The jet set

We are anchored in a familiar spot in Palm Beach, across the channel from the nice free West Palm Beach docks (map). This is our first stop here since Palm Beach has started enforcing a new ordinance that limits anchoring to 30 days in any six months, and we've already had a courtesy visit from PBPB to make sure we knew the limit, and presumably to record our stay to start the clock. It's been over two weeks since last I posted here, which was not really my intent, but I've not really had a block of time to write until now.

Our current anchorage, center frame between the bridges, as seen from my flight. Empty here because the boat show is still being dismantled.

Sunday morning we weighed anchor as planned for the northbound slog through the gantlet of drawbridges between Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach. It was raining and windy, so as we predicted there was almost no traffic despite it being the weekend. One of the three boats we passed in the other direction was a trimaran who clearly did not understand passing arrangements and decided to take his half out of the middle at the Palmetto Park bridge, but apart from that it was a blissfully quiet cruise, and we now have the bridge timing down to a science and hardly had to station-keep at all.

My cheat sheet for timing the 17 bridges we need opened between Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach.

The tide cycle unfortunately had us at the shallowest part of the route, across from Boynton Inlet, right at low tide. As it happened, that was also during some of the strongest winds of the day, with our anemometer reading 35 knots on the starboard beam, which meant I had to keep moving at a decent clip rather than slow down to pick my way through. As we approached the area we could see a TowboatUS boat in the channel, and I hailed him on the radio just to ask what depths he had seen; he flipped around and led us through, which was very kind. We stayed right on our known deep-water line and had no trouble.

The contacts on this pressure switch for our domestic water pump were "bouncing" and I had to clean them with an emery board. I can only see this side of the switch with a mirror, or with a camera like this.

We arrived to the Lantana anchorage to find it a bit more full than on our last visit, unsurprising with the West Palm anchorage that we are in now closed for the Palm Beach Boat Show. The boat that had drifted aground on our last visit was anchored in the spot we used that time. We ended up dropping the hook some 700' or so further south (map), but with plenty of room on all sides for the wind, forecast to remain high. It was still blowing 35kt when we dropped, so we just ate on board, even though the rain had stopped.

Boat show being torn down. It's a giant puzzle; the boats closest to shore can't be moved until they take away the dock sections pinning them in.

Sunday was the last day of the boat show, and Monday was a non-stop conga line of show boats passing us on their way back down to Fort Lauderdale. It was too rough outside even for the big girls. At least one show skipper seemed astonished that the bridge lockdown schedule was still in force "even with the boat show" and ended up station-keeping a 120-footer between two bridges. Our anchorage was outside the no-wake zone and we had a rough couple of days with all the zippy big boats going by.

Conga line of yachts leaving the show and passing us at anchor.

All told we were at the Lantana anchorage for eight nights. I did a fair amount of running around on the county bus system for a buck a ride; it got me up to West Palm Beach and back to check on the dismantling of the show, and to Lake Worth Beach to scope out the town and the anchorage there, and also out to Costco and Publix.

Not something you see every day. Being moved in the boat show area.

Together we dined at the Station House Restaurant, Thaikyo across the bridge in tony Manalapan, and the nearby Old Key Lime House, all decent. Stag I tried the Lantern Local Tavern, which has a limited menu, and Art Basil, also in Manalapan, where happy hour seated at the bar was a great deal. I also ended up at AJ's American Grill when I made a bus run out to Walmart Neighborhood Market, alone at the "Sky deck" at Old Key Lime, and a nice brunch at the Kona Bay Cafe, which is right next to the dinghy dock.

The PalmTran buses were pretty good. But this one's onboard display was ... uninformative.

Thursday morning we were up early to get Louise ashore for a 5am Uber to the airport. We had girded ourselves for a very wet ride ashore but lucked out. Louise reported that she breezed through security; Palm Beach was definitely the right choice for her flight, even with the West Palm anchorage closed. No sooner was she in the air, and me inexorably committed to spending the next four nights right there in Lantana supervising Vector, than my phone rang with a call from the hospital in my parents' home town of Brick, NJ: my dad had been brought in to the emergency room after fainting and was being admitted.

The free day docks in Lake Worth Beach, on my scoping visit. The big Hatt spent a lot of time there.

This normally would have had me looking for ways to get myself to NJ to check up on him and help out any way I could, but with the boat at anchor and Louise on her way to Mexico, that was not in the cards unless I got someone else to take over boat duties in my absence. Instead, I enlisted help from other family members much closer to Brick. Ultimately, the cardiovascular issues were not serious, they kept him for observation, and no one had to go to the hospital.

We've passed this bridge 20 times but this is the first time I saw the mural, which is not visible from the channel.

