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 pre-scheduled 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 lock down 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 my 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 prepaid 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.

Debugged

We are anchored in Sunrise Bay in Fort Lauderdale (map) It's been three weeks since last I posted here, and a busy three weeks at that, so an update here is overdue. Apart from the very next two days after I posted, we have not had an open day at sea for me to type. I don't have that now, either, but we've had a couple of easy days at anchor and the chaos of the last couple of weeks has settled to a low simmer. It's long; grab a drink.

Vector in an uncharacteristically calm New River Sound, with the beach resorts behind her. Photo: Dorsey Beard

After we had the hook down off Knight Key I called TowBoatUS to ask about depth and conditions on the back side route. They were very noncommittal. Between that and the fact that our sounder was showing no additional water above the MLLW soundings on our charts, which showed 5' sections ahead, we opted to head back to the Hawk Channel in the morning, or whenever weather permitted. In hindsight, we could have anchored closer to Pigeon Key and had a shorter run both directions. We had a calm night, much more pleasant than any of our previous stays on the ocean side of the bridge, after a pleasant dinner of pasta e fagioli aboard.

This broken hose clamp sent gallons of seawater into the bilge, and made our watermaker look irreparably broken.

Tuesday morning's check of the weather showed marginally acceptable conditions, and we backtracked the four miles to the bridge. We used our track from the way in so we did not have to keep it to dead slow. We turned back eastward in the Hawk Channel, passing just a mile or so from where we anchored an hour and a half later. Conditions were good early on, but by mid-afternoon seas had built to two to three feet on four seconds, which is a bit of a bumpy ride.

Lights of Miami from our anchorage off Key Biscayne.

Louise took the helm for an hour while I participated in a Zoom meeting concerning Florida anchoring rights. Then in the afternoon, while going back over the paperwork for Friday's short haul for our survey, I learned the boatyard had cancelled our haulout because they were missing documents. After having signed what I thought was a firm contract, including supplying payment details, I was furious, but the yard had already given away the time slot. I had a few choice words for them before turning my attention to alternate solutions.

Weighing the fire bottle, hanging just a couple inches off the floor. Crane scale is just off-frame, top.

We had booked this for Friday because the surveyor was slated to leave for the UK on Monday, and we did not want to miss him. If that had not been the case, we would have stayed in Key West another week waiting on better sea conditions, rather than being out here bashing our way through the chop. I was determined to somehow save our survey appointment and I started calling other boatyards.

Approaching Miami from Key Biscayne. It looks different in the daylight.

I'll spare you all the gory details of the dozen or so calls I made. Suffice it to say that only two yards had a Friday slot for us; one was up the Miami River, and the other was Marine Max, just a short distance from our original choice on the Dania Cutoff. Marine Max was our first choice, but they told me they would not haul steel boats. We made the appointment in Miami, even though we were less than sanguine about making our way up an unfamiliar, busy river, rife with drawbridges, to an unknown yard. But I also asked Marine Max to run it up the chain to see if the powers-that-be would make an exception for a survey-only haul. They asked me to send photos of the boat and a copy of our insurance.

Courtesy dock at Publix, closed and nearly completely destroyed from wake action. We only ever got to use it once.

We ended the day anchored behind Rodriguez Key (map), after what turned out to be the whole day spent on the phone and the 'net. We were apprehensive with all the waves out of the east, but I worked my way back into the shallows much further than on our previous stops here, and it turned out to be not bad at all. We will remember this for the next time: a 2-3' easterly forecast in this zone is OK here. We had leftovers aboard; conditions were too rough to dinghy in to Key Largo.

Most of the zinc paint has worn off the prop, but it was in good shape. Pinkish color is minor surface dezincification.

The system I had put together in Key West to supply engine heat to the water heater is evidently working very well, because Louise reported that she could only turn the shower valve a tiny fraction into the hot side without the shower getting too hot. Of course it was cleaning out the crud from the tempering valve that caused this; I had cranked that valve up over time as the hot water had gotten progressively cooler. I adjusted the valve back down and we are back to a safe water temperature.

