Back to Forida

We had a nice sail for the first 6-7 hours.  The wind was steady and just enough off the beam to make for a little bit of leaning and we were able to do a steady 7 knots.  "You can do this all week." we think.  But.....the wind shifted to being directly behind us and that makes the boat roll side to side constantly.  If we had shifted course, it would have meant making a lot of work in the dark so we decided to carry on.  We played with the sail plan to increase speed or comfort or just give us something to do besides be miserable.  After 26 hours of that, the coast looked really, really good!  We chose to come in the Lake Worth Inlet since it is the best marked and easy for folks tired and liable to make mistakes.  Piece of cake, thank God!  We made a short run up to North Palm Beach Marina where treated ourselves to several nights at a dock with free water, electricity and cheap laundry.  Ah, luxury living!  We went to Mass Saturday night as rain was predicted for the entire day Sunday and biking in the rain in church clothes wasn't on the agenda.  We rode to the south where the neighborhoods were nice but not ostentatious.  We rode north to the church that was closest and found ostentatious!

Since we were on the deep water route between the northern and central Bahama islands
we constantly encountered large container ships and cruise ships bound to all sorts of ports.
This trip, we have AIS-Automatic Identification System- which tells us the statics
on most commercial and many pleasure vessels. A vital bit of information is closest point of contact,
i.e. when will it hit us if one of us doesn't move!

Trying to tune out the rolling.

This little lady was on a search.  She was all over our cockpit hopping from
one spot to another.  She didn't seem to care that we were there, landing quite close
to each of us.  We think she was looking for a nesting spot.  We set out plates with crumbs
and little bits of water but she wasn't there to eat.  

She kept coming back to this cockpit cubby where we keep things
handy while sailing like winch handles, water, winch covers etc.  We
had to shoo her away as this would definitely not be a good nesting spot.

You know you're getting close to the coast-smog and lots of boats.

This part of Palm Beach is a working seaport and was busy the afternoon we
came through the pass.

Yep, back in Florida.  High-rise condos all along the beach.

Lake Worth Inlet utility hut.

Our marina was easy to find with this A-frame right on the waterway.

This is one of the nicest city marinas we have ever visited.  They had
clean, attractive shower rooms, convenient laundry facilitates, and free rides
to the grocery store and West Marine.  We really enjoyed being shocked
by the low prices compared to the keys and the Bahamas.

After sleeping a solid 10 hours, we spent another 4 cleaning the boat inside and out.
Then it was time to enjoy seeing the area by bike.  North Palm Beach is a nice,
bike-friendly place.