I had grandiose plans in Louise's absence to get some projects done around the boat, do a lot of walking, and maybe find a massage someplace. But between uncooperative weather and spending tons of time on the phone with NJ, as well as needing to be available for incoming calls, I ended up settling for local walks from the dinghy dock and going to dinner. I did enjoy seeing the Eau resort in Manalapan (massage: $275 — no thanks), Lantana's tiny section of Atlantic coast, just long enough for a city park, and strolling the Lantana Nature Reserve.

Vector in the Lantana anchorage, as seen from the bridge.

Louise had a late flight back on Sunday and I picked her up at the dock at 11:30 pm. She crashed pretty hard, but we had nothing on the schedule for Monday. That was fortuitous, because as it turned out, one of my hearing aids (yeah the warranty on the ears ran out right at 60) broke a speaker wire Sunday afternoon, and I hopped on a bus Monday morning to be out at Costco shortly after they opened at 10. I got lucky: they had a spare speaker in stock, and I just had to kill 20 minutes in the store while they changed it.

Lantana Nature Reserve.

I'm not going to get into too many details here, but by this time the hospital was working on releasing my dad to an inpatient rehab facility, and I had spent a bunch of time on the phone working on exactly which one. With Louise now back, and us still being in easy distance of the very convenient Palm Beach airport, I spent part of the morning making arrangements for a one-day overnight trip to NJ on Wednesday. Our next commitment in the boat is to be in Titusville on the 19th, so we had about a week of slop in the schedule, and flying was just going to get harder as we move north.

Having had our fill of Lantana, we weighed anchor for the 2:30 bridge opening, in the hope that we could make this anchorage before the bridge lockdowns, and that it would be open after the show. When I went to transfer fuel into the day tank for the trip I found the transfer pump to have lost prime, and, not wanting to miss the bridges, we opted to make the trip on what was left in the tank, which should be a little more than enough.

The fuel in the filter housing has dropped below the filter (removed) to the level of the inlet.

We had to push hard against the current to make the bridge schedules, arriving here just before 4. The plan had been to tie up at the Palm Harbor Marina to pump out our waste tank before dropping the hook, but the hard run had us very concerned about fuel remaining, and attempting to dock in a marina full of eight-figure boats is absolutely the wrong time to have the engine quit. Instead we pulled off to drop a lunch hook so that I could fix the fuel transfer.

This vertical check valve below the sole is the likely culprit. I have a new one on order.

Of course, the anchorage was not yet open, and they were still hostling the last of the docks around. I knew it before we started dropping, but we had little choice, and I had to explain the fuel situation to the PBPD who came over to give us the bad news. I reprimed the system and transferred a bunch of fuel, and then I was ready to head over to the pumpout as planned, except that Louise had a prescheduled Zoom meeting regarding yet different family medical issues. We had missed our window to pump out, and now we needed to head back south to a different anchorage. I had to station-keep for a half hour during the bridge lockdown while Louise took her call.

Our new robot vacuum doing the hoovering. We named her Dora.

With the West Palm Beach anchorage just south of the bridge full up with all the boats relocated for the closure, we ended up going all the way back to Lake Worth Beach, dropping the hook on the Palm Beach side across from the Lake Worth day docks (map). We were all alone on this side of the channel, and we set out storm scope for forecast gale force winds during my absence. We had the hook down at 6 and we just caught the last of happy hour at The Irish Brigade pub in town.

The spendy Eau Resort in Manalapan. A short walk from Lantana but worlds apart.

Lake Worth Beach is a more vibrant place than Lantana, with a decent-size downtown that is about a half mile from the dock. A Dollar General is close to the dock and is well stocked with all but fresh produce, including a selection of beer and wine. Tuesday night we again walked into town, this time settling on Dave's Last Resort.

Lantana's tiny bit of coastline is contained in this one park.

The wind and rain moved in on Tuesday night, and Louise took me to the dock at 5:30 Wednesday morning with both of us in full rain gear. I sent my rain pants back with her. I, too, breezed through security at the airport and changed from shorts into dry slacks for the flight. It was in the 70s on our dinghy ride, but just 38° when I landed in Newark.

I had to wait for my Uber in this little shelter. I was concerned when I saw this lake in the parking lot but I found a dry way in.

I had a nice visit with my dad in rehab, then stopped for a while at their house to help mom with paperwork and other things around the house. I ended my day at a hotel in Neptune across the street from a decent pub. I had taken the manager's special at the rental counter, which turned out to be a Tesla Model 3, which cost me less with a full pre-paid charge than the cheapest gas-powered car before even filling it up. These things have neck-snapping acceleration and are a lot of fun to drive. I made my way back to the airport in the morning on local highways, saving myself the tolls but also giving me a little more feel for the Tesla.

My view from the bar at Art Basil.