We wore a bit of paint off the keel plowing the bottom in seiche in Cape Haze.

Wednesday we got an early start for the final leg to Key Biscayne. At the first engine room check Louise found several gallons of water in the engine room bilge, and I had a bit of a scramble to make sure it was not actively coming in someplace. It turned out to be a broken hose clamp on the watermaker, which we had run Tuesday as a test. The test did not end well, as production had dropped to near zero and salinity through the roof shortly after starting it, so we had just turned it off, and I had figured to get back to it at anchor someplace when the ER was cooler. This broken clamp turned out to be the whole reason, and it's a great example of why seawater pumps should not be run while away from the boat.

Headed back to the water after a pressure wash and survey inspection.

The Miami yard called back to say they had made a mistake and that the available time slot was actually on Saturday, not Friday. Fortunately, Marine Max had deigned to grant us dispensation, and we waved off Miami and signed the contract at Marine Max. I emailed Paul, the surveyor, to let him know of the change of venue, and a short while later I got a call from Ben, his partner, to say Paul had gotten hung up in Melbourne and that Ben would do the survey instead. So the whole mad scramble to make a Friday appointment was more or less for naught anyway.

They rafted us up to this spendy Galeon 800 and we had to wear booties to cross it.

We ended the day at the anchorage off Nixon's helipad (map) and headed to the Key Biscayne Yacht Club for a much-needed beer and a nice casual dinner in the bar. We really like this club, even though they have never had room for us at the dock. Only after eating, wherein I had a burger and a beer from the regular menu, did we learn that Wednesday is $12 burger-and-beer night. Oh well, live and learn. The anchorage was the quietest we have ever seen it; usually there are a handful of day boats that arrive for sunset and then stay, sometimes to the wee hours, playing loud music. I wonder if KBPD has been cracking down.

As we were preparing to drop lines we found a stowaway.

Our decision to press on through Hawk Channel in marginal conditions put us into Key Biscayne a day early; I had expected to have to run the final leg to Dania on Friday morning. So Thursday morning I took the time to remediate some of the more obvious rust, and then service the engine room fire suppression system, all in preparation for the survey and hoping to have fewer issues for them to find. The fire bottle in the ER was still at full weight, but it will be due for hydro in just two more years.

Hollywood Beach now has a Senor Frogs. I guess it was inevitable after Margaritaville moved in.

We weighed anchor and made the slog through the Miami ICW bridges, which involves pushing right up against the speed limit for one stretch, and slow-rolling at our lowest speed for a different stretch to time openings more suitable for the boats from Miami Vice. The courtesy dock at the Intracoastal Mall in front of Duffys is still closed, as is the courtesy dock at Publix in Hollywood Beach, destroyed by wakes. We only ever got to use it once, and it was very convenient. The Diplomat's marina has also closed; I think that side of the property is scheduled for redevelopment.

The lifeguard shacks in Hollywood all sport this Googie architecture.

We dropped the hook in our usual spot in the "key slot" of South Hollywood Lake (map) and tendered to Capone's Flicker Lite for beer and decent pizza. In the morning I cleaned up the tender a bit before we decked it, just before it started raining, and spent the rest of the morning servicing the remaining fire extinguishers and straightening up the engine room before we had to weigh anchor for the survey haul-out.

Sunset over the Hollywood keyhole.

We ran the trio of closely spaced bridges and arrived to the lift slip, in the rain, exactly on time. Surveyor Ben was already waiting, and we chatted while the crew pressure-washed the bottom. He audio-gauged the hull, thankfully finding no issues, and inspected the running gear. While he did not make survey comments about it, we had abraded the paint down to bare metal in a few spots while plowing the bottom up in Cape Haze. I also noted one marginal hull anode. In any other yard I would have asked them to touch up the paint and change the anode while we were in the slings, but the "no steel boats" rule precluded that. We'll get hauled out further north, in a less expensive part of the coast, to get that done.

