The trip from St.
Augustine to Palm Beach was very much like our previous two-nighter from
Charleston - very little wind and a lot of motoring. This time there was a
consistent swell throughout the trip which kept me feeling undeservedly
hungover, aka seasick. I am not looking forward to how I will feel in any serious waves. It is said that it often takes a couple of days at sea to get over
seasickness, and so far I haven't been out long enough to see if it will go
away as reported. (You can read about how I deal with seasickness here.) I was hoping that I wouldn't be one of the
unlucky people who feels sick for each voyage, but of course, I am. And of
course, Jon is completely unaffected; a good thing since one of us needs to be
relied on to steer this seven ton piece of plastic out of harm's way regardless
of the circumstances, and we all know that person is not likely to be me.
Anyway, we made it
to Southern Florida and were rewarded with warmth - glorious, 80 degree warmth
- just in time for my birthday the following day. On the first day we arrived
we found a place to anchor, caught up on some sleep, and searched rather fruitlessly
for a place to land the dinghy. Which brings me to what sucks about Florida.
There is water everywhere, and it's surrounded by other people's houses and
giant marinas set up for giant yachts and apparently devoid of dinghy docks. I
even called a few marinas to see if we could pay to tie up. They asked about
the boat's length to charge by the foot. Umm, it's eight feet and like most
dinghys, doesn't need its own slip, thank you. That'll be $55, was the reply.
Per day. Surprisingly though, there are a ton of boats at anchor. Many of them
have not yet sunk, and some even have their dinghys attached. So how do these
people get from land to their boats? Beats me. Maybe they don't.
Later that day we
thought we had stumbled upon the secret when we found a public park with plenty
of dock space for day use only. It seemed legit enough so we tied up in front
of the Palm Beach County Sheriff's powerboat and added a padlock for good measure.
We walked up to the road to find ourselves in some beach-adjacent serious
suburban sprawl. With vacation rental condos. It was weird, but it met all of
my birthday desires: beach.
The next day we tied
up at the staging dock where a sign indicating a ten minute limit was
prominently displayed. We tied up around the backside of the dock in the
company of another dinghy where we were certain no powerboats would venture. We
then ignored the time limit (who is going to raise a stink about our tiny
rowboat?) and spent half the day at the very lovely Riviera Beach. We forewent
the $10/hour beach chairs and cabanas, and spread our towels on the beach. As
we walked along, the piles of shells at the edge of the waves tinkled like a
rainstick as the receding water pulled them crashing together out to sea. The
water was clear and many shades of our boat's favorite color. And that is why
Florida is awesome. Also, everyone is very friendly here, so far as I can tell.
As in, people on the street who are not required to be nice and who don't
appear to be on vacation, smile and offer pleasantries. I think they must just
be very happy to be living in the appropriately named, Sunshine State.
When we returned to
our the dock, a third dinghy was keeping ours company and only two staging
slips out of ten were occupied. Upon climbing aboard I discovered a notice
declaring our vessel to be abandoned property that would be removed per county
ordinance at noon the following day. Well, at least we got our day at the
beach, but how would we get ashore for celebratory dinner?
I had been madly
searching the internet for any place boats at anchor could land and read about
people tying up to a road girder next to the highway bridge. We could not find
any such location, but we did encounter some people in their front yard (which looked
deceivingly like part of the marina) who offered to let us climb up the pilings
and get onto the road through their front gate. Two men took each of my hands
and with a big step I was swung to shore. The same was done for Jon and we went
to call a cab. $25 and six miles later we were in downtown West Palm Beach. All
you can eat street tacos were consumed. Seven was the magic number, but six
would have been a better idea. We then walked a mile or so out of town and past
some abandoned buildings to await a cab in another - umm, restauranty - area of
town, saving ourselves $10. Then with two brave and stretchy leaps we descended
six feet into the floating dinghy and rowed home to contemplate how we might
reach land next time.
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