Meanwhile, Louise was basically pinned down on the boat the entire time, with winds quickly ratcheting up to 35 knots and staying there overnight and nearly to my return. She reported that boats were dragging in both the Lantana and West Palm Beach anchorages, and even one downwind of us in Lake Worth, so we were wise to choose this wide-open spot.

This free, unrestricted day dinghy dock makes Lantana a great stop.

We once again got lucky when it was time for her to pick me up at the dock, and we made it back to the boat in moderate chop and almost no rain. But it was still too zesty to want to go ashore for dinner and we just ate on board. Starting at dinner time and getting worse into the evening I had a scratchy throat, which I attributed to all the talking I had done in NJ and the dry air on the flight.

This Bentley in front of Palm Beach Bakery is painted in a Hot Wheels color. Only in Palm Beach.

When I awoke Friday morning, though, I knew I was getting sick. Most likely something I picked up on the outbound flight. We had to go ashore in the morning to land a tray table I had sold on Facebook Marketplace, with Louise doing all the personal contact, and I tested for COVID later in the morning, with negative results.

This trendy restaurant in Lantana lost its lease. When they vacated they left the place wide open.

We wanted to move the boat up here before the weekend, and also before I got any sicker, and we weighed anchor in the afternoon in time to make the bridges before lockdown. Well, we tried to weigh anchor. The first clue that something was not right was that Louise could not open the carabiner that connects the snubber to the chain. I went out on deck, and I couldn't do it, either. I ended up bringing the carabiner up through the roller and onto the deck, where I finally opened the gate by hitting it with a hammer. Two full days of gale force winds had elongated the carabiner to the point where the keylock no longer slid together.

I was able to force this back into shape with my vise and a torch.

After getting the snubber off we brought the chain up until it was bar tight, but nothing we did would free the anchor. Powering against it with the engine just made horrible noises and bent the roller, and after maybe a half hour of working on it from all angles I conceded defeat and we called Towboat. It felt like we were caught on a rock, wreck, or cable, even though we were well outside the cable area.

TowboatUS Boynton. His tow line is actually attached to our anchor.

Towboat, who turned out to be the same guy who had so kindly led us through Boynton a week earlier, slid a shackle down the chain until it was at the anchor shank and tried to haul it up in the other direction, but after a half hour of pulling in all directions, he called for a diver in a second boat. The diver went down with a 1,500-lb lift bag, and came up reporting the anchor was buried at least two feet into the bottom. There was nothing obvious that it might be caught on.

Diver descending the anchor chain with a 1,500-lb lift bag.

To make a long story just a tad shorter, the towboat guys spent nearly three hours and finally managed to wiggle it free with a combination of the lift bag, the towboat pulling at full throttle for over 40 minutes, and pressure from our own windlass. The anchor finally came up at 5pm, and was evidently nothing more than deeply buried in the bottom, the result of days of heavy wind. The Towboat guys said they had never seen anything like it. Freeing a stuck anchor is not covered by our Towboat policy; it cost us $1,500 to get our anchor out of the seabed.

This artificial putting green fills the front yard of a single-family home in Lake Worth.

After getting unstuck and paying the bill, we slow-rolled north to wait out the bridge lockdowns, and dropped the hook here just as soon as we cleared through the 6:30 opening. We headed ashore to Grease for dinner and a well-deserved beer. Between having the crud, growing worse throughout the day, and dealing with Towboat all afternoon, I crashed as soon as we got home and slept for 12 hours straight.

This whimsical piano was open to all players at Newark Airport.

Our original plan had been to spend one or maybe two nights here at the most before moving on, but each morning thus far I have not felt up to running a full day in the boat, and we have stayed put. The weather has been gorgeous and normally I would be out and about around town here, but I have not had the energy. Yesterday we did make a mid-afternoon outing to Publix to restock provisions. I've made it off the boat each evening long enough for dinner and a short walk; so far we have revisited Lynora's, Batch, and Elisabetta's.

Apple cobbler bread pudding a la mode, at Batch. Hand for scale. The two of us could not finish it.

I was hoping to move along today but I still felt crummy, and with things lingering I tested again. This test was negative for COVID and also for flu and RSV. And while we have enough buffer days left in the schedule to linger here for another night or two, we could wait no longer to pump out the tanks, so today at slack water we weighed anchor, steamed over to Palm Harbor Marina, pumped out and took on water, and then came right back here. At least I felt good enough to crank out this post.

Louise had these unexpired test kits leftover from a research study. I'm clear on all four lines.

Perhaps tomorrow we can get underway. From here we will proceed with all due haste to Titusville, where we have a week at a marina booked so we can make our flights to the Dominican Republic to attend the wedding of our friends Tim and Crisálida.