December 5 - At anchor in Palm Beach

December 5 … Waiting at anchor

We’ve left the marina and moved out to the anchorage.  7 days and $500 was our limit for the good life in the North Palm Beach Marina!  Great bathroom, laundry, cable TV, free WiFi, floating docks …. which doesn’t even touch  the fun of having good friends just 6 boats down the dock.  We meet Ed and Connie Dooley in Brunswick GA in February, 2010 on their sailboat, Surprise.  We connected again for 5 days in October, in Deale,MD.  And now, we tracked them down again in North Palm Beach in their beautiful go-fast trawler, Southern Pilot.  It just goes to show that cruising friendships aren’t as transient as our lifestyles may imply.  They come. We go. But it’s truly a small world.

The 7 days in the marina were well spent.  We got the oil changed, waterproofed our cockpit canvas, defrosted the freezer, sanded the teak on our butterfly hatch, did several loads of laundry … and all this before it was time for a ‘happy hour’ excursion with Ed and Connie!  They have a car and knew all the cool places to visit. We got the rest of our shopping done, saw several new beaches, and did not repeat a single bar! 

So, you miss all that at anchor.  Friends + electricity!

 

However, nothing beats being at anchor to remind you that you are “a cruiser”.  And it is truly lovely to sit at anchor, in the cockpit, as the sun goes down and the city lights come on and boaters tie up dinghies for the night.  For the most part, anchorages are always lovely (albeit sometimes crowded) – not always the case with marinas.  

Of course, you have to deal with the act of anchoring to be able to enjoy the anchorage.  And the act of anchoring is always a unique part of the day!  For starters, once in the anchorage, you have a new list of rules and etiquette.  Naturally, you want to pick the best spot for your boat, but you also worry about your neighbors and wind shifts.  Are we too close to them?  It’s getting kinda shallow; what’s the tide there?  Over distance and engine noise, you try to communicate with neighboring captains … is this OK with you?  How much anchor chain do you have out?

We arrived at the beautiful No Palm Beach anchorage at 3pm … kinda late in the cruising world so we knew we’d have to snake around though the anchorage before deciding to anchor on the outer edge which made the spot just so-so spot since we were close to the channel. But by morning, a number of boats had taken off so we raised anchor and moved from the west side to the east side of the anchorage, where we had ample space on all sides … but we may have lost access to land-based WiFi (gasp!). 

We're still optimtic about a good weather window coming our way next week.  Our first choice is Sunday, 12/9.  Or could be as late as Wednesday … or even Friday (you get the picture!).  This weather stuff is something you take one day at a time, and you try to be prepared to leave every day.  We have one package to pick up at the NPB marina, and then we’ll move closer to the Lake Worth inlet, which shorten our transit to the sea.  And then we sit.  Waiting for a 10-15knot S, SW wind with 2-3ft swells. Ready to go. Taking the weather decisions one day at a time.  Trying not to be frustrated.  Trying not to worry that we won’t arrive in Rock Sound before James on December 24^th (however, if Plan A works, we could be at anchor at Rock Sound, Eleuthera as early as next Thursday!). 

We shall see.....