Moving South

So we anchored in West Palm Beach a few days ago and realized we needed some
parts for our SSB radio. The parts we needed were on the other side of the state, and
not wanting to leave the boat in that anchorage, we decided to take a slip in the
municipal marina. We pulled into the Riviera Beach Marina, rented a car, drove to Punta
Gorda and back with stops on the way, installed the radio parts, and fell asleep.

We stayed in the marina for three days, relaxing, fixing things, and relaxing, and it was
worth every penny. The boat is getting in order, we are regaining our knowledge, and
everything seems to be working well. The weather, or winds to be specific, are horrible.
We consistently have north to NE winds 17­-20kts with gusts to 25, even had one hit 30
briefly. OK so maybe we are fair weather sailors.

Today the winds dropped to about 15 so we cast off the dock lines and headed south.
Getting out of the slip was a heart attack scenario, with a 16 knot crosswind blowing us
off the dock ­ great ­ but into a $2 million yacht ­ not great! We slid the boat out as far as
we could, cast off the lines and gunned it in reverse. We slid out of the slip into the
fairway and the boat, of course, would not turn. After some intense throttle and steering
movements we were able to maneuver out of the marina and into the ICW.

Right now we’re anchored in Lantana, about 30 miles north of Ft. Lauderdale. We had
a nice short day and anchored early in a nice spot. We cleaned up the boat and did
some maintenance. Now we are sitting in the cockpit enjoying a drink!

West Palm Beach is a very busy port:

Then we pulled into the marina, very nice but the jellyfish seemed to like our slip:

The further south you get the more mega yachts you see:

…and lots of bridges:

We are anchored just south of this one:

And Tanya thinks it’s gross that I am going to eat this rutabaga tonight:

We had two major electronic advancements, our HF email is working, and we now have
position reporting. We will give out our HF email after we are more comfortable using it.
If you would like to follow our position reports, go to www.winlink.org, click on position
reporting and input KM4EWY, which is my ham radio call sign. The position reports are only updated when we connect, so it’s probably showing us in WPB.  We will send another report tonight.

Winds are not forecast favorable for the next week so we plan to take our time getting to Miami.

Also, we’re using phone and tablet now so we are doing the best we can with updates. We’re not able to edit pictures right now so for a better view just click on a picture and it should open fullscreen.