They trimmed some vegetation and our secret dinghy landing is again usable.

After just ten or 15 minutes of hull inspection we had the yard put us back in the water; the pressure-wash used up the lion's share of our allotted hour in the slings. The lift and wash crew was very professional. We moved over to our "slip," rafted to a $4M, 80' Galeon (map). The yard handed us a power cord that had been run across their swim step, and booties which we had to wear while crossing their aft deck to get ashore. There was nothing to walk to nearby, so we only did that once to stretch our legs, and again to fill our water tank.

Mamacita's Latin Grill on the Broadwalk has expanded to envelop what used to be a pirate-themed bar on the corner, left.

Ben spent about an hour or so on board going through all the visible interior portions and checking on important safety gear, and he made generally positive comments throughout, which made us optimistic about the final report. I just received that a couple of days ago and there were no adverse findings or action items beyond the usual "service the service items and keep the paint maintained."

The former Sapore di Mare, which had gone downhill, is now Ocean Grill.

The yard was closed Saturday and we lingered until 11, relaxing after what had been a mad scramble and a whirlwind boat prep. We would have stayed longer, but I had errands to run from the next stop, and the new solar makes it less necessary to hold on to the power pedestal until the last yawning instant. It took us an hour to get back through the three bridges and drop the hook in exactly the same spot we had left the previous morning.

Giorgio's bakery, which is also a sit-down restaurant on the ICW, is still going strong.

I immediately splashed the tender and headed down to my super-secret landing in Hallandale Beach, where I made the circuit of two different Amazon lockers, a UPS access point to pick up our mail, and Walmart. I had to fight with the Amazon app to get one of the lockers to open, at one point even switching to my backup cell carrier. When I got back to the dinghy I found I had a neighbor; I guess the secret is at least partly out. We tendered to Gigi's for a nice dinner on their deck. Because, you know, we don't get to see enough of Hollywood Lake.

Joe's Market just a couple doors down has folded, leaving no market convenient to the anchorage.

We spent four nights there (five if you count the one before the survey), and I belted out several projects that I was holding at bay until after survey. That including replacing three (out of six) engine fuel filters, making some adjustments on Louise's Juki sewing machine, re-balancing the house batteries (which had somehow developed a very weird imbalance), replacing broken snaps on the window covers, and diagnosing and replacing bad pressure sensors on the watermaker. In the midst of all this I discovered a can of FlexSeal had exploded in the plastic bin that I used to contain such things, for exactly this reason, but I still had a mess to clean up all over the other items in the bin.

I caught Esmeralde passing by while I was ashore, on her way to Fort Lauderdale.

I made another pilgrimage to Hallandale for another locker item, a UPS store drop-off, and more Walmart items. And I found time to stroll the Hollywood Broadwalk all the way up to the Marriott to the north and the shuttered Hollywood Resort to the south, noting the changes since our last visit. We dined at Nick's on the Broadwalk and Taverna Opa on the ICW, and we also made brats one rainy night in an effort to draw down the freezer stores a bit. Our old standby Sapore di Mare has closed, replaced by a similar Mediterranean joint, and the iconic Joe's Market on the ICW, always good for last-minute necessities, has shuttered.

Something to look forward to for our next visit.

In anticipation of having to run up the New River on Thursday for work at Lauderdale Marine Center, I had booked one night at the Lauderdale Yacht Club, which is on the way, for Wednesday. We need something close to high tide to get in and out of this club, and so we weighed anchor to make the 8:30 opening at the Hollywood bridge, putting us at LYC a little over an hour later, with plenty of water in the channel at a tide of +2.5'. We docked in a familiar spot (map) and I scurried over to the club office in drizzle to get signed in.

Vector in South Hollywood Lake, looking east.

I had plans to offload the scooters here, and we docked port-side-to for that, but it poured rain all day and I could not even get in a walk, let alone run planned errands on a scooter. In the evening we grabbed umbrellas and headed over to the Burgee Room for dinner, which turned out to be a poor choice, with noisy families seated right next to the bar. Next time we will sit in the adults-only Cypress Room, which on a rainy evening just seemed too dark and dreary.

