We made it across! We were beginning to question whether this would happen or not. We were even talking about the fact that winter in South Florida would still be better than winter in Chattanooga. We would just have to find a place other than Palm Beach.We had been waiting for a suitable weather window to cross for several weeks. Every time we thought it was going to happen we would go through the whole list of things we needed to do to get ready to go (and I’m not going to bore you with the list) and then the forecast would change overnight and we would have to undo everything. We got tired of that real fast. We had three false starts and the last one was a doozy. I swam under the boat, the afternoon before we were to cross, to free up the paddle wheel on the knot meter (speedometer for you non-boat people) and then just started looking at everything on the boat that was below the water. I noticed something that looked strange to me and reported in to Jeff with my findings. Long and short, we discovered that we had a leak around the rudder post (again, for you non-boaters, it is the part that actually steers the boat when you turn the wheel). We stayed awake most of the night trying to decide if we should just go ahead and go across to the Bahamas and hope it wouldn’t get worse and we could bail water all winter and get it fixed next spring when we get back, or did we haul the boat out of the water and fix it first. We decided we needed to pull it out and fix it first. We were able to find a do-it-yourself boatyard in Riveria Beach (right across from where we were anchored) that could pull the boat out the following day. The boat was out of the water for a week while Jeff fixed it. It didn’t take that long to fix the problem, just that long for the materials to cure.
Because we were still in Florida, we were able to spend Christmas with our family, which was very nice.
But now we are in the Bahamas!!!! And the water is as beautiful as we thought it would be. We can’t wait to get in it and do some snorkeling. We had good weather for the crossing and the wind, waves and current were agreeable. We were able to motorsail most of the way. We left the Lake Worth Inlet at 4:15am, under a nearly full moon, and arrived at Great Sale Cay on the Bahamas Banks at 9pm that night. We anchored there and got up the next morning and came the rest of the way to Green Turtle Cay. We arrived at 3:30pm and promptly ran aground coming into the channel. We backed out of the channel and anchored with several other boats that were out there. They probably knew we were going to run aground and just watched the show. At least we were able to get ourselves off. We felt good about that. We heard today about two boats that recently tried to get in and had the channel blocked for 6- 8 hours while they waited for the tide to come in and float them off. There is a strong cold front coming in tomorrow, with winds in excess of 30 knots for the next several days, so we took a slip in a marina for the next several days. And it looks like everyone else had the same idea, because there doesn't appear to be a slip to be had. It was like old home week today for us. We met up with a lot of cruisers that we have met along the way, mostly in Palm Beach since we were there for so long. It was good to see them. Most of them came over the weekend before Christmas.
Tomorrow is Junkanoo. We were told it is like a mini Mardi Gras. The parade starts at 2pm. We plan to take in all the festivities and will make a full report.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!!!!
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