Set to go

Over the past week or so we've settled in nicely here in Ft Lauderdale while enjoying the hospitality of the Coral Ridge YC for showers and other cool stuff. Good transportation in the form of buses and our new found app......uber....thanks Doug and Walt. wHo?????

.....yes we got an unexpected visit from our friends Walt M and Doug M from LCYC. We enjoyed a nice evening of chat and pizza before parting ways.

They turned us on to uber. I had heard of this great service but just not had the opp to try it out. Well if you haven't tried it yet, I'd highly suggest giving it a test ride. Simple easy app, easy to pay for the ride, friendly drivers and cost effective. Available in tons of cities including Burlington. An all around home run for those who might not want to drive...or be able to.

Ernie, Bette and Hector....our very first uber ride

Yes...our bow is pointing into that cool northwest wind

Now it's time to move on. This will likely be our last post from stateside. We'll take advantage of a nice window tonight, Saturday to cross over to Bimini for an early morning arrival tomorrow...in the daylight which is always a good thing. Clear into customs and wait a day or so....who knows....for our next chance to move eastward and southward. Sometimes it's a great waiting game but at least it isn't Kansas anymore......

Raining as hard as it looks

It is raining quite hard this morning at the moment....1100. I was awake at 0300 this morning pondering a change in our location within this very nice Sunrise Bay. As the winds are predicted to veer from current SE on thru to NW by late tomorrow, I wanted to capture the full protection of the western shore of the bay. So when it got brighter outside Bette and I got into MJ....our dingy.....and sounded the western edge with a good old fashion lead line. No foolin around here. We found nice depths with lots of swing room for all directions. We like this a lot especially if the anchorage gets crowded which it may do later on as the day progresses. So we'll move now on our terms. Right now we are sharing the anchorage with 1 other boat.....a luxury that likely will not be repeated much from here on out as we get ready to head east.

Our weather seems rather benign by comparison to the record storm that seems to be bearing down on the mid Atlantic states. It will however blow quite hard overnight tonight from the west so we are feeling pretty good about our current spot....speaking in a very humble tone of course.

Traveling south once again......

Coming to you this morning from Sunrise Bay in Ft Lauderdale. We were going to move on early today to Miami for a couple of days but why fix what isn't broken....and it gets better! 

Great holding, lots of swing room 360 deg protection from yet another cold front passage tomorrow night and provisioning. Better...yes....

I found out this morning that thru the efforts of fellow LCYC cruiser Chuck F. , that he had signed the club up for Yachting Clubs of America a few years back. We are listed in the 2016 registry of said organization. When I called the Coral Ridge YC......

......they said yes we see LCYC and come on in. We have reciprocal agreements. A great find. Also we got some help from Paige and Mike to locate the full registry. So thanks to you all for your help. I would certainly urge anyone that is leaving the lake from the club to lobby hard for continued membership. The racers have the Dinse and perhaps the cruisers should have the perk of this organization...? 

Anyway here are a couple of pics of places and  people that have crossed our path in the past few days...

Earle and Helen from Chicago on Leanin Out...a Passport 47. We met Earle in Hampton Roads VA last year when he was working on their Passport 40.

Sunset in Sunrise Bay last night

Spectra water filter washing so that we can get a few more hours out of them. The icw does clog the filters quicker than the clear blue waters of the Bahamas.

A fiery morning once again

Took this shot at sunrise this morning after another night of southerly winds ahead of yet another cold front passage. I guess the qualifies as "red sky n the morning.....sailors take warning"

We are waiting the day here in North Lake Worth in the protection of a nice western shore. Gusty as predicted. Perhaps tomorrow we'll move on the Ft Lauderdale. Fingers crossed for a late week crossing.

.......and the cold front comes thru mid afternoon

Tornado warnings, sheets of rain, engine on once again, 42 knots in the gusts.

https://youtu.be/h_4TGvMu5Xo

https://youtu.be/P8hw5rB0nQ8

Tonight it's once again pristine.

21amps in on the clamp on ammeter.....

Ok so who's paying attention out there?

Based on 21 amps in, how hard do we think it was blowing in the early morning hours today?

Yup.....steady 25 gusts to 38 and coming from the only direction from which little protection...but thankfully not a long fetch for waves to build up.

Not without warning however so yesterday we battened down the hatches, relocated so as to get a bit more room around us. The guy that came in late yesterday afternoon and anchored above us was not so lucky..

I got up at 0500 and found him within a few feet of our bow. I awakened  Bette, grabbed the air horn and proceeded to wake up the entire anchorage.....as if they we all sleeping soundly...not. He got his engine started and anchor up but not before he raced aback and forth in front of us a few times. 

Other than the noise, he got away clean and proceeded to reset his anchor quite far up wind from us.

We were happy with our anchor set. Once again 100' of chain out, double snubber and our solid Rocna 25  held us well. We also back down on the anchor once set to 1800 rpm for 5 minutes to be sure that all is set well. I am however humble because that could just as easily been us with the issues.

Today's winds should continue to veer from the current S to SW and W by this afternoon and diminish overnight. We were hoping to move on down to Miami tomorrow but with another one of these SW blows in the cards for Sunday, I like where we are. Lots of room, nice deep water ....15'....and a good track record from last nights storm.

We'll let Mother Nature settle down a bit and look to move early next week.

Wind and sun working this morning.....

It's been a while since we've posted last. Sorry about that but even though we are still in FLorida, a bunch has gone on since our arrival in West Palm Beach a week or two back. We arrived here from Vero Beach just after New Years and set up camp for a couple of days in between the Flagler Memorial and Royal Palm bridges in West Palm. A nice spot with a fairly predicable current as long as there was some wind to help keep us pointed somewhere when the tide went slack. 

Went ashore to the city docks just across the icw and enjoyed a farmers market, walks to the Publix grocery store and even a pizza delivery man adventure. Might post that one on YouTube at some point since it was a cool thing.

Winds were predicted to be pretty frisky out of the NE...what else is new....so we picked up anchor and headed back north to a very nice and protected anchorage at North Lake Worth. Been here now for a week. No we aren't getting lazy. Turned out that the timing for a short car trip for me over to Tampa for my first cousins Bar Mitzva celebration last Saturday night was perfect so off I went. Bette and Minnie stayed here. When I got back we kept the car for the full week paid for and did a bunch of car trips to provision. Also hooked up with our friends Earle and Helen on Leaning Out.......a Passport 47 also heading for the Bahamas. Also Jim and Janet from Montreal. We have bumped into them a few times since leaving Little River a month or two back. It's always fun to reunite with cruising buddies  to share and exchange.

Weather windows for heading east have been very short so if one misses one, the next one is a week or so out. We have a couple of pretty good blows coming thru Friday and Sunday so we are hoping that after that, we can catch the right breeze direction....south to sw.....to carry us east early to middle of next week. 

In the meantime we'll go outside from Lake Worth to Miami on Saturday, making use of the west NW wind to get us a bit further south.

Looking forward to seeing the lights of the Miami skyline at night once again.....always a treat. Hopefully for only a couple of days though....

West Palm anchorage, bikes at the city dock and our present location in North Lake Worth.