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West Palm to Miami

American Junque Vessel or Live Aboard? - Lake Worth

Our trip to West Palm Beach, aka Lake Worthless was uneventful, with 7 opening bridges. Our short stay however, was not.  This would be a third time here and the first time only staying one night. The saying is “third time’s a charm.” Our version is “third time’s a drag.” Ooohhh.  We arrive before 3pm and begin our anchoring routine. Selection, assessment, final selection, drop anchor, let out some chain, let out more, assess holding, attach bridle if all is good, acknowledge that it is 5 o’clock somewhere. The first attempt did not produce a good hold so we moved a bit and got a good hold on the second.

Opposing wind and current are tough on an anchor’s ability to reset itself; some types of anchors can reset better than others. Our over-sized 80lb Rocna loves mud; sand, not as much apparently. Around 1 a.m. I woke up when the wind picked up from a benign 7kts to a brisk 14kts, which was not quite the forecast.  I had this uncomfortable feeling and checked the weather on the iPhone to see if the wind was predicted to die down. Yes, no matter the frequency of error by the National Weather Service or NOAA we still check, as though repeated checking will give the desired result. Hope does spring eternal when it comes to the weather.

Within minutes the anchor drag alarm sounded and Russ jumped up to turn on the chartplotter and check things out. I’d felt an odd vibration right before the alarm, so as much as we wanted it to be that we’d simply swung around 150 ft worth, I knew in my heart that Mr. Rocna had moved. How am I supposed to trust him in the Bahamas where sand, wind and current abound? Looked around. A visual check told us we’d moved which the chartplotter confirmed. Suspect the pull of the current required the anchor to reset and for some reason it didn’t rise, or I should say, lower, to the occasion.  Faced with two options, three if you count leaving, we opted to raise Mr Rocna and re-deposit him. Even though it was the middle of the night, we could see just fine with all the land and ship lights. After that was done, we babysat Mr. Badboy for ½ hour then crashed for the night… until 6:15 when the alarm sounded… on the iPhone – time to wake up.

The forecast for Tues was WNW/NW 10-15, seas 2-4 ft. We’d chosen Tuesday several days earlier as being a good day for the downwind run to Miami and by golly if the forecast still looked good on Tuesday morning. On the plus side, the wavelets –  oh how I love that word – were easy to take and the wind direction was excellent. If only there was more of it. We motor-sailed for the first few hours until the wind woke up and gave us nearly 3 hours of good sailing before we went back to motor-sailing. We needed to arrive at the Miami channel around 4pm which would put the current against us- bad- but if we could use the main ship channel, then we’d be able to head to our desired spot with a pre-dusk arrival time.

Can you find the cruise ship amongst the buildings?

An 80 sm trip in daylight does not leave room for dawdling. A few hours out we began hearing the Coast Guard’s announcements that only one cruise ship was in and boats were therefore allowed to use the main channel. Yes! Our ETA was going would be just past 4pm- perfect. Dropped the main just before entering the channel and began the 75 minute trip to Belle Island.

The area was fairly quiet, the few usual small ferries between Fisher Island and the MacArthur Causeway and not much else to worry about. The cruise ship was small and cute.

One cruise ship allows passage in Miami

Dropped anchor at 5:15 with a prayer- more like an admonishment- that Mr. Rocna behave himself. Tomorrow was filled with promise- a brand new Fresh Market and a Publix only a block apart, a very short walk from the dinghy dock.

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Florida: Fernandina –Pine Island–St. Augustine

Our trip Friday would take us past Fernandina, a cute Martha’s Vineyard-esque town with an ugly, smelly paper mill next door.  A quick scan of the anchorage and mooring field (we call bumper boat alley) turned up no sign of Celise/Spirit, but we did see a sister MC 41, Double Diamond.
Hi-rise bridges keep us on our toes with more than one gasp of “oh no, we’re going to hit!!” We’d planned the day to have some current with us in the morning but the afternoon was a slow-go as we pushed two engines to barely maintain 5.8kts.

The first scary bridge encounter occurred just south of Fernandina. The entire stretch from Fernandina, FL to the St John’s River (leads to Jacksonville) is new to us- ooohh .. unexplored territory.  Just before the bridge, off to the side is an anchored sailboat. Uh oh- couldn’t fit? Sure enough it’s nearly high tide and to make matters worse, the recent
full moon brings in more water. I hail the boat, because about an hour earlier I hear another boat call “sailing vessel that just did a 180 by the bridge.” Never heard a reply. No reply to my call either, and NO height board. Russ goes for it slowly and I watch. We didn’t touch but I nearly fainted watching; it was close by inches. And guess what? A height board on the other side indicated 63’ and inches. You may recall we need 63’ and inches. This surely was our good
deed for the day, as Double Diamond about 10 mins behind us would know for sure that they could pass under.

South of the St John’s River we had the pleasure of passing under 5 bridges, the first 3 had such a raging cross current that we pushed the throttles to 2800 rpms (ideal is 2500-2600) to maintain good steerage. At one point we looked for a place to pull over, fearing the strong current would slow us down and we wouldn’t reach Pine Island by dark. Phew- we pushed on and reached Pine Island Oxbow before 5pm; two others already anchored and five more to come.

If the bridge currents weren’t enough fun, we came upon two tugs and a wide barge shortly after passing under a bridge where you had no visibility to see an approaching vessel. Not sure how things would have played out if we’d met right at the bridge.

The month has FLOWN by and we are thrilled to be in Florida again. So you don’t think our scary bridge day ruined the day’s  trip, here’s a few interesting vessels we saw along the way. Hardly a day passes without my adding several photos to the growing collection of cool boat pics.

M/Y Washingtontonian

Cute tug at Fernandina

                                                                                          Bayou Boat cruising the marshes

Friday night – ah another pretty sunset enjoyed.  Smooth-as-glass water surrounds us.

Rev’ed up the water maker Saturday morning after a leisurely choc chip pancake breakfast. Next stop, St Augustine where pirate cruisers often stop to play as described in our 3/26/11  post.  A two hour cruise with one very honest high bridge, ending with an easy swing past the inlet, through the Bridge of Lions and on to mooring ball #46.