May 5, Cinco de Mayo, KY Derby weekend, and Bahamas, here we come!

 

We left the anchorage in Lake Worth at 4:45 AM. It was pretty pitch dark but enough lights coming off other boats and homes nearby that we could see ok, until we got to the inlet where all we could see was black, having to totally depend on our chart plotter to make it past the jetties.

Sea Sick Patches on, ocean inflatable life vests on, ditch bag - EPIRB prepped, snack meals prepped, items that may fly around inside laid down, tied up or put away. The seas were very calm, barely 1 footers for a long time and we were grateful.

About half way through, the seas kicked up a bit, definitely 2-4s and then we had some bigger ones and learned that we did NOT secure the interior enough.  No real casualties but a lot of mess to clean up, with the open bottle of chili oil that spilled over the floor when the frig doors flew open. 😒 So we learned a few more lessons about securing items down below. Oh well. 

And, we were very happy that we didn't "miss" the island! Thank you God and our chart plotters!

We arrived at Old Bahama Bay Marina about 3 in the afternoon along with a long trail of other boats, mostly huge, HUGE yachts and large fishing boats. We were assigned a narrow slip so the docking provided a bit of entertainment but we had 2 great dock hands and 3 fellow cruisers helping. 

We enjoyed an appetizer of conch salad on Summer Breeze and then grouper and snapper at the restaurant. Some local fishermen came by selling their daily catch of lobster (not in season and I didn’t ask) and conch already cleaned, which will be dinner tomorrow night at Great Sale Cay 

61.1 miles 

Total 569.4

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May 6, Monday 

Left Old Bahama Bay Marina at 10 am after a much needed rest. Our slip departure was picture perfect, unlike our arrival yesterday. We found the unmarked Indian Cay Cut and cruised across the Bahama bank in beautiful greens and teal water.

We had great WiFi with our Island WiFi system but this area is too far away from any towers to pick up. So we are without WiFi till we go further east. 

Arrived at Great Sale Cay at 5:30pm anchoring with 9 other vessels and more coming in. 

Bruce jumped into the clear green teal water to cool off and check the anchor. We are accustomed to anchoring in mud not hard sand or grass. A new learning experience coming up for us! His 1st swim was in the company of a barracuda and a large turtle. 

Dinner was a salad from our garden on board, fresh lobster, cracked conch and a great bottle of wine gifted to us from James and Beverly. 

Miles 53.4

Total miles 622.8

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May 7, Tuesday

It started to rain last night during our dinner and we have had thunderstorms rolling by us since  about 3 am.  We were looking forward to getting through the Bahama Bank and to the Abacos where we can pick up WiFi again but as of this morning, there are storms still rolling through. Our SirusXM weather station is showing an occluded front and it appears to be sitting right on top of us.  

The rain front moved along slowly so we weighed anchor at 9:45 and are heading to Foxtown at Little Abaco Island, about 25 miles away. 

Arrived about  2:00pm.

Set anchor and dinghied to town for lunch at Da Villa, cracked conch and conch fritters with a Kalik or two (the local brew). 

Fox Town in Little Abaco

Went back for a swim in crystal clear water to cool off. 

Sunset at Fox Town, Little Abaco Island

Miles 27.5

Total 650.3

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Weeks of April 22 -May 4 , San Francisco, Charlotte and final preparations for the Bahamas

Sunrise Monday, April 22

This was our view out the port lights from the master state room....

then the view from the aft deck!

This is to be our last week in Ft Pierce. I have a trip planned to go to San Francisco to attend the Plein Air Convention and Expo and Bruce will stay behind to take care of last minute preparations, like buy more wine. We made a final Costco trip and the plan is to only have to get fresh produce the day before leaving the marina.

I met up with my clan in San Francisco 

Roger Tatum, Elliott West and Joe Lahita

Riding the cable car back to our hotel

Annual photo op with Eric Rhodes

The weather for a Bahamas departure was not optimal for the week, killing all plans for Bryan and Mary to make the trip with us on his weeks off and I took this opportunity to make a side trip to Charlotte for a little more girlie time. 

I made it back to Ft Pierce on May 2 and we did our final fresh provisioning, had another great meal with sis Becky and Charles and friends, Linda and Rick visiting from Atlanta. Rick is doing the triathlon in Stuart this weekend. 

Yes, he's crazy and I think much younger than we are!

In the mean time, fellow cruisers and authors of ICW Cruising Guide, Bob and Ann Sherer are making their way up the east coast and stopping in Charleston and stopped in at Studio 151 Fine Art Gallery to take a look at my art. You can follow them at

https://fleetwing.blogspot.com

My lettuce and basil hydroponic garden is growing (we enjoyed home grown salad tonight) and so is my collection of air plants. These cuties were found at Publix! 

May 4

Finally the day has come to leave Ft Pierce (MM 966). We were away from the marina by 7 AM on a calm and rising tide, perfect for departure. 

