Captains Log 01/31/07
Located in Lake Worth, FL
Some parts came but some just got ordered to come in West Palm Beach instead of waiting in Stuart. Watermaker needs new membranes, some more plumbing is on the way, as well as the new boat registrations. We need those before going to Bahamas. But we had a great time in Stuart FL. Unfortunately, we had to move on. We met a wonderful community of cruisers and will make it a point to come back and visit again. Now we are heading to West Palm Beach, our last stop in the US. From there we’ll head for Bahamas once the weather opens up. After finnaly getting to West Palm Beach area, I realized that this was the worst day of our voyaging life. We must have run aground about 6 times. Just got into anchorage before dark. Its less than 30 miles and it took us almost 9 hours to get there. Lets see, where do we begin describing this horroble experience... the Crossroads at St. Lucie and Okeeshobee canal, disaster. Comming into Okeechobee and Stuart few weeks earlier, I guess I favored the red side too much so we ran aground back then. Coming out I thought I stay away from that side. Well the green side turned out to be even worse. But this time water tanks were loaded and we were probably few inches lower. And to make matters worse, there was a barge about 1/2 mile behind us, closing in. As we ran aground, tide was ebbing about 2 knots and I knew I had to work fast before we really get stuck in the sand. I got on the radio and made a security call so that the barge doesn't run me over. Then we got the gib out and managed to get on a close reach, which healed the boat. Full throttle, and we were slowly moving but bouncing on sand. Just as the current took us and we were moving again towards the middle of the crossroads, again, bouncing and bouncing about 5-6 times but managed to run through the crossroads just as the barge was on our stern. But the guy was nice, since I did some reconnaissance for him, and he could stay away from the shoal. I really really hate this place, St. Lucie Inlet. We have no business beeing here, and there's no way in hell we'll ever come back through this area. Then we took a starboard turn for ICW south. That was not so bad, but any little shallower area that got below 10 feet got me frantic, and putting full reverse to slow the boat down. And there was plenty of them. So we were basically slowing down to few knots every once in a while.
Then we got near the Jupiter inlet... This is the worse junction on the entire east coast!! Shoaling spots everywhere. Those markers need to be relocated in a serious way. Ebbing tide got us going a bit faster than I wanted on the ICW before the actual inlet junction, and we ran onto the sand bar at about 4-5 knots which grounded us pretty good. But we ended up bouncing right over that one and few additional ones and got to a stop and the third sand bar. At the very inlet for about 5 hundred yards there were shoals everywhere. It took us over an hour to get through there. Its like a mine field. You have no idea which way to go. And it turned out the eastern most 10 yards of channel was passable. I kind of wiggled my way out of there. That got us to the very junction of the inlet and ICW which was even worse. Ran aground hard because the ebb was pushing us fast and I tried to stay in the middle. Bridge operator, few hundred yard down the road, which I called few minutes earlier thinking I will need an opening, was helping me out. He's like: Stay in the middle... Right, what middle? I am in the middle and I am on the ground. That's the worst feeling ever, you're in the middle of the channel between all the markers and yet bouncing on the ground. I ended up lifting the dinghy on a halyard with the spinnaker pole supporting it away from the mast. This actually heeled the boat a little and it helped. But not after revving and revving the engine till it reached over 200F. I ended up looking at my inlet guide book and managed to get the boat heading for the deepest water sounding, like 17 feet which was actually only about 12 feet but kept us afloat. Then I did some tight circles to stay in the deep spot, re-think where to go and let the engine idle for a bit to cool off. By then the tide was rising. My mistake was that we were there at the very end of the ebb! Then the cop went by just smiling and waving. I didn't even bother calling him. What was he gonna do, call sea-tow for me. And the bridge guy knew all along that we were in deep trouble. He told me that the entire area is shoaled. But with tide coming up, we proceeded at about less than 1 knot to the bridge. Just one more little bounce and the rest was ok. I was just thinking how fun it would be to get stuck under an opened bridge and make the entire Rt. 1 traffic come to a stall. Yeah stop all those SUVs and trucks that almost run us over whenever we walk or bike to the grocery store. That would be a nice revenge.. Anyway, we made it through the bridge and bounced just one more time after that. Luckily this was on a strong rising tide, which was a totally different story. Got off in a matter of minutes. But the sad part is that windvane punctured a small hole in the dinghy during one of the groundings. Dinghy just got stuck under it in a strong current and a heeling boat. One of the sharp metal edges punctured a pin size hole. We’ll have to patch it in West Palm Beach. The rest of the ICW was ok, One probelm was the fact that three additional bridges over a next 8 mile stretch of ICW were NOT synchronized and we had to wait at each one of them. The schedule is supposedly synchronized, but we got to one of them at 1 minute before the hour and he said that he had already opened! And I was watching him for about 15 minutes coming in, and he never opened. Then after we waited for 30 minutes iddling and trying to keep the boat in the channel, he took his sweet time and opened few minutes after the half-hour opening, which made us late for the next bridge. Then the same story again and wait another 30 minutes. Next time we'll just sail outside and bypass this horrible place. Anyway, we’ll make it a point to never go through this section of ICW again! At least now wea re finnaly here. We'll get propane, gasoline and pick up mail. Then we'll wait for weather to open up. As it stands we have a strong cold front sweeping through which will make gulf stream impassable for the next 5 days. So we are stuck here for at least a week.
