Melbourne

It's a little after lunch time and we are anchored out in a creek off the Indian River in Melbourne. We are in a beautiful protected spot, but it is still mighty windy and the forecast is for this to last indefinately!

The Indian River is a shallow wide river which runs north and south separated from the ocean by a narrow strip of sand. When the wind is out of the north (or south) you have many miles of fetch and some choppy waters. Last night we rocked and rolled at a dock in Titusville Marina which is not well protected. This morning the winds were down a bit and we were able to get off the dock at around 7:30. We let out the big gennie and began motor sailing south. I was sleep deprived so went down for a nap around 9:00. About an hour later Carol woke me up because the sail wanted to gybe. As I woke up I thought our engine was coming apart - making a loud vibrating noise. When I came up on deck and looked at the gps, we were doing over 7.5 knots so the diesel was just "idling" at 2500 rpm. A diesel engine wants to be under a load and the sail and wind were depriving it of that load. We shut the engine down for a while until we were overpowered with the sail. Then we shortened sail, then rolled it up and motored to an early arrival around noon at Melbourne. Tomorrow we head for Vero Beach and a two week stay.
Can't wait to settle down.