STUCK IN LAKE WORTH

Well, we are stuck in Lake Worth (West Palm Beach). We are waiting for a favorable weather window to get across to the Bahamas. And we don’t see one in sight.

We took a chance last Thursday and tried it. We thought we were smarter than all the other people in the anchorage! We left at 4:00 am. It became quickly apparent that we didn’t have what it takes to make a crossing in those conditions, if we had a choice. The wind was very benign, the gulf stream was running right off the coast (about 1 mile out), which we didn’t expect, but the waves, even though they were not large (2 – 3 feet), were hitting us mostly from the side, which in turn rolled us from side to side. We were rolling so much that it was not possible to do much moving around. And it didn’t take long for both of us to start feeling sick. I gave the dogs dramamine as we were leaving and they were nervous, but fine. I had one dog on each side of me. They became snuggle pups all of a sudden. So, after about 1 1/4 hours we decided to turn around and head back in, with our tails tucked tightly. We had another boat with us, Carol & Bill on ‘Interim’, and they followed us back. After we got back in and anchored, they came over and we talked, and they said they were not uncomfortable with the rolling motion, and in fact their boat was not doing much rolling. I guess it is a difference in hull shape or something. Anyway, they decided they were going back out and across and left out again by 8:00am. We wished them well and told them we would see them when we get there!

We learned some valuable lessons. One - don’t always believe the weather forecast. Second - have faith in the other cruisers that are waiting to go the same place you are, especially when they have done this before. Third – we will alter our course going across to make landfall in the daylight hours, even if it means going into someplace we really didn’t want to go – we did not like being out in the dark ‘on the big blue sea’. I told Jeff if Thursday was as good as it gets for making it across then I was going to have to find another way across (although other cruisers have told us that it will get better if we will wait). And he agreed with me. The people we bought our boat from, Dick & Judy Gardner, had a saying that I have repeated many times - ‘Nothing goes to weather like a 747!!!’

So here it is – we are big schickens! And we want to be comfortable.