Perspective.

What a funny/fun day we’ve had. Waking up in Lake Worth was pleasant, but after breakfast in the cockpit we all tucked below for the entire morning for the girls to do schoolwork with me while Andy dismantled enough of the engine to be able to replace the starter (thankfully removing the alternator was enough for good access). The schooling was a bear for all three of us today, for whatever reasons of impatience and frustration, but the starter was essentially an enjoyable breeze for Andy. What must have helped was the Tangled soundtrack that we blared after work was through and all three of us were coloring- I hear most engine shops keep Disney music at-the-ready at all times for motivational purposes.

While packing up and planning a trip to shore we checked the wind forecast and changed our minds; we hoisted anchor and set off instead. One plan was to forgo the ‘Canyon’ section of the ICW (named for its concrete sides and subsequent reverb of frustrating wakes) and to jump offshore to head to Ft. Lauderdale or further to Miami, but weather patterns dictate our life, and the shifted forecast urged us to either wait for three or four more days (which we didn’t want to do), or use The Ditch. The Canyon isn’t recommended on weekends with heavy boat traffic, so today was our day.

What a great decision! After yesterday’s intro to bridge traffic, and the first couple of today’s bridges having a crowd of fellow boaters to frustratingly jockey around in the current and tide with while waiting for openings, we fell into a rhythm and were able to enjoy our surroundings. Palm Beach was a sight to behold as we passed one mega yacht after another, crews polishing away like mad. It’s funny to think that we were there once (although nothing ‘mega’, for sure!), and it is a great reminder that we’re now in control of our own destiny, even if we DO have to pay for the West Marine runs out of our own pockets (blerg).

Channel traffic thinned to almost nothing, we hauled our jib out to help us ‘speed up’ to catch bridge opening times, and we spent hours gawking at incredible homes and vessels of the rich and maybe famous.

I had thought that the concrete walls would be high and view-inhibitive, but they were simply retaining walls that held bajillionaires pools and waterfalls in place. With no other boat traffic creating jarring wakes, it was delightful. Once I softened to the blaringly Floridian architecture that seems to use Spanish and Roman touches to the extreme and not always in my palette of acceptance (diplomatic enough?), I started pining for an afternoon on any given veranda, cold drink in hand to watch the boats come and go. I could have found a comfy spot here, for instance:

We tucked into a little man-made circular anchorage in Delray Beach called Pelican Harbor, where upon prepping the anchor for Andy to set, I managed the ‘Winner Move of the Day!’ when I released a line holding the chain (in my defense I was assuming (without checking-ha!) that we had a cotter pin holding the actual anchor in its sheave), and urped about 80′ of chain into a pile on the bottom in 12′ of water, all in the middle of the entrance channel. Super sweet. Not one to have someone else clean up my mistakes, I passed on Andy’s offer to switch places and hoisted the mother-bleeping chain back up myself. And hey, guess what? Our windlass doesn’t work! Thank goodness I rarely let my pride interfere with necessary amends since Pelican Harbor is a literal fishbowl with 360 degrees of people able to check out my less-than-stellar maneuver.

The good news is that once we properly set the anchor, we held, which is more than we could say for our only neighbor in the anchorage. The poor guy dragged and reset, dragged and reset, and an hour or so later took us up on our offer to raft up. Now we are rafted with Crumb, a Sovereign 24 and her skipper/owner Andy, who is a self-described novice sailor who bought his boat for $200 three months ago and is slowly making his way to the Keys and the job that’s waiting for him there.

After feeling like a minuscule dot of a boat all day in the shadows of giant yachts, the turnaround was abrupt in feeling how lucky we are to have this ‘big’ cruiser. We sat in our cockpit for a beer and looked over at wee Crumb, feeling all bloated with our standing headroom and refrigeration; imagine that! Eh, until tomorrow, when the super yachts of Ft. Lauderdale put us back in our place.