In reply to your story about getting stuck in Rockhouse Creek near New Smyrna Beach and Ponce Inlet:
Sara and I spent several days anchored in Rockhouse Creek during our cruise. We had stopped in New Smyrna Beach municipal marina to effect repairs on our leaking fuel injector pump. Having arrived on a Friday, nobody was available to come look at it until the following Monday. The dock master suggested we go to Rockhouse Creek and told us where the deep water was so we could be closer to the beach. We followed his instructions closely and it was a good thing, for when the tide went out we discovered we were parked right next to a sand bar which was only exposed at low tide.
Click on this link to see the various tracks which are superimposed over an the aerial photograph. Each day is a different color and as you can see we went back and forth quite a few times. Twice between the marina and the anchorage and once as we headed back north near the end of our cruise. The ICW is at the left of the picture and proceeds to the bottom, and Ponce inlet is at the top. You can see where we rode out into the inlet just to check it out, and then we turned around. If you follow the light blue line from that day you can see we had to go all the way back to the ICW and head back North on the ICW to get back to the anchorage since the creek is only navigable for small craft using local knowledge. It is easy to understand why you grounded there, especially with a deep keel.
Enjoy!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/x68fvst3aalsfvh/Ponce%20Inlet%20and%20Rockhouse%20Creek.JPG
This post by Woody Cooper
ReplyDelete