My secret dinghy landing has been discovered. I returned to find another boat in front of me.

The club puts out coffee and pastries each morning in the Abenaki room, which is otherwise just a bar with no food service, and we grabbed muffins in the morning before a short walk to the end of the block and around the club grounds. We were off the dock at 10 to again take advantage of high tide, and we headed over to the New River just as the ebb was starting. Having a touch of current against makes navigating this tricky river, with its numerous drawbridges, a little easier.

These guys were working on the Publix dock when I passed. I asked if they were repairing it. Nope; putting up a tall fence to keep anyone from using it.

After negotiating with two sets of towboats moving large yachts and a brief delay while the railroad bridge got stuck in the down position, which had us tying up at a bulkhead rather than station-keeping in the river, we made it to our assigned berth at the boatyard (map). Long-time readers may remember we spent a bit of time here a few years back getting the bottom blasted and painted and having a few other things addressed, so it is very familiar to us.

Offloading yachts transported by ship.

And this brings me to the delicate subject of why we were here, to wit, to deal with a minor infestation of drywood termites. We've been dealing with this for well over a year, and it's been like playing Whac-a-Mole. We would find a small pile of frass, and I would inject termite poison into the minuscule, barely perceptible hole using a hypodermic needle leftover from hydrating the cats. Then we would not see them again for months, until we found another pile of frass in an entirely different location. Every now and then we would catch them in their winged, swarming state using our bug zapper.

Brightline train crossing the FEC rail bridge. After it passed the bridge announced it was stuck down. The Cape Ann towing guys seen here sounded the dock to the right for us and we pulled over to wait.

I'm sure my efforts were successful in keeping them from getting out of control and eating all our interior woodwork, but at some point it became clear that I was never going to vanquish them and they would need to be gassed. We feared the worst: that we would have to be hauled out onto the hard and tented, just like a house. I asked around in the superyacht community, who deal with this all the time (if you have a boat in Florida with enough wood in it, it will likely eventually get termites), and they nearly unanimously recommended a company called Dead Bug Edwards, who can often do it in the water by taping the boat up.

Failed pressure sensor and its replacement, which needed a reducing bushing due to the smaller threads.

Dead Bug Edwards asked me to send them pictures and dimensions of the boat, and then said that it could be done in the water, at which point I started calling boatyards that would allow it to be done. Edwards is on the approved vendor list at LMC, and when they gave us a decent price for the dockage (well, for Fort Lauderdale, anyway) we set it up for Friday morning. They told us we would need to be off the boat until Sunday sometime, and Louise booked us an AirBnB for the two nights.

Amazon sent two different sets of bushings that turned out to be nearly straight threads.

We offloaded the scooters after we were tied up, and then set to work bagging up all the unsealed food items on board. The Edwards rep had met me at the boat ramp in Hollywood to give me a supply of the special Nylafume bags that are required for the purpose. Louise bagged up most of the food, including what was in the fridge and freezer, while I went out on the scooter to run the errands that were rained out the day before. Those included the Amazon counter at the nearby Whole Foods, which was new for me this visit.

All our food secured in Nylafume bags on the counters. Giant fans on the floor belong to the exterminator.

At dinner time our friends Dorsey and Bruce, who were docked across town, picked us up in their rental car and drove us to dinner at Serafina, one of our favorites, which is, ironically, walking distance from where we are now. But all four of us love the place, and it appears to now be a tradition with us if we are all in town together. Dinner was great, as was the company, and we had a big greeting even though we just parted company a couple of weeks ago in Key West.

With Dorsey and Bruce at Serafina, showing off our decadent desserts.

Friday morning Bob Edwards showed up with a taping crew as we were finishing our coffee and gave us the rundown on how it all works. He set up fans throughout the boat to distribute the gas and ran a hose out to where the truck would be. The sulfuryl fluoride gas is colorless, odorless, and deadly, and the boat is first infused with tear gas to keep the curious (both humans and animals) away. They were mostly ready to go by 10:30 and booted us off the boat.

