Last minute decision to leave Florida

NOTE: We have a bunch of pictures but they won't load at this time. I will load them when the internet is better. 

When traveling to the Bahamas or making any crossing of a large body of water, timing is everything. You wait and wait until you find the absolutely perfect weather day. Otherwise your crossing is rough and no one is happy.

Kermit manages this process while I pretty much fret since I don’t like sudden changes. Kermit checks about five different weather sources: Weather Underground, SailFlow, Windy-T, NOAA, passage maker, and several boating prognosticators that specialize in the large body of water we are planning to cross.

We started looking for a weather window around February 20. We have to be back in Florida by the first or second week in April to start heading north so we wanted the most time possible in the Bahamas. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate. You never want to make that crossing when the wind has any “North” in it all on the day you travel or the day before or the day after you travel. It is just not worth it.

We planned to make the crossing from Lake Worth FL near North Palm Beach. Last time we left from Fort Lauderdale. The goal is to cross from a bit south of our target and let the Gulf Stream help us most north east. This gives us an extra 3+ knots of movement from the water, adding to the 9mph or so we usually travel. So we needed to travel about 30 miles from Fort Pierce to Lake Worth in one day then leave the next so we needed several days in a row of good weather. That doesn’t come cheap.

This requires planning. Our little gang included Jim and Joy Pankey on Jim’s Joy, the Apasallas and Bob and Dorie Arrington on Liberdad, a 55 Ocean Alexander, all of us based in Fort Pierce for the winter. They travel with two adorable female Portugese water dogs. We met for a picnic dinner in January to plan the attack.

Then we waited. And we waited. No sense leaving our comfortable base in Fort Pierce too early just to sit around in much more expensive dockage in Lake Worth. It is only a one day trip down to Lake Worth anyway.

Finally the window looked to be open in the last week of February. On Kermit’s birthday February 28 we left Fort Pierce.

But making the decision to leave is different than actually finishing the preparation. We made the decision to leave on February 27 by noon which meant Joy Pankey and I had to scamper to get the final shopping done. Again, you can’t do this too far in advance or you eat your provisions. So you wait until the last minute and run like heck.

Kermit tested the generator early on February 27, another necessary part of final prep. We had been at Fort Pierce since 12/1 and had not used the generator in two months. We didn’t want to discover something was wrong with the generator while we were anchored out in the middle of nowhere.

Kermit started it up and POOF. It died. Oh boy. This is bad. An impeller on the generator fried. The guy who changed the impellers on the generator and diesels during normal maintenance in January evidently did not check his work. He did not open the through hull necessary to cool the impeller. 

This is a BIG deal. He would have discovered this problem if he started the generator before packing up his supplies and leaving at the end of the day. But no, he was in a big hurry and now, the day before we were leaving the generator is out of commission.

Kermit put in an emergency call to the guy, got him out of bed or something. The guy responded a few hours later. He could not find the part!! AWKKKK!! Kermit sent me to West Marine but of course they didn’t have the part.

Kermit found the old impeller. I guess he makes a habit of keeping some old parts that appear to be in working order. The mechanic made a special trip and installed the old impeller to. I guess he makes a habit of keeping some old parts that appear to be in working order. The mechanic made a special trip and installed the old impeller to start the generator. That was a relief!

In the meantime I was running around like a crazy lady. In four hours I went to the liquor store (3 big bottles of crown!), Target for a storage idea to maximize space in the fridge, Total Wine (2 cases of wine!), Publix (groceries!), BJs (meat and other stuff!). I came back in the dark. We filled 2 dock carts with our supplies. Not as bad as Pankeys who needed 7 dock carts! But they plan to be in the Bahamas for 3 months compared to our 1 month.

We spent the night putting stuff away in our updated storage system. The boat looked trim and neat! We were finally ready.

PS: Jim and Joy spent the better part of the night stowing their 7 dock carts of provisions. However they appear to be the smarter of us all because I started running out of provisions 3 weeks into the Bahamas adventure and Joy hasn’t made a dent!