Some parts came but some just got ordered to come in West Palm Beach instead of waiting in Stuart. Watermaker needs new membranes, some more plumbing is on the way, as well as the new boat registrations. We need those before going to Bahamas. But we had a great time in Stuart FL. Unfortunately, we had to move on. We met a wonderful community of cruisers and will make it a point to come back and visit again. Now we are heading to West Palm Beach, our last stop in the US. From there we’ll head for Bahamas once the weather opens up. After finnaly getting to West Palm Beach area, I realized that this was the worst day of our voyaging life. We must have run aground about 6 times. Just got into anchorage before dark. Its less than 30 miles and it took us almost 9 hours to get there. Lets see, where do we begin describing this horroble experience... the Crossroads at St. Lucie and Okeeshobee canal, disaster. Comming into Okeechobee and Stuart few weeks earlier, I guess I favored the red side too much so we ran aground back then. Coming out I thought I stay away from that side. Well the green side turned out to be even worse. But this time water tanks were loaded and we were probably few inches lower. And to make matters worse, there was a barge about 1/2 mile behind us, closing in. As we ran aground, tide was ebbing about 2 knots and I knew I had to work fast before we really get stuck in the sand. I got on the radio and made a security call so that the barge doesn't run me over. Then we got the gib out and managed to get on a close reach, which healed the boat. Full throttle, and we were slowly moving but bouncing on sand. Just as the current took us and we were moving again towards the middle of the crossroads, again, bouncing and bouncing about 5-6 times but managed to run through the crossroads just as the barge was on our stern. But the guy was nice, since I did some reconnaissance for him, and he could stay away from the shoal. I really really hate this place, St. Lucie Inlet. We have no business beeing here, and there's no way in hell we'll ever come back through this area. Then we took a starboard turn for ICW south. That was not so bad, but any little shallower area that got below 10 feet got me frantic, and putting full reverse to slow the boat down. And there was plenty of them. So we were basically slowing down to few knots every once in a while.
Then we got near the Jupiter inlet... This is the worse junction on the entire east coast!! Shoaling spots everywhere. Those markers need to be relocated in a serious way. Ebbing tide got us going a bit faster than I wanted on the ICW before the actual inlet junction, and we ran onto the sand bar at about 4-5 knots which grounded us pretty good. But we ended up bouncing right over that one and few additional ones and got to a stop and the third sand bar. At the very inlet for about 5 hundred yards there were shoals everywhere. It took us over an hour to get through there. Its like a mine field. You have no idea which way to go. And it turned out the eastern most 10 yards of channel was passable. I kind of wiggled my way out of there. That got us to the very junction of the inlet and ICW which was even worse. Ran aground hard because the ebb was pushing us fast and I tried to stay in the middle. Bridge operator, few hundred yard down the road, which I called few minutes earlier thinking I will need an opening, was helping me out. He's like: Stay in the middle... Right, what middle? I am in the middle and I am on the ground. That's the worst feeling ever, you're in the middle of the channel between all the markers and yet bouncing on the ground. I ended up lifting the dinghy on a halyard with the spinnaker pole supporting it away from the mast. This actually heeled the boat a little and it helped. But not after revving and revving the engine till it reached over 200F. I ended up looking at my inlet guide book and managed to get the boat heading for the deepest water sounding, like 17 feet which was actually only about 12 feet but kept us afloat. Then I did some tight circles to stay in the deep spot, re-think where to go and let the engine idle for a bit to cool off. By then the tide was rising. My mistake was that we were there at the very end of the ebb! Then the cop went by just smiling and waving. I didn't even bother calling him. What was he gonna do, call sea-tow for me. And the bridge guy knew all along that we were in deep trouble. He told me that the entire area is shoaled. But with tide coming up, we proceeded at about less than 1 knot to the bridge. Just one more little bounce and the rest was ok. I was just thinking how fun it would be to get stuck under an opened bridge and make the entire Rt. 1 traffic come to a stall. Yeah stop all those SUVs and trucks that almost run us over whenever we walk or bike to the grocery store. That would be a nice revenge.. Anyway, we made it through the bridge and bounced just one more time after that. Luckily this was on a strong rising tide, which was a totally different story. Got off in a matter of minutes. But the sad part is that windvane punctured a small hole in the dinghy during one of the groundings. Dinghy just got stuck under it in a strong current and a heeling boat. One of the sharp metal edges punctured a pin size hole. We’ll have to patch it in West Palm Beach. The rest of the ICW was ok, One probelm was the fact that three additional bridges over a next 8 mile stretch of ICW were NOT synchronized and we had to wait at each one of them. The schedule is supposedly synchronized, but we got to one of them at 1 minute before the hour and he said that he had already opened! And I was watching him for about 15 minutes coming in, and he never opened. Then after we waited for 30 minutes iddling and trying to keep the boat in the channel, he took his sweet time and opened few minutes after the half-hour opening, which made us late for the next bridge. Then the same story again and wait another 30 minutes. Next time we'll just sail outside and bypass this horrible place. Anyway, we’ll make it a point to never go through this section of ICW again! At least now wea re finnaly here. We'll get propane, gasoline and pick up mail. Then we'll wait for weather to open up. As it stands we have a strong cold front sweeping through which will make gulf stream impassable for the next 5 days. So we are stuck here for at least a week.
posted by sundowner-cruise at 4:21 PM
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