All taped up, signed, and ready to be gassed.

Check-in at our quarters was not until the afternoon, and so we traipsed over to the nice crew lounge, new since our last stay, with our laptops to kill time. It was raining again, so planned errands were again deferred. We had figured to have lunch while out and about; instead we rode the scooters over to the (also new) on-site restaurant, Yot. The food was good and it is a nice venue; like everything at LMC the prices are on the higher end. After lunch we stopped at one of the on-site chandleries, BOW Yacht, which had a good price on a fuel filter I needed.

Cheers from Yot, where the servers are dressed in yacht crew uniforms.

We spent another hour or so in the crew lounge until we got word our AirBnB was ready. We rode over and were settled in around 2. The place was comfortable enough, if a little over-the-top with Amazon LED lights. We spent a bit of time figuring out how to turn them all off. By dinner time things had dried up enough to walk to Tap 42 for dinner, a venue I remembered from when I took my captain's license course at nearby Maritime Professional Training. We swung by the nicely stocked deli/market on the way home to get milk for our morning coffee. The AirBnB provided the coffee in the form of K-cups.

LMC now has scooter parking. We parked under the gaze of our own cameras instead, as we had a scooter stolen here last tiime.

Saturday morning after coffee we did a canonical Fort Lauderdale thing by heading over to Lester's Diner for breakfast. The check-in sheet they put out here to manage the line has a column for "luggage"; while Lester's used to be mostly a local hangout, apparently word is out and now the cruise passengers are stopping here between the airport and their ships. After breakfast we set out on the errands we had deferred due to the rain. I needed parts from McDonald's Hardware and more items from Boat Owners Warehouse, and we both sorely needed haircuts.

Lester's Diner. Yes, I am day-drinking.

I had even more errands, including stops at Total Wine and Publix, so we parted company and Louise headed home. After my shopping and a quick spin around the shopping center to see what was new, I thought I would drive the beach road and loop back via Las Olas. Bad idea; spring break traffic had the road stopped dead after I crossed the 17th Street Bridge, and I made an about-face and went back the way I came. My original plan to maybe get this blog post hammered out at the AirBnB was, as they say, overtaken by events.

Our AirBnB, complete with LED palm tree, and LED strip lights above the cabinets.

We made plans to meet Bruce and Dorsey for dinner at upscale Vitolo in the Conrad, also on the beach, and we ended up slogging our way through the same quagmire later. Adding insult to injury, the Conrad would not let us park the scooters, and we had to hunt for on-street parking, where we paid the same amount for the two scooters as two full-size cars. Note to self: investigate motorcycle parking before heading to anything else on the beach. Dinner was quite good, and we even brought home leftovers.

In the course of trying to turn off the color-changing strip lights I looked above the cabinet and found this monstrosity. We eventually found the wireless control mounted to a wall.

Even though the exterminator had originally told us to expect to be off the boat until late Sunday, they adjusted that to Sunday morning at 9am, and so we packed up and checked out at 8:45 and arrived at the boat just as they were removing the last of the fans. The tape was already gone. We settled up and then turned our attention to re-stowing all the consumables and, ahem, other projects.

They provided these disposable toothbrushes (yes, black) and teensy tubes of "Toothpaste" patterned exactly after Colgate tubes.

The big "other project" unfortunately involved dealing with some misbehaving waste tanks. I will spare you the gory details (and any photos); suffice it to say that the crossover pipe that connects the two separate halves of our waste system had occluded, which we had discovered late Thursday night when the tank, which normally carries us for three-plus weeks, was full at just the two-week mark. There was little we could do about it with the exterminator coming first thing in the morning, apart from using the head connected to the still-empty forward tank.

Our proof of treatment.

