We had a beautiful five hour motor down the ICW from Stuart to North Palm Beach today. The weather was perfect with partly cloudy skies, temperatures in the low 80’s, and very little wind. This stretch of the ICW goes through several upper income areas. The photo at the left shows one of many mansions we passed in Jupiter. This one still has hurricane shutters down in some windows, which means it probably isn’t a year-round home.
Above is a shot of the bridge height markings for the Roosevelt Bridge, next to our marina. The mandatory bridge clearance on ICW bridges is 65 feet, but that is an average. We went under this bridge as the tide was coming in. With our 63 ft mast we still had clearance, but before we got the mast cut down last spring we couldn’t have made it under, even at low tide. In fact, we wouldn’t have been able to stay at Sunset Bay Marina without getting under this bridge last May 31.
We went under nine bridges between Stuart and our anchorage in North Palm Beach. Two were fixed, three opened “on signal” which means you call the bridge tender on your radio and they open the bridge for you, and four opened on schedules at the hour/half hour or at :15/:45 after the hour. In the latter cases, you still call a bridge tender to request an opening on their schedule. They record the names of all boats passing under them. (We once saw a boat named “I Don’t Know” which probably annoyed bridge tenders.) All went well and we never had to wait more than a few minutes for an opening. The scheduled ones seem to be timed so if you go a little over 6 kts you reach them in time. At the right we are going under one of the scheduled bascule bridges, following another sailboat.
Daisy also enjoyed the trip. In this photo, she is either cooling off with the wind in her face, or thinking, “How much further before I get to ride in the dinghy to go for a walk?) Daisy would never want to put her head out of a car window, in fact she gets car sick, but she loves the wind when we are sailing and never gets seasick.
This was our first time in the North Palm Beach anchorage. Usually we stay a little further south in Lake Worth. However the reviews on this were great, with a huge area to anchor in, well protected except from strong southerly winds, and a dinghy dock across the street from a Publix Grocery, a few blocks from a large West Marine, and numerous other stores nearby. It sounded good, but it turns out that the dinghy dock is in a construction area and it’s a bit of a mess. Also, there have been reports of thefts from dinghies and even from anchored boats, which is not usual in the other places we anchor or stay.
Once we arrived and anchored, we started having problems. Oh yes, the saying “Everything on a boat is broken....you just don’t know it yet” rings true. We haven’t used the anchor since last spring and the electric windlass was working fine then. We dropped the anchor and then pulled it up to move a little closer to the shore. As I pulled up the anchor, I began to have trouble getting the chain into the locker. This has happened before when the chain piles up in the locker and stops the electric windlass from pulling it in. Then, I just have to push the chain down with my hand it it goes in easily again. This time, Mark discovered a problem that might require getting a new windlass. In fact, its days are probably numbered. A few minutes later, we noticed we didn’t seem to have as much charge in our new batteries as we should, considering the solar panels had been charging them all day on our trip down here and we had been motoring the whole way, not using any extra power inside, such as washing clothes, making ice, watching TV, using the microwave, etc. We ran the generator for awhile to fully charge the batteries and will try to figure out what is wrong. Next, we thought we’d watch a little TV. The Tracvision, which has worked great for the last few weeks since Mark installed it, could not get a signal. No TV tonight. Hopefully something is just blocking the signal.
The weather does not look good tomorrow for traveling south on the ocean. In fact the wind is strong out of the south for the next three days. We could continue on the ICW to Ft. Lauderdale, but there are 22 bridges to go under, many of them on schedules. We’ve never done that stretch, but most people say it is difficult. Going on the ocean is much quicker, but weather dependent. We need to go to a marina when we leave here, as we are not confident the electric windlass will pull up the anchor chain again. Pulling it up it by hand is not easy and hopefully the windlass will pull up the chain one more time.
Did I mention the wind is strong out of the south? Did I also mention that this anchorage is well protected except when the wind is out of the south? Actually, other than a slight rock, we are fairly comfortable and the breeze is keeping it cool. However, this is Sunday and Sunday in Florida means every boat owner who can is out on the water. Some boaters never quite get that even though they are much smaller than most boats they pass, their wake while going by an anchorage or mooring field with larger boats in it, rocks us quite badly. It’s even worse if they go full speed right through an anchorage as this small boat is doing in the photo. When they pull water skiers behind them, as another boat did tonight, and come within a few feet of you, we rock worse than when we are in large seas on the ocean.
The majority of the day was great and while it didn’t end well, I’m sure all will be fixed soon, we’ll continue on our trip to Miami, and soon we’ll be enjoying the clear turquoise waters of The Bahamas. Or not........
