We were up just before sunrise… Susan had her coffee… Beecha had her breakfast… and I was off in the dinghy to land with Beecha for her morning walk. Back to the boat… dinghy raised and stored on the upper deck… dropped the mooring painter and we were underway at 0750.

When we entered the ICW it was like joining a parade… within a half mile range before and aft of us there were 6 other boats… 2 behind and 4 ahead of us. This is the way it stayed all day long… a lot of boats heading north today. It was very nice seeing all this traffic… ?

We are supposed to rendezvous with Jim and Peg Healy aboard SANCTUARY this evening in Cocoa, FL. Plans are to go for dinner at Ryan’s Village Pizza… Really good pizza… YUM! We never pass Cocoa without stopping for pizza.

We arrived to Coca, FL at approximately 1420 and docked at the city free docks. Already on the dock were Robert and Kay Creech aboard C-Life… they are some fellow MTOA members and very good friends. Robert assisted us with our dock lines and at 1430 we were securely docked at position N28°21.297’, W080°43.329’. We traveled today for 6 hours and 40 minutes covering 47.5 nautical miles averaging 7.13 knots.

We slept in today… we were both up quite bit during the night for Beecha… she was just not settling down and very restless… finally figured out it was just a little too warm for her. I broke out the fan and plugged it in and pointed it right at her and she settled right down and fell asleep in minutes… of course that was at 0430.

My alarm still went off at 0600… but no snooze button today… turned it off and rolled over and did not wake up until 0745... Susan and Beecha were both snoring away. I let them sleep until abut 0830 before waking them up. Beecha had her breakfast and we were off in the dinghy for her morning walk.

When we returned Susan had breakfast going and we sat and enjoyed it. Normally, while we are cruising north breakfast is in the pilothouse after we are underway… it was nice to sit at the table this morning.

0945 the engines were running and electronics ready to go… raise the anchor and we were underway at 1000 heading out of the Manatee Pocket towards the St. Lucie River.

Forecast for the day was for 10 knot winds out of the east and that’s what we had. It producing a 1 foot chop on the beam… could not even feel it move SAILS. Of course we had a ton of boats out and they provide enough wake to rock us every now and then.

One bridge today in Fort Pierce that we needed a lift to get through… he was very responsive to our hail and we zipped right through with only a slight slow down before the bridge.

We did have a good delay when we arrived to our destination for the day. We had called early in the morning to reserve a mooring ball at the Vero Beach City Marina. The can fill up and we wanted to be sure to get a mooring ball. We arrived at 1445… hailed the marina on the VHF. They acknowledged but had no idea what mooring ball to assign to us or what mooring balls were even available… we patiently waited for them to assign us a mooring ball… finally 45 minutes later at 1530 they assigned us a mooring ball. They also were very quick to inform us that if we return in the fall we would not be allowed to stay here… they were not going to allow larger boats in the future as they were damaging to their mooring balls…. Very Nice Welcome to Vero Beach Marina! NOT!!! As we headed toward our assigned mooring there were more than one mooring ball that had multiple boats attached to a single ball… not just 2 boats but 3 and 4 boats rafted together on a single mooring… I just have to think that this is a little hard on the mooring tackle… but this is acceptable.... ?

At 1545 and we were securely moored at position N27°39.706’, W080°22.356’. We traveled today for 5 covering 32.24 nautical miles averaging 6.7 knots.

Rise and Shine at 0600… well maybe 0630 as the snooze was hit several times before we actually got out of bed. Planned departure time of 0730… cross the Lake Okeechobee and have a 30 minute buffer to make the 1130 locking at Port Mayacca Lock.

We departed with several other boats all that were at Roland Martins Marina… We were boat number two underway at 0730 just as planned. I had to back out of the marina fairway… had been a while since backing any distance… but all went smoothly.

The forecast was for 5-10 knot winds again and it was not too far off. We had a one foot chop on the lake and had a very pleasant crossing. The other boats that departed after us soon passed us and they all rushed to the lock… WHY? I have no idea as they sat and waited… some of them a couple of hours… we arrived with about 15 minutes to spare at 1115. Right on the dot… 1130 the lock gates opened and all five boats proceeded directly through the lock into the St. Lucie Canal as both gates were open for a straight through no stop passage.

Within a few minutes all the other boats were out of sight and we were alone heading east. A lot of boats passed us heading west… evidently none of them aware of the lock being closed until 1630 as they were all in a hurry to get there only to have to wait.

We had one more lock today… the St. Lucie Lock and we missed making an east bound lockage by about 15 minutes so we had to wait at this lock for almost an hour before we made it through. This was the first real delay we had to endure so far this trip. The lock dropped us about 14 feet to the level of the St. Lucie River.

We decide to change things up a little this trip so instead of stopping at the Stuart City Docks we continued on to an area we had not been into since 2011… the Manatee Pocket. A very popular well protected anchorage. We arrived to find it packed with boats… I counted 25 boats anchored in a very small area. We managed to find a large enough gap and dropped the hook.

At 1800 and we were securely anchored at position N27°09.257’, W080°11.699’. We traveled today for 10 hours 30 minutes covering 57.0 nautical miles averaging 5.43 knots.