Among the items I picked up at McDonald's and BOW were new fittings and a length of sanitation hose to replace the crossover altogether, the second time I have had to do so in a dozen years. The lone dockhand at the yard came out around 11 to pump us out, a prerequisite for making the repairs. I spent most of the day folded in half in the bilge, and there is really no way to do this project without letting the stink out into the boat. Though I am thankful that it happened while we were already at a boatyard with a pump-out and easy access to parts. After cleaning up both the project and myself we beat a hasty retreat from the now odiferous boat and rode over to long-time favorite Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza for dinner, while the boat remained opened up with fans running.

After they already left we found they left behind one of their laminated signs. The boss made the guy come back to get it.

We had only booked the yard/marina dock until Monday, and in the morning I rode over, settled the bill, and picked up the robot vacuum Louise had ordered from Amazon on my way back to the boat. (She has been experimenting with it ever since.) Amazon deliveries here are handled by Yacht Chandlers, who charge $2 for the privilege, but they are closed over the weekend. The box barely fit behind me on the scooter.

I caught this high-diver mid-flip halfway down from the highest platform at the International Swimming Hall of Fame high dive.

The yard gave us a late checkout, and I used the time to ride out to UPS for a return and to Walmart to see how much motor oil I could grab. Two attempts to have them deliver 5-gallon pails to us on Sunday had ended in failure, and at the store I discovered they only had a single pair of 2.5-gallon jugs, buried in the back behind another brand, so I grabbed those and four 1-gallon jugs to make up the nine I needed. The scooter was bristling with oil jugs on my ride home.

Cheers from the lounge at Ocean Prime.

We decked the scooters and were off the dock at 12:30, just at the tail end of the flood. I did end up having to make a pair of U-turns in the river at the notorious "little Florida" bend to let a pair of Cape Ann Towing towboats moving a 200' yacht upriver pass us. (If you're listening, Courtney, you owe me a beer.) We slid under the Las Olas bridge without an opening, which had us early for Sunrise Bridge, but as we passed Las Olas, we were stunned to see the anchorage at New River Sound had room.

These pontoon tour boats pushed up against the bulkhead at the end of Sebastian Street all day long, just a couple hundred feet from us. We could land one street down to stay out of their way.

We'd anchored here a time or two, but ever since the Middle River anchorage was outlawed, this one has been full, largely with derelicts and permanent liveaboards. But new legislation this year limits anchoring to 30 days, and FLPD has cleared the place out. We pulled over and grabbed a nice spot (map); We did have a courtesy visit from the marine patrol in the morning wanting to make sure we knew the limit and to take a name and phone number.

Vector at the dock at Coral Ridge Yacht Club, wearing her St. Pete Yacht Club burgee. We only put it out when docked at other clubs.

From this anchorage it is a slam-dunk to go to Coconuts, perhaps our all-time favorite waterfront restaurant, for dinner, and as soon as we had the hook down I texted Dorsey and Bruce to let them know our plan, as they were docked within walking distance. We met them at the back bar when it opened at 5, which is technically the G&B Oyster Bar even though it's all one big room. We had a great time, and afterward we had a long goodbye "for real this time." They were slated to spend Tuesday taking their dogs to the groomer out in Plantation and then depart for parts north Wednesday morning. We hope to see them again when we get up to New England this summer.

I'm not sure why the rest room signs disagree in number.

Tuesday morning I finally replaced the bad pressure sensor on the watermaker, after two rounds of ill-fitting Amazon parts that had to go back followed by getting a marginally serviceable one at McDonald's. One of the things I had scheduled for our time here in Fort Lauderdale was a service visit from the watermaker guy just to check my work and give the system a going-over, and I needed to get this done first.

Only in SEFL. Rolls SUV with custom paint and Dubai plates front and rear at the Galleria.

