Captain's Choice blog: Renaming the East Coast

We have decided to rename the east coast of Florida the windy coast! Ever since we left Marathon it has been one windy day after another and we are talking winds in excess of 15 knots. We are hopeful whatever this weather pattern we are in comes to an end soon. We are also very thankful for the ICW, because if we had to be in the ocean we wouldn't be traveling.

We had a nice 3 night stay at the Lighthouse Point Yacht and Racquet Club from Tuesday to Friday. Although it is a private club they have several slips for "traveling yachtsmen", they don't like the word transients. They were very accommodating and have a restaurant on site, pool, fitness center, tennis courts and multi-million dollar yachts. Our mission was to re-provision and get Captain's Choice clean after 7 nights on the hook...which we did! The Publix grocery store was a mile away, easy biking (we needed the excercise) although we were offered the use of the dockmaster's car.

Plan A for Friday was to anchor near West Palm Beach but the weather forecast was for 15-20 knot winds with gusts to 30. We just felt with that forecast a marina was the smart move, so we headed to North Palm Beach Marina (very clean, personable and helpful staff, shuttle car, within 1-2 miles of stores and restaurants). On the way there it was so windy that even the ICW had white caps on it. There were also several times the skies opened up and it poured, luckily for us it was when we were underway so we didn't get wet. We got a glimpse of Mar-a-Lago and luckily we timed our travel early enough on Friday that we weren't affected by President Trump's arrival later in the day. The mariners route isn't really that big of a deal, stay the course in the ICW at a steady speed, no stopping allowed unless you are waiting for a bridge opening. There are more restrictions if you are on the ocean side. We could already see barricades being set up on land and later we found out that is where both the supporters and protestors congregated.
It was a 2 night stay in North Palm Beach to let the weather get settled before we were to head out on Sunday. The problem is the weather did not settle and we had to leave the marina as the slipholder of the dock we were staying at was returning Sunday afternoon. We would usually never head out in 25 knot winds, again lucky for us the 27 mile portion of the ICW we were travelling on did not include any Lakes or wide bodies of water so it was a smooth ride and very little boat traffic. Our concern was docking, both departing and arriving, but the captain did great and we managed to land at Sailfish Marina in Stuart without incident. Now the funny part was the dockmaster told us a couple days ago due to the winds they were going to put us on the fuel dock, there was a slip next to a 12 million dollar yacht but not knowing the captian's ability they didn't want to take any chances...guess what slip we had to dock in with 25 knot winds? Yup, right next to the 12 million dollar yacht because the boats that were docked at the fuel dock did not leave due to the weather!
This marina is located very close to the St Lucie Inlet (leading to the Ocean) so the waves and winds were very tricky. Believe it or not I think the winds got much worse after we were settled in and were cleaning the salt spray off the boat. We were confirmed to stay here until these winds stop blowing or at least let up a little. We stayed at the south end which is more like a "working marina" as there were several new boats that were being outfitted with electronics.
Port Salerno is a small town at the end of Manatee Pocket with a couple of restaurants that we had planned on dinghying to but again with the winds we decided to walk the 1.5 miles into town on Monday night for dinner.
The winds were forecasted to only be 15 knots today (Tuesday) so off came the lines as we are heading to Fort Pierce.