Distance: 18 NM/Time: 4 hours
The plan for today was to make it to Lake Worth–about 20 miles south–by the afternoon, take a nap, then make an overnight outside passage to Key Biscayne. Since it would only take four hours, I planned to sleep in to bank as much sleep as possible before the overnight. The forecast was for strong winds out of the northwest all day, decreasing by night which would provide a 24-hour weather window in which to proceed offshore and bypass the plethora of drawbridges between Lake Worth and Miami.
However, the sleeping-in part didn’t go as planned as I happened to wake up at 6:30 am could tell that the winds were light (only about 8 knots). I knew this was the typical daybreak lul and wouldn’t last, so I quickly threw on some clothes and spent 45 minutes stowed the dinghy on deck before the winds picked up to 15-20 knots again. It was a nice feeling to have the secure, now having the option to go outside when needed. After all the activity, there was no point in trying to go back to sleep, so had a nice breakfast, then weighted anchor around 10 am to head south.
Since my chartplotter appeared to have finally bitten the dust, I broke out my second iPad to have two in the cockpit–one displaying Navionics and the other AquaMap. Although the distance wasn’t great, I had to pass through six scheduled drawbridges, which were a real pain and slowed me up a lot. It was a great reminder of why I did NOT want to take the ICW south of the Lake Worth Inlet if at all possible because of the 28 bridges–all on an opening schedule (i.e.,not on demand)–between West Palm Beach and Miami.
I also came very close to going aground (again)! The ICW passing by the Jupiter Inlet had a lot of shoaling, construction on the drawbridge there, and a huge dredging barge parked right in the middle of everything. I had been following the situation on the ICW Facebook group so knew there was a fresh Bob423 track which swung way around the new shoals. I planned to take that and so wasn’t too worried about it.
However, upon arriving, the dredging barge was anchored right in the middle of the Bob423 track. It was very difficult to match up the track with the recently-moved buoys and the barge. It seemed like the track went around the far side of the barge (i.e., I thought the barge was at position A below), and so I headed around to the southeast side of it. However, it became obvious too late that the barge was actually more like at position B at the same time my low depth alarm started going off with my depth meter reading 5.5 feet! By that point, there was no way to turn around. I was practically scraping my starboard side on the barge as I went around it, trying to stay in water as deep as possible; a turn away would have just put me aground. All I could do was hope to get around the south side of the barge without going aground, make a hard right turn around it’s west side, then a hard left turn around the green marker to get back on the Bob423 track. It was not a fun minute or two. The chart showed the water where I was much lower than 5.5 feet. It was one of the many times I probably should have gone aground, but somehow managed to avoid it. I can only imagine the bridge tender (just off the below chart to the west) watching me and thinking, “What an idiot!” Lol
The reason for planning to leave at midnight for the offshore passage had to do with the distance involved, daylight, and especially the Gulf Stream. It was very close to shore between West Palm Beach and Miami, and the distance was about 70 miles.
For obvious reasons, when going southbound I didn’t want to be in the middle of the Gulf Stream bucking the 3-4 knot current, and it wasn’t worth crossing it twice to get on the other side of it. (It’s 40 miles wide there.) That meant staying as close to shore as possible–like within a 1/2 mile or perhaps even closer. And that meant no sleeping. It’s one thing to be able to catch 20 or 30 minutes of sleep far offshore where there it little to hit, but when having to avoid the shoals along the coast, crab pots, and the plethora of small boats coming and going…well, sleep is just impossible.
Even staying that close, there was likely to still be anywhere from a half knot to a knot and a half of current against me, making my speed as slow as 4.5 knots over ground. At 70 miles, that meant over 15 hours of cruising. Fifteen hours of cruising during daylight would be tiring but not a huge issue. But, if I wanted to cruise mostly during the day, it would mean either departing and arriving both anchorages in the dark–not desirable. By sliding the 15 hours one way or the other, I could at least ensure that I’d have daylight for one of the anchorages. So, since weighing anchor is easier than setting the anchor (generally), and the West Palm Beach anchorages are pretty close to the inlet, I figured the best bet would be to leave about midnight, departing out the well-lit Lake Worth Inlet in the dark, finish another five or six hours in the dark offshore, then arrive in the not-well-marked-or-lit channel into the Key Biscayne anchorage in the late afternoon. This was still my plan as I continued south toward Lake Worth.
And then the engine started getting hot. About an hour out of Lake Worth, I noticed the engine temperature was at 190 degrees, instead of the normal 180 degrees. While there were times when I’d run my engine around 200 degrees for months, it is not healthy for the engine, and since it had happened rather abruptly, it indicated that something was wrong.
I realized I needed to give the engine a look over to see if I had split another hose or something, but couldn’t do that in the narrow ICW (at this point, also with a lot of traffic). I would have to wait till I was anchored for the day.
As I approached the north entrance to Lake Worth, still not knowing how crowded the Lake Worth anchorages were because of all the cruisers staging for the Bahamas, I noticed an anchorage off to the west north of Singer Island in Riviera Beach that had space. A quick glance at the reviews showed that it was convenient (there was a dinghy dock at the adjacent park, with laundry, hardware, and Publix within walking distance), but subject to wakes from the passing boats in the ICW. With my overheating issue, I decided that good enough was good enough, and so pulled in and dropped the hook there around 2 pm.
An examination of the engine revealed no obvious causes of the overheating. This then was a conundrum: whether to continue south as is or take the time to troubleshoot the engine. I found myself surprisingly tired even though it had been a relatively short day. Still tired from two long days of preparing the boat for a passage, waking up early to stow the dinghy, trying to time the bridges, almost going aground, and the stress of an overheating engine had made what should have been a lovely day not very fun and quite tiring. I decided to take a nap before making any decisions.
However, I found myself too stressed to sleep! Although I’d likely be able to sail most of the next leg down to Key Biscayne, I didn’t get a warm fuzzy going offshore with a questionable engine (especially with only one “bail-out” inlet on the way–at Fort Lauderdale which had few, if any, suitable anchorages). And then there was the weather forecast. A cold front had just come through which was causing all the strong NW winds and the temperature was forecast to drop to 53 degrees that night. After finally finding warm weather, I did not relish the thought of being offshore all night in a windchill in probably the high 40’s. I still had the choice, of course, of staying in the ICW and dealing with all the drawbridges, taking three or four days to get to Key Biscayne, but the malfunctioning engine worried me. Not only would I be motoring all day long, there were few anchorages. And if the engine ended up needing a mechanic, I would be in one of the most expensive areas of the country with outrageous boat yard and slip fees. It would be better to try to figure out what was wrong before I entered that gauntlet.
So, I elected to give up the weather window, knowing that I wouldn’t have another one for at least 3-4 days.
However, I was happy to hear that both Bill and Elise on Phoenix, and Simon and Lara on Dragonfly had both launched offshore from Stuart with the favorable winds, the former heading across the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas and the latter heading down the Keys. Simon and Lara would pass me by during the night sometime, and in fact, ended up doing a non-stop passage all the way to Rodriquez Key, with the intention of trying to pickup a mooring ball in Marathon.
The good news was that the water was gorgeous in the anchorage–a pretty green–and I could see the bottom in 10 feet of water. I decided that if nothing else, I would clean the bottom here, or at least give it a good look over since I hadn’t really been able to see my hull since Serendipty had been on the hard two and a half years ago!