December 29, 2013

We are in Lake Worth, Florida and people back home think that we should have nothing to complain about, it is hot and there is nothing to shovel!!  But it is hard to sit and wait for the weather to provide us with an opportunity to cross the Gulf Stream to reach our goal.  We have developed a pattern of spending time at anchor in Lake Worth, doing odd jobs on the boat, provisioning at the nearby grocery store and then eating half the provisions that we bring back to the boat.  There are about 50 to 60 boats sitting here all doing the same thing and we have met several new couples.  Our house batteries have not been performing as well as Dave thought they should and we have been going into Old Port Cove Marina, nearby every 5 or 6 days to recharge overnight.  We used these visits to take advantage of laundry facilities, showers, internet access, the courtesy van, and pump out.  

On December 21st we moved Time 2 Go to the Lake Worth Inlet anchorage so that we would be prepared for a weather window on the 23rd.  The winds were about 16 knots out of the south and there’s a very strong tidal current in this area, which made for a very uncomfortable couple of nights.  By the evening of  December 22nd, it was obvious that we would not be spending Christmas in the Bahamas.  We were a little disappointed.   As we prepared to head back to Lake Worth anchorage, Anne on the sailboat ‘Quality Time’ called and invited us to a pot luck Christmas dinner on their boat.  It wasn’t what we had envisioned but we got to spend Christmas with 3 other couples who were literally and figuratively in the same boat!  We had a great meal and Dave had bought me a birthday cake, so we had that for dessert.  It was fun.  

The batteries are still not holding a charge the way Dave would like, and he is worried about having troubles with them in the Bahamas.  We headed back into Old Port Cove Marina again Boxing Day this time to arrange for new batteries. They arrived the next morning and Dave installed them and we headed back out to the anchorage to our Lake Worth routines .

On December 29th we moved back south to the Lake Worth Inlet anchorage for another possible weather window the next day.  We left after lunch and joined a convoy of sailboats all with the same plan in mind. This was going to be the weather window or we were heading south, we were NOT going back to the Lake Worth anchorage anytime soon!!

The dinghy beach at Lake Worth Anchorage

The fleet waiting in Lake Worth to cross to the Bahamas

Christmas dinner on Quality Time