Our plan is to go the 52-54 miles to Lake Worth inlet (West Palm Beach area) and anchor south of Peanut Island and stage for an early departure  for the Bahamas. We will go to West End in Grand Bahama to check in as there are only 2 of us on board and it should be approximatley 9 hours at our slow speed. If Bryan were with us, making 3 captains, we would've gone to Great Sale Cay which is about 14 hours and then on to Green Turtle for customs. So we will take it slower. It is about 54 miles from here, like today's trip but crossing the Gulf Stream which can add time. We have not agreed on our departure time as of yet for tomorrow. 

😒

Sunrise at Ft Pierce as we left the marina

Arrived at our anchorage south of Peanut Island, Lake Worth inlet by 2 pm. Just in time to get settled before the afternoon 

t-storms hit. They have been fierce lately.

52.8 miles traveled today

Tomorrow, Sunday morning, we go to the Bahamas.

Hopefully, we have wifi!

And I'm happy to close out this post with a call from the gallery and a sale of Augustus, which is the pelican I painted in St Augustine along this trip.

Yeah!

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Caitlyn's Spring Break Week. 

Well, actually a partial week as her high school break is different from the college break so they had to make it back on Thursday for math class....bummer!

We had a couple of great beach days. The girls were in the water but it is still a bit cool for me. I got into almost my knees before going numb.

Our beautiful girl! 

(We miss Jordan though! UNC's spring break was weeks ago)

Posing at the city park and at the Manatee Center. 

No manatee sightings this week! 😞

We also had a great evening at the Becky and Charles home in Stuart.  

Always a great meal and fun. 

And they have the most beautiful sunsets!

Melissa and Caitlyn left before the sunrise on Thursday in order to make it to college math class that evening. They had a terrible traffic day (holiday weekend coming up) and they got home with only 30 minutes to spare before going to class. 

There was a beautiful moonrise at 6 AM to guide them to the I95.

We ended the week with a dinner party aboard Summer Breeze with Becky, Charles, Linda and Howard.  It was a fun and cozy evening and we served Salmon Nicoise!

Last night we said good bye to our new friends, Ron and Pam Swezy aboard Legacy their DeFever 44 here at the marina. They are on their way north now after wintering in the Bahamas. They introduced us to some other friends, Debra and John, sadly we missed a photo with them!

Aboard Legacy with the Swezys. 

We are now on our countdown to leaving the marina. Rosie leaves today for San Francisco to attend the Plein Air Convention and Expo (PACE) while Bruce ties up loose ends aboard Summer Breeze for a departure as soon the weather allows us starting next Tuesday evening when Rosie returns. 

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 A walk on the beach! While at the marina, we are just across the bridge from Huntington Island and beach. We walk across the bridge for exercise but the real beach walks are a car ride away. Before we turned our rental car in today, we took advantage and went for a long beach walk. Bruce's back is much better! 

Sunrise pic off the boat towards the beach (east)

Sunset off the boat (towards west!)

We found these cute knock off "yeti" cups that are awesome. 

The pic is a bit fuzzy but mine says, 

"I have knot a clue" and that is so true when it comes to my knots!

This guy is the local "marketer" for the tattoo business down the road, We pretty much see him daily in town and he always has friend on his shoulders. 

Wednesday market has great kettle korn!

So, my hydroponic garden is growing. The orchids are doing well and so are my basil plants. I planted 3 romaines and 1 kale in the tubs but each tub had a different nutrient solution. There is definitely a winner here. I switched the one on the right to the other solution. This is after week 1.

Finally found some lettering for the dinghy. Many dinghies are named but not all. We felt it appropriate that Summer Breeze's dinghy name is Jasmine. 

A couple of people have asked but others get it and love it!

Get it? 

 🎶🎶🎶    Summer breeze, makes me feel fine, 

blowing through the jasmine in my mind.   🎶🎶🎶

The sunset changes so quickly here. In minutes, it is a completely different scene!

Bryan and Mary came for a night last weekend and then we went to Stuart to celebrate Charles birthday! Next year is a biggie! We will be back!

Coming home from Stuart, we see 2 of the boats (Nina, Pinta????) going north on the ICW. I heard that they had been participating somewhere near by in an event.

We are starting our final provisioning for the Bahamas. We went to Total Wine, Costco and Publix. And after 3 wagon loads, we got it all on the boat and stored, somewhere. 

Now that we have our "wine bottle" solution, we are prepared with the wine! 

Remember, all cardboard is off the boat! So we have just bags to deal with and we now have our "dispenser" ready. 

Manatee sighting today!

I am still working on boat projects. After attempting to make up the v-berth bedding for guests, which is an acrobatic exercise to do, I decided to make a custom mattress pad and sheet. I cut up the mattress topper (after 2 days and 3 attempts, I got it right) and also sewed 2 sheets together and then cut off and hemming the wing tips off the pointy end and it is so much easier to make now! I hope it just stays put while sleeping on it. It looks better. 

I'm still working on the new gnat screens. 

Sunset on the same evening. One view to the east and the other to the west. 

Beautiful colors tonight.

Tonight was the Space X Falcon Heavy Launch (click here for more) and we got to witness it from our fly bridge after an afternoon of drinks and chart notes with a fellow crusier that has been there, done that before us. We were pretty far away but stilll, quite a spectacular event around here. 

Then we had THE SUNSET.

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