Things are never simple. The Tridata instrument that I had professionally installed was put in crooked. It worked but looked terrible. The head of the company who is a great guy agreed it looked terrible and sent another technician to re-install it straight. That took most of the morning, so we got a late start.
We decided to take the first day (again) of the trip easy and stop at the same place we did last time (a nice cove in Ft. Pierce).
We did this on the ICW because going outside and then back inside is actually longer.
Well about 1 hour from our destination we were caught in one of the daily thunderstorms. We could see it approaching on our radar, but not much a slow sailboat can do to get out of the way.
To prepare for the impending storm we put on our foul weather gear, life jackets, and prepared the ditch bag in case of a lightning strike. I wore Janice’s ski goggles because I couldn’t see through my glasses.
The wind wasn’t too bad but the visibility was practically zero. We couldn’t see the ICW markers and the radar was wiped out by the rain. I could get rid of the rain using the rain clutter control, but that also made the markers disappear. We basically steered using the depthsounder (see how important this instrument is), when the depth got below 8 ft. we knew we were at the edge of the channel. This lasted about 30 minutes and was no fun at all.
Soon after it cleared we arrived at the Cove which is surrounded by private homes. Our previous track is still on the GPS so we anchored exactly at the same spot and again have wifi.
We saw only one boat on the ICW the whole trip. This is off season and I see why. I don’t want to go through a thunderstorm every day. I don’t know what’s worse, being on the ICW and not being able to see and possible end up grounded, or being on the ocean, getting hit by lightning, losing all electronics, possible holing the boat and sinking.
Ft. Pierce has an inlet so we can go on the outside tomorrow if we chose. We’ll make up our mind in the AM. For now we’re relaxing in this beautiful protected anchorage.
Alan,
We were on the ICW (Lake Worth) on the Groverbuilt in the late 1990’s in blinding rain so we stayed in the middle of the channel and used the depth finder to find the deepest part but even so it was no fun. Hopefully you’ll have a better day outside tomorrow!
Jane