Water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink March 23-24, 2021

 Tuesday, March 23, 2021. Day 107.

So, after our absolutely wonderful paddle board ride, when we returned to the boat, and heard the water pump running, and realized that our hot water heater was leaking all of the fresh water, and there was no turn off valve, our only choice was to turn off the fresh water on the boat.

This was not a happy day. Here we were in the Upper Keys, no marina and no water. This was a major problem; this was serious; and this was not fun!

Captain Roland went to work immediately: calling, texting, and emailing, to find a replacement water heater, identical to our current, 14 year old unit to enhance the chances that the install would be relatively simple and would work on Magic Moments, and a repair person to install it, all near Aventura, where we hoped the marina where we had reservations would allow the repair, and let us arrive a few days early. This was a major undertaking and a logistical nightmare.

After many calls and emails, he located the unit we needed, not too far from Fort Lauderdale, a repair person, not too far from Fort Lauderdale, and confirmed that the marina in Aventura (not too far from Fort Lauderdale), would allow the work and allow us to arrive Wednesday. It was a minor miracle that he got all of this together in a couple of hours and got everybody to agree to a Thursday install. Of course this was going to be extraordinarily costly but at that point Time was of the Essence and reliability, and skill were the key points. Not the time to shop for a bargain, and.....not DIY.

Fortunately, I had to leave the entire mess in Roland's hands (he really works better alone in a situation like this), and normally, I have a few thoughts and opinions, but we lucked out; I had my own crisis starting a 3pm. I had an enormously stressful and time sensitive issue to handle involving one of my angel funds. Because I was busy with those issues, I had no time nor bandwidth to “contribute” to the water heater situation solution, and Captain Roland was free to make his miracle work.

OK; we had the miracle, we had a plan, so now we had to execute. We turned on the freshwater pump for short periods of time to fill up a bucket for washing some dishes, and for collecting some drinking water, and some water for us to wash (no showers), and to flush the head. The bilge pump took care of the water leaking out of the heating tank as we filled the containers.

We went to bed early, trying not to stress.

Wednesday, March 24, 2021. Day 108.

We were up at 6:30am, with the sun. Neither of us slept well; I was up from 1am to 2am or longer and tossed and turned and stressed about the water and no water. We brought up the dinghy (only the fourth or fifth time and we were actually getting better). We tried not to use too many dishes or utensils. It was a beautiful day and we pulled up the anchor and started for Aventura. It was a sunny, calm, beautiful day (perfect for the beach- too bad, we were on a mission). The views approaching Miami, the city and “the Beach”, as the natives say, were very cool.

 I love, love, love, Miami Beach architecture and the views were fabulous. At 11:05am, we arrived at the Venetian Causeway Bridge which opens on the half hour so we had to idle for 25 minutes; ugh!

Hopefully, at five knots, we would make all the bridges without waiting. We snacked on kind bars to avoid dishes and utensils, and we drank water, sparingly.

The next couple of bridges went well and we were making good time. The West 79th St., Bridge tender, held the Bridge open for two extra minutes so that we could get by. We were very grateful.

As we approach the Broad Causeway Bridge, connecting Miami to Bay Harbor Islands, it was old home week for me. I had lived there as as snowbird for eight years and it was great to see the island and the building from the bay. I got a real kick out of going by. I called Allen, who has lived in the building for decades, and he came out on his balcony and waved as we passed. I hadn’t seen him for many years and he said that this is the first time he knew anybody going by on a boat. It was a kick for him too.

We passed Haulover Cut, and the Haulover sandbar, where dozens of boats were anchored on the sandbar and families were playing in the water. I had lived there for 8 years and never saw or knew about this area. It was astounding to see folks spending the day in waist high water as if it were a beach.

As we passed Sunny Isles and approached Aventura, we went down a narrow canal into Lake Maule, where we idled to set up the docking lines, and the fenders, vertical on the port, and horizontal on starboard. It was a narrow entry to a narrow slip, and Captain Roland was attempting his first stern in docking. He wanted to make it as easy as possible for the repair people to be able to get the water heater aboard, and felt that the stern at the dock was mandatory.

It was not an easy docking; it took him three tries (this is not really unusual), to line up the boat for his first stern docking.

My job was to watch the sides and make sure that he was coming in straight and guide him if he needed to go more to port or more to starboard. Unfortunately, I was so distracted by the port and starboard issue, that I failed to pay as much attention to the swim platform which is a foot or so longer than our stern and 3 feet below the rail, and not easily visible when on the deck. As a result we had a bit more forceful “contact”, shall we say, with the pilings, than we should have had. I don’t think it did permanent damage but it did make us look like we didn’t know what we were doing, and will require repair. Fortunately for the Captain, the dockhands were there and saw that it was I who didn’t know what she was doing, and that it wasn’t the Captain's fault. The dockhand also pushed the boat away as much as possible to soften the “contact” and thereby, to minimize the damage.

We got into the slip, notwithstanding, although tying up was a little bit of a challenge. One of the dockhands (masked), with permission, boarded the boat and went to the bow and helped the Captain tie the lines to the pilings. Again, this was our first (and maybe our last), stern in docking, and I think, considering the circumstances, Captain Roland did a fabulous job.

In the slip we connected to the marina's water. Captain Roland was able to wash off the boat, and I collected the laundry to go to the boaters' lounge where I was told there was a beautiful, free laundromat, and a wonderful bathroom and shower. After 36 hours sans water, I was delighted to hear and hoped it was true.

They were right, instead of doing 4-6 loads of laundry, I did only two or three; the machines were huge. There was one minor problem: the washers and dryers were stacked and the dryer was so high that, not only could I not reach the buttons, I could not even see them! Fortunately, there were several young crew members in the boaters' lounge and one of them gave me a hand.

