Miami to Fort Pierce, Part I

 I'd been spread out all over Florida since February. Emma, my boat, in Miami, the job in Fort Pierce, a rolled up inflatable dinghy in the back seat, and half my life in the trunk. I've been living out of a bag since I started driving a truck, so that went without saying.

In the meantime, I'd been trying to work on the boat whenever I had some free time. But she was almost three hours away in traffic and I had tripped into working 6 days a week. Most of my boat money was going toward cheap motel rooms because often I didn't have enough time off to make a trip to the boat. It's a funny thing for a vagabond to feel rootless and spread out.

The previous mess.

 After switching jobs, it only took a couple weeks to get the boat set up to be able to move her. I wired just enough to have running lights for the trip. Emma's wiring is so bad, I'll have to replace nearly all of it eventually. Nevertheless, the solar panels that were on the boat have been keeping my new battery bank well charged. Also, the composting toilet that I installed has worked great and is super easy to maintain.

As I got close to being able to move Emma, my buddy Pete from Canada contacted me about a big motorcycle trip that he had been planning. He was going to be in Florida and wanted to come by for a beer and to catch up. As his timing began to converge with my need to move Emma, I offered to take him sailing on my decrepit boat. Emma was neglected enough that I could afford her, but she was in the water, floating, dry inside and ready for a new life. I was just the man for the job, but sailing her without an engine 120 miles from Miami to Fort Pierce was safer and more practical with some crew. Pete didn't hesitate and he didn't abandon ship once he saw Emma's current basic accommodations.

Emma has a few chunks of foam in her cabin but no upholstered cushions. The dinette would fold

The Galley

down to make a double bed but has no table. The head is solid and installed but a little too high off the floor in its temporary position. The galley is a one burner swing stove that I brought from my much smaller previous boat. She has no refrigerator or sink. As mentioned above, she has no engine; no motive power other than sails in the wind. (Editor's Note: Sound Familiar?)

And she sails like a dream, but we'll get into that later.

I got back from my week of trucking and met up with Pete on Monday, July Fourth. Pete parked his motorcycle at the marina. We ran a few errands in town, forgot to grab a bag out of my storage unit, and took off for Miami in my vehicle.

Pete, hard at work at the tiller

Poor Pete, a Canadian remember, had already been on the road for 4000 miles and I drug him into the thick tropical swelter of Miami in July. After provisioning, we dinghied out to the boat Monday night. We didn't do much but organize ourselves and get ready to crash. Auspiciously it was the Fourth of July. As we sat in the cockpit, having a beer, we could see six different fireworks displays. What looked like the main Miami display was fantastic but the display toward Kendall or Pinecrest seemed to go on all night long. Mother Nature even got in the game flashing lightning off of huge thunderclouds that gathered over the Everglades.

Tuesday we did some boatwork; tuned the rig, taped off all the cotter pins, got the jib sheet and the downhaul installed, and generally got ready. We were feeling ready so soon that I called and moved our tow appointment up to Wednesday morning from Wednesday afternoon.

Yeah, towing. In addition to having no engine, Emma was moored deep on the wrong side of the

Emma was four rows down from the top right corner.

Dinner Key Mooring Field. Without a tow, I would have had to get through the maze of other moored boats, sail across Biscayne Bay, and make it out one of the channels through the shallows and into the Straits of Florida (the Atlantic) – under sail – the first time I'd ever sailed my boat. It was much safer and efficient to get towed out.

In no hurry, our tow captain talked our ears off before he even tied a line to Emma. After the chat, he decided to tie up at Emma's hip to get us out of the mooring field. Which meant he was beside us rather than in front of us, but we were “attached at the hip” and easier for him to control in close quarters. Once in the channel, he untied and tossed a line to tow us from the bow. We were attached off center from the starboard hawse, so I had to steer toward the tow boat to keep Emma in his wake.

Someone else's starboard hawse

Originally, the Miami Towboat/US franchise had told me that they thought I'd be covered by my insurance for the tow out. When I called Boat/US corporate to have the tow dispatched, they informed me that their service is for emergencies and I didn't have one. They determined that because I had purchased a boat without an engine, Ihad known all along I'd need a tow. I did, however, get a good discount from the Miami guys for being a Boat/US member. And it sounds like the office newbie gave me a pretty low quote to begin with. They were all great and stood by the quote.

We had a pleasant ride across Biscayne Bay and down the channel between Key Biscayne and Stiltsville. Just past the last marker, we were set free. The towboat captain hung around to watch us

Stiltsville

hoist sail and get underway. We set the yankee, the staysail and raised the main. The wind was easy, 5 to 10 knots, and Emma began to sail gently straight north. As soon as I could feel that surge of wind against sail, I was in my element. Emma sails wonderfully well for a heavy, wide bottom girl.

I had set up some waypoints and researched the waters about five miles offshore. Unfortunately, the wind we had wouldn't let us get farther offshore without pointing the boat almost perfectly south – the wrong direction. I hadn't really studied this particular patch of

The Sail Plan

water, but we sailed on. There was lots of water underneath us and not much traffic around us. And Emma was just happy to be back in the ocean!

We made it past the Port of Miami without having much ship traffic. Port Everglades was busier but we only had to watch one ship as it crossed our bow a good distance away. Several ships and a tug towing a huge barge were offshore heading north and would be no trouble to us.

Nine Knots!!

The sailing was glorious. The wind piped up on a few occasions but was steady and went easy on us. We might have had some gusts to 20 knots but the wind stayed 10 to 15 knots most of the way. Once or twice we were nearly becalmed; just gurgling along, but we only tacked once the whole trip. Though I had expected the wind to shift behind us, it never did. We were on a beam reach nearly the whole time. Check out the screenshot of Emma making 9 knots over the ground. Pretty nice for a 20,000 pound boat. The Gulf Stream current almost doubled our speed even as the ride was smooth as silk.


Below, forty seconds of our peaceful trip: