Salty Tales of the Cheeky Monkey III Part 6 Here We Go Again!

Stuart, United States

Fri, 01 Nov 2024 16:00:00 -0400

Vero Beach, United States

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:00:00 -0400

Loving this leisurely morning, even though we are fighting the wind. First challenge is to get off the dock without hitting the sailboats broad side about 25 ft to our port side. Good thing the CMIII has incredible power and her Captain has nerves of steel! Plus the marina owner, a dock hand, and a friendly neighbor helped walk us down the dock past the sailboats. And we’re off! All good now! Sure glad we know enough to stay far away from the ocean today, which is rising to 9.4 ft with 25 mph winds, making for a very scary Halloween indeed!! 🎃 👻 Even though the Cheeky Monkey is one of the fastest rides on the east coast, we are taking the slow boat approach today. Cruising at 7.8 knots, we have three hours to go until our destination of Vero Beach where we’re headed to the Ocean Grille for a proper Halloween celebration! 🎃🍁 Tomorrow we’ll head to our home port of Stuart and are excited to experience our new slip that promises an open river view, as opposed to the former neighbors’ dog shit we’ve been looking at for the past two seasons! But, who’s complaining? 😜 Giving the CMIII a quick shake down cruise at 25 kts before we head in to dock and feeling a slight vibration, which can mean that something may be wrapped around our props. Darn! Even putting it in reverse twice didn’t help. Guess we’ll need to contact our diver in Stuart, who we hope can take a look tomorrow. Thankfully, we do have a spare set of props with us, if need be, which is a good practice if the current ones cannot be machined back to working order. 🤞

Watch out for the witch behind you!

Heading out of Eau Gaille into a sloppy Indian River, which seems to go on forever!

🎃🍁 Happy Halloween!! 🎃 🍁

A wonderful benefit of going slow, aside from saving fuel, is that dolphins love to swim in your wake! 7.25kts was the perfect speed for them! Very cool!!

Landed at the Vero Beach City Marina early afternoon and took our time washing the salty Cheeky. Here’s our slip shared with a huge motor yacht called Dive Master from Jersey City.

Vero Beach City Marina has beautiful trees that we’re definitely affected by Hurricane Milton!

It was nicely cleaned up into piles everwhere when we passed through.

If you ever find yourself near Vero Beach on Halloween, do yourself a favor and go to Ocean Grille on the beach. 👍🎃🍁

Went to Ocean Grille on Halloween night. Crazy costumes! 👻

Melbourne, United States

Wed, 30 Oct 2024 16:00:00 -0400

Off at a brisk 7:30am this morning, keeping pace with the sun. The journey south from New Smyrna is one of the most interesting on the ICW, especially when you arrive at the Haulover Canal, which is typically teeming with aquatic life. Dolphins, manatees, and fishermen galore. Last time, we even saw an alligator swim by! 😳 It’s my favorite part of the whole ICW! However, Spring may be more active than autumn, we shall soon see! 😊. We got hit with a massive rainstorm as we were coming home from dinner last night and got soaked to the bone, ha, ha, but it cleared out the skies nicely today except for a few minor sprinkles. As suspected, autumn is much quieter in the Haulover Canal than Spring, but we still managed to see dolphins, pelicans, hawks, and a few human beings enjoying themselves. Due to the potential for high winds today, I convinced the Captain to navigate to a different marina other than the typically blustering Cocoa Village. Last time we visited there, I refused to go on the bow until we were next to the dock! Yes, the dock hands are great, but their sloppy, windy location is not, so we are headed to Eau Gaille Marina near Melbourne for the night, a new adventure for us! Located in a hurricane hole from the 1890s, Eau Gallie Yacht Basin promises an easy, peaceful landing in a laid back atmosphere with an Old Florida vibe, perfect! 👍😊 Because of the winds, the wide-open Indian River is currently kicking our asses a bit, but nothing the CM III can’t handle. Passing Cocoa Village now and not missing it too much. 😉 Fifteen more miles to go to our new destination! Now if I could only pronounce that name!

Daybreak on the Indian River North headed south.

Before you go into Haulover Canal, the waterway opens wide and looks like the ocean, but there’s a big difference today, the seas outside are 7.5 ft building to 8! Yikes!! Just heard a Coast Guard announcement to keep an eye out for an overturned boat in the ocean. 🥲 Someone must have seriously overestimated the size of their boat.

The entrance to the Haulover Canal looks tricky. Thank goodness for GPS!

The bridge on the Canal was already open for us, how nice, they must be working on it. At 22 ft, we can usually get under it anyway.

Such a beautiful, little area in the Haulover Canal.

The Haulover Canal is a tiny mecca of biodiversity. Here the pelicans are hanging out in pine trees, the first pines I’ve ever seen in Florida!

Not much action today in the canal, just a lone fisherman and a pair of kayakers.

Look, you can have your own private island just outside of Haulover Canal!

In the backyard for the evening.

On the dock outside the Cheeky.

Reveille has neen shadowing us for days! We finally met him at Wednesday’s pot luck dinner at the marina.

You can walk to an Irish pub in town through a neighborhood of art deco houses from the 1950s now all redone. I spy the Captain at the bar!

Eau Gaille Yacht Basin is a real treat!

Eau Gaille is such a cool little town. We walked the two blocks and there were ballet lessons, art lessons, and music lessons all happening at once! I was so inspired that when I found a piano on the street corner I sat right down and played one of my tunes! 😊

Here’s the Cheeky adorned for the pot luck dinner just outside our door. We happened to be here on a Wednesday and since that’s been the marina folks’ tradition for the last 10 + years, we were invited. 😊 Yummy cheesecake, many thanks!!

What a great, little place! We’ll be back next Spring, heading north! 😊

New Smyrna Beach, United States

Tue, 29 Oct 2024 16:00:00 -0400

Saint Augustine, United States

Mon, 28 Oct 2024 16:00:00 -0400

Fernandina Beach, United States

Sun, 27 Oct 2024 16:00:00 -0400

Hilton Head Island, United States

Sat, 26 Oct 2024 16:00:00 -0400

Bald Head Island, United States

Fri, 25 Oct 2024 15:10:00 -0400

Aurora, United States

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 15:10:00 -0400

Coinjock, United States

Wed, 23 Oct 2024 15:10:00 -0400

Norfolk, United States

Tue, 22 Oct 2024 14:20:00 -0400

Cape May

Mon, 21 Oct 2024 14:20:00 -0400