I had a lovely shower and washed my hair, and was really pleased that this problem occurred over two weeks after our second vaccine, so that using the boaters' lounge (even masked), did not feel like a major risk.

After my shower, I went for a walk and checked out the restaurant near our slip, and made a reservation for the first available time for an outside table, on the terrace at the Island Grille. We had a great dinner and even had leftovers to take back to the boat.

It was a great evening. We were safe, we had the boaters' lounge, water, washers and dryers, a shower, and a bathroom. The only disappointment to the evening was the email from the repair people that they would not be there on Thursday (tomorrow), but they would come on Friday. Captain Roland was not happy with this. He was concerned that they might cancel again; however, he had a back up plan, already.

Going South March 13-14, 2021

 Saturday, March 13, 2021. Day 97.

We had left the fuel dock two minutes before 11am and had just enough time to get to the Roosevelt Bridge for an 11am opening. Yeah! Because most of the bridges open on a schedule, it can seriously delay travel if one misses the opening by a few minutes. One must hang around for 30 or 45 minutes waiting for the next bridge opening, which is not only frustrating, but also a waste of fuel and increases the risk of injury or collision as more vessels are hovering around waiting for the opening. As my friend Joel reminded me in the fall: boats don't have brakes.

I steered for the first hour and we went under a total of 5 to 7 bridges. It was sunny and mild (the wind was only 5 to 7 knots ), and it was a Saturday so there were hundreds of boats all sizes going all speeds stopping by beaches and at the shoreline,

 folks were wading in the water. The visual was an endless caravan of vessels, and a what felt like an endless stream of people everywhere.

The ICW channel we were traveling through, on our way to Peck Lake, to anchor for the night, was quite narrow from time to time. Fortunately, most of the boats observed the speed limitation in the narrow passages, but the crowds on the shore were unbelievable: boats everywhere, people on every inch of beach.

We anchored in Peck Lake at about 12:40pm. By the time we had arrived, there were already dozens of boats in the beach area. We observed them longingly. Because we were leaving the next next evening for an offshore run, it made no sense to take the dinghy down nor inflate the SUPs. We comforted ourselves that we would soon be in the Keys and have lots of time for dinghy rides and to use the SUPs (famous last words!).

Peck Lake is right off the ICW, so there was a lot of traffic going by, and all day and all night the boat was rocking and rolling.

I used the afternoon to take care of my never ending paperwork and other obligations, and continued to contact all necessary creditors and other parties, to let them know my address was still the same.

Roland made his favorite lunch after we anchored: grilled hotdogs. Dinner was delish: steak from the butcher of Stuart, also grilled on the back of the boat

Sunday, March 14, 2021. Day 98.

Chris called early in the morning, to wish us happy Pi Day (3.14). Before that call. I was unaware that it was a holiday! I enjoy any excuse for celebration! Saturday night had been the start of daylight savings time, so we lost an hour of sleep (or got a very late start in the day, depending on your point of view). Although it was sunny and warm in Peck Lake, it was quite windy and the traffic was busy so we continued to rock ‘n’ roll on the boat.

After our poached egg breakfast ( loving those silicone cups), we left our anchorage and proceeded to start our slow cruising south through many bridges

I did some steering until the traffic and the narrow area got out of hand and then Captain Roland took over. The traffic for most of the way, had speed restrictions because it was deemed a manatee area. Where there were no speed restrictions, boats and jet skis were scooting all over the place, creating lots of wakes so, again Magic Moments was rocking and rolling. We passed by every vessel type known: fishing stand up paddle boards, fishing kayaks, ocean going fishing boats, mega yachts, and little floating pontoon boats, and a myriad of other motor vessels. People and vessels everywhere.

 It was lunacy, it looked like thousands of children had been released on a football field for an Easter egg hunt. And the boaters were acting as if “there were no lanes” (a favorite expression of my father). To say the least, steering was challenging. I think my favorite were the people who beached their small boats on sandbars in the middle of the waterway, and were wading, swimming, floating, and playing in the water around their beached boats, on the sandbar: very strange looking to me.

The most stressful part of cruising that day was going south under the PGA bridge. It was the narrowest area in the whole ICW (anybody who knows, better please correct this). On the starboard side, there was a packed waterside restaurant, whose dock was also fully occupied. There were several boats all around, waiting to dock and go to lunch, narrowing the passageway even more. As we waited for the bridge opening, a 200 foot mega yacht that wanted to have lunch at this restaurant, entered the ICW from a marina on the side, and was just idling in the middle of this very narrow passage. Fortunately, the yacht was behind us, but he kept getting closer. I finally went to the back deck and made hand motions to tell them to back up; they were too close for comfort and we couldn’t go anywhere because the bridge was not ready to open. They finally did back up, but the situation was unnerving.

All told that day, we went through a myriad of bridges: Hobe Sound Bridge, PGA Bridge, Jupiter Federal Bridge, Indiantown Bridge, and Parker Bridge, to name a few.

We anchored at about 3:40pm in Lake Worth, near West Palm Beach. We had to anchor past the marina, and past a huge (1-2miles long), mooring field (one is not permitted to anchor in mooring field, and I have never seen such a huge mooring field). Here we anchored for about four hours while the captain had a chance to rest. We had a little dinner and I applied a patch and two wristbands that, similar to acupuncture, were supposed to eliminate seasickness. Across the waterway, was a marina with unbelievable mega yachts; we were in a very fancy neighborhood. Their dinghies made Magic Moments look like a row boat!

Around 8pm, we left the anchorage. MM was prepped, I was prepped, with my patch and wristbands, and just as the sun set, we set off for the inlet to the ocean, and our overnight offshore passage.