Leaving Ft Pierce, ("Act Two")

OK.


So I guess that rough night left me with little appetite for this blog over the past week, until now.

We left Ft Pierce last week, choosing to go on the "inside" down the Intracoastal Waterway towards Palm Beach. It took about 10 hours. The real estate along the water was incredible. There were mansions and estates, each with a large dock for their fishing yacht or large power boat on a power lift, and most with a gorgeous outdoor pool and patio. The ICW is pretty narrow here, so we could see land close on either side.



We motored the entire way. The wind was blowing about 25 knots, which would have made life more uncomfortable offshore, especially since it was coming from the south. I was very happy to have this choice, even though we had to wait for about 9 bridges to open. Other bridges were high enough for us to pass underneath. Our mast is our limiting factor, about 60 ft up.

It was tricky to be at the helm when we had to wait for a bridge to open. More than once, I chickened out and insisted that Brian take over. Some bridges opened "on request", but others were on the hour or half-hour. If we arrived early, we had to slow down to coast, or circle while we were waiting. This would have been fine if we were alone, but it was much more challenging when other boats are doing the same thing. We had to watch our depth-sounder to make sure we didn't run aground, as well as nearby docks and the other boats. We were much more fortunate than one very large powerboat behind us that lost its engine in the ICW, and was drifting closer and closer to a private dock and yacht. We heard them on the VHF radio calling for a tow, but in the meantime, they had to try to anchor in a busy channel. I was so anxious about it, I couldn't even listen on the radio when it was going on, but the captain sounded calm and professional. I guess I chose the right profession... somehow taking care of patients in the ICU on ventilators seems so much more controlled and manageable to me than that... but then again, I had years of daily intense preparation.

As we went further south, we enjoyed warmer sunshine and greener water. The girls wore their swimsuits all day.

Here is a photo of our dinghy, which we towed behind us on the ICW since our davits were damaged in the rough weather (see "Act One"). You can see the arms of the davits in this photo, which should have a bar between them, but the bar is what snapped off. Since we couldn't lift the dinghy, we took the outboard engine off and put it on the aft deck of our sailboat, and towed the dinghy. It worked out fine, for now. But we plan to have the davits repaired in West Palm Beach.


We arrived around 4:30pm to Lake Worth in Palm Beach Florida. More at the next post about our excitement immediately upon arrival at a local fuel dock!