November 2, 2019
Melbourne, Florida
28.04.826N
80.35.850W



Don’t you love it when a plan comes together?  After the sun went down last evening, it began to calm and it was a very peaceful night.  No darting for an unknown sound during the night and we were in the same place when we arose this morning.  Although it started off a little chilly, it warmed up well into the 70’s. 


We hoisted anchor and were underway by 7:30am and except for looking at the scenery for the next 10 hours, there was nothing extraordinary to tell you about.  I don’t remember so many  mobile homes near the shoreline; you’d think the developers would have bought up all of the scenic property.   There were more dolphins in the ICW than I ever remember too.  Most were babies, frolicking near the shoreline.  I did see one manatee.  Lots of herons and seagulls. 


There was certainly more traffic on the ICW but for a nice Saturday, not as many as you’d expect.  We thought we were going to have entertainment at one point when a power boat would hail vessel after vessel, signaling he was going to pass them, but would just say “southbound sailing vessel, this is Flykt, the vessel behind you”.  Although a couple of people tried to tell him he needed to either call the vessel by name, give a marker, or at least identify what body of water he was in (so that every vessel in a 15 mile radius of his radio heading south, didn’t have to turn around to see if he was on their stern) he never picked up on the hint.  After he had passed us, we heard part of a heated exchange that dissolved as quickly as it started.  Someone ahead of us had clearly had enough of his less than clear communications. 


No, the excitement came when we pulled in to anchor just to the south of the Melbourne Bridge.  We pulled to the east as our guide had directed and dropped anchor.  We backed down on it, got a sharp tug indicating that it had set securely, and Dale proceeded to put a bridle on the anchor (this takes the strain off the anchor windlass and puts it on the cleats designed take the pull).  Unfortunately, when he returned to let out more anchor to put the strain on the bridle, nothing happened.  No click, no pop, no grind and NO motion.  So for the next hour, we let out the remaining length by hand, Dale got out his trusty multimeter and started tracing electrical connections.  The long and short of it is, something’s broke.  We will make our Ft. Pierce destination tomorrow in any event, where we have marina reservations.  There he and his tinkering consultant can start sciencing things to get it to work again.  What this means though, is first thing tomorrow morning, we’ll hoist 50’ of chain by hand back onto the boat.   We know a couple of tricks learned the hard way to making it easier. 


Sort of a comical sidenote: when we took off for our sabbatical back in 2005, our anchor windlass gave us grief all the way to Puerto Rico.  Dale got quite the workout back then hoisting the anchor several times when it would falter.  We’re not going to do that this time.  I’d rather buy a new one now, than start putting bandaids on this one for the next 3-4 months.