Fresh from a good nights rest we headed over to Harbor Springs Marina to fuel up. With our Boat U.S. discount we paid $1.94 a gallon. We haven't seen prices like that in two years. That called for a happy dance for sure! The ICW view makes a dramatic change South of Fort Pierce. The houses become mansions, the boats become yachts and the fuel jumps up a dollar or more a gallon. The number of bridges triples which adds another interesting element to navigation. Some we can squeak under but a number of them we cant. This adds a new challenge to our day. We have to try and time the bridges that we must have opened. Some open every 20 minutes, some once on the hour or once on the half hour and others at 15 minutes after and 15 minutes before the hour. Only a few open upon request. Got it? Neither would we without lots of notes and discussion. Oh yeah, you cant race from one bridge to the next to make the opening either because most of this section of the ICW is a No Wake Zone, which means you are traveling at minimum speed. Sound like fun? Boat traffic tends to back up at the bridges which makes it even more interesting. Everyone trying to jockey around in the current while we wait. The one thing we have learned. When the bridge is scheduled to raise at 1:30 it raises at 1:30 not a minute early! We always try to keep ahead of the game by having a copy of the bridge schedule on our chart. What we didn't realize until we arrived at the Palm Beach bridge is that because of construction the bridge was only opening once per hour at 15 minutes past instead of its usual twice per hour schedule. It also does not open during rush hour so when we arrived at 3:30 thinking we had 15 minutes until the 3:45 opening we found out the next opening would not be until 5:15! Not happy boaters! Tom was to frustrated to deal with it so I took over the helm and drove us back and forth till 5:15. I looked on the positive side, it gave me extra practice spinning the boat around. Ha ha. By 5:15 we had quite the parade of boats both North and South Bound waiting.
As the day came to an end the wind picked up. Because of the wait at the bridge we found ourselves entering the anchorage at Lantana at dusk. Now I'm not a happy boater! I don't like piloting in the dark. Why is it that someone who spent 38 years driving to work and back in the dark during the winter, drove to shopping centers, restaurant's, etc in the dark hates piloting her boat in the dark? Don't really have the answer to that one. Anyway, This anchorage is a nice one but makes me a little nervous even when it is light out. Add darkness and I find myself mumbling ugly words. You see the charts and GPS indicate that the depth is only 5.9. but when you follow the correct path into this popular anchorage, you find depths of seven to eight feet. Tom decided to head to the inside of the boats already anchored. This would tuck us in with more wind protection. As he nosed her in the depths dropped dramatically and the alarm sounded. We were in four foot of water and need 3.8 to keep from grounding! Not good! Slowly and successfully he maneuvered back into deeper water then turned the helm over to me. Heading down to the bow to prepare to drop anchor I was now in charge. Now I'm driving the boat, fighting the wind, watching the depth finder and trying to keep a good distance from the other boats all IN THE DARK. Grrrrrr. I choose my spot and signaled for Tom to drop the anchor. Anchor dropped, and checked for holding, I could now breath. My sigh of relief was short lived as the wind whipped up some white caps and I realized it could be a long night! We bounced and swung back and forth until nearly 2am About the time the wind seems to slow down the rain started It rained and rained and rained some more. Daylight brought no relief. In fact it rained harder. We don't travel in storms so we started working on our inside job lists. About 10:30 am the weather alerts on our phones started. The alarm would sound and the text would read tornado warning, take cover in the lowest part of your house, or inner room immediately. OK, does that mean we climb in the engine room or squeeze into the bathtub in the aft head together? Our choice, watch out the windows for water spouts or funnel clouds. After a full day of this the wind finally subsided just before dark and the rain stopped. Unfortunately it started up again about 11pm and rained most of the night but at least there were no more warnings!
windy anchorage
Wind and rain, notice the white caps in the anchorage
raining so hard you cant see down the ICW
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