Peck Lake to Vero, anchor

The day started out windy, and just got windier. Not a surprise -- we knew this was coming. That's why we originally planned to stay put for a few days. However, it was a south wind, and today we'd travel north all day long. inQuest likes a following sea. We opted to make some headway.

Getting an anchor down, however, was trickier. While the anchor stuck happily in the mud we thought the islands here would give us a bit more protection. No matter where we dropped it we always ended up closer to the boat behind us than we liked. On our last attempt we backed down on the anchor hard. We're confident we'll stay put.

Dawn at Peck Lake. Nice anchorage.
But don't wander... parts of the lake are shallow.

Traveling today was kind of Kathleen and Michael's (crew of Apres Sail) fault. They told us last night they were coming to Vero. Besides, we feel we're a bit behind schedule: When we compare our current logs to the Cat-n-Dogs log we are a month behind. 

We're anchored near the mooring balls.
Originally, that's what we were going to do.
Then we heard they were "rafting" people on them.
Nope, don't trust them that much to hold
both us AND another boat.

Of course that implies we know where were going and, honestly, we can't decide. Although I think we did today. On the one hand we'd like to do the loop a 2nd time. We even put our names on the looper fleet shirt for 2022. On the other hand, we'd like to go to Maine. And we know at least 1 boat doing that whom with we enjoy traveling, Jonathon and Jayne of Bella Gatto. We spent some of summer 2020 with them, cruising the Chesapeake and the Potomac. We can do the loop a 2nd time next year, which (assuming no Covid, insane fuel prices, or nuclear destruction) might have fewer loopers. This year, over 500 have registered.

This was taken yesterday. We'd just explored Manatee Pocket

and were headed out. There were a nutso quantity of boats

and this vid shows how tough navigating can be.

This kind of stuff makes us sad. We called the sailboat and

arranged a slow pass. And then....

Damned near pushed us into that red, too.

We're planning on getting together for dinner tomorrow night, with both the Apres Sail and Bella Gatto crew. I'm confident we'll have a plan after that.

Sorta.

Pretty unusual. We always pass sailboats, but rarely when they 

are sailing.  Usually they are puttering under power or out 

and about, enjoying a bay. But a steady south wind made for 

great north travel for the sailboats.