Still writing plans in Jell-O on a hot summer’s day!

We departed Saint Augustine, hoping for Miami, but Mother Nature had other plans. Sea state and winds continued to increase during the afternoon of our second day underway and we knew the storm was upon us. We tucked in to Palm Beach to a semi-protected, albeit crowded, anchorage. We set the hook and the winds continued to increase, as our comfort level continued to decrease. We decided to try to move to a slightly more protected area in the anchorage, farther away from the derelict boats on mooring balls. Normally, anchoring is not a very difficult task: we have a great headset that keeps us calm, as we’re able to talk regularly, rather than yelling at each other. As we’re learning, “normal” is not something to rely upon… One of the headsets ended up in the drink… womp womp, but not a major loss (well, a $385 loss, but we’re staying positive!). We took the opportunity to work on our hand signals to continue to avoid yelling. We found a suitable spot for the night, as anchoring in the dark is substantially more difficult than during the day.

After a rough, nervous night’s sleep, we decided with the calmer winds in the morning, we’d try another anchor reset to get the boat exactly where we wanted it. Just when we felt we’d mastered our hand signals, the anchor windlass failed. Fan-freaking-tastic… This threw the hand signals into the drink, along with our patience, and left us yelling back and forth as Nate had to manually heave-ho on the anchor chain. The anchor chain is 2.25lb per foot… we had over 75 feet of chain out, including the 80lb anchor, you can do the math. Suddenly, the concept of “just moving the boat a little bit within the anchorage” became a major chore. Naturally, the windlass motor failed mid-anchor pull, so we decided to go for it and try to get a better location… Round 2 put us closer to another vessel than planned… Round 3 left Nate so exhausted, we decided the location had to be acceptable. Luckily, the morning was beautiful and our spirits lifted as we took the dinghy to the nearby park on Singer Island to stretch our legs and explore Palm Beach. The weather stayed gorgeous and the wind kept us cool in the hot sun – it finally felt like Florida. We had a fun anniversary lunch and headed back to the boat to relax and celebrate a year together.

Relaxing lasted about a half glass of wine, when the winds picked up to 40 knots and the rain came pouring down. We spent the evening and much of the night nervously checking if our anchor was dragging or if we were going to swing into another vessel or the seawall. Oi! The morning brought sunshine and sporadic squalls that continued to keep us on our toes. Highest wind gust we recorded: 54 knots! Yikes. We kept a close eye on the radar, hoping the storm would pass by the evening. When it finally did, Nate got another workout by hauling the 100ft of chain + anchor as we set out for an overnight sail to Miami.

We sailed through the night with the super moon to light our way. Winds were so favorable; in fact, we had to reduce sail mid-morning to slow down, as we had no intention of entering Governor’s Cut in the dark. We arrived at Dinner Key Marina (Coconut Grove) around 0900, secured ourselves to a mooring ball, and then celebrated with a champagne toast and breakfast. We spent a few hours sightseeing (Nate lived in the area for a few years) and then joined the marina’s Christmas potluck party for the evening.

Sunday brought Nate’s birthday celebrations and we delighted in a visit from my good friend, Monica, and her fiancé, Sean. They spoiled us with a lunch and their company until the afternoon. Early evening, Nate’s friend, Jim, picked us up and gave a quick driving tour of some of the area’s notably beautiful sights – Alice Wainwright Park, Biltmore Hotel, and countless mansions. Jim and his wife, Ani, later treated us to dinner and birthday dessert at their house.

Christmas Eve morning set Nate on a mission to fix the saltwater leak in our generator. Mission successful! We ran (well, walked…) some errands around town before family joined us. My Uncle Jim, Aunt Deidra, and cousin Rob treated us to a late lunch and then we gave them a tour of the boat with some great catching up conversation. After a very wet dinghy ride: 5 adults on a 3-person dinghy in 2ft chop was clown-car funny and resulted in 5 very wet bums… They were kind enough to drive us south on their way out of town to drop us off a Christmas Eve pig roast with Nate’s friend, Joaquin and his family. What a delicious party – we were there well after midnight, indulging in too much food, wine, and dancing. This led to a lazy Christmas morning with a breakfast of cookies and champagne (thanks, Lovegren’s!) and later my family tradition of Dutch Babies. Nate fixed the water maker with the parts we’d picked up the day before, yippee! Then we made our way over to Picnic Key for another marina potluck for new friends and a warm fire on the island.

We originally planned to leave Miami for Jamaica on Christmas or the following day. However, our dinghy’s electric motor failed, and the quickest we could get a new battery was Friday, December 28^th. Nate worked with Lighthouse, our anchor windlass designer, and finally determined that the motor was totally fried (we’d suspected, but the company asked us to troubleshoot). Unfortunately, this wasn’t verified until the 26^th. And if you see a theme here, you’re not wrong: The company is out of California, doesn’t take credit card, and won’t ship a new motor until they invoice us and later receive a check… hellooooo, another delay. We’re guessing the earliest we’ll see the motor is next Tuesday, but we aren’t super hopeful. Also not likely leaving Tuesday due to the forecast implying Friday the 4^th is our next weather window.

In the meantime, instead of moping around, we went exploring! We took an Uber to what we thought was Little Havana, only to have accidentally chosen what the Uber App called “little havana” and not the actual tourist destination. We continued to hone in our our land navigation skills by mistakenly walking 1.3 miles in the opposite direction of the actual location… we succumed to another Uber to take us 1.4 miles in the direction we’d just walked from, to drop us off two blocks from where we started. WHOOPS! Let’s hope our aquatic navigation skills stay sharper than our terrestrial… Eventually, we relished in the fun of Little Havana for lunch, Wynwood for the art and breweries, and then Brickell Avenue for a drink – all of which brought us great joy and fun on Thursday. A huge thanks to my parents for the fun Christmas money that funded our tour-de-Miami adventure!

We’ve had such high winds the past few days, the water taxi isn’t in service, leaving us with wet dinghy rides to and from shore. One such ride, a ballyhoo jumped right out of the water, smacked me into the shoulder, then proceeded to flop around on Nate until it found it’s way back to the ocean (with a little assistance). You just never know what’s going to leap out of the water and hit you! The bright side of the high winds is that they would be horrible to sail to Jamaica, so at least we’re not just stuck here for parts. We are planning to pop down to the Keys for New Years, because, why not?! We have time to kill and we might as well experience a mini-adventure with it. More positive news, the winds have calmed a bit and I’m able to write this blog from the foredeck in the sunshine! (Update: not 2 minutes after I typed that, it started raining on me…. Touché, Mother Nature) We will pick up our new dinghy motor battery today, load up on groceries, and maybe catch a cheap happy hour to top off our afternoon in the sunshine. If we don’t learn to slow down, the universe will continue to force us to, delay after delay.

You can plan a pretty picnic, but you can’t predict the weather.

Cheers,

Sarah & Nate