Ryan and Ronan at Pirates Cove

October 11, 2014

We have enjoyed the last week working our way east and south to be in position for our Gulf Stream crossing. After departing Indiantown marina on Monday, Oct 6, we proceeded to Manatee Pocket in Port Salerno, FL where we anchored for two nights. Manatee Pocket is one of my favorite stops along the east coast of FL because I spent several months there while attending Chapman’s School of Seamanship where I earned my 100 ton masters license over 10 years ago. The spot provides easy dinghy access to several very good restaurants as well as any imaginable marine service. After leaving Manatee Pocket, we traveled south on the ICW, anchoring one night at the north end of Lake Worth in Palm Beach. It looks like there will be a brief acceptable weather window for our crossing to Grand Bahama Island this coming Tuesday but we are balancing that opportunity with the requirement to get a couple of electrical issues dealt with prior to leaving US waters. After what has generally been a quiet tropical storm season, there are a couple of potentially troubling tropical depressions developing in the Caribbean, one in particular may have the potential to close our weather window just as we get our electrical issues straightened out.  Such is the life of a cruiser, a different but welcome adjustment from my professional life where everybody was focused on making the airplane move within 14 minutes of scheduled departure.

The good news is that we have found wonderful facilities at the North Palm Beach Marina so any weather delay will be handled at a modern, well equipped marina. Dockmaster Chris Pignataro and the entire staff here have been extremely helpful, the location is central to many good sources for provisioning and just to make it that much better, they were nice enough to put a Ruth’s Chris Steak House (Theresa and my favorite steak house in the world) right down the street. When the weather breaks and the boat doesn’t we will post again from our first Bahamian port of call.