Vero Beach to Stuart. Distance: 38 nm/Time: 8 hrs
Having only 38 miles to go to get to Stuart, I decided to weigh anchor around 9:15 am. I was going to try something new today: towing the dinghy with the outboard still attached. Like a lot of things associated with boating, this topic generates a lot of controversy online. Most cruisers strongly disapprove of towing a dinghy with the outboard engine attached, the reasoning being that it’s too much weight, or if a big wave (or wake from another boat) comes along, it would flip the dinghy resulting in the engine coming off, or experiencing salt water damage if recovered. Many cruisers will not tow a dinghy at all, citing experiences where the sea state had gotten unexpectedly large or the winds strong causing damage or loss to their (previous) dinghy. Of course, most of these people have dinghy davits so they can quickly and easily deploy and recover their dinghy. For those of us who have to go through the lengthy process of breaking down the dinghy and hoisting it onto the foredeck using halyards and other means, it is not always an easy decision. But, even for those who say they routinely tow their dinghy in the ICW, the vast majority remove their engines first.
But, removing and installing my engine is a pain in the neck, so I wanted to see how the dinghy road with it still attached so that if I knew the winds were going to be calm and I only had a short distance to go, I would know whether it would be an option. So, I decided to leave it on as I started, seeing on the chart that there appeared to be a small area just prior to the next bridge south where I could pull over and remove the outboard if the dinghy didn’t ride well.
And, that’s exactly what I needed to do! The engine was simply too much weight in the back, and the dingy road very nose high, causing a lot of strain on the painters and a big wake. If that alone weren’t enough, I was waked by a big (inconsiderate) motor yacht and that cemented the decision to remove the engine. So, I proceeded slowly to the area just north of the bridge a mile south of Vero Beach.
Now this “deep” area wasn’t really deep, but rather barely deep enough. It showed depths of between 6 and 9 feet. All I needed to do was to get on the north side of it, drop the hook, pay out a little rode–just enough to keep Serendipity from drifting into the bridge (the winds were from the north) while I took the 15 or so minutes to hoist the outboard off the dinghy and onto its mount on Serendipity’s taffrail.
When towing the dinghy, it typically rides about 15′ behind Serendipity. However, before anchoring, I pull the dinghy up close to the stern because during the anchoring process, I back down to ensure the anchor has set (and don’t want the painters1, which sink, to foul the propeller). But I was only planning to stay a few minutes, didn’t need to set the anchor, and would need slack in the painters to pull the dinghy abreast of Serendipity’s starboard side to remove the engine. I would just slowly motor into the spot, turn into the wind, take the boat out of gear, drop about 20′ of chain, the get to work on removing the dinghy’s motor.
However, as I turned into the area and headed east, the depth began to decrease very rapidly. As I watched, the depth meter went from 9′ to 7′ to 6′ in about as long as it took you to read that. My draft is 5′ 8″ so I quickly threw to engine in reverse as I watched the momentum carry us to even shallower water. It was right then that I remembered the dinghy and its painters! I left the wheel, turned around, and with a painter in each hand, pulled them both as hard and fast as I could until the dinghy was right up against the transom, then tied them off. But, by the time I turned back around, we were aground, the boat not moving at all and the depth meter read 4.8 feet! F#@CK. I took the engine out of reverse and tried forward, but even at full throttle, it didn’t move. I tried reverse again, but nothing. Well, I thought, I guess this is what Sea Tow is for. It shouldn’t be difficult for them to pull me off. As this was crossing my mind, however, I noticed that the wind had spun the nose downwind. So, I could be that hard aground. I decided to try forward again, and ever so slowly, Serendipity began moving forward. I turned the helm towards deeper water, and suddenly she broke free. Just as quickly as we had gotten into the uncharted shallows, we were in nine feet of water. I got as close to the bridge as I dared, then turned into the wind, motored a bit (just a bit) back north, then dropped the hook. We stopped with the boat still in nine feet of water about 30 feet from the bridge, but the anchor seemed to be holding. WHEW!!!!! That was lucky!
As quick as I could (I really didn’t like being on a lee bridge!) lol, I hoisted the dinghy motor and stowed it on its rack, then weighed anchor and turned south under the bridge to continue heading towards Stuart via Fort Pierce. While I was glad to have freed myself from the grounding, we had lost 1/2 hour, and that was going to actually cost me an hour since I would now not be able to get to the Fort Pierce North drawbridge by 11:30, but would now have to wait for the noon opening. It was already going to be close getting into Stuart by nightfall, and I had another drawbridge there to time, so my destination suddenly became uncertain. If I didn’t think I’d be able to make Stuart by nightfall, I’d have to stop in Jensen Beach as I passed by. But I didn’t really want to do that since I planned to camp out in Stuart for awhile, and would just rather get there and be done with it. Also, with the strong southwest winds coming, Stuart would be a safer anchorage than Jensen Beach.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. After waiting for the Fort Pierce North Bridge to open, I passed by the Fort Pierce inlet and all the nearby anchorages. It looked like there were some openings had I desired to drop the hook there. But, I continued south. I had a companion for awhile:
After that, we were pretty much at the mercy of the tides/current. We had face a counter current the entire time approaching Fort Pierce, but then picked up a nice following current the rest of the way down the ICW to the St. Lucie River. We passed Jensen Beach with plenty of daylight left, and so continued.
The reason we were making such good time heading south was because the tide was ebbing–going out the St. Lucie Inlet. So, as soon as we made the right turn west into the (outflowing) St. Lucie River, our speed dropped down to 4 knots.
We had two other drawbridges to pass through before reaching the anchorage, but they worked in unison. One was a normal road bridge, and the other was a railroad bridge for the Brightline service (high speed rail between Miami and Orlando). Trains would go through about every hour. In between trains, that bridge would open, and the car bridge would follow suit. There was a website which showed if the railroad bridge was currently up or down, and its projected schedule. It seemed pretty consistent that top half of the hour the bridge could be open, but on the bottom half of the hour it had to be down for passing trains. So I knew when we had to get there to make the openings and for awhile, with the following current and speeds up to 7 knots, it looked like we’d be able to make it through the bridges by 4 pm, but then when things slowed down heading up the St. Lucie, ended up not getting there until just before 5 pm. But, that just enough time to drop the hook before sunset!
Although it had been a long day (especially with the grounding), I was now at a place that I was somewhat familiar with; Nicholay and I had spend a few days here for Xmas back in 2023 when we were moving Mexicana from North Carolina to Tampa. Stuart had seemed to have everything one would need and all fairly close, so I thought it would be a good place to hang out for awhile, try to get in shape, order and install a Starlink, and decide where I wanted to go next.
- A painter is what the line used to tow the dinghy or tie it to a dock is called. I used two when towing my dinghy for balance and redundancy. ↩︎