Waiting to cross

During our busy week home after preparing Trekker for the season we said goodbye to family and friends and attended our niece's baby shower.  While the women were at the shower the men got together for lunch at a local pub.  Eight hours later I was sicker than I have been in years ... methinks food poisoning!  Thankfully it passed nearly as quickly as it came on.  We buttoned up the house, with lots of folks agreeing to keep an eye on it,  and flew down to Fort Lauderdale and drove up to Fort Pierce and Trekker.

We splurged and while we were in Midland had Trekker professionally cleaned, waxed and polished so she looked pretty spiffy when we launched January 31. 

We moved aboard, finished putting her together, recovered our frozen meat and fish from my brother Adrian and bought perishable provisions.  We also visited CBP and completed the appropriate paperwork to travel down the coast and then cross to the Bahamas during the earliest weather window. 

Tuesday February 4 we were up at O'dark o'clock and left the dock at 0700 to travel down to Lake Worth (West Palm).  As we were throwing off the lines we noticed a couple across the dock from us doing likewise and chatted quickly to learn that they too were headed for Lake Worth. It turned out that the couple are Sally and Ian on Malarkey, a Jeaneau 469. They are also planning to go to the Bahamas, but plan to carry on down to Fort Lauderdale and then across to Bimini. 

Our original plan was to cross to West End from Lake Worth on Wednesday. The forecast was for wind and waves up to 1m out of the SSE. Typically one allows for 45 degrees between the wind and heading on a close-hauled course. If the wind was 157.5 degrees, our course steered 126 degrees (because one has to steer 25 degrees south of the heading to West End because the Gulf Stream is flowing north at 2 1/2 -3 knots) that would mean we were only heading 31.5 degrees off the wind, which is too close for us. So ... Wednesday we sat in Lake Worth and again today. A cold front is coming through today so we have winds of 20 gusting to 30 knots.  So far our faithful Rocna is holding us (touch wood and all).  

This is an interesting place to sit. We are adjacent to Rybovich Superyacht Marina that probably has 20 mega yachts lined up at their docks.  We had the 200' yacht ROCKIT anchor behind us this morning.  Apparently its owner made his $1.7B net worth franchising Jimmy John's Gourmet Sandwich shops!

ROCKIT

Our current (loose) plan is to try and cross Saturday to West End although the wind is forecast to be out of the NE, and accepted wisdom is not to cross the Gulf Stream when the wind opposes the current. Alternatively we'll go down to Fort Lauderdale and maybe travel to Bimini with Malarkey. 

So that's all for now, boat systems seem to all be working, including our Lithium batteries, thank goodness. Here we sit until we can cross to the Bahamas ... taking it one day at a time!