Getting Work Done in North Palm Beach

We arrived at our anchorage in the St. Lucie River, just past the Roosevelt Bridge, on Wednesday afternoon. Winds were supposed to be gusting up to 30knots on Thursday and Friday so rather than head down to Palm Beach on Thursday, we thought it best to relax and wait out the windy weather and go down on Saturday.

A peaceful evening at anchor on the St. Lucie

With high winds expected, we deployed our flopper stoppers. Martin had installed swivels on the fish and they seemed to help quite a bit. We did have a little bit of twisting but only for about 1 foot, not taking up all 15+ feet of retrieval line like in the Dry Tortugas.

We had an interesting thing happen on Friday. Early in the morning we heard a strange groaning sound. We looked around and couldn’t see anything wrong but I felt like the boat was leaning much farther to port than it had been the night before. (I think my sensitivity to sea sickness gives me a preternatural ability to detect the slightest imbalance in the boat. No, this ability doesn’t make up for getting sea sick!) Then I noticed that the retrieval line was taught, as in, it was actually taking the full weight of the boat, holding Blossom in place rather than allowing her stern to swing around. I think the groaning was the line under extreme strain.  The retrieval line is a line that runs from the metal (hanging) fish to the cockpit where it’s tied to a cleat. You use this line to pull in the fish.

When we looked at our swing circle, you could see the boat was being held perpendicular to the current (which was ripping) because her stern was stuck fast by the line. Yet the fish (to which the other side of the rope was attached) was hanging freely and not hung up.  At first we were afraid that the line had somehow hung up on the anchor or anchor chain. But we didn’t have enough of it free for it to be caught so far away.

We pulled in the starboard fish and fired up the engines. We nudged up about 10 feet and the line freed itself. It was a relief that it was so easy.  We figure it must have snagged on something on the bottom – something strong enough to hold and even tilt a 72+ ton boat against the current. Thank God we didn’t catch our anchor on whatever it was!

The winds weren’t as bad as expected on Thursday so we had been debating whether or not to head south on Friday. With 7 bridges to open and get through, we didn’t want to have to station keep in 30 knot winds. But by Friday morning the wind still wasn’t nearly as bad as had been predicted and we preferred to mess with the ICW and bridges on a week day rather than a crowded weekend. We end up making it down to North Palm Beach in about 4 hours, no problem.

North Palm Beach Marina is a very nice facility. We arrived mid-afternoon and got settled in our slip. Martin ran into Rob, Chris and Fernando, from Nordhavn, on the dock that afternoon. They came by to take a quick look at the boat and the list of things we need to have done.

We spent the weekend steeped in lists, chart books and guides. It feels a bit daunting and very exciting. We have a warranty list for the guys, a long maintenance list for Martin (thank you Wheelhouse technologies! ;), a housekeeping list (we could be out of the country for up to 3 months so bills and payments need to be dealt with) and provisioning lists (boat parts, food, and sundries) as well as needing to finalize our travel plans for the Bahamas.  Woo hoo…things are happening!