Captain redeemed

Location: Lake Santa Barbara, Florida
Position: N26 13.421 W080 06.018

We finally got going again! A late start (last minute laundry, paying our bill, etc.) resulted in a relatively short day yesterday, ending with us dropping the anchor in the North Lake Worth anchorage for the night (N26 50.363 W080 03.298).

We were really looking forward to going out of the Lake Worth inlet and getting down to Fort Lauderdale on “the outside”. Unfortunately, the predicted 5-10 knot easterly winds didn’t happen. Some ominous clouds were building offshore, and the weather forecasters couldn’t make up their minds what that meant. So Captain overruled Navigator and decided that discretion was the better part of valor. So we (one more time!!) began slogging our way “down the ditch”.

Of course Navigator took every opportunity to point out that it was not raining and the sun was shining gloriously. And of course Captain took equal opportunity to point out that the wind was indeed coming from exactly the wrong direction and what about those really big clouds that were still building out over the ocean? So the day progressed. Interspersed with the 17 (“Go ahead, count ‘em!” says Navigator) bridges we had to negotiate today.

One was tall enough to go under, three were “on request” (meaning that the bridge tender will open for you as you approach the bridge when you ask nicely – most of the time….) and the rest were on a fixed schedule. It appears that if you can maintain between 6 and 7 knots, you can make the openings on time. That is, assuming that one bridge doesn’t open late and the next doesn’t open early. Or, if you are barely late and there are no other boats waiting for an opening, the bridge tender can say “you’re a minute late – you’ll just have to wait a half hour for the next opening.” Even if (and this happened to us today!!), by your GPS time you’re 2 minutes early. Grrr. If it weren’t for Rachel’s glorious new engine, we’d have been out of luck for much of the day.

Once, as we were waiting for a bridge to open, slowly drifting toward it with the current (Captain, having timed it about as close as humanly possible to arrive exactly at the opening time) a 70 odd foot power yacht tried to pass us about 15 seconds before the bridge opened.

Capt.: (shouting across 20 feet of water and up about 20 feet to the bridge of ‘Big Yacht’) “What the heck are you doing?”
‘Big Yacht’: “We can either pass you now or we can pass you after the bridge.”
Capt.: (Appropriate Language Toolbox (ALT) accessed, but not documented) “After the bridge would be fine.”

Our captain was once told that he was intimidating. And who knows, maybe it’s true. ‘Big Yacht’ backed down and let us, and the ‘small trawler’ following us, pass ahead.

We felt vindicated at every bridge after this. ‘Big Yacht’ was made to wait for us and ‘small trawler’. Every single time until we stopped at around 4:00 pm without exception – that was very, very cool.

The low point of the day occurred when we were waiting for a bridge to open - we had arrived early. We had to do a bit of “fancy footwork” to keep the current from bringing us down on the bridge too early. After we cleared the bridge:

Capt.: There’s a new, funny vibration.
Navigator: What do you mean? And why aren’t you laughing if it’s funny?
Capt.: Feel the wheel – there’s a vibration in the drive train.
Navigator: Oh… My… God… Last time that happened we spent 3 months on the hard!!!
Capt.: I (Appropriate Language Toolbox) know.

The high point of the day occurs when, after the anchor is dropped, the Captain dons flippers and goggles, dives on the prop and finds a garbage bag wrapped around it and the prop shaft. A few minutes with a knife (and, of course, the ALT – “blurble bub blub bubble fweet foont!!”), and we manage to avoid another 3 months on the hard. Captain is redeemed and is rewarded for his valiant efforts with a hot shower, a big umbrella drink, and a tasty dinner.

Making slow progress but still happy,