We awoke to a clear blue sky, sunshine, and no wind! Yes! Today, we'll get to go ashore after 4 days of being boat-bound. Yahoo ... free ... I'm free at last!
Beautiful Palm Beach
We dinghied into the marina to vist with new friends, Hank and Carol (s/v Kismet). They let us tie up our dinghy to their boat so we can avoid the $10/day charge to use the dinghy dock. We plan to cross to the Bahamas with them, so after we had exhausted weather talk, we decided to make one more trip to the Winn Dixie (since we had freed up more space in our storage lockers during our period of seclusion on Maja!).
First, we stopped at the Tiki Bar for lunch before heading out. Pina Coladas (with an extra shot of Myers Rum) and a blackened mahimahi wrap with black bean salsa and guacamole. Yummmmmm ... even though I couldn't believe that the drinks cost more than the sandwich!
We overdid it at the grocery store ... not only did we have extra room to fill on the boat, we also had to replenish the "bahama food" we had dipped into, and we had to plan a fresh-foods menu for the next week. We loaded our 6 food bags and Dan's backpack, and then walked to the nearest bus stop. After a 10min wait and $1.50 a person, we were back at the marina. And the best part is that as we crossed the street, looking like overloaded beasts of burden, Hank was there to greet us with a dock cart from the marina. What a guy!
It took a good hour to stow all the groceries we got. It seems that lockers have to be rearranged each time we need to add new stuff. Dan had give up another tool locker to make room for all the boxed rice milk and juices that we bought today Since we've heard that drink mixes are expensive in the Bahamas, we hope we've stocked up on all the juice we'll want to mix with our rum drinks at sunset!
Tuesday, Feb 15
Another lovely day, reminding us that WPalm Beach is not a bad place at all to wait for a weather window.
Our day trip today was over to Peanut Island, a small island that sits just inside the Lake Worth inlet. Palm Beach County developed the island into a delighful park .. you can even camp there. And it's a major hangout for manatees.
That's the inlet to the Atlantic ahead.
Clear, clean water.
Beautiful shoreline.
Waterside services. Hot food delivery.
What a day! Today was completely taken up with the task of driving Maja into the marina to pump out our holding tank and take on water. Amazing that such a relatively benign task could take most of the day!
Getting the boat ready to move is alway a long series of chores. Haul up the dinghy, lower the TV antenna, get lines and bumpers ready, raise anchor. Once we got to the main dock in the marina, the real fun started. The deck fitting to access the waste tank was stuck, hard. We had to empty the anchor locker, where I held a pipe wrench to the below-deck fitting, while Dan was on the deck, soaking the fitting with WD-40 and wrestling with the wrench handle. After about 45 minutes, it finally budged, and we could see all the salt junk that was holding the fitting fast.
Then, of course, the pump-out facility at the dock wouldn't work. Just didn't want to suck. The dock hands were ready to give up, but not Captn Dan. After all, our holding tank was just about full. So, 30 minutes later, Dan had figured out how to get the pump to pump, and we were in sucking heaven! Hooking up our hose to a fresh water supply is never an easy thing (especially when we are tied to pilings and the actual dock is 4 feet above us!), but again, motivated by a nearly dry water tank is a great motivator!
On the way in, we had trouble with our VHS radio and had to use our hand-held radio to contact the marina. So Dan decided to check it out while we were tied to the dock, and sure enough, the radio wasn't working. After a series of expletives (as in **** what else can go wrong?), 30 minutes later, Dan was able to deduce where there was a faulty connection and get things working again. Yah Captain Dan!.
By now, our friends, Hank and Carol, had wandered by so we had time to discuss the daily weather forecast. And, the good news is that we are hearing positive things about a crossing this weekend ... maybe leaving after midnight on Friday. The final cold front should move through this evening, and then we'll have 3-4 days of settled weather, which gives us a couple of days for the seas to calm down before we venture out.
Good thing Hank and Carol were there because I don't know if we could have left the dock w/o their help! By 5pm, the winds were blowing 15knots from the east, effectively pinning us to the dock pilings. We could barely move, so they had to use the dock lines to pull us around the edge of the dock, so we could use the wind to push our bow away.
Whew! Back out to the anchorage which is really filling up. There were probably 50 boats when we first got here, and now there are close to 75. We had to hunt around for an open spot to anchor, but got the hook down before the evening rains started, so we call it a good end to the day!
Big boats in Palm Beach. Note the helicopor on the back!
Big homes in Palm Beach.
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