002 Ponce Inlet – Disappearing Island Trip Report

UPDATE: We did a TSR Podcast about this trip.  Click here to listen.

We rarely plan the location of our sailing trips more than a few days in advance as this allows us to adjust between various Florida cruising grounds depending on the weather. On this trip, we did not have an option as we planned to attend a work picnic for one of Brandy’s contracting agencies.  When we learned they were planning to have their party at New Smyrna Dunes Park, the first thing that popped into our mind is Boat Weekend! We cruised the Ponce Intel area before but it was as a guest on a friend’s cabin cruiser overnight, and we have been looking forward to checking it out on our sailboat.

The park for the picnic is located on the south side of Ponce Inlet and the park stretches from the beach to the intercoastal.  New Smyrna beach is just over an hour from our house, which is great when we are trying to get there after work.  We launched at fairly new Swoop Boat Ramp behind the New Smyrna Beach airport.  It is a nice facility, but beware that the ramp is very steep.  As soon as the boat was on the down slope, it began pulling the truck and had me white knuckling it as the truck slid down the ramp about six feet before the boat was enough in the water to stop the slide.  Lesson learned: go very slow as the boat moves over the top of the ramp to make sure the truck can keep its momentum under control.

After a long day at work, we launched at 7 pm on Friday night, so we did not have much time to find a anchorage before dark.   Luckily, the Rockhouse Creek Anchorage anchorage is within a 1/4 mile of the ramp —  it’s where the boat is shown on the chart view above.  (thanks Active Captain users for another great recommendation!)  We decided to leave the mast down until the next morning and enjoyed sundowners and a nice dinner in the cockpit.  The anchorage was very quiet and after dark we barely felt like we were on the water.

The next morning we got the mast up and headed up Rockhouse Creek past Disappearing Island to head out Ponce Intel for a sail.  Disappearing Island is large sandbar at the mouth of the inlet and is a very popular spot for day boaters to anchor.  We stayed there when we stayed on our friends motor yacht, but decided to avoid it this weekend as the strong currents combined with a lot of inexperienced boaters make for a stressful day of your anchor getting run over and boats swinging into other boats.  We went out the inlet at slack tide and headed north.

It turned out to be one of our best sailing days.  The seas were calm, partly cloudy skies, and the wind was a consistent seven to ten knots SW.  After about 3o minutes, I turned the wheel over the Brandy and she sailed for the next three hours.  She has really become a great sailor.  We really have not spent much time discussing sail trim or keeping the sails full, but for three hours she sailed nearly perfect.  She is a natural!  I relaxed and read my Kindle as she enjoyed cruising a long under sail at four to five knots.

Shortly after we came about to head south, the typical afternoon thunderstorms started to build inland.  We watched the radar on our phones and knew they were not forecasted to move offshore until late evening, so we would have plenty of time to go to the picnic.  As we neared the inlet, we got an update that the picnic was being moved to an inland office for fear of rain.  We were fairly confident that the storms would stay north of the inlet, but the decision was already made.  Time for plan B.  We did not want to leave the boat as our plan was to pull up to the park for the party, then anchor out again that night.  So we sent our regrets and started looking for a nearby tiki bar for dinner.

We realized that while we previously cruised north of Ponce Inlet up the intercoastal to Daytona Beach, we had never cruised south of the inlet past New Smyrna Beach.   The weather was still nice so we cruised south about two miles and came across Outriggers Tiki Bar and Grille at New Smyrna Marina.  This place is awesome!  The marina was closed by the time we arrived, so we tied up at the fuel dock and headed to the outdoor tiki bar.  The marina is a great facility with nice docks and a pool.  The food and the drinks were fantastic, and it was the perfect way to relax after a great day on the water.  When we took a picture and tagged the location on Facebook, we saw that many of our boating friends had been here before.  They have been holding out on us!  We have since learned that it is a great place to get a slip for the weekend.

After dinner we cruised back north to the inlet.  We planned to use the same anchorage as the night before, but before we anchored for the night we decided to catch the sunset and some live music at Down the Hatch, a great bar and restaurant just north of the inlet.  As we were exiting Rockhouse Creek that morning, I noticed a lot of sandbars at high tide.  I decided to do a quick test run through the entrance of the creek so we would have a better trail to follow when we came back after dark.  The tide was also dropping.  It was good we did this as we found a much deeper path than we had taken that morning.

Down the Hatch was a great stop with a live musician playing classic rock and beach tunes.  We enjoyed a sundowner then headed back to the anchorage.  Brandy captured one of our best sunset boat pictures just before we left the dock.

One thing about our boat is that it gets a lot of questions.  We can almost always count on someone starting a conversation as we begin to untie the lines.  The MacGregor 26M looks a bit different than other sailboats.  That night was no exception, and we enjoyed a nice conversation with a couple from New York on vacation.  People always ask about the big 50hp motor on a small sailboat.  When they learned we were heading to anchor off an island for the night, that started a whole new line of questioning about sleeping at anchor and cruising the local area.  We enjoy sharing our adventures so we are always happy to answer all the questions.

We successfully navigated Rockhouse Creek by following our early GPS trail.  There were several boats anchored in our previous night anchorage, so we decided to anchor further east in the creek.   We dropped anchor in 5ft. of water and called it a night.

We had another very quiet nigh at anchor, and the next morning I was amazed at how still it was even as I heard other boats slowly motoring by.  I soon learned why; we were sitting on the bottom!  One of the benefits of our boat is its ability to beach and dry out completely without tipping over.  Whenever we are anchoring in shallow tidal waters, I always pull up the dagger board and rudders in case I misjudge the depth or tides.   Seeing that we anchored after dark, I did not realize that the sandbar curved around us and as the tide changed, we swung over a shallow area and beached ourselves.  No worries, it is all sand bottom in that area and by the time I finished my Sunday morning coffee, the tide was nearly high enough for us to float again.

We had no reason to head home early, so we went for a cruise up the intercoastal.  The breeze was coming from the northeast, so we motor sailed and tacked our way up to Dunlawton bridge then came about for a nice downwind leg back to the ramp.  We stopped in Ponce de Leon cut and anchored off the channel near the ramp to have lunch and lower the mast.  Pulling the boat up the steep ramp was no problem, and we were soon cruising home.  It was a great weekend and one of our best coastal sailing days.

Trip cost – 132 miles on road, 36 miles on water $47 gas, no slip fees, food and drinks were the same as normal weekends at home. Spent $8 ice, so a total of $55 for two days, two nights on the water.

One area nautical attraction to mention is the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse, the largest lighthouse in FL and one of the tallest in the US, 175ft tall,  and you can climb it for $7. The lighthouse does operate and has a fixed light that flashes every five seconds and has a range of 17 nautical miles.  If you are curious, the tallest lighthouse in the US is  Cape Hatteras in NC at 193ft.