I took the dinghy out to fuel it up at the Bahia Mar fuel dock and then scope out our landing options, beyond the ones we already knew at Coconuts and a mile up the Middle River. I found no restrictive signs at the city dinghy dock near the minuscule mooring field of Las Olas, but not much in walking distance. And the new courtesy dock attached to the permanently moored Shorely ex-ferry at the newish Marina Village wanted $30 for two hours. The rebuilt Las Olas Marina has no dinghy dock and quoted me, I kid you not, $205 to tie up for a half day. I found it possible but somewhat challenging to land at one of the dead-end bulkheads on the island side.

The view from Ocean Prime. Vector is past the docked superyachts in the cheap seats.

When dinner time rolled around we decided to land at the dinghy dock and walk the three quarters of a mile over the Las Olas Bridge to the new Ocean Prime, adjacent to the marina. This is a very spendy place, but they have a more reasonable happy hour menu upstairs in the lounge. It was fine, and the space was pleasant enough, but we don't need to repeat the experience.

We were home just in time for sunset from New River Sound.

Wednesday we waved as Esmeralde passed us on their way north out of town, and we decked the tender and weighed anchor ourselves for the 11am opening at Sunrise. By ten after we were tying up to the face dock at the Coral Ridge Yacht Club (map) for our one free night, which we had deferred until Wednesday because the club facilities are dark Monday and Tuesday. I immediately set up the portable air conditioner in the engine room in anticipation of the watermaker appointment at 1pm, even though things did not get very hot in the fifteen minutes we were running.

Esmeralde passing us one final time in our anchorage.

Cameron from Halden Marine arrived at the appointed time and spent an hour aboard. We learned our production (flow) meter reads low and our salinity meter reads high, but otherwise he pronounced the system healthy. The recommendation, if we continue to see production drop during the course of a run, is to rebuild or replace the pump motor, and I will look into sourcing a spare. The good news on the watermaker meant I had time to swim in the very nice and very warm club pool before we headed to The Pointe, their casual patio venue, for dinner.

Sunset behind a storm over Naples or thereabouts, as seen from CRYC.

Louise was waiting on two Amazon deliveries to the locker in the nearby Galleria mall, which closes at 8. When one of the two still had not arrived by 7:15, I walked over anyway, picked up the one that was ready, and killed time by strolling the mall, which is all but dead now. I understand it is slated to be redeveloped into a mixed-used retail/residential complex. For now, at least, the four sit-down restaurants out front are still open. The final package was delivered right at closing time. I swung by Publix on the way home.

One way to re-purpose a vacant anchor store at a dying mall.

All our Fort Lauderdale errands thus complete, Thursday morning we were free to leave. But our next obligation is just one stop north, in Palm Beach, and we don't need to be there until this coming Wednesday, so after dropping lines after lunch and a short swim, we just came here. When I had checked in the yacht club wrote us a guest pass until tomorrow, and I've been back ashore to the dinghy dock a couple of times.

The Grill at the Grove. It was open mic night in the courtyard. Check out the giant draft list to the right.

We've also been to the dock at the Hugh Taylor Birch State Park, immediately across the ICW and recently reopened after a long closure, twice; once to eat at the park's own Grill at the Grove, which sports a surprisingly large selection of drafts, and once to walk to Primanti Brothers Pizza. This latter venue is actually an outpost of a pizza chain from Pittsburgh, where I once went to school, and carries Iron City beer in bottles. The pizza was decent. Landing at the park requires payment of a $2 per person entry fee; there is an honor box but we paid online. The gate attendant was baffled by our online passes when we came back from Primanti's.

Primanti's, a little slice of Pgh in Laudy. I like the Kennywood sign in the back, an amusement park I enjoyed there. Also, cash only, and open 24/7, for those spring break benders.

Tonight is our last in this spot, and we had dinner in the club bar before a quick stop at Publix and decking the tender. Tomorrow is forecast to be rainy all day, and there is no better time, really, for us to be underway. The usual weekend ICW traffic will be rained out, and we'd be trapped inside all day anyway. Tomorrow evening we should be in Lantana or Lake Worth Beach, a little early for the next item on the calendar, which is to put Louise on a plane to Puerto Vallarta for our niece's bachelorette party (long story). I will be holding down the fort at anchor.