200. We did our best to make out the bouys lighting the channel, but it was challenging and we were very happy to have our GPS and Bluechart software.
By 0430 we were into the bay, but there was a dredge sitting on top of the south channel. I didn't see a marker and tried to pass north of the dredge. Aquarius was soon hailed by an outgoing Sea Tow boat with a warning of "Captain, you're about to run out of water", just as I felt us run soft aground. I replied to the tow boat with "I think we just did!". They offered to pull us off, and I accepted. They quickly had us off, and didn't pass us an invoice for it. We motored south past the city marina, and the tender at Bridge of Lions raised it on demand for us.
We continued south past the anchorage and headed for the green lighted bouy at the bend in the river. We felt Aquarius run aground again. I quickly shifted to reverse and gunned the engine breaking her free. We circled back to try again, but we ground again, and could not break free this time. Fortunately, it was low tide and we dropped our anchor to wait out the high tide. It was very frustrating, as we could see the marina a mile away. I went below to get some rest while Eugene stood watch on the anchor. We tried to move three hours later, but the strong current pushed us back onto the bar. In the daylight we could see the red channel marker we had missed in the dark.
We called Tow Boat US and had them come out to pull us off. The tow boat quickly pulled us free, and a short while later we made the dock at Fish Island Marina...
(c)Copyright 2003 by Eugene Kashpureff