Leaving Fort Pierce ("Act One")

This past Monday (Dec 7th), we decided to leave Fort Pierce for Palm Beach FL. We had been in Fort Pierce for over a week already. We had a galley full of food, drinking water, and supplies. Our laundry was clean and folded. We had finally found an alternator belt and replaced it. We visited the sites, playgrounds, and town. We were ready. It was 10:00pm.

Our weather forecasts were initially conflicting, but then seemed to imply that the weather would be good for leaving at night. This seemed to suit us fine, since it seems easier to sail at night while the girls are asleep. Also, we would arrive in Palm Beach around 6:00am, after about 8-9 hours of sailing, and we would have the day to enjoy the area.

The water at our anchorage was so calm that it looked like a mirror. We knew it would be an hour to motor through the channel to the ocean. We started to pull up the first of two anchors, but then realized the chains were tangled! Somehow, during the rainstorms over the past 2 days, the boat must have swung all the way around, at least several times. Great. We were both at the bow, looking down with a flashlight at a tangled mess of heavy chain.




We spent the next 2 hours untangling the anchors and chain. This involved mostly me holding the light, and Brian pulling at chain links with one of our long boat hooks with all of his strength. We started to make progress, then as we pulled up the 1st anchor all the way out of the water, we could see the knots of chain all the way around the anchor itself. Brian jumped into the cool water in the dark and swam to the anchor. He was able to lift heavy loops of chain off the arms of the anchor. I somehow helped him back on the boat from the side. We lifted the rest of the loops with each of us using a hook and felt exhausted from the efforts. Then we easily brought the other anchor in. The calm waters were a blessing. There is no way we could have safely accomplished this in other conditions.


So we motored on, into the Intracoastal Waterway, under a bridge, and out the inlet. I was feeling really good about our decision, ready to visit a new place... then we came out into the coastal ocean waters. The wind had moved from east to southeast and now was "at our nose", which made it impossible to put our sails up for stability. The waves were larger than expected, about 3-5 feet. Both of these factors slowed us down. It was bumpy and uncomfortable. The boat was lurching, bumping, rocking and moving from side to side. Miraculously, after some brief reassurance by their mama, the girls went right back to sleep for the rest of the night.

After about 45 min of this, Brian and I looked at each other, and each decided we didn't think we could take much longer than this. We were getting seasick, we still had over 8 hours to go, and our engine temperature was running warmer than usual. If we could just sail, the boat would "flatten out", we could be much more comfortable, and we would go faster. But the wind was still coming from directly in front of us. We could only motor. We had to decide, do we turn back, do we push through to Palm Beach, or do we find a closer inlet to tuck into?

Our autopilot was performing very well. One of us was always at the helm watching out, with our tether firmly attached to our lifejacket. We took turns studying the charts at the navigation desk down below. The only possible nearby inlets were too shallow or too narrow, and were of course unfamiliar. We decided the safest option was to turn back to Fort Pierce. It was a deep, wide inlet, and we knew just where we would anchor.

Once we turned around, it was already much less bumpy, because the wind was now at our backs. But we were still rocking a lot from side to side. Mentally, this was easier to handle, knowing we would be back in calm water in just less than 1 hour.

More excitement. The rocking caused our dinghy to sway on our davits (the metal arms on the back of our boat used to hold up the dinghy.) Our dinghy and outboard engine together weigh about 300 lbs. At one point, we saw that the support bar between the arms snapped off. The dinghy was now precariously swinging even more, and was at risk of coming off completely.

With Brian's direction, I took the wheel, turned off the autopilot, slowed the boat down almost to a stop. I turned the boat so that instead of the waves coming from the side, they were coming from in front of us, to make the dinghy rock less. Brian went back to the stern, with his tether and life jacket clipped on, and somehow rigged some line (ropes) for extra support. The smell of diesel fumes, rocking of the boat, and leaning forward to secure the lines all made him more seasick.

Once the dinghy was secure, we were able to motor back towards Fort Pierce inlet. We didn't talk much at all. Almost immediately after the entrance, the boat became flat, calm and we could relax. We returned to the exact same anchoring spot at about 3:30am and this time dropped 1 anchor.

Exhausted, we mumbled to each other "I love you," and "I love you, too", and thanked each other for the teamwork.... and fell into our berth to get a much needed sleep.